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When crap like Xanadu earns itself a two-disc DVD release (the magical, musical edition in case you’re interested) you might be wondering if we’ve hit the saturation point. Are there are actually any titles left that haven’t hit video...and if so, should anyone be allowed to see them? I prefer to see the cup as half-full rather than half-empty. Sure, what’s left is a hodgepodge of martial arts flicks and lazy foreign erotica, but if you dig deep enough into the pile you’ll find a few curiosities left in the bin. Phase IV (Legend Films, 84 min) is the only feature-film from Saul Bass, the man who designed the most memorable title sequences in cinema history, most notably Hitchcock’s Psycho and North By Northwest. His take on intelligent ants who wage war on a pair of scientists in the New Mexico desert is ripe for ridicule (it even got the MST3K treatment), but also insanely ambitious. With long dialogue-free stretches of macro-photography following these min-mental giants into their ne...

THE FLICK: One can’t help but wonder how different Sylvester Stallone’s career might have been without John Rambo. As the creative force behind Rocky, he entered Hollywood as a hyphenate writer-actor with grand ambitions and a punching bag full of potential. But three bad film choices later (FIST, Paradise Alley, Victory) he was riding on the coattails of the same character and wondering if lightning would ever strike twice. Go figure, it did. But there was a catch. First Blood and its sequels earned Stallone his next big franchise, but at the cost of his artistic freedom. He became an action-figure rather than an actor; a prisoner of a pop-culture he helped create. So after 20 years of passive-aggressive roles in bland shoot-em-ups (Cobra, Assassins) and ill-conceived comedies (Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot, Oscar) the actor finally saw fit to revisit both franchises and test the waters of cultural relevancy. Rocky Balboa is the easier sell. I mean, how many other fictitious characters ha...

THE FLICK: “Hi, my name is Greg and I’m a Roland Emmerich apologist.” While it might not have the same stigma as alcoholism or sex addiction, said confession can still be downright embarrassing in social situations. Sure, anyone can champion Independence Day or Stargate as “guilty pleasures. But imagine trying to defend Godzilla or The Day After Tomorrow at a crowded table. Before you know it, forks are dropping, throats are cleared and a pitiable hush falls across the room. Trust me, I’ve been there...I know. Yet I stand by my defense of Emmerich and his particular brand of oversize filmmaking. No idea is too grandiose, no explosion to big, no catastrophe too far-fetched to attract his interest. So 10,000 B.C. would seem to be the next logical step in his oeuvre: a sprawling prehistoric adventure flick populated with wooly mammoths, saber-toothed tigers and warring cave-tribes fighting for the future of civilization. It’s a beautiful pitch on paper. But could the king of cinematic bli...

Not that the world couldn’t use another scathing expose on the dangers of nuclear power in third world countries. You just wouldn’t expect it to come under the title Papaya Love Goddess of the Cannibals (Severin Film, 89min); and certainly not from Joe D’Amato, a director whose previous career highlight involved a woman jacking off a Clydesdale. But this 1978 skin-flick gets so sidetracked on social issues and island politics that it forgets to deliver on the title’s promise of death and debauchery. Things start promisingly enough with some foreplay involving the aforementioned tropical fruit and an unexpected castration, but our guide through the overly plotted story, Sirpa Lane (infamous for her own animal act in Walerian Borowczyk’s The Beast), is far from masturbatory material. Co-star “Melissa” spends most of the film topless, but her sex scenes are such a timid touch ‘n grope act the occasional flash of full frontal male nudity is actually a welcome break in the monotony. In the ...

CONTROL Genius Products, 122 mins. When Control opens, Ian Curtis is a malnourished Manchester lad living on a diet of David Bowie and pilfered prescription meds. By the end of the film, he’s a suicide case only two days away from a promising tour of the states as the lead singer of Joy Division, next in line to inherit Britain’s well-tarnished title as “Best Band in the World.” Rock history is littered with these tragic ironies, victims of success and excess who’ve ascended to the throne of musical martyrdom. Outside of the UK, Curtis is only a minor figure, like some lesser saint who only attracts the most desperate prayers from his small but devoted faithful. Control, based on the book by Curtis’ widow and directed by video auteur Anton Corbijn, isn’t interested in making the man a legend; but turning the legend into a man. Shot in B & W, the cinematic equivalent of pressing on vinyl, Corbijn (who snapped shots of the band early in his career) meticulously recreates the groups’ ...

