Movieline Online

THE FLICKS: Just as the history of art can be traced from crude cave drawings to the finely detailed work of Michelangelo and Renoir, so too can we follow the development of the Hollywood disaster movie in the form of Irwin Allen’s The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, the producer’s two greatest contributions in the often embarrassing but always entertaining genre of movie star spectacle and miniature scale destruction. Airport (1970) may have launched the disaster craze, but Poseidon (1972) perfected it. Cast with an eclectic mix of has-beens (Shelley Winters), new blood (Gene Hackman) and familiar faces (Roddy McDowall), every line of dialogue is as subtle as a slap in the face, and all delivered at full scream. I’m not kidding, these people had to be hoarse when this film wrapped! But, as with modern-day examples like The Day After Tomorrow, the larger-than-life concept is the real selling point, as Allen’s effects and design crew stage the thrilling (by ’72 standards) c...

THE FLICKS: Director Enzo G. Castellari doesn’t attract the same kind of attention as his fellow genre-workhorses in Italian cult cinema circles. Perhaps because his films never went overboard on gore (like Fulci) or caught on with U.S. distributors (like Leone). But a trio of releases from Blue Underground aim to rectify that situation by delivering three of the director’s Euro-Crime films – Street Law, The Big Racket & The Heroin Busters – in their usual fan-friendly fashion. On the whole, Castellari’s work is indistinguishable from other films of the period, fast-paced knock-offs of Death Wish and The French Connection. But the action scenes, which vacillate between Peckinpah-inspired slow-motion and whip-pan intensity, are cinematic creations unto themselves. Castellari puts his camera right in the thick of things – tumbling weightless off a cliff, between the headlights of a muscle car, or behind the flashlight of a menacing thug. There’s an energy to his choice of angles, a d...

THE FLICK: Paul W.S. Anderson has become the whipping boy for bad cinema. According to internet gripers, he’s blown a couple of videogame adaptations (Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil), ruined two franchises at the same time (Alien vs. Predator) and nearly killed Kurt Russell’s career (Soldier). Personally, I’ve never understood the unbridled hatred Anderson’s name inspires; his films have all been mediocre efforts with moments of ingenuity, but nothing to burn a cross over. Especially when you consider Event Horizon, a film to which even the fanboys begrudgingly give their respect. Filled with an interesting collection of actors who can actually act (Sam Neill, Laurence Fishburne, Kathleen Quinlan), first-class production design, great photography (by the late Adrian Biddle of Aliens) and one audacious concept (Hellraiser in outer space...an idea the Hellraiser franchise eventually got around to on its own eventually), there’s a consensus that this is Anderson’s one true cinematic accompl...

Chances are most folks will never attend any sort of film festival. They’re under the mistaken impression that the only folks who can afford to go will fly in on private jets and be shuttled to and from screenings on a flowered dais trailed by an entourage of personal assistants on cell phones. And, yeah, you’ll see a few of those. But the Big Secret is film festivals are surprisingly accessible to the average Joe. Take South By SouthWest (SXSW) which celebrated its 20th anniversary this year in Austin, Texas. As film fests go it’s a relative newcomer, but the music component of the event is well-recognized as the premiere showcase for emerging bands around the world. So by choosing South By (as the locals call it) as opposed to Sundance or Toronto, you’ve got a unique opportunity to not only check out the latest in independent film, but in between you can catch exclusive gigs from the best up-and-coming bands you’ve never heard of (and a few big acts in the sort of intimate settings y...

THE FLICK: Turns out, it wasn’t beauty that killed the beast, it was box-office expectations. Peter Jackson’s King Kong, the director’s labor of love and follow-up to his Lord of the Rings trilogy, was actually well-received by critics and brought in some sizable audiences, but its final theatrical take ($217 million in North America, $546 total worldwide) unfairly marred its reputation as the year’s 300-pound gorilla. It’s almost laughable for a film that made that much money to be labeled as only moderately successful (and even more pathetic to admit that box-office numbers supersede the quality of the film), but such is the sad state of Hollywood filmmaking. But don’t shed too many tears. After all, Hollywood filmmaking is what King Kong is all about. Jackson’s film embraces it like few others in the past decade. Fat with special effects (for which it earned an Oscar), bloated with marketing tie-ins (from videogames to Volkswagens), and besting the original film’s running time by a ...

