Movieline Online

THE FLICK: History is littered with failed innovations that were supposed to change the way we spend our leisure time. 8-tracks were going to revolutionize music. Dragon’s Lair was going to turn the videogame industry on its head. And 3D is poised, yet again, to invade theaters. So you’ll understand my hesitation to crown the “Make Your Own Movie” Blu-ray feature on Return to House on Haunted Hill as the next big thing. Don’t get me wrong, the “choose your own adventure” concept is a novel one. It makes for a fun party game and adds a bit of replayability to an otherwise tired sequel to a remake of a ‘50s B-movie. But it can’t save a train-wreck of a script full of bland characters and a low scare ratio. Concocting a ridiculous chain of events that bring together a group of archeology students and hired mercenaries in pursuit of an evil artifact hidden inside the abandoned Vannacutt Mental Asylum, director Victor Garcia makes the most of the previous film’s production design since he r...

THE FLICK: Where to begin? Actually, the question that must have been plaguing director Gore Verbinski is how the hell do we end this thing! It was obvious at the end of part two – Dead Man’s Chest – that the screenplay by Ted Eliott and Terry Rossio had been pushed, pulled and stretched beyond all narrative comprehension. Their cinematic eyes were bigger than their stomachs, and the playful, swashbuckling adventures of Captain Jack and his crew had evolved into a dark, dreary, convoluted series of backstabbing character arcs that were left completely unresolved. It would take nothing short of a miracle for the final chapter to pull all the strings together for a satisfying conclusion. And while producer Jerry Bruckheimer may be the most powerful man in Hollywood, he’s no miracle worker. In fact, the Pirates franchise, as financially successful as it is, may be the one project he let get away from him creatively. For one can’t imagine that such a savvy filmmaker (he turned Nicolas Cage...

THE FLICK: Inspired by the true story of American pilot Dieter Dengler’s capture and eventual escape from a North Vietnamese prison camp during the early years of the war, there was probably no better choice to direct the screen adaptation than Werner Herzog. After all, the man had already let Dengler tell the story himself in the riveting documentary Little Dieter Needs To Fly. And Herzog’s penchant for shooting under exceedingly uncomfortable jungle conditions (proven in Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, The Wrath of God) set up some high expectations for the director’s first foray into traditional narrative filmmaking in quite some time. And there is much to praise about this survival story, namely the acting by stars Christian Bale, Jeremy Davies and especially Steve Zahn - who performs a complete career transformation as the soft-spoken Duane Martin - along with the smothering rain forest locations, so thick with suffocating greenery you can’t imagine how they squeezed a camera between th...

THE FLICK: I know that it’s not the popular opinion, but in a side-by-side comparison I prefer the tangible carnage in director Marcus Nispel’s Pathfinder to the fantastical CG renderings of 300. Yes, I understand that Zack Snyder’s film is a groundbreaking piece of filmmaking that will influence cinema for the next 10 years or so. It’s the better movie, no doubt about it. And Pathfinder will most likely fade away into Netflix limbo, rented only by customers who couldn’t get the latest Bourne film added to their queue fast enough. But for kids who grew up on a healthy diet of Heavy Metal magazine and repeats of Conan the Barbarian, this one will strike a nerve. The sole survivor of a failed Viking raid on North American soil, “Ghost” (Karl Urban), as he is billed in the credits, is adopted by a Native American tribe and grows to adulthood under their gentle tuteledge. Although the white warrior never quite fits in, his skills with a sword are put to good use when another band of Nordic...

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. Now ...

THE FLICK: It’s a minor Hollywood miracle that the Ocean’s remakes even exist at all. The cumulative salaries of the stars involved would stretch around the world six times if they hadn’t deferred a good chunk of change to work together under the guidance of director Steven Soderbergh. The appeal to the trilogy is that “backstage pass” vibe you get by watching “A-list” celebrities goof off for a couple of hours. Of course, Ocean’s 12 took things too far, stretching out poorly improvised dialogue that probably seemed funny on the set but came off as arrogantly self-serving on the screen. And the whole Julia Roberts playing Julia Roberts meeting Bruce Willlis thing? Save it for the after-party, people. Luckily, things are back on track for part three. After a cocky casino owner (Al Pacino) gives one of the gang a raw deal, Danny Ocean (George Clooney) gets the band back together for a one-time-only revenge heist with the intent of breaking the auspicious new Bank casino on opening night....

