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THE FRENCH CONNECTION: Is there any more iconic city in the history of cinema than New York during the 1970s? The urine-soaked streets, oppressive grey architecture and flashy hoodlums combine to create a unique stage for the typical cops ‘n robbers story to play out. And director William Friedkin’s The French Connection is the best at capturing the city at its worst, shot with an “induced documentary” style that pre-dates Paul Greengrass’ Bourne films by three decades. A bookend to producer Philip D’Antoni’s previous hit, Bullitt, which shares its raw, unglamorous approach to the cop genre, Friedkin’s film swept the ’71 Oscars with a bullheaded performance from Gene Hackman as “Popeye” Doyle, a racist, womanizing, single-minded thug who just happens to wear a badge. Roy Scheider is his long-suffering partner who goes along for the ride in their pursuit of an international drug smuggling conspiracy. It’s difficult to comprehend how radically different Friedkin’s approach was at the tim...

SEX DRIVE: Like Paris Hilton jokes and the last five U2 albums, the teen sex comedy is essentially played out. After five American Pie sequels and dozens of National Lampoon knock-offs, the traditional coming of age story is about as welcome as a case of crabs. Which makes the expectations for Sex Drive - the story of one virgin’s interstate quest to lose it with his online hook-up - lower than...well, the next American Pie installment. So perhaps that explains why writer/director Sean Anders film is, if not a total success, at least surprisingly amusing in a “been-there-done-that” kind of way. The cast falls into comfortable stereotypes: the aforementioned virgin, his ridiculously hot but unfortunately platonic BFF, and the requisite “Stifler” character (this time played against type by Clark Duke). But what really gives Sex Drive a fatty are cameos by Seth Green and James Marsden, the latter reaching heights of obnoxious onscreen a**hole brother greatness previously held by Bill Paxt...

SCORPION WITH TWO TAILS: A giallo without sex and violence is like a Big Mac without the “special sauce.” Why bother? And this made-for-TV miniseries adapted into a theatrical feature just doesn’t generate the explicit thrills fans have come to expect from the genre. The involvement of director Sergio Martino (Torso) and writer Ernesto Gastaldi (The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh) only adds to the disappointment, since both men are responsible for some of the most memorable entries in the Italian industry. The story sends our potentially psychic protagonist from New York to Italy after her husband (John Saxon in a very brief role) is murdered upon discovering an ancient Etruscan tomb. From there Gastaldi’s script splits into a smuggling sub-plot, murder-mystery and supernatural thriller, with none of the elements ever really gelling coherently. No one says a giallo has to make sense – in fact, some of the best ones are a confusing mess – but Scorpion with Two Tails falls short in two many ...

FRENCH CONNECTION 2: Pity poor John Frankenheimer. Four years after the original French Connection earned scads of money and worldwide acclaim, the journeyman director was chosen to stage the sequel on the streets of Marseilles as “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) continues his pursuit of escaped heroin smuggler Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey). While the docudrama style is carried over with no trouble, the script by Alexander Jacobs (Point Blank) is a stop-and-start affair that keeps our protagonist prisoner for nearly half the film. Kidnapped and fed a daily diet of heroine, Doyle is turned into a passive junkie then released to suffer the agony of withdrawal. This gives Hackman plenty of rich acting material to work with, but cheats the audience out of the expected car chases and masterful cat-and-mouse scenarios of Friedkin’s original. As a form of closure, French Connection 2 fits the bill just fine, but as a well-rounded follow-up it can’t help but suffer by comparison. Fox’s Blu-ray tr...

MIRRORS: There isn’t a lot of hope for horror out there right now, what with the SAW franchise still running at full steam and most of the classic directors like John Carpenter and George Romero long past their prime. But Frenchman Alexandre Aja made a case for himself with High Tension and the better-than-it-should-have-been Hills Have Eyes remake. He returns with an original story about an ex-cop turned security guard (Keifer Sutherland) who falls victim to some haunted mirrors in the decrepit department store he’s been assigned to patrol. What lurks on the other side of the polished glass now threatens his friends and family unless he can find a way to break the curse. Aja’s film has fun with the endless possibilities of being killed by your own reflection - actress Amy Smart’s bathtub demise is particularly gruesome – and his camerawork shows his previous successes were no fluke. But he should have held a mirror up to the script, which was co-written with usual partner Levasseur. A...