THE FLICK: Cinema may have gone through a technical revolution in the past ten years, but the business behind it has not. And when one particular film or genre proves successful, it’s a safe bet the market will soon be glutted with copycat productions. Just as the success of Star Wars inspired a slew of sci-fi films throughout the 70’s and 80’s, the one-two combination of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings is bound to have lasting effects on the industry for years to come. The first of which is The Chronicles of Narnia – The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe which beat the odds and became one of the highest grossing films of 2005. It brought along a fantasy pedigree, some religious controversy (the text contains rather obvious Christian overtones) and a pantheon of computer generated creatures that hop, fly, snort, stampede and otherwise clutter the screen for the final 30-minutes or so. Andrew Adamson, the director behind Dreamworks’ Shrek films, was a rather logical choice to helm...

THE FLICKS: Although not packaged as such, the latest four releases from cult DVD studio Blue Underground serve as a sort of second Giallo Collection (the first released in 2002 through now rival studio Anchor Bay), comprised of some superior examples of the Italian murder-mystery genre presented in their usual flawless fashion. But in addition to the expected blood, boobs and (in a few cases) bad dubbing, this next wave also hides one of the most spectacularly photographed entries the genre has ever seen! The Fifth Cord (1971) is certainly not one of Vittorio Storaro’s better known films (the famous director of photography lensed Apocalypse Now, Bird with the Crystal Plumage and the recent made-for-TV Dune remakes), but it is just as visually striking as his best work. Playing off a familiar theme of light and shadow – as he did on Bertolucci’s The Conformist – Storaro literally slices the screen with harsh key lights and clever compositions that scream for film school analysis! It’s ...

THE FLICK: It’s hard to make a case for the Harry Potter films being underappreciated. I mean, after all, they’ve topped a billion dollars in box-office revenue around the world. That’s a whole lotta appreciation, by anyone’s standard. Still, from a critical perspective I’ve always had the feeling that the Potter films were lost in the flotsam and jetsam of summer and holiday release schedules. They received overwhelmingly positive notices, but never earned respect as lasting cinematic achievements, which I’ve no doubt they will be judged 20 or 30 years hence. Case in point, the fourth adventure of J.K. Rowling’s boy wizard, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, furthers the evolution of a film franchise that’s remarkable for both its consistency and innovation. Harry is growing up, and he’s dragging the series with him. Director Mike Newell has to deal with teenage hormones in addition to the usual parade of visual effects, in a story that has Potter and his pals facing not only the ve...

THE FLICK: John Ford had as much hand in shaping American culture as he did reflecting it through the lens of a camera. His films captured the idealized community spirit of a burgeoning country and projected it into cinematic history so successfully that it’s Ford’s vision of events we recall most clearly. His accuracy might be questionable, but his intentions were always honorable; a description which fits his first exercise in Americana, Young Mr. Lincoln starring Henry Fonda, to a tee. Rather than deliver a staid version of Lincoln’s latter-day accomplishments set against a suitably patriotic backdrop, Ford chooses to follow Abe as a struggling lawyer, a man of the people with a gift for language and a well-timed joke. Indeed, Lincoln may be the ultimate American in Ford’s lexicon, a man of words and action, who’s as comfortable with his fists as he is with the law. No other figure in the director’s films, not Ethan Edwards in The Searchers, not Ransom Stoddard in The Man Who Shot L...

THE FLICK: Fans far more obsessive than me could likely put Atragon in some sort of historical perspective. Classic Japanese sci-fi and kaiju eiga in particular, inspire that sort of in-depth research. But you can probably figure out if the film is of interest to you just by perusing these simple facts: it’s directed by Ishiro Honda, produced near the height of Toho’s creative power (1963), and features a rare appearance by Manda. If you thought “Honda,” “Toho” and “Manda” were foreign car manufacturers stealing American jobs, then move on to the next review. For the rest of us, Atragon is one of those near mythological films that, thanks to Media Blasters’ new release, adds another volume of Japanese sci-fi that’s been incomplete for far too long. And even if the actual cinematic experience itself might be lacking (there’s not a whole lot of miniaturized destruction or monster mashing on display), the collectible region of your brain should be in pleasure overload. Once again, Japan i...