THE SHOW: The rise of the serial TV drama has been both a blessing and a curse. Shows like Lost, 24 and Prison Break have elevated episodic television to Hollywood standards, delivering mini-motion pictures in the course of 45-minutes that equal anything you might pay $7.50 for in a theater. But TV is a marathon, not a sprint, and the challenge of creating 20+ episodes of the same quality is next to impossible. And let’s not even talk about the Season Two slumps! That being said, I believe the first season of Lost is the best thing ever produced for the medium. And Prison Break ain’t far behind. The writing isn’t nearly as complex, nuanced or imaginative, but it’s compulsively crafted with built-in cliffhangers and cul-de-sacs that all but guarantee you’ll be back next week. And now that Fox has blessed us with a Blu-ray set of Season One, next week means right now! When Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller), a dashing young structural engineer with no criminal record, suddenly commits a...

THE FLICKS: All hail the DVD box set! Sure, there are bound to be a couple of stinkers in there you really don’t want to own - two thirds of a trilogy that just aren’t up to snuff (ahem, The Matrix) or a remake that went horribly off course (yo, Superman Returns). But when you plunk down $50 bucks and change for a box set, you’re also buying a little piece of history, aren’t you; a document of our pop culture fascinations and foibles on a few shiny metal discs...and maybe some liner notes, if you’re lucky. Severin Films understands this completely. And because no one else had the courage to do it, they took it upon themselves to release not one, but two Black Emanulle collections featuring the immortally exotic Laura Gemser. Why preserve second-grade soft-core porn, you might ask? They’re not particularly well-made, not particularly arousing, and very few would complain if the prints simply deteriorated in some private collector’s basement. But for fans of the history of cinema, these ...

THE FLICKS: While he doesn’t have Dario Argento’s fanbase or Jess Franco’s padded resume, Italian director Lucio Fulci is not without his admirers, mostly earned during his gory glory days during the ‘80s with The Beyond, House By The Cemetary, and Zombie. But like any filmmaker of note in his native country, Fulci dabbled in almost every genre, including the giallo (mystery) format and even a sex comedy or two. Severin Films has released one of each, showcasing a less bloody side of the director not known for his restraint. Based on the title alone (not to mention the delightfully naughty artwork) The Eroticist would likely be dismissed as nothing more than subtitled T & A. But the film has much larger aspirations and a much broader canvas, ridiculing the Italian political system and all its inherent corruptive influences with equal gusto. Sure, there’s some ass-grabbing and naughty nuns, but Fulci’s emphasis is on satire and slapstick rather than soft-focus sex scenes. Candidate ...

THE FLICKS: As with every other film genre, when the Italians stumbled onto something that made money, the market was flooded with an infinite number of variations of the subject. Cannibalism was no different, and although it offered less creative opportunities for exposition (explorers trek into the jungle, get eaten, roll credits please), producers found ways to get prints into theaters, even recruiting good ‘ol Jess Franco – the prolific Eurosleaze director who ineptness crosses all genre boundaries – to step up to the buffet. Cannibals was sold under a number of other titles, but, as Led Zeppelin so aptly put it, the song remains the same. Al Cliver (Fulci’s Zombie 2) brings his family along on a scientific expedition only to lose his arm, his wife and his young daughter to a tribe of natives sporting KISS make-up. His wife is promptly eaten alive in a genuinely disturbing slow-motion montage. His daughter is kidnapped and proclaimed a white goddess to be worshipped. While his arm,...

