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*(this review originally appeared on Cinema Sentries)* Woe to the viewer who tries to sit through director Paul Morrissey’s take on The Hound of the Baskervilles, starring Peter Cook as Sherlock Holmes and Dudley Moore as his sidekick, Dr. Watson. I made it to the end, but I wanted to snuff it. So, I’d like… Continue reading The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978)
*(this review originally appeared on Cinema Sentries)* Catch me on the right day and I’ll proclaim Straight Time (dir. Ulu Grosbard) the best film of 1978. Based on Eddie Bunker’s novel, No Beast So Fierce (Bunker also co-wrote the script), the movie is a character study about Max Dembo (Dustin Hoffman), a longtime ex-con who… Continue reading Straight Time
*(this review originally appeared on Cinema Sentries)* So, you’ve seen the Dario Argento gialli (highlights include The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Deep Red, Suspiria, and Tenebrae), the Mario Bava (The Evil Eye, Black Sabbath, Blood and Black Lace, and Bay of Blood). Where to next, in the pantheon of classic Italian horror? Lucio Fulci,… Continue reading The Sergio Martino Collection
*(this review originally appeared on Cinema Sentries)* I’m not sure I believe in the idea of a ‘guilty pleasure’; but if I did, Back Street (1961) is a movie I’d add to my list of cinematic bon-bons I shouldn’t love but do. Not known for women’s weepies, director David Miller (Lonely Are the Brave) made… Continue reading Back Street (1961)
*(this review originally appeared on Cinema Sentries)* In this video nasty from 1982, Billy (Jimmy McNichol) is a high school basketball star who lives with his kooky Aunt Cheryl (Susan Tyrrell). She’s a sweet old maid, but she’s also the maniac behind the car wreck that killed his parents. Aunt Cheryl loves Billy—like, really loves… Continue reading Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker
*(this review originally appeared on Cinema Sentries)*Epic corn was director Cecil B. DeMille’s métier, and The Greatest Show on Earth (1952; 152 minutes), his circus opus which won the Best Picture Oscar, is a veritable cornfield. I enjoyed the movie when I was a kid; and it still offers much in the way of an… Continue reading The Greatest Show on Earth
*(this review originally appeared on Cinema Sentries)* A remake of his earlier gangster film Underworld (1927), director Josef von Sternberg’s Thunderbolt (1929) is his first talkie. Even at 85 minutes it’s so… slow… that I had trouble keeping awake for most of it. George Bancroft (Oscar-nominated for his spirited portrayal—and it’s the best performance here)… Continue reading Thunderbolt
*(this review originally appeared on Cinema Sentries)* Director Sam Peckinpah was a few things: a drunk, misogynist boor; an auteur who was always getting screwed by the studios and producers he kept disappointing; and a guy whose best work fed off his self-destruction and the meddling of others. And let me tell you. Between 1969… Continue reading Major Dundee
*(this review originally appeared on Cinema Sentries)* In the summer of 1996, Paramount Pictures brought three TV shows that originated in the 1960s to the big screen: A Very Brady Sequel, Star Trek: First Contact, and Mission: Impossible. You might have despaired, had you considered this an omen of things to come from Tinsel Town.… Continue reading Mission: Impossible
*(this review originally appeared on Cinema Sentries)* Re-watching one of 1975’s best grindhouse titles, Switchblade Sisters, I’m impressed: Though it sunk like a stone when it first hit theaters, it’s golden trash. Director Jack Hill, a dab hand at exploitation films and then-fresh off a pair of Pam Grier vehicles (Coffy, Foxy Brown), brings his… Continue reading Switchblade Sisters
*(this review originally appeared on Cinema Sentries)* Scripted by playwright Tennessee Williams, who got sole credit for this adaptation of two of his shorter plays, “Twenty-Seven Wagons Full of Cotton” and “The Long Stay Cut Short,” Baby Doll (rated R; 1956) is a starkly shot, trashy black comedy—the only one Elia Kazan directed, and a… Continue reading Baby Doll
*(this review originally appeared on Cinema Sentries)* Dismiss his output from the last few decades all you like: Stephen King is a master of sentence construction. And of the paragraph; and of the chapter hook. Hell, the guy knows how to write, and his gift for the clear, gliding turn of phrase secretes his latest… Continue reading Later
*(this review originally appeared on Cinema Sentries)* Allow me to state this upfront: In Lady Sings the Blues (1972; dir. Sidney J. Furie), Diana Ross gives a colossal performance as troubled jazz singer Billie "Lady Day" Holiday (1914-1959). But for Ross, the film would be a garden-variety showbiz bio-drama—a solid depiction of Holiday's drug woes… Continue reading Lady Sings the Blues
*(this review originally appeared on Cinema Sentries)* The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 is the backdrop for this handsomely mounted 1936 MGM production, which spends far too much time setting up a soapy melodrama. Beyond the quake itself, though, the lead performances are the show. Back when the term “movie star” meant something, Clark Gable… Continue reading San Francisco
*(this review originally appeared on Cinema Sentries)* The Pajama Game (1957) is very much of its time. That’s part of its charm. Adapted from a hit Broadway musical, it presents an odd mixture of elements. On the one hand, it’s a corny suite of musical numbers by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross of Damn Yankees!… Continue reading The Pajama Game
*(this review originally appeared on Cinema Sentries)* In the past few years, Netflix has enticed some of our best filmmakers—Joel & Ethan Coen, Alfonso Cuaron, David Fincher, and Martin Scorsese—to its stable, and no surprise: Decently paid, and promised final cut (or “creative control,” however that shakes out), these directors would be foolish to resist… Continue reading Mank
Jack Cormack 