THE FLICKS: When it comes to “creature features,” movie critics can be just plain brutal. Other than Alien (which received its fair share of bad press when it was released...only later becoming the 500-pound gorilla of monster movies), the genre is often unfairly convicted without a trial – not to mention a jury of its peers. Such is the case with recent additions Creep and The Cave, two (admittedly) flawed films that still have a great deal to offer discerning fans of things that go bump in the dark. Why bother to lump both movies together, besides the fact that you’ll run into the titles alphabetically under the “horror” section? Well, they both take advantage of the horrors genre’s greatest asset; a tool filmmakers have been using since the days Roger Corman had to find a way to make his $20 monster costumes actually look frightening. They trap their expendable characters somewhere tight, cramped and out-of-the-way. Then they turn off the lights. Creep comes with a low-budget “video...

THE FLICK: Although it has all the trappings of a typical genre film, La Scorta proves to be much more slippery than its logline would lead you to believe: four reluctant cops assigned to protect an upstart Judge and his family from the constant threat of the local Mafioso. And while Ennio Morricone’s score would have you believe this is a homegrown take on The Untouchables, director Ricky Tognazzi surprisingly avoids action scenes at every opportunity, preferring to create an atmosphere of constant paranoia and imminent danger. So much so that when something “explosive” actually does happen, the impact is at once tragic and cathartic. A descendent of the poliziotteschi – in spirit, if not execution, since the film shuns the standard exploitation elements that made such 70’s Italian fare so viscerally enjoyable – La Scorta follows its main characters with a loose, unstylized approach. Each member of the “escort” has their backstory...family, friends, something to humanize these working...

THE FLICK: Based on the novel by John Le Carre, the weightier flip-side of “lit-lite” espionage authors like Robert Ludlum, The Constant Gardener is a film that’s easy to walk away from. There’s no Bond-esque opening action scene. In fact, there are no action scenes, period, by Hollywood standards. None of the characters are particularly likeable or even sympathetic for much of the running time. And the script does all it can to keep you at a distance from the truth behind its political plotting until the film is almost half over. Yet, it’s all a set-up. Like a cinematic con game, when director Fernando Mierelles pulls the big switch-a-roo, you never see it coming. And by the film’s few final shots, the audience has gone through the same emotional ringer as lead character Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes), who re-discovers his wife’s moral piety (and marital fidelity) only after her death. An unlikely couple from the start, Justin’s marriage to Tessa (Rachel Weisz) seems to take a backseat...

THE FLICK: Filmmakers love formulas. It gives them a starting point, a built-in audience, a category on the shelf at Blockbuster. But it’s films like The Desert of the Tartars that leave a more lasting impression, leading the viewer down an unfamiliar path and covering their tracks behind them. It’s both a frightening and exhilarating experience, challenging what we expect from cinema and how we feel about ourselves. Lt. Drogo enters the military with great expectations, only to find himself stationed at a remote outpost on the edge of the desert where he and his fellow officers stand guard against an enemy force none of them has ever laid eyes on...a mythical army of Tartars rumored to exist somewhere in the wasteland beyond. With no armies to fight and no challenges to face, the soldiers lose themselves in rules, regulations and the drudgery of daily life along with fantasies of their own military success against a conquering force that may or may not exist. Filling out its cast with...

THE FLICK: As a sub-category of the horror genre, “exorcism” is a tough idea to franchise. Unlike other creature features, the act of possession doesn’t allow for much innovation or variation. The cinematic experience has essentially been limited to a girl tied to a bed spouting vile invectives at a team of holy men; a challenging scenario to re-invent even by the most creative screenwriter’s standards. This spiritual showdown, however, is inherently dramatic, and ever since the original Exorcist dozens of Hollywood producers have been circling the carcass, picking at the flesh of Friedkin and Blatty’s text, in an attempt to replicate its success. The Exorcism of Emily Rose combats the pitfalls of familiarity in a two clever ways. First and foremost, writer/director Scott Derrickson’s film presents itself as a courtroom drama with a screenplay that could have been condensed to fit quite nicely into any number of procedural TV shows in Neilsen’s top ten. And secondly, it plays the old “...

THE FLICK: There are two ways to approach a review of The Brothers Grimm: as a conventional summer movie starring “movie stars” Matt Damon and Heath Ledger...or as film by Terry Gilliam, the distinctive director of such films as Brazil and Time Bandits. The real tragedy is no matter which perspective you choose, they both end up with the same mixed results. As with Tim Burton and Sleepy Hollow, conceptually this seems to be a case where filmmaker and material are perfectly matched. Gilliam’s best work revolves around fairy tale imagery presented with a uniquely chaotic charm, featuring characters caught between a dream world and the corrupting influence of reality. And thematically The Brothers Grimm is a logical addition to this oeuvre. But in execution, the film is simply a shell of digital effects, set design and unintelligible accents – a Gilliam knock-off that just so happened to be directed by the man himself. After an insultingly brief prologue, we meet brothers Will and Jake 15...