THE FLICK: Writing a review for a film like National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets is akin to a food critic submitting a rating for a McDonalds franchise. Sure, there’s some local flair - a splash of color on the walls, a tricked out kid’s area, maybe an extra wide handicapped bathroom stall – but the menu never changes. In fact, producer Jerry Bruckheimer seemed to go out of his way to duplicate everything from the original; the Ed Harries-for-Sean Bean swap as the central villain is the only distinguishing difference. Otherwise, it’s business as usual for Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) and his treasure hunting family who spring into action when one of their relatives is accused of having participated in the Lincoln assassination. The McAdventure begins with a fragment of a diary which sends Ben to Paris to the Statue of Liberty, which leads to the queen’s desk at Buckingham Palace followed by the same song and dance in the Oval Office, culminating in an underground chamber beneath Mt. Rushmo...

THE FLICKS: First released as Best Buy exclusives, the Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection Vol. 1 & 2 went on to become such a out-of-print commodity that Universal wisely decided to package them together and sell them in wide release. Sporting 10 films across 6-discs, even if you’re only interested in a few of the titles, the final tally is around five bucks a movie. Presented in their original aspect ratios (a mix of Academy and widescreen) plus trailers, that’s simply too good of a deal to pass up! TARANTULA: The first of several “big bug” movies in the collection, this Jack Arnold directed chiller begins with an experiment gone wrong in the name of science, specifically a nutrient formula that turns lab animals into giant freaks of nature. A local country doctor (John Agar) must solve the mystery behind several corpses sucked bone dry of their vital juices. Watch for Clint Eastwood as a fighter pilot in the final sequence. The effects vacillate between sloppy and superb, but the...

THE FLICK: It took the might of the entire British Navy to defeat Napleon. By comparison, it only took the efforts of three studios (Fox, Universal & Miramax) to get Master and Commander to the screen. But that sort of three-way partnership was almost unheard of in Hollywood, opening the door to bigger budgets on grander epics with less individual risk than going it alone. And make no mistake, director Peter Weir’s massive undertaking of this small-scale story was quite a risk indeed. Although it stars Russell Crowe and features at least three exciting sea battles, this tale of high-seas adventure takes a far more literate approach than, say, Pirates of the Caribbean. With an emphasis on historical accuracy over action, Weir allows the politics of the ship and the grueling lives of its men (officers, mate and able seaman all) to set the tone. Adapted from the series of novels by Patrick O’Brian featuring Captain Jack Aubrey (Crowe), a cultured but confident man of the sea, Master a...

THE FLICK: It’s been seven years since the sleeper success of Alejandro Amenabar’s The Others proved a ghost story didn’t have to lift up its skirt to get an audience’s attention. And while Hollywood continues to beat a dead horse when it comes to the Japanese horror craze, Spanish filmmakers are quietly staging their own mini-comeback in the form of The Orphanage courtesy of producer Guillermo Del Toro. In an attempt to confront her own personal demons, Laura (Belen Rueda) moves her family into the converted orphanage in which she was raised, planning to help disabled kids and cement the relationship with her own adopted son, Tomas. But the appearance of a mysterious stranger and the disappearance of her own son convince Laura that restless spirits have invaded her home with malicious intent. In order to find her child, she must return to the games of her youth and uncover the mystery lurking with the orphanage’s walls. Produced with understated elegance, The Orphanage plays a familia...

THE FLICK: It’s never a good sign when the behind-the-scenes story gets more press than the one that’s taking place on screen. Such is the case with The Golden Compass thanks to a combination of studio politics, creative differences and religious right protests which feared the atheistic agenda underlying Phillip Pullman’s books without even giving Chris Weitz’s film adaptation a fair shake. It’s criminal really that such an imaginative, mature and expensive production was torpedoed before it ever had a chance at the box-office. But such is the risk in today’s Hollywood where establishing a marketable “franchise” takes precedent over telling a story with a beginning, middle and end. Set in one of many alternate realities, the world Lyra Belacqua (Dakota Blue Richards) inhabits is lorded over by the Magesterium, an rather obvious stand-in for the Catholic church, which disguises its Orwellian tendencies with an aura of beneficence embodied by Marisa Coulter (Nicole Kidman), who shows an...

