[6] Nastassja Kinski stars in this slow-moving tale of a woman who discovers her sexual urges transform her into a black leopard. Kinski learns her brother, played by Malcolm McDowell, shares the same curse and wants to forge a sexual (and incestuous) relationship with her so they can both experience sex without killing their partners. But Kinski ends up having the hots for a zoo-keeper …
[7] Guillermo del Toro serves up a fantasy love story set in the 1960s in which a mute janitor at a top-secret research facility falls in love with… well, a fish man. Sally Hawkins plays the janitor and Doug Jones (a Del Toro regular) plays the fish. Hawkins is endearing and Jones is always reliable, but the supporting players outshine them here. Richard Jenkins is great …
[3] Two Los Angeles couples partake in a seance, not realizing their medium, Count Yorga, is a vampire with intentions of adding the women to his harem. One of the couples, Paul and Erica, take the vampire home and have no memory of what happened afterwards. But when Paul finds Erica chowing down on the family kitten the next day, he’s pretty sure something is …
[8] Writer/director Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper) picks up the reigns and steers the franchise into bold, new waters with an entry that summons Star Wars fans to let go of the past and wipe the slate clean, so that something new can begin to grow. After the fan-pandering Episode VII, something new and unpredictable was exactly what I craved in a Star Wars movie. Johnson …
[7] Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast is ripe with indelible images of pure fantasy. That it was achieved with a modest budget in post-war France makes it even more impressive. The sets are exquisite — you’ll find them echoed in Ridley Scott’s Legend and Tim Burton’s Edward Scissorhands. I especially love the human arms that hold the candelabras out from the castle walls. Very …
[6] From a technical and artistic point of view, this may be the finest animated film ever made. But it’s also dull. I dislike how the three floating fat ladies (Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather) steal the show, while the prince and princess are given all the personality of tree stumps. Fortunately, artistry goes a long way. Sleeping Beauty is Disney’s most exquisite work. I love …
[5] When an eccentric toymaker dies, he leaves his factory in the hands of his warmongering brother (Michael Gambon). As the company slowly turns into a weapons manufacturer, it’s up to the toymaker’s son (Robin Williams) to set things right. A long-time passion project for director Barry Levinson (Rain Man), Toys is a visually stunning achievement full of bright, bold, imaginitive sets. The soundtrack is also …
[7] Producer Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters) wrangled together animation companies from around the world to assemble Heavy Metal, a string of six animated shorts based on the popular adult fantasy magazine. The stories are tied together by a loose framing device involving an ominous green orb that destroys everything it encounters. My personal favorite sequences are “B-17”, which depicts a zombie attack aboard a WWII bomber …
[7] In this potpourri of Middle-Eastern folklore, a banished king (John Justin) and a street boy (Sabu) team up to stop an evil magician (Conrad Veidt) from marrying a beautiful princess (June Duprez). The Thief of Bagdad tries to combine everything you can imagine from “Arabian Nights”, including the Genie and the magic carpet. Disney certainly used this classic as a springboard for their own …
[7] SPOILER REVIEW: Technically, there are spoilers in this review. But if you look at the movie’s credits, you shouldn’t be surprised by them. Although we’ll probably never really know for sure, it looks to me like Joss Whedon saved Justice League from Zack Snyder. The movie has character and heart and it’s paced like a real movie, whereas Snyder’s movies lack character and heart, and, …
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