Movieline Online

"Road Warrior  on the water" is a perfectly accurate pitch for  Waterworld , a B-movie concept that became the most expensive production in movie history after the casting of Kevin Costner.  The film aspired to nothing more than building off that clever concept, with monstrous practical sets, a tricked-out trimaran and some not-so-subtle environmental posturing buoyed by incredible stunts and an outrageous performance by Dennis Hopper.   There are no pretensions, just pulp sci-fi extravagance.   But Costner backlash doomed the project from the start, as journalists eagerly reported the rising budget so they could watch the film sink upon release.  The fact that  Waterworld  was actually profitable didn't stop them from labeling it a failure, however.  And what should have been a celebration of the last pre-CGI action spectacle of the '90s became a pile-on of unwarranted animosity and exaggerated criticism.  ...

Scorsese is a brand.  His name implies a certain sort of filmmaking, despite the fact that his career is made up of eclectic choices and creative cul-de-sacs.  And  Hugo  (2011) is probably the least likely of his projects to have come to fruition.  A 3D children’s film built around French silent cinema, even the author of the book it’s based on realized the audience was a select group of imaginative cinephiles.  But surprisingly, for all its Zemeckis-style CGI visuals and big-budget gloss ,  Hugo  winds up fitting quite well into Scorsese’s  offscreen obsession with film preservation and the magic of our collective cinematic origins. After the death of his father, Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) escapes the orphanage by hiding in a post-WW1 Paris train station, winding the clocks to avoid detection.  His mechanical skills soon come to the attention of a lonely toy vendor, Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley), whose past ...

Superhero fatigue is real.     Can kaiju fatigue be far behind?     The latest series of Godzilla and Kong reboots have done just well enough to earn equally underwhelming sequels.     Meanwhile Japan, home base of the kaiju craze, has been quietly eking out their own series of nostalgic do-overs, the latest of which,   Shin Ultraman , manage to do exactly what the U.S. films have not: reinvent the oversize monster genre without selling out to empty CGI spectacle.     A member of the SSSP, a government entity dedicated to handling kaiju emergencies, Kaminga sacrifices himself to save a child during the latest attack.  But an interdimensional life form bonds with him at the moment of death turning him into a supersized superhero named Ultraman, coming to the defense of humanity against a slew of alien foes intent on claiming the earth for themselves.   Mystifyingly episodic for a feature film,  Shin Ultraman  goes thro...

Hollywood never quite knew what to do with Christopher Walken.  Too low-key to be a traditional leading man, too intense to be a character actor, his career succeeded almost in spite of itself, playing everything from power-hungry Bond villains to sentimental frontiersmen. By the mid- ‘90s his personality was so recognizable in the popular culture that he could get by playing variations on his  own  quirks and mannerisms.  But in  McBain  (1991) he took on a role that was unusual even by  his  standards:  action hero.  20 years after his rescue from a POW camp, McBain (Walken) gets dragged onto the battlefield one more time to fulfill a promise to a war buddy.  With the help of his well-connected friends, McBain wages a small-scale war against the president of Columbia, supporting the rebel soldiers (led by Maria Conchita Alonso) in their battle for freedom.   Actually, thanks to director James Glickenhaus, ...

Although nearly ten years removed from the original  Death Wish  (1974), producer Dino De Laurentiis went back to the well again for  Fighting Back  (1982), the story of a Philadelphia neighborhood that fights fire with fire, led by a charismatic Italian grocer pushed too far.  And why not?  The crime rate was still a trending topic of concern.  And, perhaps more importantly, Bronson was due to pick up his gun again for  Death Wish 2 , this time without Dino’s involvement.  So, the famed producer put together his own tale of vigilante justice with director Lewis Teague behind the camera to try to recapture the ripped-from-the-headlines magic.   After crime hits his family from all sides, John D’Angelo (Tom Skerritt) starts a neighborhood patrol aimed at intimidating the very thugs who have taken over his block.  Newspapers and politicians take notice, alternately hailing him as a hero, a racist or a threat t...