AMUSEMENT: During their hey-day in the late ‘60s British film studios specialized in horror anthology pictures, gathering up four or five scary stories loosely tied together in a Twilight Zone-type package. And for half its running time, Amusement admirably carries the torch, putting fresh spins on urban legends like “The Hitchhiker” and The Babysitter” with the sort of class and style you’d never expect from a direct-to-video film. Then the script (by Jake Wade Wall of The Hitcher remake) just takes a 90-degree turn in favor of Saw-inspired torture and a cackling over-the-top villain right out of the Adam West Batman era. This inexplicable tonal shift from old-school scares to sado-horror is disappointing, but it doesn’t diminish the wet-your-pants effectiveness of the film’s first two chapters, including a particularly chilling “evil clown” sequence sure to inspire a few phobias. Even the acting by the typical troupe of too-good-looking teen actors is above par. All the more frustrat...

SUPERCOP: The Dragon Dynasty label has done a darn good job of bringing important and not-so-important Hong Kong flicks into the Region 1 market, doling out milestone releases from Shaw Brothers, Jet Li and Jackie Chan in sparkling new special editions. Supercop (aka Police Story 3) is at the top of many a fan’s list, so it’s a bit surprising to see what’s included here is only the Dimension re-edit job that was released in the US after Jackie became more of a household name. I’m not sure what’s missing, but it’s certainly not action scenes. Moving beyond his one-on-one fight films, Jackie works on a much bigger scale here; think Die Hard meets Buster Keaton with a truly spectacular finale involving cars, truck, helicopters and a moving freight train. But the film’s biggest asset is the chemistry between Chan and co-star Michelle Yeoh who match each other kick for kick and gag for gag. The best Jackie Chan films find a remarkable balance between punches and punchlines and Supercop is n...

DEXTER – THE FIRST SEASON: It goes without saying that only a pay-cable network would have the courage to adapt author Jeff Lindsay’s books about a serial killer who channels his evil urges for the good of mankind...or at least the greater Miami area. Actor Michael C. Hall imbues the role with singularly sinister appeal as a forensic investigator who moonlights under the radar of his cop co-workers. But when his bragging rights are threatened by a flashy rival sociopath, Dexter’s secret life is threatened with catastrophic exposure. Using large chunks of the book’s first-person narrative verbatim, Dexter retains the same “man-fiction” appeal by stretching out the mystery over all 12 first season episodes. Some of the subplots are a bit contrived, but the core relationship between Dexter and his deceased father (James Remar...played in flashbacks, obviously) who trained his son to prey on the scum of society is fascinating stuff. Without a doubt one of the best seasons of television eve...

The untimely demise of indie DVD distributor NoShame Films left a hole no other company has been able to fill. Specializing in Italian cult and classic releases, there were a plethora of titles still in the hopper when the curtain was drawn...titles few others would have the courage to release. So, like the miraculous happy ending of some breezy comedy, it comes as no small relief to see MYA Communications pick up the baton and race across the Region 1 finish line with four relatively obscure Italian titles, each with a great deal of niche appeal. Most notable is Dario Argento’s Door into Darkness, a 2-disc set that includes 4 episodes of the famous horror director’s foray into television production. Milking his international title as “The Italian Hitchcock,” Argento serves as the host of each story and directs (under a pseudonym) the episode entitled “The Tram” about a murder committed in plain sight on a crowded trolley car. Pushing the limits of acceptable TV violence, although far ...

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS: Director Peter Berg’s spot-on adaptation of one of the better true sports stories of the last century is as much an anti-sports film as it is a monument to the politics of hard-nosed high school football in the great state of Texas. The film doesn’t pull any punches in its portrayal of the use and abuse of 17-year-old boys in a game that means more than just boosting school spirit. Between college scouts, local radio and TV news, the players have the weight of their entire careers riding on every single play. Berg’s approach captures the action on and off the field with the same high-energy documentary approach. The quick-cutting and whip pans could very easily have come off as overproduced Tony Scott visual dramatics, but the film stays honest throughout, riding on the shoulders of Billy Bob Thornton’s understated performance as a coach who feels just as much pressure as his players. Friday Night Lights trades the usual sports-movie inspiration for introspection i...

