The differing characters whose lives crash head-on are Holly, a high-priced pro on the verge of retirement, and Shay, a 17-year-old street amateur desperate for cash. They’re played, respectively, by Viva Bianca (TV’s “Spartacus: Blood and Sand”) and Hanna Mangan Lawrence (“The Square”). Holly gets hundreds of dollars to do her thing with only the […]
thriller
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Dangerous Babes
But you know that going in. Anyone expecting Oscar-level material from titles like “Hot Target,” “Sextette” and the mega-depressing “Virgin Queen of St. Francis High” is misinformed, if not film-illiterate. Some highlights and/or lowlights from the collection… Having just returned from New Orleans, I opted to begin with 1978’s “French Quarter,” in which underage Trudy […]
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Wrecked
That’s what came to mind while watching “Wrecked,” a vehicle for Adrien Brody (“Predators”). It begins on a high note that suggests it could be a kid brother of “Memento,” with Brody waking up in the shotgun seat of a car somewhere in the woods. He’s bloodied. The auto’s totaled. There’s a dead guy in […]
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Alfred Hitchcock: A Legacy of Suspense
Mill Creek Entertainment’s “Alfred Hitchcock: A Legacy of Suspense” collects 18 movies on four discs, for less than $10. The cover reads 20 movies, but two episodes of NBC’s “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” while welcome, do not count. While “early” means “public domain” — in other words, expect no “Psycho” — don’t think these aren’t worth […]
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Super Hybrid
It comes equipped with built-in heat vision and a morphing system that allows it to look like a Ferrari one minute, a Griswoldian station wagon the next, and everything in between! And just wait until you see what’s under the hood: a hissing, snake-like mass of tentacles! You won’t find another vehicle like it on […]
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The Clinic
No sooner do we meet them then a car barrels up on them menacingly — something we’ve seen in dozens of films, from the classic “Duel” to the crap-tastic “Jeepers Creepers.” They stop for the night at a creepy motel — shades of “Vacancy” — and in the morning, one of the spouses has gone missing […]
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Source Code
The less you know about the plot, the more pleasurable the experience. Without spoiling anything, however, its Escher loop of a story plops Jake Gyllenhaal’s Everyman character aboard a commuter train, where his government mission is to give him eight minutes to find a bomb that then will explode. If he can, they can find […]
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Limitless
Then a chance meeting on the street with a former in-law introduces him to a wild, new experimental drug called NZT-48 that unlocks all of the brain’s synapses to make you super-smart and super-productive before the effects wear off. Suddenly, he’s not only on a creative spree, but making a fortune playing the stock markets, […]
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The George Sanders Saint Movie Collection
There were even eight “Saint” features within five years, with George Sanders (“All About Eve”) playing him five times for RKO Radio Pictures. Those films have been collected by Warner Archive for its two-disc package with the unwieldy title of “The George Sanders Saint Movies Collection.” Also known as Simon Templar, The Saint is no […]
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Cracks
While she’s attracting attention on Starz’s hit series “Camelot,” the public should also follow her to this low-key thriller. She plays Miss G, a teacher at an out-of-the-way British boarding school for girls in the 1930s. Amid an otherwise old-maid faculty, her youth and beauty make her popular among the students. On the surface, she’s […]