Movieline Online

THE FLICKS: It really isn’t possible to overstate the importance of Superman as a model for the modern blockbuster. It was packaged, sold and marketed as a high-concept event movie, the epitome of Hollywood’s effects-heavy summer movie season today. With one big name star with a big paycheck (Marlon Brando), the actual weight of the film rested in the hands of behind the camera talents like Mario Puzo and director Richard Donner. Christopher Reeve, for all the genuine charm he brought to the role, was almost irrelevant to the equation, as well This was “Superman,” dammit! And it seemed almost destined to succeed. Of course, it wasn’t. But the amazing thing is how effortless the production appears. Richard Donner, hot off the success of The Omen (and at the height of his career artistically) seems to intuitively grasp the American mythos behind the character, expressing this on film with a mix of wide-open naturalistic photography and classic Hollywood sets. He juggles cornball humor, c...

THE FLICK: For an entire generation who grew up on the atomic age magazine covers of Amazing Stories and Forbidden Planet was the ultimate realization of their collective dreams: a moving picture compendium of serious sci-fi images and ideas brought to vivid life by MGM in a way no other studio could. It made a pop culture icon out of Robby the Robot and all-but standardized the “look” of science fiction for decades to come until the photorealistic effects on display in Kubrick’s 2001. Far from an instant hit upon its release in 1956, the film earned more respect through the years not only for its monumental production design (the inside of the mysterious Krell’s underground facility is still impressive even in the modern era), but for the ambitious script which essentially transposes Shakespeare’s The Tempest into the outer space genre. Although it’s still steeped in that naïve 50’s sense of wonder, there’s a maturity at work in Forbidden Planet that paved the way for Star Trek and a ...

THE FLICK: Nostalgia is a weird and wonderful thing. It can make even the most lowly of cultural achievements seem like works of art worthy of high praise – or at least high bids on Ebay. By way of example, Slither, written and directed by James “yes-I-wrote-Scooby-Doo-but-also-the-Dawn-of-the-Dead­-remake” Gunn is an unapologetic re-hash of ‘80s horror/sci-fi; films like Critters, From Beyond and, most directly, Night of the Creeps, which were mainstays of VHS video rental shelves for an entire decade. We’re talking gooey, cheesy exercises in excess that only now – by the passing of time and the advent of DVD – are hailed as cinematic milestones by a small but fervent fanbase. And like a low-rent Tarantino, Gunn has channeled the masses’ desire for a retro-rekindling with a movie that – besides the addition of copious CGI effects - feels very much like it was produced in 1985, warts and all. When an alien consciousness crash lands on Earth by way of a stray meteor, town bigwig Grant G...

THE FLICKS: Although it has arrived with little fanfare, Warner Brothers’ Hollywood Legends of Horror Collection deserves a good bit of trumpeting. The six-DVD set (packaged very similarly to last year’s Val Lewton Collection) contains some once fabulously rare examples of MGM studio’s forays into the cinema of the macabre, if not quite all-out horror films. The Mark of the Vampire (1935) holds the distinction of being Lugosi’s first time donning the cape since his breakout role in Dracula, although as it turns out, (spoiler) he and his vampire daughter are actually actors hired to scare a murderer into confessing his crimes. Muddled and mixed in tone, the film wraps around itself so many times, this legendary plot confusion is almost part of the appeal. What remains is some superb set design and atmospheric photography by Dracula director Tod Browning, whose technical skills seem to have improved dramatically, along with actress Carrol Borland striking pose as a (faux) undead temptres...

THE FLICKS: Leonard Maltin, watch your ass! Pardon my language, but Universal’s Legacy Series, featuring all-new transfers of the original Dracula and Frankenstein are comprehensive enough to make anyone feel cocky. After sitting though two-discs worth of material for each film, I consider myself qualified to teach a class on the early years of Universal Studios. Which I suppose is exactly the point of these special editions, which follow last Halloween’s bargain-priced collection of most of the studios monster pantheon. Here we get a much more in-depth look at the creation of two films that shaped Hollywood, spawning sequel after sequel within their own studio and inspiring an entire genre within cinema itself. And although some of the extras are making a repeat appearance, there’s enough new material (not to mention stunning restoration work) to make each release a safe investment for horror collectors. Tod Browning’s Dracula often gets a bum rap, burdened with the director’s stage-b...

