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Oliver!

“Quick – what did Sir Carol Reed win his Oscar for? If you answered The Third Man, The Fallen Idol, or any of his acknowledged masterpieces you’d be wrong. In fact, Reed didn’t win his Oscar until late in his career during the height of the Academy’s obsession with two different things: music” read more

Clash of the Titans

“The original Clash of the Titans is no cinematic masterpiece, but it is an enjoyable matinee-styled romp through Greek mythology replete with some of the greatest creations of Ray Harryhausen’s estimable career. This remake turns everything up to eleven as a starting point and seems rolled off the” read more

Æon Flux

“While out promoting Atomic Blonde in 2017, Charlize Theron mentioned Æon Flux and her ultimate disappointment with the movie. She remarked that while she never had complete faith in the project, she wanted to trust in director Karyn Kusama but acknowledged that they “fucked it all up” because t” read more

Men in Black

“A six-issue independent comic book baked in hyperviolence about a group of (largely Aryan) secretive agents that use any means necessary to hide the existence of the supernatural from the public at large gets remade into a popcorn entertainment that’s a lively buddy cop movie. If that sounds like ” read more

Logan’s Run

“Ever watch something that was so clearly kitsch try to take itself too seriously? If not, then behold Logan’s Run, another adaptation of a grim novel that jettisons everything but the most skeletal basics. There’s a compelling idea there but it’s buried under poor acting (from normally solid a” read more

Shivers

“The human anatomy, both from horror and sexual perspectives, and a major distrust of technology and societal permissiveness runs throughout David Cronenberg’s body of work. 1975’s Shivers was Cronenberg’s first feature-length film, and a preview of his oeuvre. Following the, uh, we’ll call t” read more

A Boy and His Dog

“A cult dystopian vision that takes the “boy and his dog” and wraps it up in black humor and crotch-minded salaciousness. I’m not sure if I enjoyed it, hated it, found it charming, or more quixotic in my estimation, but I know A Boy and His Dog is unlike anything else I’ve seen. Don Johnson i” read more

Death Race 2000

“If Rollerball is the intellectual vision of “blood sport as opiate for the masses,” then Death Race 2000 is the loopy grindhouse inversion of it. Not directed by Roger Corman but shepherded by him, Death Race 2000 is a vision of American life at its most nihilistic. Whatever political framework ” read more

Rollerball

“The nation state as we know it has fallen and there is only the mega-corporation that controls everything from entertainment to the political sphere. No, I’m not providing a generalized summary of Ned Beatty’s blistering monologue in Network, although the 70s had an eerily prescient vision of wh” read more

Dark Star

“Dan O’Bannon sure does love to reconfigure space travelers as truckers just doing their job. He gained cinematic immortality by taking that concept and grafting it to a haunted house in space structure in Alien, one of the 70s best science-fiction films from a decade filled with great science-fict” read more

Westworld

“The enduring appeal of Westworld can be summarized as thus: murderous cowboy robots. Does this ignore the other virtues that power Westworld? Yes, and I fully admit that it’s a bit of an opening joke to get things going.   Truth be told, Westworld endures because it’s fascinating, engaging, a” read more

Soylent Green

“When discussing his reaction to the film version of his book Make Room! Make Room!, author Harry Harrison described it as such: “murder and chase sequences [and] the ‘furniture’ girls are not what the film is about – and are completely irrelevant” and mentioned being only fifty percent sat” read more

The Omega Man

“Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend is a book that is nearly ready made for film adaptation. One that has been adapted three times, this is probably the most famous, and each somehow swinging and missing. The Omega Man makes the fatal mistake of requesting that the audience invest in Charlton Heston as” read more

No Blade of Grass

““It came from a brilliant book, but Cornel Wilde, God rest his soul, I don't think he did it justice when it came to the screenplay. He seemed to go over the top and get some bits of egg on his face.” – Wendy Richard   Cornel Wilde’s view of a global pandemic, this one a virus that dest” read more

The Two Popes

“A hagiographic portrait of the current pope that plays like something off PBS’ Great Performances, The Two Popes mistakes unnecessarily, often incongruous, camera flourishes with visual interest. The best argument for this movie is watching Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins deliver incredibly str” read more