While Italy produced its fair share of  Godfather  rip-offs and gangster thrillers in the ‘70s, there was a homegrown story just waiting to be told in the form of  The Iron Prefect  (1977) which follows the exploits of Cesare Mori, sent on a special mission to Sicily in 1919 to break up the growing influence of the Mafia.  A sort of  High Noon  meets  Tombstone  tale of one-man against insurmountable odds (starring Spaghetti Western veteran Giuliano Gemma), the film is a classy period-piece dripping in style and accompanied by a haunting score from Ennio Morricone.   With a reputation for stern tactics, Mori arrives in Sicily ready to go to war against an enemy deeply entrenched in the local community.  A chance meeting with an outspoken villager (played by the gorgeous Claudia Cardinale) shows him just how much work he’ll have to do to gain the citizens’ trust.  Momentum shifts in Mori’s favor after a series of ...

Hitmen make great antiheroes.  Most of the cinematic variety live by an honor code that spares women, children and innocent bystanders (probably pets too, at least in John Wick’s case).  Typically, they only kill people who  deserve  it, which makes for sweaty sympathetic action protagonists heading up the likes of  The Mechanic ,  The Professional  and  Sicario .  Now you can add a few more to the list with the release of  The Game Trilogy  from Arrow Video, a late ‘70s trio of hired killer thrillers now available for the first time outside of Japan. Passing himself off as an unkempt, addle-brained loser, Shohei Narumi (played with cool contempt by Yusaku Matsuda) is actually Tokyo’s number one hit man with a 100% success rate.  Introduced in  The Most Dangerous Game  (1978), Narumi is hired to rescue the latest victim in a wave of corporate kidnappings.  Juggling loyalties to his employ...

Where most “message” movies fail is their insistence on underestimating their audience.  Nothing is more insulting that sitting through life lessons aimed at the lowest common denominator.  Then there are films like Marleen Gorris’  A Question of Silence  (1982) which tackles rampant misogyny, criminal bias and radical feminism with such awe-inspiring skill you wonder why it’s not even  ranked  in Sight and Sound’s 100 Best Films of All Time…let alone not in the top ten! Three women are arrested and charged with the murder of a male boutique owner, leaving his body and genitals brutally mutilated.  The crime baffles investigators all the more since the female perpetrators seem to be complete strangers – a housewife, secretary and waitress – with no prior history of violence.  The psychiatrist assigned to the case (Edda Barends) finds herself curiously intrigued by their fatalistic attitudes and sympathetic to their plight....

We didn’t have particularly high standard back in the VHS era.  Two-for-one rental night meant you could afford to pick up that title with a cheesy cover knowing full well that it could  never  live up to it.  But as long as there was a valiant attempt at delivering Hollywood knock-off quality – and the requisite amount sex and violence – everyone was satisfied.  MVD’s Rewind Collection, featuring slick retro artwork and collectible insert posters, reaches high on the shelf for their three latest titles celebrating ‘80s bad taste. Witchtrap  (1989) comes from director Kevin S. Tenney, who had a ground-rule horror double with  Witchboard  and  Night of the Demons  just a few years prior.  Here he’s working with about half the budget and a quarter of the talent to tell the story of a warlock attempting reincarnation while dodging paranormal investigators out to vacuum up his soul.  Linnea Quigley has a sm...

Who, what, where, when  and  why  provide the structural foundation for most professional writing…even screenplays.  Pull any script off a shelf and you’ll get a formatted breakdown of characters and settings laid out in rather rigid fashion.  But it’s that lingering  why  that separates a by-the-numbers story from a compelling one.  In fact, those films that choose  not  to answer can leave the biggest impression. Like Ruldolf Thome’s  Red Sun  (1970), a film that addresses the shockwaves of the social and sexual revolution but refuses to supply easy answers.  Thomas, an unapologetic layabout and habitual moocher, talks his way into the apartment of an old girlfriend, Peggy, who shares the space with three other women.  Sharing expenses and revolutionary ideologies, the quartet live by a strict set of rules:  any man they date must die within five days.  Thomas, loathe to give ...