BABYLON A.D. – There’s something about flawed science-fiction films that appeal to my gentler nature. Like Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce or David Twohy’s The Chronicles of Riddick (which coincidently also starred Vin Diesel), Babylon A.D. is a patchwork of inspirations lifted from better films. Yet those individual parts are often captivating unto themselves. Such is the case with director Mathieu Kassovitz’s adaptation of Maurice G. Dantec’s novel, which blends cyberpunk, political commentary and old fashioned American action movie clichés into a distinctly European package. Kassovitz’s film is genuinely intriguing for the first hour, establishing Vin Diesel as a bald bad-ass ex-smuggler hired to escort a young girl to New York City, the lone technological bright spot in a world razed by war, poverty and corruption. Their journey to America is well-paced, well-shot and well-designed with enviable photography by Thierry Arbogast (The Fifth Element). But once our characters cross the border t...

RIGHTEOUS KILL: In his prime, Robert De Niro could elevate a curse world to the level of Shakespeare’s finest prose. The passion of his convictions was such that it didn’t matter what was being said, it was how the line was delivered. If nothing else Righteous Kill proves he can still swear like a truck driver when the script calls for it - and there’s even a glimmer of the old intimidating thug cemented in many a Scorsese movie. But truth is director Jon Avnet’s anonymous cop thriller could have starred any two actors and inspired about the same amount of apathy. De Niro and Pacino are longtime partners on a serial killer investigation; the victims, all criminal scum deserving of their fates. Played out in a video confession in the opening of the film, De Niro confesses to all the murders, explaining his vigilante justice as cop’s vengeance against a faulty system. Trouble is, he’s now been charged with investigating himself and jeopardizing his partner’s career in the process. Righte...

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH: Having already put Mick Jagger’s rock-n-roll mystique to good use in Performance six year earlier, director Nicolas Roeg found the ultimate embodiment of all-things extraterrestrial in David Bowie, casting him in the title role of a visiting alien who conquers then eventually succumbs to the American dream. Or so a critical reading of the film suggests. Based on the novel by Walter Tevis, Roeg’s approach to adapting the material is not unlike Kubrick’s metaphysical take on Arthur C. Clarke’s text of 2001, following the same linear path but with no identifiable road signs or landmarks. The Man Who Fell to Earth is one of the ‘70s last truly laudable experiments in auteur cinema, alternating between cynical social satire and pointedly honest human emotions. As he did in Don’t Look Now, Roeg captures relationships in their most raw form; sex as a contradiction of sensual sterility, love as a necessary byproduct. Indeed, Bowie’s earthbound ET buys and sells peopl...

FEARLESS: When this Jet Li spiritual epic hit theaters in 2006 it was a headscratcher for American fans used to seeing the star paired with the latest gangster rapper in some hip-hop monosyllabic action flick. Fearless, however, will be very familiar to anyone familiar with Jet Li’s earlier work or even the kung-fu crossover Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Li plays the role of Huo Yuanjia, the real-life founder of the Jin Wu Sports Federation, which united Chinese martial artists at a time when foreign rule ridiculed the native athletes. While this culminates in a four-on-one battle by film’s end, director Ronny Yu breaks the rest of his film into easy to swallow chapters. First, Yuanjia’s arrogant quest to become the top fighter in his province, involving some amazing choreography high atop a wooden structure. Second, his eventual fall from grace and spiritual penance spent farming in the rice fields of a quiet country community. And third, his return to the ring ...not for personal v...

THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA – PRINCE CASPIAN: Just so you understand my personal bias, I wasn’t much of a fan of the first Narnia installment, detailing the adventures of four British siblings who fall through a magical wardrobe into a kingdom full of talking animals, white queens and a lion Jesus voiced by Liam Neeson. Its heart seemed in the right place, but the resulting battles and lessons learned seemed so bland, the entire affair would have been more at home on the BBC. The sequel shifts the focus onto hunky Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) who seeks to regain his throne from a duplicitous uncle by inspiring all the displaced Narnians to rebel against the ruling authority. The end result is, you guessed it, more battles! Jaguars, pigs, centaurs, and rodents go toe to toe (or hoof to hoof, as the case may be) against an army of bad guys with a pretty impressive body count. Director Andrew Adamson may have a knack for producing computer generated beasties on a budget, but his fight sequenc...