THE FLICK: The comic-book generation has grown up to rule the box-office, commanding enough clout to get even the most minor Marvel / DC / Dark Horse character his or her very own franchise. And yet, when the Fantastic Four, one of the tentpole supergroups from the ‘60s, finally got its own movie (not counting the unreleased Roger Corman version) that very same audience bitched and moaned their way through the whole thing. Their chief complaint? It was too juvenile, too jokey, too kid-friendly. Does anyone else see the irony here? The comic-book generation has grown up, and they expect their heroes to grow up with them. Batman, Superman, even the usually fun-loving Spiderman were all saddled with some major emotional baggage when they finally hit the screen. With Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, director Tim Story sticks to his guns by producing a light-hearted story (well, as light-hearted as worldwide destruction can be) featuring spandex clad-characters who celebrate their...

THE SHOW: Gathering some of the most prominent names in modern horror cinema under the Showtime label and giving them 12 hour-long episodes of unrated freedom not only sounds too good to be true, it sounds like a producer’s worst nightmare to even try and pull off. But props to perpetual horror hanger-on Mick Garris for getting the job done, at least from a logistical perspective. Creatively, that’s another story. Even factoring in the outrageous expectations, Masters of Horror: S1 was a mixed bag of treats, delivering Bit ‘O Honeys when one was promised full-size candy bars. While Don Coscarelli’s Incident On and Off a Mountain Road was a promising start to the season, subsequent episodes were either interesting concepts that squandered their full potential or quite simply DOA. So who’s to blame? And why was the show successful enough with fans to earn a second season (and possible third)? Because horror fans are a loyal bunch, and the idea being witness to the resurrection of John Ca...

THE FLICK: Director Roland Emmerich is the sort of guy who “supersizes” every movie he makes. And as part of a healthy cinematic diet, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, his films have been the most consistently satisfying popcorn fare of the past decade; even the bastardization of Godzilla delivered a lot of bang for the buck. So it’s only fitting that he finally tackled the “disaster” genre, a category Irwin Allen made famous for scenes of elaborate destruction and painful overacting. But on The Day After Tomorrow, Roland Emmerich tops the master with help from updated technology and some hilarious political posturing. Dennis Quaid stars as a well-meaning scientist, passionate about his predictions of global change due to the melting of the polar icecaps. However, even he couldn’t foresee the rapid pace of said change, resulting in an all-encompassing weather system that unleashes tornadoes on Los Angeles and tsunamis in New York while the rest of the world is liter...

THE SHOW: Gathering some of the most prominent names in modern horror cinema under the Showtime label and giving them 12 hour-long episodes of unrated freedom not only sounds too good to be true, it sounds like a producer’s worst nightmare to even try and pull off. But props to perpetual horror hanger-on Mick Garris for getting the job done, at least from a logistical perspective. Creatively, that’s another story. Even factoring in the outrageous expectations, Masters of Horror: S1 was a mixed bag of treats, delivering Bit ‘O Honeys when one was promised full-size candy bars. While Don Coscarelli’s Incident On and Off a Mountain Road was a promising start to the season, subsequent episodes were either interesting concepts that squandered their full potential or quite simply DOA. So who’s to blame? And why was the show successful enough with fans to earn a second season (and possible third)? Because horror fans are a loyal bunch, and the idea being witness to the resurrection of John Ca...

THE FLICK: At the end of Dawn of the Dead the world had pretty much gone to hell. So it’s entirely appropriate that the sequel feels like a sort of purgatory, both for the characters trapped within the film’s sprawling underground bunker and for the audience suffering along with them. Like Coppola’s Godfather Part Two, it was obvious Romero had made his masterpiece in 1978 and any subsequent follow-ups would only suffer by comparison. But the zombies were resurrected again to hasten mankind’s demise, aided by our own petty bickering and selfish concerns. Although the production was plagued with the usual budget constraints and creative compromises inherent in any Romero production, there are some brilliant moments in the script. Harvesting zombies for scientific experiments and attempts to “domesticate” the pus-filled hordes – represented by Dr. Loomis’ slack-jawed star pupil “Bub” – are luridly fascinating. And the dysfunctional social and political dynamic that festers within the bun...