THE FLICK: Director Peter Jackson describes The Frighteners as his “transition” film; namely because it falls between his early New Zealand horror imports and the worldwide phenomenon of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. And that’s a pretty accurate appraisal of his first studio effort. For despite attracting a big time star (Michael J. Fox) and major Hollywood involvement (producer Robert Zemeckis), The Frighteners is a movie that heads off in so many different directions it ends up pulling itself apart at the seams. That’s not to say that the individual story strands are uninteresting. The film’s teenage serial killers (Dee Wallace Stone and the uber-creepy Jake Busey) are a continuation of the themes explored in Heavenly Creatures, albeit this time from beyond the grave. And lead character Frank Bannister (Fox), a supernatural con man who teams up with a trio of ghosts, represents the sort of high concept comedic riff Zemeckis is famous for. But layered atop one another, the tone of th...

EMPIRE: TV will often get a case of “Hollywood envy,” hopping on the bandwagon to try its hand at big-budget spectacle, usually in the form of a much-hyped mini-series “event.” Empire was network TV’s answer to Gladiator and Troy, a four-hour re-telling of the assassination of Julius Caesar and the rise of his successor, Octavious, a naïve pretty boy under the protection of Rome’s greatest gladiator, Tyrannus. I have no idea if history is presented properly here, but surprisingly, it’s a whole lot of fun! Sure, there are some corners cut in the battle scenes (computer generated legions are replaced by trees and plenty of fog), but the plot chugs along with a contagious energy and just enough gory gladiatorial combat to keep you from changing channels (or switching discs, as the case may be). Empire is smart enough not to get bogged down in politics, unlike the similar HBO show, Rome. This is old-fashioned adventure in an almost serialized format, just simplistic enough not to be insult...

THE FLICK: Get ready to hear this sentence a lot over the next few weeks: “Sky High is way better than you’d expect!” That’s because this clever teen movie / comic-book hybrid came on the heels of all the Incredibles hype and disappeared in a black hole when it hit theaters, a fate that was criminally unfair for a film this entertaining. The ad campaign was partly to blame – pitching the flick as something that might have shown up on The Disney Channel, not a feature film. Or maybe it was just the image of Kurt Russell in that silly looking super suit. But Sky High is a silly movie. And it embraces everything that a geeky middle-school (or middle-aged) comic book fan loves with genuine enthusiasm; a superhero-coated shell around a traditional teen flick fresh off the John Hughes assembly line. Only instead of the jocks and the nerds we have “heroes” and “sidekicks,” a student body separated by superpowers instead of raging hormones. Yet beset by the same angst and crises that every tee...

KING KONG: For anyone born after 1970, Dino De Laurentis’ version of King Kong is most likely the definitive version. Sad but true. And while it doesn’t hold a candle the original (where’s all the damn dinosaurs?), there are still some moments that rise above the overall embarrassment. Director John Guillermin stages Kong’s crash through the natives’ wall with considerable skill and effect while composer John Barry’s score is suitably bigger than life. Jessica Lange, as the object of Kong’s overtly sexual attention, comes off as the dumbest blonde in history while Jeff Bridges sports a Grizzly Adams beard...presumably to disguise his identity. But the big letdown is the film’s special effects (which Dino bragged would put the original to shame) made up mostly of Rick Baker in an ape suit along with an even worse-looking mechanical version. Even so, the film is endearingly goofy and the location photography gives it an epic scale even if the execution is second-rate. Extras include a th...

THE FLICK: Even if one ignores the technological achievements, the astounding box-office numbers, the unfathomable influence on filmmakers then and today, King Kong is still one hell of an entertaining movie. It is the very heart and soul of the modern blockbuster, relentlessly paced, extravagantly produced and expertly executed. And one of the few “genre” films that has earned the respect of normally standoff-ish critics and snobby audience types. Finally, after what seems like an eternity waiting for the film to hit DVD, you get to find out why. There’s no need to rehash plot points, here. Kong has evolved beyond a cinematic creation to a cultural touchstone. But if you haven’t seen it in a while, you forget just how ingeniously producer Merian C. Cooper one-ups the story time after time, conducting the film like an orchestra leading up to a deafening crescendo as Kong tumbles from the top of the Empire State Building. My favorite moments (you can’t talk about a movie like Kong witho...