FRED CLAUS: Holiday movies are a nice racket for a comedian. Just ask Tim Allen, whose time spent in a fat suit has almost certainly paid for a comfortable retirement. But Vince Vaughn would seem an unlikely choice for kid-friendly entertainment. His fast-talking, obscenity-laced schtick would be more suitable for an anti­-Christmas movie like Bad Santa rather than a pull-the-heartstrings family classic. So Fred Claus tries to have it both ways. There’s no questionable material here; Vaughn reigns in his cynical streak just enough to ensure everything is kept under the PG limbo stick. But the actor only comes alive when he’s able to vent with his trademark enthusiasm, whether he’s on the run from an army of Salvation Army Santas or stuck in a sibling therapy session with other brothers from famous families (Roger Clinton delivers one hell on an inspiring monologue!). Unfortunately, the magical moments in Fred Claus are few and far between, bolstered by cartoon sound effects and some ex...

HELLBOY 2 – THE GOLDEN ARMY: Iron Man brought in the big bucks and The Dark Knight became a bonafide sensation, but for my money Hellboy 2 was the superhero movie that really delivered the goods last summer. You think making a guy in a cape look believable is tough? Try bringing a 10-foot tall cigar chomping demon to life...and making him your hero! But director Guillermo del Toro is at the top of his game, reuniting the cast from the first film and adding interesting new characters like Johann Krauss (voiced by Family Guy’s Seth MacFarlane) which ensures the sequel isn’t just more of the same. In fact, the plot is filled to bursting with fantastical monsters of myth and legend – enough for an entire Hellboy trilogy – which have declared war on mankind after years of subjugation. The only thing standing in their way is Red (Ron Perlman) and his team of supernatural superheroes. Universal’s Blu-ray sets a new gold standard for current releases on hi-def, sporting a huge documentary (we’...

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: Produced under the Carolco banner, a testosterone-heavy independent who owed their existence to Stallone and Schwarzennegar, Universal Soldier should have been the perfect opportunity to stuff both action icons in the same picture. Instead, we get second-tier studs Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren facing off as resurrected super-soldiers who wage their own personal war 20 years after killing each other in Vietnam. This was actually JCVD’s most memorable role to date, stealing a bit of Arnold’s Terminator mojo to play a bioengineered zombie with butt cheeks you could bounce a quarter off of. Director Roland Emmerich (who moved on bigger, better and more ridiculous things like 10,000 B.C.) gives everything a tremendous sense of scale. Of course, when your leading man is a full two-feet shorter than the bad guy, that might not be such a feat. Newcomer Ally Walker, who never quite managed a film career, actually makes all the baloney somewhat believable as the mo...

BLOODY MOON: While most of director Jess Franco’s fame (or infamy) springs from his sloppy erotic work of the ‘70s, turns out the prolific hack missed his true calling. Bloody Moon may be a rather generic slasher cribbed from the Halloween and Friday the 13th playbook, but Franco actually delivers some suspense and creative gore amidst the usual T & A and POV shots. The girls attending the International Youth-Club Boarding School of Languages (I wonder if they’re still taking applications!?) are being stalked by a faceless killer who punishes their overt sexuality with various gardening tools One of them even allows herself to be tied down on a stone altar right next to a power saw. We’re not talking Ivy League material, here. Yet Franco’s photography is much better than average and his story is moderately coherent (something to do with incest and a big inheritance), both of which are a big step up from his usual low standards. There’s nothing really to recommend Bloody Moon unless...

THE PAUL NASCHY COLLECTION: In a Halloween season curiously bereft of Euro-cult titles, BCI’s Paul Naschy Collection may be the best box set out there! Featuring five titles from Naschy’s hefty supply of ‘70s exploitation shockers, these all feature the actor sans fur (unless you count facial hair) in roles outside of his most popular creation, the werewolf Waldemar Daninsky. In Horror Rises from the Tomb he plays dual roles as the reincarnated warlock Alaric de Marnac as well as the modern naïve ancestor who awakens him. Vengeance of the Zombies deliver “three-times the Naschy” as a Hindu spiritualist, his voodoo abusing brother, and Satan himself. Blue Eyes of the Broken Doll is a well-done Argento knock off retitled House of Psychotic Women for the American market. Exorcism jumps on the William Peter Blatty bandwagon (although Naschy claims he wrote it three years earlier) but manages to differentiate itself without resorting to pea soup. And finally , fast-forwarding to the ‘80s, H...