Let’s be clear, the films of Charles Band – whose companies include Empire Pictures and Full Moon Productions – occupy a special tier of entertainment.  It’s one best appreciated by those willing to overlook the niceties of typical Hollywood productions for an independent spirit, often full of overly ambitious ideas and inventively low-rent execution.  And they were simply  made  for the Mom & Pop video store boom of the ‘80s and ‘90s.  Which explains Arrow Video’s beautifully packaged collection  Enter the Video Store – Empire of Screams , curating five Band productions under the Empire banner.   The Dungeonmaster  (aka  Ragewar)  is an anthology of sorts as our computer programmer hero goes toe-to-toe against Satan in a series of deadly challenges.  Filmed immediately after Band’s second foray into 3D,  Metalstorm , this one recycles the same lead actor but uses five different directors to break up the...

As a primer for understanding '90s (sub) pop culture, you couldn't do better than  Mallrats , Kevin Smith's slacker ode to the joys of sex, weed, comic books and capitalism.  Starring a veritable who's who of rising stars at the time, the script does its amateurish best to be an equal opportunity offender, but winds up having its heart in the right place after all. Dumped by their respective girlfriends, Brodie and T.S. (Jason Lee & Jeremy London) head to the mall to drown their sorrows at the food court, sharing their tale of woe with a motley group of post-high school hangers-on:  Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith), a pair of trouble-making doofuses, Gwen (Joey Lauren Adams) the hot chick who got away, and Tricia (Renee Humphrey), an underage sex researcher whose latest subject, Shannon (Ben Affleck), has an eye on Brodie's ex (Shannon Doherty).  Meanwhile, T.S. tries in vain to impress  his  ex-girlfriend's father (Michae...

For the layperson, there seem to be as many styles of kung fu as there are Marvel superheroes. The result – in both cases – is an invigorating blend of action and backstory that can very easily become overwhelming.  But the birth of Wing Chun got a boost from the  Ip Man  saga, which popularized the origin story of what is the most contemporary style of martial arts.  But Sammo Hung actually got there several decades earlier with  Warriors Two  (1978), his third time behind the camera for Golden Harvest, challenging himself and his performers to bring an entirely new form of fighting to the screen.   Anxious for payback against the thugs who murdered his mother, Cashier Wah (Casanova Wong) begs to become a Wing Chun student under Master Tsang.  But his personal vengeance is against the moral code of this exclusive martial art.  After some prompting by a fellow student, Kei Cheun (Sammo Hung), Tsang agrees to pass along his...

There were essentially two kinds of sci-fi films popular during the 1950s:  the serious-minded, manifest destiny space dramas and the radioactive, monster-on-the-loose variety.   Rocketship X-M  manages to straddle the line between them  both , following the exploits of a moon mission gone wrong that finds its crew landing on the desolate landscape of Mars instead.  Rushed into production to beat George Pal’s more prestigious  Destination Moon  – which it did – director Kurt Neumann ( The Fly ) sneaks some fun pulpy ideas into the second half the of the picture, making this a low-budget gem in nearly every respect.   Playing up the technical aspects of spaceflight, XM is staffed by gung-ho adventurers (including Lloyd Bridges), one scientist and a female chemist who, of course, suffers from the curse of professional frigidity.  The script – with contributions from the famously blacklisted Dalton Trumbo – gets lost in tech ...

As comedy teams go, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were subtler than most.  Oh, that’s not to say that their humor didn’t rely on pranks, pratfalls and comic misunderstandings.  The formula was much the same as successful solo acts like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd.  But Laurel and Hardy had a bit more patience, stretching out a gag with a slower pace for a bigger payoff.  Of course, it’s all a matter of taste.  But those (like myself) who feel the duo never quite got their due,  Laurel & Hardy :  The Definitive Restorations is a set worth losing your **** over! Featuring two features ( Sons of the Desert  and  Way Out West ) and 17 shorts, the 4-disc set offers up a comprehensive look at the Hal Roach Studios’ output, including the home video debut of  The Battle of the Century , a L & H silent reconstructed in its most complete version.  If you’re expecting scratchy, public do...

