[7] Christian Slater and James Franco star in this true story about rival gay porn producers fighting over a rising star named Brent Corrigan (Garrett Clayton). Slater gives Corrigan his start, but when Corrigan learns he’s being paid peanuts compared to what his videos earn, he tries to escape Slater — and his contract. The legal battle gets ugly, eventually outing the two to family …
[6] Liam Neeson stars as an ex-CIA operative who pursues sex traffickers in Paris to rescue his kidnapped daughter. Taken opens with twenty minutes of clunky, expository screenwriting before Neeson is allowed to kick things into high gear. He single-handedly rescues this formula potboiler with a performance of fierce determination. Not since the likes of Clint Eastwood has an actor threatened to find and kill …
[7] Judi Dench plays a cranky old teacher who befriends a new, younger teacher played by Cate Blanchett. Blanchett quickly confides in the older woman and thinks she’s made a new friend. But Dench’s aims are more sinister than that. After Dench catches Blanchett in an extra-marital affair with an underaged student, she uses the knowledge to emotionally manipulate Blanchett. As Blanchett enters crisis mode, …
[7] William Dieterle (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Devil and Daniel Webster) directs and stars in this transgressive German silent film about a married couple who endure prolonged, maddening abstinence after the husband (Dieterle) is sentenced to three years in prison. While Dieterle develops a same-sex relationship with one of his cell mates, his wife (Mary Johnson) retreats into the arms of her kindly …
[6] Christian Bale (Empire of the Sun) plays a homicidal Wall Street playboy in this Bret Easton Ellis adaptation directed by Mary Harron. By day, Bale’s character, Patrick Bateman, engages in banal chit-chat with other yuppies. They compare dicks — I mean, business cards — and brag about elusive dinner reservations. But by night, Bateman one-ups them all in the contest to determine who’s the …
[7] Kerwin Mathews (The 7th Voyage of Sinbad) stars an American painter who strikes up an affair with mother and daughter barkeeps in rural France. He agrees to help them break their patriarch from an asylum where he’s been sentenced for murdering the daughter’s rapist with a blowtorch four years earlier. They go through with the plan, but come to regret it when they discover …
[5] Joan Crawford plays an impoverished woman who leaves her husband after a tragedy claims the life of their young son. Determined never to be poor again, she sleeps her way through a string of men to reach a higher social standing. But once she ingratiates herself with gangsters, she gets in over her head. The Damned Don’t Cry delivers the typical Joan Crawford character …
[7] Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) gives a powerhouse performance as a ruthless, court-appointed legal guardian who preys upon her elderly wards, draining their savings and selling off their assets for her own financial gain. But she finally meets her match in an elderly woman (Dianne Wiest) with a mysterious past whose dangerous acquaintance (Peter Dinklage) threatens to topple the profiteering empire Pike has built for …
[3] Boris Karloff stars as a doctor who transplants the brain of a gangster into the body of a dying professor (both played by Stanley Ridges), then tries to get the convalescing professor to remember — with his new brain — where the gangster hid half a million dollars. Once they visit the gangster’s old stomping grounds, the memories come flooding back and the professor …
[8] Barbara Stanwyck stars in this pre-code drama about a scrappy young nurse trying to save two sick children from an evil chauffeur (Clark Gable) whose poisoning them so he can marry their drunk mother (Charlotte Merriam) and steal their trust fund. Night Nurse is a great vehicle for Stanwyck, who spends the first half of the film befriending wise-cracking Joan Blondell and falling in …
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