THE FLICK: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a very good film. Keep that in mind as I shed some crocodile tears over the fact that it could have been an absolute masterpiece had director Tim Burton gotten his hands on the material when he was in his prime. As it stands now, it’s his best work since the first half of Sleepy Hollow and equal to the 70’s Gene Wilder version in almost every way (except for the Danny Elfman-composed “Oompa Loompa” songs, which awkwardly stop the action and sound like Oingo Boingo B-sides). Meanwhile, Johnny Depp continues to prove that if a script calls for an endearing freak as the main character, he’s the man to call. Purportedly sticking much closer to the book (I could pretend that I’m familiar with Roald Dahl’s work, but I’d rather not be turned into a blueberry), this version opens in storybook fashion with Charlie and his poverty-stricken but close-knit extended family struggling to eak out a living. Charlie dreams of finding one of Willie Wonka’s...

THE FLICK: As the rather shoddy cover art on the new collector’s edition DVD implies, George Pal’s The War of the Worlds was the Independence Day of its time. All action, spectacle, blinding light and booming sound, it was the invasion film that subsequent B-movie producers aspired to create but never achieved. Working from H.G. Welles novel (which set the action in Victorian London and accessorized the alien ships with tentacle-like legs), Pal expertly transposed the story into ‘50s American culture and emulated the newsreel docudrama success of Orson Welles 1938 radio broadcast. And while Pal, the producer who made sci-fi respectable with When Worlds Collide and The Time Machine, gets most of the accolades, he shares credit here with director Byron Haskin and a team of effects technicians that deliver otherworldly destruction on a grand scale. From the first appearance of the alien ship, a snake-like appendage poking out of a glowing meteor, War of the Worlds creates a tangible menac...

DOMINION: PREQUEL TO THE EXORCIST – The Hollywood equivalent of a “do-over,” director Paul Schrader’s version is the one that was shelved and re-shot by director Renny Harlin as Exorcist: The Beginning. Now premiering on DVD, it’s an interesting film that emphasizes character over scares, but not nearly enough to compete with the ’73 original. Father Merrin (Stellen Skarsgard), haunted by a WWII tragedy and suffering a crisis of faith, discovers a buried church in the wilds of Africa, the unearthing of which unleashes a wave of evil that pits the native population against the visiting British troops. Schrader’s film focuses much more on Merrin’s personal demons, as opposed to the flashier, up-tempo version turned in by Harlin that streamlined the story almost to the point of incomprehension (although it still looked beautifully eerie). It’s a noble effort, but the Merrin character is so bland that secondary players steal most of the scenes. The finale – featuring an asexual demon float...

THE FLICK: George Romero has dodged the “horror director” label for most of his career, as have many other industry folks behind and in front of the camera. Likely because it’s not a genre that commands the sort of professional respect (or golden statuettes) that come to those working in costume dramas, exposes on the mentally ill or even the odd romantic comedy. When you work in horror (even accidentally, as is the case with Romero), your work is rewarded only by the fans and as far as the industry is concerned you’re only good for one thing...making more horror films. But there’s an upside. Horror fans are some of the most enthusiastic folks you’ll ever meet. I mean, when was the last time you saw a Pretty Woman convention? And as connoisseurs of the macabre, these same fans will watch almost anything by their favorite contributors to the genre. Hence, Season of the Witch, which contains only marginal supernatural elements and very few scares, still earns itself a full-fledged collec...

TARZAN: Special Edition – Although only a moderate hit with the kiddie crowd at the time of its release, this Disney adaptation may adhere closest to the spirit of Edgar Rice Burrough’s original ape man novels...if you forget about the touchy-feely Phil Collins songs, that is. Visually, Tarzan is one of the studio’s most lush and organic efforts of the modern era, set against a jungle backdrop that is almost prehistorically beautiful. Tarzan himself moves with an athletic grace that could never be realized outside of animation, while the action scenes are nothing short of astounding! One can’t help but wonder what kind of masterpiece might have developed had the marketing folks not required Rosie O’Donnell’s voice as his wisecracking monkey sidekick. Oh well, it’s still a sight to behold and Minnie Driver does a bang up job with portrayal of Jane as the exuberantly naïve love interest. This new edition includes a remixed soundtrack, music videos, point-n-click games, plus deleted scene...