Yellow-eyed, blue-lit vampires dominate the world of the future, to such extent that the blood supply is running out. Some bumptious social comment amid repulsive special effects: fire-hose projectile vomit, exploding head, decapitation, etc. With Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Claudia Karvan, Michael Dorman, and Sam Neill; directed by the Spierig …
Truffaut's effusive and somewhat bullying attempt to propose a toast, with which all film lovers are expected to concur, to the charming and intrepid and fallible folks who join together temporarily, strive for the heights, slip and slide somewhat, and ultimately create a little magic for the millions (what is …
Three-part omnibus on the youth, maturity, and dotage of the Iranian woman, all parts scripted by Mohsen Makhmalbaf (director of Gabbeh, The Silence, et al.), and directed by his wife, Marzieh Meshkini, a graduate, together with their daughter Samira Makhmalbaf (The Apple), of the private filmmaking school, since disbanded, known …
The inspirations for Jean Renoir's thirty-some-minute featurette sit in high places: first, the bleak and cold naturalism of Maupassant, and second, the dappled lighting effects of the Impressionist painters. In Renoir's hands, however, a Maupassant gem, whose outstanding trait is hardness, turns into Silly Putty. Renoir likes softness, and he …
Effects-laden urban disaster thriller -- an explosion and cave-in in an underwater commuter tunnel -- with a dreamlike freedom of imagination, freedom from logic, freedom sometimes from comprehensibility. Sylvester Stallone, Amy Brenneman, Viggo Mortensen, Stan Shaw, and Claire Bloom; directed by Rob Cohen.
On the verge of losing his wife and his job as sheriff, put-upon lawman John Dorsey reluctantly teams up with bullish U.S. Marshall Butch Hayden to hold outlaw Emily Rusk hostage. A battle of wills ensues as Emily turns the posse on themselves, but as her marauding husband and his …
A Spanish priest deciphers the exact date of birth of the Antichrist (Christmas, 1995) and sets out on a quixotic quest (this is Spain, remember, where quests are prone to be quixotic) to save the world: "I must sell my soul to the Devil, but I don't know how." His …
Un sacerdote, el padre Berriatúa, cree haber descifrado el mensaje secreto del Apocalipsis según San Juan: el anticristo nacerá el 25 de diciembre de 1995 en Madrid. Para impedirlo, el cura pide ayuda a José María, un fanático del heavy-metal, e intentan averiguar dónde tendrá lugar el acontecimiento. Con la …
Those who thought the indoor shopping mall in Dawn of the Dead was a metaphor for America will perhaps be equally happy with the underground bunker cum missile silo here. Those who thought the shopping mall was a good place to hide out from a plague of zombies, with a …
1973 political thriller about a plot to kill the French president.
Nathanael West's virulent portrait of the Hollywood he lived in, in the 1930s, and of the hopes that turned to despair there, is converted by John Schlesinger into a display of latter-day Hollywood know-how and wherewithal (a lavish re-creation of period, a couple of spectacular catastrophe production numbers), whose purpose …
Witchcraft in 17th-century Denmark, with something for almost everyone, the moralist, the feminist, the occultist, the cinephile -- especially him. It's not at all for the dogmatist, of whatever persuasion. Carl Dreyer starts out leading your sympathies where they will go most readily. A hoary old Lutheran pastor oversees the …
It took a few minutes to get in sync with austere Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang's (Viva L’Amour, Goodbye, Dragon Inn) deliberate pace. (The title prophetically announced the amount of time one felt it took for the first couple of long takes to play out.) Neither one of our principals is …
Silvio Soldini’s mature marital drama of middle-class, middle-age economic crisis: lost job, lost house, lost prospects, lost self-respect; set in Genoa but general in application; a bit dull in image but intense in empathy and emotion. Antonio Albanese and Margherita Buy, models of restraint, hide their individual suffering behind the …
Four fleshy and sophisticated Calcuttans go on rural holiday. Not a lot "happens," but a lot comes to light. Shakespeare's Polonius, one might imagine, would flourish in the attempt to pin down what kind of movie this is. It is comical, pastoral, political, poetical, historical, spiritual, and God knows what …