Reviews

The Falcon And The Snowman, directed by John Schlesinger and starring Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn, is a film which has not been treated particularly well by the passage of time. I'm sure that I saw it in a theater back then and I recently watched it again at a revival screening.

Sean Penn's standout performance as the privileged ex-choir boy who has gone astray remains a highlight. There is a truly disturbing scene of his character having his head dunked in a toilet in a Mexican jail. It took a while to realize what it reminded me of, and then it came to me. "Rupert Pupkin", Robert De Niro's character in the film The King Of Comedy from his false bravado right down to the weasely mustache.

John Schlesinger never matched the peaks of Midnight Cowboy but this movie, like Day Of The Locust and Marathon Man, comes admirably close.

Caroll Baker and Isabelle de Funès star in this provocative fantasy based on a popular French comic strip. On top of numerous scenes which purport to be dream sequences, long stretches of the film follow an evocative dream logic.

Caroll Baker plays a reclusive mystery woman who insinuates herself into the life of photographer main character de Funès. A creepy doll in bondage gear that Baker gives to de Funès to protect her comes to life and goes on a rampage. Twists, turns and nude female flesh abound in this jaw-dropping Italian mystery thriller.

Features a sequence from the German silent classic "Der Golem".

Lenny Bruce: Without Tears is a deeply personal and, in spite of its subtitle, heartbreaking portrait of the persecution and ultimate self destruction of the trailblazing comic and social commentator. As his legal issues mount, he begins literally quoting from court transcripts as part of his act.

Although these days it might seem tame, Bruce's comedy was considered radical and potentially even dangerous in the early to mid-1960s when his career was at its peak. This unfortunately led to such absurd situations as police officers repeating his act in court (in Bruce's words, "badly") and him being blacklisted from nearly every potential venue.

In the end, Lenny was no match for the forces he was up against and the footage of his body lying lifeless on the floor is unspeakably bleak. All of this would be sad, of course, in any situation. What makes it exceedingly tragic is the perceptiveness and fearless nature of his comic mind.

A somewhat generic slasher film made in the bad old 80's, The New York Ripper has just enough idiosyncrasies to make it worthwhile. The stalwart cast is certainly game and the Times Square locations are suitably gritty.

There are some nice moments; for example, when a character finds a lightbulb missing in her dressing room, she starts to berate the proprietor of the business - pointedly calling him an "Italian". In fact the crew and a good deal of the cast are Italian.

While it never really rises above its slasher roots, it keeps you guessing long enough to be effective (although I must admit that the little coda at the end just added to my confusion).

The setting - a secluded mountain lodge high in the Alps - contributes a great deal to the appeal of this film. The nominal story centers around a police inspector called upon to investigate a murder and the diverse group of colorful characters he encounters during his stay. Apparently it's based on a novel by the authors of the book from which Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker was adapted. Even as the plot becomes gradually more bizarre, there were a lot more positives than negatives in my opinion. The absurd tone of the movie reminded me a bit of Godard's Alphaville. Though it perhaps adds up to less than the sum of its parts, the film has a disarming quality about it which charmed me.

This revenge drama directed by John Flynn and written by Paul Schrader is way up there on the gruesome scale. It has echoes of Taxi Driver and, I believe, anticipates The Deer Hunter which came out the following year.

William Devane plays an army officer who comes back from Vietnam after spending years in the infamous Hanoi Hilton POW camp. He returns to find that his wife has moved on with a guy from the neighborhood and his young son, who has no memory of his father, is hoping to get to know his dad.

However that is not to be.

Tommy Lee Jones is amazing as a fellow POW who accompanies Devane on his quest for revenge. Linda Haynes also shines as a young woman interested in the uncommunicative former officer.

Featuring numerous excerpts from a broad range of folk horror movies throughout history, this is the most comprehensive study of the sub-genre imaginable. While it begins by covering 3 very significant examples of the subject in Witchfinder General, Blood on Satan's Claw and The Wicker Man, it goes on to profile an exhaustive list of films from all over the world.