THE SHOW: Lost is the sort of show that could have easily become a victim of its own overexposure. Between the magazine covers, book tie-ins, and constant media barrage, season two had the weight of the world on its shoulders before the first episode hit the air. Part of that is the fault of its creators (J.J. Abrahms being the most notable...also responsible for Alias and Mission Impossible 3) who ran the risk of Twin Peaking themselves into a corner by not resolving enough of the show’s mysteries. And part of it is because season one just happened to be the best season of television ever put on the air. Period. Stranding upwards of 50 survivors of a plane crash on an island inhabited by mysterious “others” and a malfunctioning (?) defense system, cluttered with backstories that stretch for years and intertwine characters, fates, and lottery winnings, it’s safe to say that if you’re coming late to the Lost party, you have some catching up to do. But that’s OK, because there’s never be...

THE FLICK: From the first thundering echo of footsteps over a black screen, you just know Godzilla is different from other films in the atomic monster genre. There’s an ominous sense of doom, dread and tragic destiny at work that’s at odds with your expectations of a man in a rubber suit crushing scale-model buildings. And the long-awaited release of the original Japanese version of Gojira (sans Raymond Burr and the re-shot American footage) only serves to prove this point further. Director Ishiro Honda may have been working in a B-movie domain, but he was delivering an A-movie message. Rising from the depths in a boiling fury of atomic age retribution, Godzilla himself is a fairly clear-cut embodiment of Japanese fears of reckless nuclear testing in the aftermath of their own personal losses during WWII. And unlike later films in the series, Gojira is a serious, somber metaphor of the consequences mankind may endure if he doesn’t smarten up. This is no light-hearted monster mash. Clas...

THE FLICKS: If it weren’t for Ed Wood’s overhyped oeuvre, Jess Franco would certainly go down as history’s most inept film director...and I mean that in the most positive way possible. Hand-in-hand with the clumsy staging, bad cuts, and even worse acting is an underlying charm that excuses most of his film’s faults. But what makes him even more interesting is that from time to time he shows that he actually could direct his way out of a paper bag – Venus in Furs being one example, and the newly released edition of Succubus (aka Necrominicon) being another. Obviously inspired by the non-conformist, non-linear cineastes of the French New Wave (in particular Godard), Franco turns in a psycho-sexual LSD trip set against a crazy jazz score. It’s not a horror film, it’s not exploitation. It’s an art film that ignores plot structure in favor of random dialogue and images; a salamander crawling on a woman’s skin, sex as seen through a fishbowl, and flashbacks within flashbacks filmed with a he...

THE FLICKS: John Ford’s career as a director started during the silent era and flourished until the end of the studio system. He picked up four Oscars along the way and literally defined how our culture viewed the American West. Along with Hitchcock, Kubrick, and Welles, his name pops up as one of the most respected directors of all time. So it’s about damn time someone gave him his own box set. Warner Bros. did even better than that, they gave him two. Consisting of five of Ford’s lesser known entries, The John Ford Collection works as a sort of supplement to the more established classics collected in the John Ford/John Wayne Set, which includes landmarks like Stagecoach and The Searchers. Here we see Ford experimenting with his style (The Informer), stretching his oeuvre (Mary of Scotland) and righting old wrongs (Cheyenne Autumn). And while none of the films are as cohesive or brilliant as the director’s best, they are recommended stops for fans of Ford and cinema history in general...

THE FLICKS: In the eyes of history Amicus films is only a polite footnote next to Hammer’s big red exclamation mark. The company, founded by two Americans but based primarily in London, put out a series of omnibus-style horror films (Tales from the Crypt and The House that Dripped Blood being the best known) that went head-to-head with rival Hammer Studio’s brand of assembly line gothic fear films, which themselves were on the wan. And Amicus got a few good licks in before both companies went belly up against the emergence of the big Hollywood blockbuster. Now Dark Sky Films has scored a trio of Amicus titles that give this underdog studio its due. Asylum, the last of Amicus’ episodic horror films, may not contain the best individual stories but its framing mechanism is a real stroke of genius. A psychiatrist arriving for a job interview at the Dunmoor Asylum for the Incurably Insane finds himself put to the test as the asylum’s director challenges him to uncover which of the facility’...