Although Turner Classic Movies catches a lot of flak for its programming quirks, it’s still an important cinematic resource, one that gives a bit of pomp and circumstance to even the most insignificant films.  And their host introductions, usually a five minute or less breakdown of the most salient facts and figures, are a big part of the experience.  On the home video side of things, liner notes serve the same function.  The best of them provides some backstory and historical significance rather than just shamelessly plugging something you’ve already bought.  And on Radiance Films latest release,  Yakuza Graveyard  (1976), those notes are an essential part of appreciating just what the film is trying to accomplish. Kuroiwa is a police investigator with a chip on his shoulder.  Charged with keeping the peace between warring yakuza clans, he finds himself drawn to their honor-code that seems a step up from his own corrupt police...

As Americans we take our diversity for granted.  Whether its racial, religious or regional, with that much square footage to work with there are bound to be dramatic cultural differences.  But when it comes to other countries, we myopically lump them into one group.  French, Germans, Jamaicans, what have you, it’s a foreign concept to most of us that within these small geographic areas there could be just as many social and ethnic divisions.  But director Luigi Comencini’s  The Sunday Woman  (1975) is a satirical mystery built around that very thing: the sometimes ugly, sometimes comical class distinctions that divide Italian society, specifically in the city of Turin. The murder of a lecherous architect winds up implicating a number of suspects in Commissioner Santamaria’s (Marcello Mastroianni) investigation.  The bored socialite (Jacqueline Bisset), closeted playboy (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and his clingy lover (Aldo Reggian...

New York City and Rome share a common 20 th  century evolution.  They both transformed themselves from crime-ridden urinals to functional tourist attractions.  And while both cities are a whole lot better economically and sociologically today, the 1970’s offered up a far richer cinematic canvas.  NYC got stunners like  The French Connection  and  Serpico , while the Italians unleashed a wave of  poliziotteschi  – crime and action films that turned the streets of Rome into a live-action game of Nintendo’s  Duck Hunt . Convoy Busters  (1978) stars Maurizio Merli (more on him later) as Inspector Olmi, a  Dirty Harry -style cop who insists that crime must be answered with immediate and deadly punishment, usually via the barrel end of his revolver.  But after his methods prove too much for the administration to handle, Olmi is shipped away to a quiet seaside town where his gun can stay holstered.  ...

Even spaghetti western completists will admit that the genre can get ridiculously repetitive.  But the Italian film industry was nothing if not adaptable.  So when the kung fu craze began to hit hard overseas, they came up with the next best thing.   Shanghai Joe  (1973) is an East meets West action combo that finds a Chinese martial arts master wandering the Texas border righting social injustices and defending himself against a vengeful ranch owner. Directed with clumsy enthusiasm by Mario Caiano, by all rights this film should be a mess.  But instead, it winds up delivering everything it promises on the poster…and then some!  Earning his nickname on a stagecoach ride from  St.  Francisco (the Italians aren’t particular about details) to the Texas frontier, Shanghai Joe (Chen Lee) attempts to earn as honest living as a cowboy.  But after embarrassing a racist ranch owner, Joe finds himself hunted by a quartet of hir...

Michael Mann almost singlehandedly defined the ‘80s.  His brooding take on the cops and robbers genre bounced from the big screen ( Thief ) to the small screen ( Miami Vice ) and back again ( Manhunter ).  His approach elevated these simple stories to Shakespearean heights, riding a wave of neon-soaked noir visuals and trendy synth beats.  It earned him a slew of box-office successes, opening up the playbook to include biographies and epic period pieces.  But, for all his technical skills, Mann works best at street level.  And 2015’s  Blackhat  finds the director leaning hard into what put him on top in the first place: clever criminals, flawed heroes, and lots and lots of riding around in cars. Conditionally released from prison to help the feds (and the Chinese government) track down a hacker manipulating the markets and sabotaging nuclear power facilities, Nick Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth) is initially in the game for purely s...