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Now that playing videogames is an actually career choice, the premise behind  The Last Starfighter  doesn't seem to be quite the fantasy it once was.  But director Nick Castle's take on the Arthurian legend is still drenched in Spielbergian Americana balanced with breakthrough computer effects that might not seem quite as revolutionary today.  But for those of us who shared Alex Rogan's dream of being plucked from obscurity to become an intergalactic hero, the film remains an imaginative bit of pre-teen wish fulfillment that has aged as well as anything from the era when Slurpees and Stargate were the height of pre-teen pop culture. Stuck plunging toilets at his mom's trailer park, Alex's (Lance Guest) dream of escaping to college with his girlfriend Maggie (Catherine Mary Stewart) is crushed when his student loan is denied.  But after breaking the record on the local Starfighter machine, an alien talent scout (Robert Preston) whisks him off to Ry...

In a battle for supremacy over a man's soul, a hedonistic Hollywood lifestyle turns out to be more deadly than lung cancer in director Bernard Rose's adaption of Leo Tolstoy's  The Death of Ivan Ilyich , transposed into the corruptive social circles of the film industry in  Ivans xtc . (2000).  Facing an uphill battle to secure financing, Rose wound up shooting the project on the burgeoning HD video format, which actually works in the film's favor by stripping away the visual artifice of idealized glamour and wallowing in the behind-the-scenes moral decay that really makes Hollywood run.   Danny Huston stars as the titular Ivan Beckman, an ambitious agent whose backstabbing machinations just secured his firm the hottest celebrity in town, Don West (Peter Weller), lured by a script that he single-handedly turned into a hot property.  Unfortunately, his career victory is marred by a doctor's visit that turns up a "suspicious" spot on his lung, a diagnosi...

I've got good news and bad news.  The good news is  Warning from Space  (1956), the very first Japanese sci-fi movie produced in color is finally premiering on home video in a version that does justice to its inventive production design and dramatic color scheme.  The bad news is its really one of the last undiscovered titles in the kaiju / alien invasion Japanese sci-fi pipeline.  With not much left to look forward to, director Koji Shima's film carries a lot of cult classic weight on its shoulders, too much for such a slight, disjointed story to support as it turns out. Mysterious UFO sightings over Japan have the population feeling nervous, especially when those vessels discharge starfish-shaped cyclopean messengers from the planet Paira.  Realizing their appearance is a shock, the Pairans transform one of their crewmembers into the appealing likeness of a popular nightclub celebrity.  But by the time her warning of an impen...

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...

I have the utmost respect for movies that are snowbound.  Beyond the technical challenges posed by an unexpected thaw or uncomfortable shooting conditions, there is just some sort of mystique created when the flakes starting flying...especially in the horror genre.  While  The Shining  remains the preeminent example, 2019's  The Deeper You Dig also captures some of that "long dark night of the soul" vibe so rare in films produced at this price range.   After accidently running over Goth-teen, Echo, on a dark and lonely road, Kurt compounds the error by suffocating her when it turns out the car didn't quite finish the job.  A quick shallow grave in the frozen ground is his desperate attempt to hide the evidence, but Echo's psychically gifted mom, Ivy, soon comes in search of her daughter.  Kurt's guilt and Ivy's suspicion make strange bedfellows as the pair unexpectedly develops a friendship.  But all the while, Echo's...

While  Ford vs. Ferrari  provided a slick, entertaining view into the cutthroat tendencies of the auto industry, director Yasuza Masumura's 1962 film  Black Test Car  is an ugly indictment of capitalism at its worst as two rival car companies compete to rush their sports model to market, sabotaging the other at any physical, financial and moral cost.   An industrial espionage thriller with shades of classic film noir,  Black Test Car  is wonderfully stylized, pitch black in tone, and shocking in its portrayal of yakuza brutality by its "salaryman" characters, all of whom are complicit in their corporate crimes.  From bribes to beatings to sabotage, company success is portrayed as a sort of madness that leaks into every aspect of daily life.   Even our ostensible hero winds up pimping out his own fiancé, played with femme fatale appeal by Junko Kano.     It's all played with the same sort of scandalous cynicism as...

The  yakuza  - or gangster - film is more deeply ingrained in Japanese cinema than perhaps any other genre.  Likely because the rise to power in those post-war years is best translated by the gritty, violent stories of outlaws, ambition and family honor.  And the work of director Kinji Fukasaku is most representative of the genre's style and conventions, notably in his epic  Battles Without Honor and Humanity  and its sequel.  Yet his 1975 film -  Graveyard of Honor  - bucks many of those traditions to deliver a yakuza tale that paints a much more severe and nihilistic view of the yakuza lifestyle.   The ambitious but singularly self-destructive Rikio (Tetsuya Watari) refuses to take orders from anyone, even his own godfather.  After being banished from the family, he falls under the protection of a rival gang headed up by his friend Kozaoburo Imai, but even that relationship is strained by Rikio's unpredictable ...