THE FLICK: Very rarely do I call out a fellow film critic. It’s bad enough that the general public despises us and has been known to toss rotten fruit, dirty underwear or worse on occasion. In our profession journalistic solidarity is of the essence. But when Nightwatch finally made its way to the U.S. after shattering all box office records in its home country of Russia (more specifically laying the smack down on The Lord of the Rings) its debut was met with a big ugly “F” from Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman. I haven’t run across too many films deserving of a rating that low in my reviewing career. They essentially have to be so inept, so incomprehensible or so offensive to my senses that their mere existence is the equivalent of a charley horse in the brain. Nightwatch is not one of those movies. And if Gleiberman watched it again I’m sure he’s say the same thing. Trouble is his “F” already did its damage to an imported foreign language film that probably didn’t have muc...

DUMBO (BIG TOP EDITION): The simplicity of the early Disney films is almost shocking in today’s era of cross-promoted, over-produced, largely empty-headed animation. At a scant 64 minutes, Dumbo manages to elicit more invention and emotion than the last three Dreamworks films combined (at least Pixar gets it right most of the time). The story about an elephant with oversized ears has ingrained itself into American culture so well you almost take it for granted. But rewatching the 1941 production reminds you of the great musical interludes (“Look Out For Mr. Stork,” and the catchy jazz number “When I See An Elephant Fly”) and tear-jerking moments like Mrs. Jumbo’s trunk-to-trunk reunion with her baby from behind bars. Disney manages to make it all work with a lead character that never says a word and a script that never panders, but simply speaks from the heart. Most of the extras are ported over from the 2001 special edition, but there’s a new music video for “Baby Mine” and a set of f...

THE FLICK: Bigger, louder and dumber is the de facto formula for most movie sequels. The exceptions are almost too few to mention. But director Len Wiseman goes for bigger, louder and more complicated with Underworld: Evolution (part two in a planned trilogy, if you’re counting, although now that Wiseman has been signed for Die Hard 4.0 those odds are pretty low). Rather than add more vampire vs. werewolf action, this plot-heavy sequel slows things down with a genealogical history so complex it would take a few years of research to sort out who “begot” who. It’s a risky idea that doesn’t quite pay off. Wiseman still proves himself quite adept at staging interesting action scenes, maneuvering his star/wife Kate Beckinsale through a variety of leather-clad shoot-outs between rabid “lychens” and a new winged vampire king beautifully brought to life by the effects team. But, while the dense backstory is suitably epic, the gaps between the violence can be deathly dull. Part of the problem l...

THE FLICKS: Italy might not be the cinematic cradle of life, but it’s produced enough influential auteur and films of record to fill up an opera house. Unfortunately, the name “Valerio Zurlini” often doesn’t even make the bill, let alone earn a standing ovation. With a much more modest output than contemporaries Fellini or Visconti (just 8 features over 20 years, as the DVD liner notes point out), the director is finally getting some exposure thanks to NoShame’s box set, featuring simply stellar prints of Violent Summer and Girl With A Suitcase. Odds are you’ve never heard of either film, so let’s start with Violent Summer, the more powerful film of the two (although Claudia Cardinale’s performance in the latter certainly earns some props). A younger man, mature woman love story with the usual complications – and its share of unusual, as well – Eleonora Rossi Drago is a 30-year-old WWII widow living an unfulfilling life of privilege. Jean-Louis Trintignant is an 18-year-old in the same...

THE FLICK: Steven Spielberg has often expressed his admiration for the career of John Ford, a director whose body of work encompassed over a 100 films and stretched through 5 decades. That kind of prolific output is all-but impossible in today’s Hollywood system, but Spielberg has certainly picked up the pace in the last few years, turning out A.I., Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal, and War of the Worlds in fairly quick succession. Intentional or not, the rather hectic schedule has seemed to reinvigorate him while many of his contemporaries are slowing down. And Munich, rushed into production immediately after the Tom Cruise sci-fi blockbuster, finds the director working with some high-profile political topics wrapped inside a ‘70s style thriller. It’s not always successful, but as with John Ford, there’s something to be said for a director who keeps himself busy. Using the incident at the 1972 Munich Olympics as a jumping off point, during which 11 Israeli athletes w...

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...