THE FLICKS: One of the few downsides of watching movies in the digital age is the absence of that taboo-busting sense of “naughtiness” that came with popping in a VHS tape of questionable artistic value. Housed in oversized boxes with lurid or lascivious cover art, these video nasties stood sentinel amongst a sea of more legitimate releases. No one seemed to rent them – at least in the light of day - but the torn and tattered packaging suggested otherwise. And the tag lines seemed to suggest that if one only had the courage to carry one of these titles to the front counter, take it home and watch the contents under the dim half-light of a 25-inch wood-paneled Zenith you’re life would never be the same again. Of course, it was all a tease. Most of those films were atrociously dubbed, ineptly produced overseas exploitation quickies...about 75-percent of which were made by Jess Franco. But the memory of that experience was enough to inspire several companies in the DVD era to specialize i...

THE FLICK: Director Dario Argento’s body of work is not unlike that of horror-rockabilly icons The Cramps, who’ve been performing minor variations of the same song since 1982. If you own one Cramps album, you essentially own them all. Ditto for Argento’s films, which, more often that not, revolve around the witness to some horrific crime who spends the entire movie trying to recall one crucial piece of evidence before falling victim to a black-gloved killer. After 1970’s The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, it would be easy to write Argento off as a one-shot auteur (which defies the very definition of the word), but like The Cramps, there is a certain genius in the minute variations; as if the creators are perfecting their craft, chipping away at a masterpiece that is as yet unfinished. The Stendhal Syndrome is not that masterpiece. But it is the director’s most mature and professional work in the modern era (I’m talking anything post-Opera), anchored by a challenging performance from hi...

THE FLICK: Even three decades after its release, Deliverance is still more of a punchline than a film, at least by popular culture standards; freeze-framing the movie at the 45-minute mark, forever enshrining poor Ned Beatty as he’s violated by a overall-wearing mountain man who prompts him to “squeal like a pig!” That’s really the only way for the male psyche to effectively deal with the trauma of director John Boorman’s infamous scene: to laugh it off. But the film, based on the novel by James Dickey, is far more than a convenient stand-up comedy routine. In fact, Boorman’s adaptation is one of the best examples of pure cinema of its era, mixing narrative, documentary and experimental techniques to achieve a unique tone all its own. Witness the “Dueling Banjos” sequence (arguably the film’s other pop-culture touchstone), a brilliantly edited, scored and shot series of images that capture a moment in time the way no other medium could. Boorman runs you through a range of emotions; it’...

THE FLICK: There’s a delicate balance between “erotica” and plain ‘ol “porn.” Kind of like the difference between Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue and the magazines your dad ordered that arrived by mail covered in a brown paper bag. And while today the internet serves up gigabytes worth of hardcore perversion on demand, there’s something to be said for the softcore films of the ‘70s; grindhouse fare that at least attempted to package their lascivious thrills in an artful fashion. Vanessa features one scene in particular that stands out from the hundreds of Emmanuelle knock-offs: a slow-motion striptease performed under a cascading waterfall of rice falling from a punctured container. It only lasts about 2-minutes, but the handheld photography by DP Franz X. Laderle is almost hypnotically erotic. And the scene itself is a prime example of the rewards of improvised filmmaking, an off-the-cuff inspiration that defines an otherwise predictable pile-on of softcore clichés. During the ext...

THE FLICK: Actor’s love to act. And they love directors who give them sort of free reign (and egotistical reinforcement) that the Hollywood system tries to crush with extravagant sums of money. Take Steven Soderbergh for instance; a mediocre director who’s managed to become an “A”-player almost purely by means of his thespian networking with the new-millennium rat pack of Clooney, Pitt, Roberts and the rest. One could view this cynically as a play for financial success riding the coattails of one’s betters or more generously as the natural interplay between artists in the mutual best interest of the film. Scott Frank, Soderbergh’s screenwriter on Out of Sight and another successful Elmore Leonard adaptation, Get Shorty, quite obviously subscribes to the latter theory. And his debut film as a director, The Lookout, makes remarkable use of both fresh talent and seasoned pros, navigating them through a series of noir conventions made fresh mostly through the conviction of their performanc...