There are some beautiful transitional sequences animated by underground filmmaker Guy Maddin.

Among the clips included are scenes from The Company Of Wolves, The Lair Of The White Worm, Wake In Fright as well as countless other treasures of this unique genre. While it is a fairly lengthy examination of its subject I, being a huge fan of horror films in general and folk horror in particular, was riveted.

When this film came out I have to admit I had high expectations. The story it's based on is truly fascinating. What it unfortunately turned out to be was by-the-numbers formula and pure Hollywood phoniness. My recommendation: Read the book instead!

There are more laughs than shivers in this Roger Corman production based on the Edgar Allan Poe poem. Worth seeing if only for the impressive cast which includes Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre and Jack Nicholson. Definitely not my favorite of Corman's Poe adaptations, but it does have some interesting and amusing moments that build to a climactic showdown between the two wizards (Price & Karloff). Also features Hazel Court and Olive Sturgess as Vincent Price's wife and daughter.

This grandiose, self-important, often ludicrous movie manages to be thoroughly entertaining almost in spite of itself. Lush tropical locations help as does Marlon Brando's campy, bemused performance. Trevor Howard plays the sadistic Captain Bligh with tremendous relish. The two stars reportedly disliked each other, leading to on-set confrontations that rivaled those aboard the Bounty.

With a burst of creative energy, Bonnie And Clyde marked the arrival of the new Hollywood in the late 1960s. An exceptional script by David Newman and Robert Benton, stylish direction by Arthur Penn, Dede Allen's brilliant editing and great performances from the entire cast (including Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty as the title characters) combine to make this one of the most daring and successful of all mainstream American productions. Based on the exploits of the real-life pair who went on a crime spree through the Midwest during the Depression era, the movie is by turns humorous, thrilling, romantic and shocking.

Rouben Mamoulian's costume drama about Sweden's beloved monarch stars the greatest screen goddess of all, Greta Garbo. The queen's impersonation of a young man in the film's early scenes is a source of great perplexity for co-star John Gilbert. The final shot in which she poses sphinx-like at the bow of a ship would become her trademark. Not Garbo's finest role, but provocative and consistently diverting nonetheless.

D. W. Griffith was a Hollywood pioneer and his Birth Of A Nation was Hollywood's first epic. Hailed for its groundbreaking technical advances and mounted on an unprecedented scale, this rousing saga of two families thrown into turmoil by the Civil War features an early performance by the legendary Lillian Gish. Although marred by undeniable racist sentiments (the Ku Klux Klan are depicted as heroes!), it remains a landmark, a movie by which all others would be measured for many years.

This exciting road movie/drive-in cult classic surprised me with its sustained inventiveness. I know that I had watched it on video many years ago and fondly remembered bits and pieces of it. But after seeing it again at a revival screening, I was extremely pleased to see how well it holds up.

Peter Fonda, Lara Parker, Warren Oates and Loretta Swit play two couples on an RV excursion who happen to witness a deadly Satanic ritual. Spooked, they quickly flee but are pursued by.the cult, who understandably do not want their activities to be exposed.

What I really appreciated about it on my recent viewing was that it had all the chases and elaborate stunts you expect to see in the genre, but the acting was always very grounded in reality no matter how outrageous the situation. It was sort of like a Roger Corman production without the nonsense he often injects. The only element that keeps this from being rated a 10 is that the characters of the cult members (with the exception of the leader) are woefully underdeveloped. Directed by Jack Starrett, whose somewhat checkered career is wholly redeemed by this remarkable effort.

Two young women are abducted and brutalized by some buffoonish escaped convicts in this economic but severely dated horror outing which launched the careers of both Wes Craven (Nightmare on Elm Street) and Sean S. Cunningham (Friday the 13th). Whether or not this appeals to you depends on your tolerance for corny humor and amateurish acting.

