Robert Aldrich's low-budget overhaul of a Mickey Spillane avenger tale became one of the very few essential private-eye films. (The dreaded Mafia of the novel became a bigger dread: the Bomb. And the tough-guy hero became, in Ralph Meeker's toughly unsympathetic portrait, a total anti-hero if not non-hero.) Starting with …
Premarital ménage à trois between a tweedy Egyptologist, a widow, and the ghost of her previous husband. The third of these, true to form, is visible and audible only to the second, and much of the dialogue thus proceeds, with a nice sense of tradition, in accordance with the who-are-you-talking-to, …
Bronx pizza cook, aspiring actor, and committed homophobe mistranslates "GWM" in the Roommates classifieds as "Guy with Money," and complications and stereotypes ensue. Consciousness-raising at the sitcom level. With Nick Scotti, Anthony Barrile, Anthony DeSando, Molly Price, and Christopher Lawford; directed by Tony Vitale.
A pair of formerly married musical theater actors reunite to star opposite one another in a Broadway musical. Filmed live at the Barbican in London.
After a string of romantic misfires, Shira (Moran Rosenblatt, she of the deep, pebbly throat) is so certain that Maria (Luise Wolfram) is the end all to unhappiness that, after a whirlwind 3 month courtship, she asks for her hand in marriage. As if tackling a story of queer love, …
Unbuttoned Billy Wilder bedroom comedy, set in Climax, Nevada (joke). Kim Novak, a sinfully undervalued actress, is very touching as a small-town chippie with a bad head cold and some flattering blouses. Dean Martin winkingly kids his "swinger" image, and Ray Walston and Cliff Osmond overplay abominably. However, the dullsville …
Barbet Schroeder's remake and update of Henry Hathaway's same-named film of 1947 is a serviceable crime melodrama. It should come as no surprise, but perhaps as some continuing source of pain, that a mature European of culture and taste can be trusted to show more respect for the genre than …
Xan Cassavetes tries to restore a little grit and gore to the vampire-human love story genre.
Hong Kong goes to Paris. The buildup to the first big explosion of action is beautifully sustained, and Jet Li has an impeccable businesslike demeanor. But then all hell breaks loose, and that's where the movie goes straight to. With Bridget Fonda and Tcheky Karyo; directed by Chris Nahon.
The basic situation is a combustible one. A political prisoner named Valentin shares a cell with a homosexual pederast named Molina in an unnamed Latin American country. The homosexual, who is eventually revealed to have been bribed by prison officials to worm information out of his cellmate, but by then …
Chronicle of the crime spree of a couple of lamming lovers (Frances O'Connor and Matt Day, in roles very unlike theirs in Love and Other Catastrophes, and very unconvincing in them) up to their necks in more serious matters -- pedophilia, blackmail, murder -- than their normal drink-spiking and rolling …
The resilience of the people of Sarajevo is depicted through art and music and the tale of a post-war concert by U2.
Slimy suspense film about the hunt for a homicidal sex fiend with a harem of shanghaied women in a Durham dungeon. It wants only to make your skin crawl. It wants it so badly, so pantingly, so droolingly, that it makes your skin crawl for that reason alone. With Morgan …
Writer-director Andrea Berloff, working from a graphic novel by Ollie Masters, knows the story she wants to tell: one of sisters doing it for themselves and sticking it to the Man. And she has the tools to tell it in stars Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, and Elisabeth Moss. She even …
Wry and dry comedy about a team of Swedish efficiency experts who descend upon a Norwegian village to study scientifically the kitchen habits of bachelors. The observers are to perch on a high chair in an out-of-the-way corner of the room, under strict instructions never to interact with their subjects. …