1974

[7] A married couple who’ve made a game out of sexual conquest invite a younger married couple over for dinner. There’s much more in store for the evening, though, especially when booze and poppers slick the way for same-sex seduction. Some might call Score pornographic, but there’s far too much storytelling and craftsmanship put into the movie to dismiss it so quickly. While director Radley …

[8] Indie maverick John Cassavetes examines a family under the stress of mental illness in A Woman Under the Influence. Cassavetes regulars Peter Falk and Gena Rowlands (his real-life wife) star as the parents of three children whose family is put to the test when Falk has Rowlands institutionalized for insanity. After six months of therapy and shock treatment, the matriarch returns — but will …

[7] F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most required reading is faithfully script-adapted by Francis Ford Coppola, with Jack Clayton directing a production as lavish as required for the story of the uber-wealthy but mysterious Jay Gatsby. We enter into Gatsby’s opulent world through the eyes of Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway. Robert Redford is superbly cast as the reticent but disarming Gatsby, who ends up roping Carraway …

[7] If you can get past the ghastly sight of swarthy Sean Connery running around in a red diaper for two hours, you might enjoy this heady sci-fi flick from writer/director John Boorman (Excalibur, Deliverance). It’s the year 2293 and Connery plays Zed, a man whose God, Zardoz, raised him to be a savage killer. But when Zed stows away to another world, he comes …

[4] Patrick Dennis’ 1955 best-selling novel Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade was first adapted into a stage play, then a film starring Rosalind Russell, and then a stage musical, and then into Mame, a film musical starring Lucille Ball. All the versions follow young orphaned Patrick’s adventures with his only remaining living relative, an eccentric aunt with a zest for life and a flare for …

[6] Dack Rambo and Rebecca Dianna Smith star as a young couple who playfully escape their wedding party and retreat to a hotel in the Louisiana bayou where they accidentally witness a murder and become the killers’ next targets. After an initial attack in which Smith is raped, the couple find their relationship tested to the breaking point. Rambo decides to hunt down the killers …

[2] This low-rent, paint-by-numbers snooze-fest features a foursome of estranged family members brought together to the eponymous location after the death of their matriarch. But little do they know someone in the house is practicing voodoo magic to kill everyone off one by one. Will they find out who the killer is? Will you give a shit if they do? I didn’t. The House on …

[6] The stakes are lower than usual and the action in short supply, but Roger Moore’s second outing as James Bond almost makes up for it in character. The colorful supporting cast includes Christopher Lee as a three-nippled baddie and diminutive Hervé Villechaize (TV’s Fantasy Island) as his lethal handy-man. Britt Ekland and Maud Adams are the Bond girls this time around, and I’d rank both of …

[7] An unusual sequel of sorts, The Godfather Part II spends equal time in the past and the present, exploring the early life of Vito Corleone (with Robert DeNiro taking over the mantle from Marlon Brando) while also following the continuing story of Vito’s son Michael (Al Pacino reprises his role). Thematically and emotionally, the movie plays like a long and redundant epilogue to the first …

[4] Based on a story by Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot is about the crew of a German submarine and the survivors of a ship they torpedoed banding together on a mysterious island full of dinosaurs and cave people. The British production takes a long while to get to the island, so much so that it feels like an entirely different movie …

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