THE INCREDIBLE HULK: With superhero movies riding a wave of unprecedented popularity, Universal decided to have another go at adapting one of Marvel’s first comic creations, despite the fact that director Ang Lee’s version limped out of theaters in 2003. Execs came up with a new recipe: director Louis Leterrier (Transporter 2) was brought in to pump up the action while Edward Norton was hired to keep things classy. The result see-saws between some interesting character work by Norton as the beleaguered Bruce Banner, a man who’ll do anything to avoid getting angry and unleashing his gamma-powered alter ego, while Leterrier is only too happy to oblige by staging some smashing good fight scenes between Hulk and the Abomination, another gamma-irradiated freak of nature. The film rushes from scene to scene with a pace that suggest some heavy cutting (indeed there are 40-minutes of deleted scenes included) and the tone can’t quite decide on Iron Man irony or Dark Knight drama. But it’s a pas...

THE STRANGERS: When it comes to horror films, there are really two distinct types: the gothic creature features that ooze slime and invade from some parallel dimension or the “real world” monsters who lurk at the edges of your neighborhood. Both are fun, but the latter tends to be more disturbing. The Strangers stalks the same streets as John Carpenter’s Halloween, offering no explanation for the vicious actions of its main characters who hide behind masks and terrorize a young couple at 4am at the dark end of a dead end street. When the victims ask the inevitable question “Why are you doing this to us?” the answer is frighteningly obtuse: “Because you were home.” First time writer / director Bryan Bertino turns the screws beautifully for the first 45-minutes, creating a tragically real relationship for our doomed couple (Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman), giving the audience a stake in their survival. He then proceeds to scare the pants of you with nothing more than footsteps, squeaking d...

INDIANA JONES & THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL: I’ll be upfront with you, I didn’t really want another Indy movie to be made. The Last Crusade had enough engine trouble as it was; after 20 years of waiting, I wasn’t confident the franchise engine would even turn over. And from a screenplay standpoint, Crystal Skull is most definitely running on empty. Lucas’ insistence on incorporating ancient alien invaders seems too far afield from Indy’s usual supernatural quests and trotting out fan favorite Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) for a 3rd act reunion seemed like desperate pandering. Yet, Crystal Skull plays better on Blu-ray, one-step removed from the unattainable expectations that a fourth chapter was bound to generate. The effects, which the film leaned far too heavily upon, seem more subdued and Spielberg’s shot selection more impressive (that image of Indy silhouetted against an A-bomb sky is a doozy!). Individual scenes are easy to criticize as being beneath the modern forerunn...

THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD: Ray Harryhausen credits King Kong and its creator Willis O’Brien with inspiring him to create his stop-motion masterpieces. But ironically Harryhausen himself influenced an entire generation with movies like The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, painstaking crafting a menagerie of monsters from lifeless lumps of clay. The sort of fantasy film that previously existed only in an 8-year-old boy’s imagination, 7th Voyage sends its swashbuckling hero across the ocean to the island of Colossa to battle a one-eyed Cyclops, two-headed birds and a fire-breathing dragon. You might think that Blu-ray would find fault in much of Harryhausen’s work, but if anything the high definition makes the amount of detail put into the model monsters even more impressive. Sony’s slate of extras is impressive too, with Harryhausen joined on a commentary track with several of his effects contemporaries, new featurettes and a hilarious music video for the vintage single “Sinbad May Have Been Bad, Bu...

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACE (1973): It isn’t possible to overstate the influence of director Tobe Hooper’s roadkill classic on contemporary horror. There simply wouldn’t be a Saw or Hostel franchise without it. While slasher films owned the ‘80s, everything since then is indebted to Hooper, who pioneered the docu-horror approach in his story of inbred cannibals feeding off the edges of civilization. The acting may be questionable and the script more than a bit out of date, but the original TCM still delivers a killing blow none of the sequels are able to achieve. After delivering an “ultimate edition” a year or so back, Dark Sky Films one-up themselves by presenting all the same materials on Blu-ray hi-def, cleaning up the 16mm image as well as technology will allow and loading the extra space with two documentaries, deleted scenes and a tour of the original shooting location...which is now a cozy bed & breakfast!

