My life at the movies.
Directed by Rowland V. Lee. Starring Leo Carrillo, Constance Cummings, Robert Young, and Boris Karloff.
Constance Cummings and Robert Young play lovers caught between their warring mobster fathers, played by Leo Carrillo and Boris Karloff. Continue reading...
Directed by D. Ross Lederman. Starring Buck Jones, John Wayne, Susan Fleming, and Edward LeSaint.
John Wayne and Susan Fleming play lovers caught between two feuding ranchers. Lead Buck Jones plays the horseshoe-bedazzled-shirt-wearing sheriff determined to prove Wayne innocent of murder. Spoiler, there’s a third party at play.
Wayne’s fine but this is Jones’s movie, and he does a serviceable job as a square-jawed lawman. But even at sixty-four minutes this felt overlong, with lots of filler and establishing shots.
Directed by Michele Soavi. Starring David Brandon, Barbara Cupisti, Domenico Fiore, and Robert Gligorov.
Michele Soavi’s directorial debut. Dario Argento’s former assistant director showcases ample formal rigor in service of a clumsy script that sees an escaped psychopath terrorize a theater troupe. Continue reading...
Directed by Peter Strickland. Starring Sidse Babett Knudsen, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Julian Barratt, and Steve Oram.
Take a large scoop of creepy David Lynchian atmosphere. Slice with daggers of black humor. Mix in an increasing amount of Terry Gilliamesque absurdist surrealism. Spice with a Dario Argentoesque visual aesthetic. Bring to a boil. Continue reading...
Directed by Shin'ichirô Ueda. Starring Takayuki Hamatsu, Yuzuki Akiyama, Harumi Shuhama, and Kazuaki Nagaya.
Give it a chance. It offers more than the first thirty minutes suggest. Saying more invites spoilers. Continue reading...
Directed by Sang-ho Yeon. Starring Gong Yoo, Yu-mi Jung, Ma Dong-seok, and Su-an Kim.
A good zombie movie leaden with heavy-handed melodrama. Continue reading...
Directed by Bryan Singer. Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, and Nicholas Hoult.
Crams three movies’ worth of plot into a bloated two-and-a-half-hour-long slog devoid of emotional stakes. Also, the 1983 setting means both James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender’s characters should be pushing fifty.
Directed by John Frankenheimer. Starring James MacArthur, Kim Hunter, James Daly, and James Gregory.
John Frankenheimer’s feature debut. James MacArthur plays the smart-aleck son of a big-shot Hollywood producer. After a run in with a theater-manager lands him in the local police station, he’s frustrated his father won’t believe his side of the story. Continue reading...
Directed by Brian De Palma, Wilford Leach, and Cynthia Munroe. Starring Valda Setterfield, Raymond McNally, John Braswell, and Charles Pfluger.
Despite featuring an early performance from a young Robert De Niro, director Brian De Palma proves the star of his first filmed picture. He employs an array of formal devices to tell a farcical story of a groom-to-be’s second thoughts after encountering his fiancée’s eccentric family. De Niro plays a groomsman.
It’s an interesting watch, but only somewhat amusing. De Palma presents several sequences like silent comedy. A smart move given the limited budget and novice cast, but style can only gloss over so much.
Directed by Raoul Walsh. Starring Elissa Landi, Lionel Barrymore, Laurence Olivier, and Walter Byron.
In Tsarist Russia, a young Jewish woman desperate to visit her ailing father acquires a special travel pass that allows her to move freely through the country, but forever brands her as a prostitute. Continue reading...