THERE WILL BE BLOOD: Although he began his directing career with both critical and commercial success on Boogie Nights, Paul Thomas Anderson has had to settle for only the former on most of his subsequent work. Neither Punch-Drunk Love nor Magnolia managed to cross into the mainstream despite the big-name talent involved, with audiences perhaps catching a whiff of artistic arrogance. Whatever the reason, the box-office numbers just haven’t backed up the guy most critics have already crowned the savior of American cinema. And things aren’t likely to change after There Will Be Blood, even with a score of Oscar nominations and Daniel Day Lewis’ win for Best Actor. Make no mistake, Anderson has crafted a powerful film set against the background of oil prospecting in the early 1900s; the kick-off to a modern age that was even more ruthless and cutthroat than those that came before. Daniel Plainview is a despicably soulless creation - a man stripped of all humanity - and yet Lewis’ performan...

THE FLICK: I’ve come to loathe the sort of egotistical first-person film reviews that have taken over the web today, most notably on Harry Knowles aintitcool.com. If I wanted to hear about how many Goobers you ate while standing in line I’d check out your MySpace page, otherwise stick to the facts at hand. That being said, I find it next to impossible to write about The Adventures of Baron Munchausen without getting personal. It was, after all, the film most responsible for sending me off to film school and pursuing my own dream of celluloid artistry. The fact that I ended up a poor man’s Roger Ebert is neither here nor there. Meanwhile director Terry Gilliam’s film remains an undiscovered manic masterpiece, perhaps the best proof since Apocalypse Now that true genius can flourish in the midst of chaos. Based on the historical imaginings of its central character, Baron Munchausen (Robert Neville) is a braggart, a phony and a bald-faced liar of epic proportions, his stories full of outr...

THE FLICKS: The death of the drive-in movie theater left a hole in the hearts of many a genre fan. It wasn’t just enjoying a flick in the great outdoors or smuggling in your own snacks or scoring some nooky during intermission. What the current multiplex lacks is that unique double-feature experience: watching two films in quick succession that complement each other like fine wine with a fancy meal. The Tarantino/Rodriquez project Grindhouse was an attempt to recapture the magic, but After Dark’s Horrorfest got there first, rolling out into theaters as a 3-day festival and now hitting DVD as individual titles or in a comprehensive box set. Even though it will set you back around $70 bucks, the latter is definitely the way to go, mixing the good with the bad, the cheesy with the genuinely chilling, for an old-school drive-in experience. THE DEATHS OF IAN STONE: Likely the most pedigreed title of the bunch, this comes from FX wizard Stan Winston’s studio and features some elaborate CGI w...

THE FLICK: Suddenly, the end of the world is in fashion again. After 28 Days Later found a way to cheaply and effectively wipe out life as we know it, the cinema has become obsessed with our own destruction...usually resulting in some sort of flesh-eating zombie plague that holds a mirror to our own inadequacies as a species. The inspiration for all this anarchy is often laid at the feet George Romero and his seminal undead epic Dawn of the Dead. But the true source goes back much further to author / screenwriter Richard Matheson’s influential novella I Am Legend. Twice adapted for the screen – 1964’s underappreciated The Last Man on Earth and 1971’s The Omega Man with a bare-chested Charlton Heston – this third version went through years of development hell before emerging with Will Smith in the lead and director Francis Lawrence (Constantine) behind the camera, telling the same story of a scientist/soldier fighting off an army of mutated survivors of a chemical apocalypse. At least, ...

THE FLICK: Alfred Hitchcock, among his many cinematic talents, had a knack for elevating popular entertainment to high art. Joel and Ethan Coen have proven themselves adept at doing the exact opposite: turning art into popular entertainment. Working in the post-modern Hollywood universe, none of the Coen Brothers’ films are outrageously original; they seem to relish jumping into recognizable formulas (screwball comedy, film noir, etc) between more prestigious projects. But when they choose to bring their A-game, no filmmaker can match their ability craft “indie” ideas with mass audience appeal. Fargo announced their artistic arrival, but No Country For Old Men cemented their reputation. Leaning heavily on their previous set-in-Texas potboiler, Blood Simple, the Coens waste little time and even fewer words getting things started. Llewelyn (Josh Brolin) stumbles upon a pile of bodies and a stack of cash in the desert. Taking a calculated risk, he absconds with the money only to be pursue...

THE FLICKS: The giallo might have officially begun in 1970 with Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, but it was perfected over the next decade by innumerable directors who never got much credit. Blue Underground does their part by re-releasing the films included in Anchor Bay’s previous Giallo Collection as stand-alone titles: Short Night of Glass Dolls, Who Saw Her Die, The Case of the Bloody Iris and The Bloodstained Shadow. Which ones are worth adding to your crowded collection? Well, three outta four ain’t bad. Just a year after Argento’s groundbreaking work, director Aldo Lado tried to up the ante with his politically-minded thriller, Short Night of Glass Dolls (1971). Featuring a fair share of recognizable stars (Jean Sorel, Ingrid Thulin and Barbara Bach), some jazzy stylistic touches and an Ennio Morricone score, the film is a direct reflection of Lado’s enthusiasm as a first-time filmmaker. The raw ingredients are nothing special – Bach disappears without a trace, Sore...