LEATHERHEADS: If Tom Hanks inherited Hollywood’s mantle of “everyman” from Jimmy Stewart, George Clooney is most certainly this generation’s Cary Grant. Everything from his smug superiority in the Ocean’s films to his screwball turns in the Coen brother’s comedies hearken back to the golden days of the studio system. So it’s no surprise to see Clooney turn back the clock again when he gets behind the camera as well. In Leatherheads he casts himself as “Dodge” Connelly, an over-the-hill professional football player with a plan to give the sport a boost of legitimacy via star college player / war hero Carter Rutherford (John Kraskinski of The Office). Reporter Lexie Littleton (Renee Zellweger) makes for a perfect love triangle as the three compete for each other’s affections and the game winning touchdown. It’s hard to pile on a film like Leatherheads for being too nostalgic when that’s really its whole point for existing. Clooney has proven he’s quite adept as a director and the script ...

LAST HOUSE ON THE BEACH: The Italian film industry never met a genre they didn’t like...or at least blatantly copy and try to make a quick buck. Even early torture porn like Wes Craven’s Last House on the Left inspired a few nasty imitators in its time such as Aldo Lado’s Night Train Murders and Last House on the Beach, directed by “Mondo” specialist Franco Prosperi. Actually two exploitation movies in one, the film combines the best (or worst) of a brutal crime drama with elements of the nunsploitation fetish flicks. Boasting two recognizable stars from the era –Florinda Bolkan, the grand dame of the grindhouse, and pretty boy Ray Lovelock – Last House on the Beach is a mostly unremarkable entry other than its few moments of advertised sexual depravity. A gaggle of Catholic school girls held hostage by a trio of criminals is a classic set-up for excess; but for a filmmaker whose career was built on Faces of Death-style showmanship, Prosperi is surprisingly reserved here. The most effe...

MOTHER OF TEARS: For years Argento apologists have bided their time while the director considered completing his “Three Mothers” trilogy. But as the law of sequels has so often has proven, no film could possibly be worth the wait. And Mother of Tears finds Argento operating nowhere near the height of his powers in a film that feels more like the work of an Argento imitator rather than the genuine article. Reunited with his favorite muse, actress/daughter Asia Argento, the director fills in the blanks of his supernatural story with direct references to previous fan favorites Suspiria and Inferno, leaning on a logical narrative mystery in contrast to the surreal nightmares of the first two films. Despite several inspired flashes of the bizarre (that devil monkey serving as Satan’s bloodhound really freaked me out!), Mother of Tears fails miserably to recreate the atmosphere of unrelenting doom that made the series stand-out in the director’s hit-or-miss oeuvre. Still, Mother of Tears is ...

RODAN / WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS: Although they won’t take home the Nobel Prize this year, Classic Media gets my write-in vote for managing to broker a deal that seemed almost as impossible as peace in the Middle East: convincing Toho studios to release several of their giant monster flicks uncut with Japanese language tracks intact. Next (and hopefully not last) on their list is the long-awaited Rodan / War of the Gargantuas double-feature, either of which could have merited their own solo DVD. If you’re at all familiar with the kaiju eiga genre (and if you’ve read this far, I’ll assume you are) then you already know Rodan was Toho’s first color sci-fi production, introducing a pair of plus-size pteranodons who threaten to huff, puff and blow Tokyo down. The Honda / Tsuburaya creative team uses an American sci-fi template here, with particular inspiration from the giant ant opus Them. But when the monster mayhem starts, it’s all signature Toho-size destruction. The Japanese version drops...

FIST OF LEGEND: The impact Bruce Lee had on the Hong Kong film industry can’t be overstated. Films like Fist of Fury drew so much international attention producers milked the tragic death of their star for years by splicing together stock footage and casting stand-ins just to keep the money train rolling. And although that sort of charisma will never be matched, Jet Li is the heir apparent to Lee’s legacy, even starring in the 1994 remake of the seminal Fist of Fury, retitled Fist of Legend, telling the same story of a Chinese student’s two-fisted rebellion against the occupying Japanese army. Vacillating between angry bad-ass and wide-eyed romantic, the Chen Zehn of Fist of Legend is a contradiction of sorts. Director Gordon Chan isn’t quite willing to give up the genre’s often slapstick elements which were nowhere to be found in the original. But fight choreographer Yuen Wo-Ping matches the best action scenes in Lee’s film, staging the “one-man-against-an-entire-dojo” sequence – by n...

