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 …
Terence Fisher directs Christopher Lee in a terrifying tale of devil worship!
What a premise: goodhearted, patriotic Iraqi soldier gets forced to serve as body double for the drug-addled, trigger-happy, horndog son of Saddam Hussein. A genuine existential crisis — how do I do my job without losing my very self? — with sex and violence to keep things rolling. Sadly, both …
Pregnancy can be hell — hey-o! You know what would have made Rosemary's Baby so much more awesome? Found footage and more special effects. Yeah.
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 …
No sooner did producer Todd Bruce discover a distant relation to naturalist Edward Alphonso Goldman than he employed the services of daughter Bri (associate producer) and son J.T. (director) to create a modern day, two month variation on the expedition his great grandfather and partner Edward William Nelson made through …
A British secret agent falls into a web of love, deceit and betrayal while trying to solve a dark mystery. Directed and produced by Abhishek Nama, starring Nandamuri Kalyan Ram, Samyuktha Menon and others.
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 …
A seasoned Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) returns to a struggling Runway magazine, now as features editor, to help a vulnerable, social-media-besieged Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) combat a former assistant turned rival. The film reunites the original main cast - Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, and Stanley Tucci - with …