THE FLICK: Is it possible to make a movie about a lawyer who never sets foot in a courtroom? I mean, imagine all the wasted dramatic potential; all those gasping jurors, banging gavels and unforgettable pronouncements like “You can’t handle the truth!” Is it even legal to skip those cinematic clichés? Well, writer / director Tony Gilroy pulls it off in Michael Clayton, a legal thriller that stays above the law and was rewarded with a seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. George Clooney stars as the titular lead character, a “fixer” for a prestigious New York law firm whose talents lie in finding solutions outside of the courtroom. Despite his usefulness and tenured status in the firm, Michael is 80-grand in debt and looking for way out of a career he never wanted in the first place. Called in to handle an embarrassing situation surrounding a critical case, he finds his loyalty tested by a fellow attorney who’s gone off his medication and “off the reservation,” threatening to...

THE FLICK: It’s not unusual to see classics of the horror genre recycled and updated for each new generation. Just look at how many versions of Dracula and Frankenstein have attempted to freshen up the author’s original themes to make them relevant in each era. It seems like each character is “reborn” every decade or so. But when it comes to science-fiction, there’s really only one story that has remained relevant over the past 50 years: Jack Finney’s The Body Snatchers. Now on its fourth official filmed adaptation – which doesn’t even account for the widespread “borrowing” of its central idea in countless films and novels - there’s something about the concept of losing our own individuality that becomes more and more terrifying as our world evolves. Perhaps because technology and social evolution make it seem more like a frightening prediction rather than a tale of implausible pulp nonsense. 2007’s The Invasion lifts most of its inspiration from the 1978 version directed by Philip Kau...

THE FLICKS: Two or three years ago the DVD market was flooded with enough Italian imports to keep even the most rabid fan of gothic horror, giallo, poliziotteschi and soft-core porn satisfied. But things seem to have dried up recently, which means Dark Sky’s two new releases – Tragic Ceremony and Ricco the Mean Machine – are a welcome return to the Spaghetti ghost stories and tasteless revenge flicks that we so recently took for granted. A workhorse in his native country since 1942, Riccardo Freda is best known to the enlightened for directing The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock featuring Euro-starlet Barbara Steele. Produced in 1972, Tragic Ceremony comes at the tail end of Freda’s professional career, just as the failure of the “peace and love” generation had become inevitable. Both events are a major influence on the film, which tells the story of a group of hippies who weather a storm in a gloomy country estate. Unfortunately, the Lord of the manor (Luigi Pistilli) has plans to sacrifice on...

THE FLICKS: It’s ridiculously ironic that, thanks to companies like Blue Underground, I’ve written more comprehensive reviews for the work of Jess Franco than John Ford, Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg combined. Of course, Franco’s filmography has the edge in quantity, with some 200 films attributed to the director under various pseudonyms. But quality: that’s a word not often associated with any of his productions. So it’s surprising when you stumble upon something like Eugenie de Sade, another psycho-sexual foray into soft-core shenanigans based on the writings of the 17th author / pornographer / sadist Marquis de Sade. Franco freely admits an affinity for the writer, whose name lends a naughty sort of legitimacy to the director’s usual exploitation oeuvre. And in this 1970 entry starring Franco’s first real muse, Soledad Miranda (aka Susan Korda), he finds himself making a real “film” for only the 2nd or 3rd time in his entire career. As with most of Franco’s work, the success s...

THE FLICK: The teaser trailer for Resident Evil: Extinction promised an impossibly geek-tastic scenario: a zombie apocalypse set against the ruins of Las Vegas with supermodel Milla Jovovich kicking ass in a Sergio Leone leather duster. It looked almost too good to be true. And, of course, it was. As the third chapter in an average trilogy, the law of diminishing returns was destined to kick in. Extinction never delivered the genre-bending, Spaghetti Western-inspired horror experience we all hoped for. But as another moderately entertaining entry in the “film-based-on-a-videogame” category, it serves its purpose. Flush with a new set of psychic powers, Umbrella experiment code name “Alice” (Milla Jovovich) is on the run with the wind in her hair, riding her hog across a wasted Earth; yet another environmental side-effect of the T-Virus which has destroyed all life on the planet, not just humans. The survivors from the second film, Apocalypse (a title I bet producers are kicking themsel...