The film opens with a young vagrant looking through a window at an older man seated at a table with his back towards him. A large breakfast is laid out on the table and the onlooker approaches him to ask if he can spare anything. Only then does he see the bullet wound in the man's face and realizes that the killer, the man's adopted daughter, is still hiding on the premises. She tells him that she acted in self-defense after the man attempted to molest her.

Thus begins William Wellman's tale of hobos riding the rails in this Wallace Beery vehicle featuring a young Louise Brooks. The portrait of homeless lives in the late 1920's is surprisingly sympathetic, racially diverse, and morally complex.

Buster Keaton plays a Confederate engineer with two great loves: a sweet Southern belle - and his train. When both are kidnapped by Yankee spies, Buster sets out on an uproarious quest to rescue them. Keaton uses his impeccable timing and acrobatic expertise to create many of silent comedy's definitive routines. The stunts here, often involving cannons and moving trains, demonstrate how fearless a performer Buster Keaton was.

An ambitious effort, and one of the few movies of its day to address the subject of class conflict in America. Montgomery Clift gives a great performance as a young man content to climb the social ladder by ordinary means. That is, until he meets rich society girl Elizabeth Taylor. Although occasionally heavy and slow-moving, and the impending tragedy is perhaps all too inevitable, this is still poignant material and the two stars express genuine tenderness and passion.

A very atmospheric and darkly humorous underground horror film set in NYC's East Village, this is one of my favorite movies of the 1990s. Directed by and starring Larry Fessenden, this supremely creepy narrative also probes some deep philosophical questions. From being chased by wolves through Central Park to swimming in the frigid ocean off Long Island, the assured tone of the film is groundbreaking while at the same time harkening back to the origins of cinema.

A clamorous vision of gang warfare in Los Angeles directed by Dennis Hopper with his patented flair for the unusual and bizarre. Robert Duvall and Sean Penn are fine in their roles as L. A. cops, but what really gives the film its edge is the presence of actual gang members whom Hopper cast to play the Bloods and the Crips. Without totally departing from action movie conventions, Colors brims with flavor and detail and features a tremendous soundtrack.

This enigmatic suspense thriller was the distinguished actor Charles Laughton's sole directorial effort, and he succeeded magnificently. A dreamlike, disturbing fable in which two children are pursued by a madman, The Night Of The Hunter is full of haunting images. The psychotic preached with L-O-V-E and H-A-T-E tattooed on his knuckles is chillingly portrayed by Robert Mitchum and the black-and-white cinematography is incredibly lyrical.

The lives of Edith Bouvier Beale and her adult daughter Edie are the subject of this moving documentary by David and Albert Maysles. Secluded in their decaying Long Island mansion, these two eccentric women allow the morbid spectacle of their private melodrama to simply play itself out in front of the camera. Some have charged the Maysles with exploitation, although by revealing their subjects so unsparingly they go beyond voyeurism and challenge us to feel true compassion for these lonely human beings.

What on the surface appears to be just another psycho-on-the-loose thriller is actually a visually rich and offbeat sleeper, a suspense movie that coolly seduces you and then takes you in strange, unexpected directions. Some of director Donald Cammell's hallucinatory imagery is reminiscent of his collaborations with Nicholas Roeg in the early '70s. A rare performance by the sublime Cathy Moriarty (Raging Bull) makes this an especially rewarding film.

A group of teenagers decide to spend the night in a carnival funhouse and are stalked by a ghoulish family. Elizabeth Berridge (Amadeus) stars in one of director Tobe Hooper's underrated entries in the horror genre. Will the teens survive their grim ordeal? Rediscover this gem and find out.

A brisk comedy providing W. C. Fields a hilarious setting in which to flourish. As the entrepreneur of a traveling circus, Fields is adept at pulling up stakes and reaching the state line just before the law catches up with him. He also finds time to taunt children, short change his employees, and tangle with an assortment of wild animals and inanimate objects - particularly ventriloquist's dummy Charlie McCarthy.