SPEED RACER: Boasting a color scheme full of illegal reds, blue and purples, I’m not sure if Speed Racer should be viewed by anyone under 21. It’s certainly the closest I’ve come to a psychedelic experience since licking that sticker someone passed around at the Floyd concert. But I’m not sure the Wachowski Brothers know who they made the film for either. Like George Lucas’ misguided Star Wars prequels, Speed Racer extends its running time with pointless corporate politics that have no place in a kids’ film. Meanwhile, professional brooder Emile Hirsh is woefully miscast as Speed; he’s like the downer who spoils everyone good trip, man. But for every dramatic beat the Brothers get wrong (and critics were quick to point out a lot of them), there are quite a few they knock out of the park. Visually it’s like driving through Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory at 100mph; all blurred colors and flashing lights sure to cause seizures in the faint of heart. The racing sequences won’t win any poi...

CANNIBAL TERROR: The cannibal craze of the ‘70s had European directors feeding off each other for new and interesting ways to stage their gore. Much of the final product however was banned by Great Britain during the “video nasty” era, a notorious label that is often the only inspiration to watch what are now laughable exercises in filmmaking. And Alain Deruelle’s Cannibal Terror just may be the most hilarious of them all. After a botched kidnapping attempt, three criminals drag their pint-sized paycheck into the jungle until things cool down. But a local tribe of flesh-eaters eventually make sure that justice is served...and gangster is on the menu! Cannibal Terror is a gut-buster of a gut-muncher, so ineptly made that it transcends the genre to become an unintentional spoof of the highest caliber. The “jungle” setting is made up stock footage and one oasis of palm trees off the interstate (seriously, you can see cars driving in the background) while the natives themselves look like p...

HEROES - Seasons 1 & 2: – To answer your question, yes, it really is that good. After debuting on the NBC fall schedule two years ago, producer Tim Kring’s show took off like one of its superpowered characters. The show’s serious-minded approach to comic book mythology actually preceded The Dark Knight in theaters, proving that geek-culture could be just as meaningful and mature as the more pedigreed adult dramas. And for one glorious season there literally was no better show on television. But a ridiculous amount of hype, combined with the writer’s strike, conspired to ensure a predictable sophomore slump in season two. The story Kring and his writers had handled with such care began to go off the rails, new characters were introduced at random while others were trapped in a revolving door of neuroses. But looking back on Blu-ray, even that shortened season is better than most of what passes for entertainment on the other networks. The real achievement of the show is that none of ...

BABY MAMA: I can understand the temptation to write this off as a chick flick, but let’s take a closer look at the chicks in question. Tina Fey broke into boy’s club at Saturday Night Live to become the first female head writer. She currently stars in 30 Rock, hands-down the funniest sitcom on TV. She’s the kind of girl you could fart and burp around yet still find incredibly attractive. And her chemistry with co-star Amy Poehler is the sort of practiced back-and-forth that can only be perfected through years of live television. In short, if you blow off Baby Mama because it stars a couple of women, you’re an ignorant ass. The plot might not bear the mark of comedic genius, but the talent involved is unquestionably brilliant. Fey is an upwardly mobile business woman who hires Poehler to bear her child, despite the fact that Poehler’s white-trash habits clash with her own green-living lifestyle. Most of the film is filled with these “odd couple” moments that in the hands of any other tw...

Star Trek may have led you to believe that the time-space continuum has no sense of humor. But note the eerie similarities between Paris Hilton’s recent political bid and Linda Lovelace for President (Dark Sky Films, 95 min), a bicentennial spoof starring another sword-swallowing quasi-celebrity. Released at the height of the Roger Corman drive-in era, Lovelace was desperately trying to escape the success of Deep Throat and producers like Arthur Marks were willing to give the slut a shot. What spewed forth is a mix of Mel Brooks, Smokey the Bear jokes and more double-entendres than an entire season of Three’s Company (although you’ve gotta admit, “The first woman president to go down in history” is pretty goddamn clever). The sex itself is innocuous; Lovelace looks like she’s humoring her cut-rate co-stars, which include Mickey Dolenz and Scatman Crothers, rather than pleasuring them. And the opening sequence - Linda posed like Patton with a camel-toe in front of an American flag - is ...

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...