Almost a year after his death, Warner Archive brings one of his wildest — and that’s saying something — to a long-overdue American DVD release with 1975’s Lisztomania. Based loosely — in every sense of the word — on the life of Franz Liszt, it’s a musical comedy horror sex fantasy unlike any you’ve ever seen. […]
sex
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The Liquidator
Rod Taylor (The Birds, Hotel) is Boysie Oakes, a mistaken wartime hero with a silly name, whom the Secret Service hires as an assassin. The joke is that not only does Oakes not want to become Agent L, but he doesn’t have the stomach to harm a fly. “No more romping around the mulberry bush: […]
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One in the Chamber
Gooding is Ray Carver, a fixer who “solves” disputes between mob families. He also narrates from the start, so you know on whose side the movie stands; however, his softly spoken platitudes like “The past is the devil. You can’t run from it. It’s always behind you” put me squarely on the opposite side. Meanwhile, […]
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Hercules, Samson and Ulysses / The Slave / Sandokan the Great
The appeal of 1963’s Hercules, Samson and Ulysses is right there in the title, or as the trailer puts it with caps-lock hyperbole, “THE 3 OF THEM — TOGETHER!” Here, Pietro Francisci, director of the 1958 Steve Reeves smash Hercules, marries the mythical with the biblical in joining Hercules (not Reeves, but Kirk Morris, Hercules Against the […]
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The Moth Diaries
Told from the perspective of 16-year-old Becca (Sarah Bolger, The Spiderwick Chronicles, In America), it chronicles a year at Brangwyn, a private school for girls. With the help of her best friend, Lucie (Sarah Gadon, A Dangerous Method), Becca is just starting to cope with her father’s recent suicide as the semester begins. A new […]
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Elevator
Last year’s M. Night Shyamalan-produced Devil, right? Well, yes, but also the new-to-DVD Elevator. Whereas supernatural forces were to blame in Devil, the indie Elevator boasts something even more evil: mankind. Going up in a metal box to a corporate fundraising party are nine people, including:• the CEO (John Getz, The Social Network) and his […]
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Lovely Molly
The film opens with a deeply distraught Molly (newcomer Gretchen Lodge, in a fearless, go-for-broke debut) recording herself on Oct. 16, 2011, saying, “Whatever has happened, it wasn’t me.” Immediately, we jump back to “whatever.” Married just 13 months earlier, mall janitor Molly and her level-headed truck-driver hubby, Tim (Johnny Lewis, TV’s Sons of Anarchy), […]
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Headhunters
Compared to the continent of Europe, the rate of death by guns in America is six times higher. You wouldn’t know it based on the current wave of crime films from that half of the globe. Arguably kicked off by the worldwide success of Sweden’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, the movies of […]
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Ruby Sparks
This changes when, at the urging of his shrink (Elliott Gould), Calvin writes about the young woman who wanders in and out of his slumber. The girl of his dreams literally becomes the girl of his dreams when she appears in his waking life, in his kitchen, as if they’re already a devoted couple. Her […]
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Cool Breeze
To get this right out of the way: Shaft, it is not. Heck, it’s not even Shaft in Africa. But it’s good enough for a temporary kick, like a mild beer buzz. Per its trailer, “Cool Breeze is cold business.” To continue the Shaft math, Thalmus Rasulala (whose other blaxploitation forays included roles in — […]