THE FLICK: In 1969 Easy Rider put the hopes and dreams of an entire generation on the back of a Harley and rode off to find America. Almost 40 years later, Wild Hogs is as far as they got. Pretty depressing, isn’t it? It’s also more than a little unfair to judge a shallow, inconsequential studio comedy against the full force of a counter-culture heavyweight, but the correlation is there to be made as a foursome of over-the-hill baby boomers rev up their courage for a road trip to the West Coast in hope of recapturing their youth. Starring some big name talent (John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy) stuck in the sort of safe, predictable scenario that doesn’t require any real acting, just periodic overreacting to groin hits, gay jokes and some awful stunt fighting, Wild Hogs was a success in theaters despite being an almost constant embarrassment to watch. The biggest laughs in the film come during the closing credits during an Extreme Home Makeover spoof as gues...

THE FLICK: Call it “torture-porn” or “sado-horror,” the genre pioneered by folks like Eli Roth, James Wan and Rob Zombie might have finally run its course with the poor box-office returns for Hostel 2. Still, there are a few movies left in the pipeline, like Saw VI this Halloween, and the debut of director Nimrod Antal’s hardcore Hitchcock-inspired thriller that puts name actors Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale in the sort of compromising positions you’d expect only desperate TV actors from the CW to accept. Stranded on a lonely backroad and arguing over their broken relationship, David and Amy are forced to stay the night at a questionable motel run by an unquestionably creepy manager (Frank Whaley). A stack of unlabeled video tapes on the dresser turns out to be a collection of snuff films, filmed in the very same room the unlucky couple now occupies. Monitored by cameras from every angle and cornered by a trio of masked psychopaths, husband and wife now have to work together to survi...

THE FLICK: From the very first early peeks at the trailer, 300 looked too good to be true: Impossibly ripped Greek heroes launching themselves across swirling orange skies...half-nude women floating on currents of air...monstrous wolves, masked demons and an endless army of Persian warriors advancing on a meager band of Spartan warriors. It literally made every man in the theater gasp in anticipation. And despite those enormous expectations, director Zack Snyder actually delivered on his promise of a faithful translation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel, pushing CGI technology to create a fully-realized world where only a green-screen existed before. Of course, George Lucas foretold all of this was coming. His Star Wars prequels were to be an entire CG universe of wonders, fulfilling the promise of a digital medium in which anything was possible. But the result was a trilogy of Playstation cut-scenes, abusing the technology more than it celebrated it. It took a new generation of filmmak...

THE FLICK: There’s no use trying to explain one’s affection for the “rubber monster” genre. Like true love, it’s just a connection you feel deep in your soul. And the more misguided, corny and downright goofy the movie, the more fans tend to embrace it. Case in point, Frankenstein Conquers the Word (aka Frankenstein vs. Baragon on the international circuit), a true oddball even within the cannon of Toho Studios other giant monster films, whose final battle consists of a 100-foot tall Frankenstein monster in a loin cloth battling a one-horned, fire-spewing dinosaur. Who the hell wouldn’t pay to see that? Producer Samuel Z. Arkoff, who bought U.S. theatrical rights, thought it could use a little help, so he chopped off a few minutes here and there, including a final fight between Frankenstein and a giant octopus – the footage of which became as legendary as the supposed alternate King Kong vs. Godzilla ending where the big lizard walked away the winner. Now, Media Blasters comes through ...

THE FLICK: Now that traditional “B-movies” have become “A-list” properties (superheroes, sci-fi, and sorcery ruled this summer once again), whatever happened to the good ‘ol fashioned monster flick? You know, the made-on-the-cheap, cast of unknowns, questionable special-effects quickie that gets rediscovered and re-appreciated twenty years later. Well, apparently, like everything else these days, they’re being made overseas. The Host is a Korean import that’s actually a great deal better than its “B-movie” description, sporting a truly unique and impressively realized CGI creature that rises from the banks of the Han River due to illegal chemical dumping. The film balances scares, spectacle and sentiment with a dexterity that’s a cut above most American product (I’m looking at you Sci-Fi Channel), focusing on the efforts of an eccentric family unit to rescue their youngest member from the monster’s underground lair. Part hostage story, part quirky family drama, part Godzilla, director ...