THE FLICK: Cinematically speaking, the United States has been on top of the world for nearly a century. We have the talent, the resources and most importantly the money to produce 90% of the world’s big screen entertainment. But you’ve gotta love it when foreign film producers try to buck the odds and win one for the home team by going toe-to-toe with Hollywood. I’m not talking about the odd art film or Merchant-Ivory production; I mean an honest-to-god special-effects laden monster-movie extravaganza. And that’s exactly what Dragon Wars (or D-War as it’s known in its native Korea) attempts to do. Much it of it laughable, illogical or just plain lame. But at least 30-minutes of writer / director Hyung Rae Shim is a real hoot to watch, boasting computer-effects that can stand up to anything produced in the U.S. of A. Attempting to reprint the plot is nearly impossible and, honestly, a little embarrassing. Suffice to say that warriors are reincarnated every 5000 years to do battle over s...

THE FLICK: The death of the Western has been greatly exaggerated. For proof, one need look no further than 3:10 To Yuma, a simple (but never simplistic) shoot ‘em up that takes the classic “outlaw” story and adds two of the top actors working today. Like the much ballyhooed pairing of Pacino and DeNiro in Heat, the casting of Russell Crowe and Christian Bale is a dream-team combination; but unlike the unsatisfying 5-minute face-off in Michael Mann’s crime drama, director James Mangold (Walk The Line) orchestrates a slow-burn rivalry between his two leading men in this remake of the 1957 Glenn Ford oater. Based on an early Elmore Leonard short story, there’s plenty of clichéd machismo on display from the get-go. Crowe plays smooth-talking, sharp-shooting criminal Ben Wade, whose gang has just knocked off their 20th Pinkerton stagecoach and all the monies therein. After a domestic entanglement slows down his getaway, Wade finds himself in the hands of the law and en route to Yuma prison....

THE FLICK: For a guy who has been pretty outspoken about his indifference to “genre” filmmaking, Danny Boyle is exceptionally good at it. Even in my personal run-ins with the director (during a lull in production of his misguided screwball comedy A Life Less Ordinary) he was quick to point out his preference for the stage, where actors act and directors are more than just glorified special effects technicians. So his success with screenwriter Alex Garland on the groundbreaking 28 Days Later and its sequel must be a particularly agonizing sort of irony. The one thing Boyle would find unbearable I’m sure is a career trapped in formula filmmaking hell, pigeonholed as a one-trick horror director making endless zombie sequels. Luckily, Sunshine, another experiment in genre reinvention, bombed in theaters stateside. From a Hollywood perspective, Boyle’s streak was over. But for fans of literate science-fiction, 3/4ths of Sunshine proves that there’s no better director working in the field of...

THE FLICK: Story goes that the Velvet Underground’s first album only sold 30 copies on its first pressing...but every person that bought it started a band, making their sound one of the most influential in music today. For my money, Richard Matheson’s novella I Am Legend is the Velvet Underground of the horror fiction world, inspiring countless apocalyptic knock-offs, rip-offs and authorized adaptations, including the recent Will Smith theatrical release, the first to use the author’s original title. But the Fresh Prince wasn’t the first to play scientist Robert Neville on screen; that honor goes to Vincent Price, whose Last Man on Earth was a low-budget but faithful approach. And wedged comfortably between them is The Omega Man, the second in Charlton Heston’s unofficial apocalypse trilogy (Planet of the Apes and Soylent Green being the bookends) that finds everyone’s favorite bare-chested, gun-totin’ Republican hunting for chemical vampires in an abandoned Los Angeles. Draped in all ...

THE FLICK: There’s probably no harder trick to pull off than an adult fairy tale. The very nature of the format calls for the sort of delicate distortion of reality and fantasy that only children are able to buy into convincingly. As adults, we bring too much cynicism to the table to believe in princesses, sprites and talking tree men as anything more than cinematic escapism (Return of the King’s Oscar win is the exception that proves the rule). But Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth has a toe in both worlds, working real-world atrocities into the fabric of a dark storybook tableau right out of the Grimm Brothers’ black forest. Forced to live with her sadistic Spanish army stepfather, young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) escapes into a fantasy world based around an abandoned labyrinth populated by fairies, monstrous toads and a smooth-talking faun who claims she’s the reincarnation of an ancient princess. To reclaim her heritage, Ofelia must perform three dangerous tasks before the moon is f...