A nostalgic ramble down the road to a KISS concert (ca. 1978), in the bonehead-and-proud-of-it style of a heavy-metal music video. The unrelenting songtrack heightens the effect. (Co-founder of the band, Gene Simmons, co-produced the movie.) With Edward Furlong, Giuseppe Andrews, James DeBello, Sam Huntington, Natasha Lyonne, Melanie Lynskey, and …
A hidebound Hindu persuades himself that his new daughter-in-law is the reincarnation of the goddess Kali -- a rare grapple with local mythology on the part of the cosmopolitan Satyajit Ray. Not his happiest material, in fact probably his preachiest, and it provoked some protest within the confines of his …
Mechanical and efficient spook story in a stalled elevator occupied by, among four others, a disguised Satan. Builds atmosphere, maintains pressure, keeps it brief, tests belief. Story by M. Night Shyamalan. With Chris Messina, Logan Marshall-Green, Bojana Novakovic, Bokeem Woodbine, Jenny O’Hara, Geoffrey Arend, Jacob Vargas, and Matt Craven; directed …
Traditional hard-boiled private-eye stuff, set in the traditional time period (1948), but a little off the traditional beaten path (in the black community of South-Central L.A.). With this workmanlike adaptation of the first installment in Walter Mosley's series of Easy Rawlins detective novels, writer-director Carl Franklin graduates from low-budget independence …
The novel by Raymond Radiguet shocked some people after World War I. The film of it by Claude Autant-Lara shocked some people after World War II. (Largely for -- of all things -- anti-war sentiments, in both instances.) What could Marco Bellocchio do now, in 1986, to get similar results? …
The last of Josef von Sternberg's collaborations with (i.e., adulations of) Marlene Dietrich, a made-to-order adaptation of the Pierre Louys novel, La Femme et le Pantin (lit., The Woman and the Puppet). Choked with décors and atmosphere -- to the point of asphyxiation. Pretty impressive before you lose consciousness. Luis …
Ken Russell's ghoulish version of the exorcising of evil spirits at Loudun, done in a few basic colors — black and white and flesh and blood — in constant swarming motion. As ridiculous as can be, but too repulsive to be laughable. Oliver Reed.
Hard-to-top defamation of lawyers: the senior partner of Milton, Chadwich, Waters is Satan himself ("Law -- it's the new priesthood, baby!"), and his clients are culled exclusively from the vicious and the depraved. The only thing holding Al Pacino in check in this role is his limited time on screen. …
Ghost story from Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro (Cronos, Mimic), set in the Spanish Civil War at an ad hoc orphanage for the children of slain Loyalists (identified in the subtitles as "Leftists," to cut through the mists of ancient history). Cerebral, somber, sure-footed, and creepy (highly evocative image of …
An IRA lad (Brad Pitt) is set up with room and board at the suburban New York address of an honest Irish cop (Harrison Ford) -- "safest place in the city" -- while he awaits a shipment of Stinger missiles to combat Brit helicopters back in Belfast. The ashen color …
Fred Schepisi's semi-autobiographical first feature, a surprisingly tender and even-handed account of life in a Catholic seminary. The Catholic-seminary aspect is not as big a restriction or distraction as might be imagined. It even has some unforeseen advantages. Because of it (and perhaps also because of the early-Fifties era), the …
Choral moans and fragments of Hieronymus Bosch paintings, behind the credits, serve as a springboard into a violent electrical storm, a melting man, and -- in short -- a very fast start for this madly paced horror movie about a Devil's missionary who has set up operations in a Western …
The sophomore effort of rocker-turned-filmmaker Rob Zombie is a direct followup to his House of 1000 Corpses. (To have said "sophomoric effort" would have veered from fact into flattery.) The further adventures of a yokel family of mass murderers, whose aliases are lifted from Groucho Marx characters, carom between a …
Working-girl comedy in the vein of, oh, say, Working Girl, the eager, gifted, underemployed, and underpaid secretary ("A million girls would kill for that job") and the imperious, capricious, queen-bee boss. An ice queen, more descriptively, with snow-white hair, just a bit of sludge showing through at the neck, and …
The first remake of the Clouzot Diabolique under the same name. (But see Games, see Reflections of Murder.) The retention of the French title emphasizes that this is frankly a film for those who refuse to read subtitles, or who are blind to black-and-white, or who can find no way …