ROGER CORMAN Bil’s rating (out of 5): BB. USA, 1990. The Mount Company. Screenplay by Roger Corman, F.X. Feeney, based on the novel by Brian Aldiss. Cinematography by Armando Nannuzzi, Michael Scott. Produced by Roger Corman, Kobi Jaeger, Thom Mount. Music by Carl Davis. Production Design by Enrico Tovaglieri. Costume Design by Franca Zucchelli. Film Editing by Mary Bauer, Jay Cassidy. Roger Corman returns…
Tag: John Hurt
Midnight Express
BBBB.5 (out of 5) A textbook example of the kind of movie that can be brilliant even if it is also total bullshit. Alan Parker directs an Oliver Stone script that adapts Billy Hayes’ account of spending five years in a Turkish prison for trying to take a whole body’s worth of heroin out of…
Manderlay
BB (out of 5) Lars von Trier’s proposed trilogy of observations of American society starts out strong with Dogville but moves on to a much less interesting second chapter (the third has yet to be produced at the time of this review). Forced to drop out of the project because of conflicting commitments, Nicole Kidman is replaced…
Jackie
BBBB (out of 5) Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain makes the film that should have marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy three years earlier, in place of the failed Parkland. Natalie Portman is surprisingly effective, despite a scant physical resemblance, as the First Lady who is suddenly relieved of her position when her husband is murdered on…
Hercules (2014)
BBBB (out of 5) The man of legend, venerated in Greek mythology and the subject of many an animated series, gladiator movie and even a Disney film has returned to the big screen and the truth will be revealed. Is Hercules the demigod that his storytelling nephew tells everyone he is, or just a mercenary…
Snowpiercer (2013)
JOON-HO BONG Bil’s rating (out of 5): BB.5. South Korea/Czech Republic/USA/France, 2013. SnowPiercer, Moho Film, Opus Pictures, Stillking Films, CJ E&M Film Financing & Investment Entertainment & Comics, CJ Entertainment. Screen story by Joon-ho Bong, Screenplay by Joon-ho Bong, Kelly Masterson, based on the Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand, Jean-Marc Rochette. Cinematography by Kyung-pyo Hong. Produced by Miky Lee, Steven…
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2
BB.5 (out of 5) Seven books, eight movies and a whole heck of a lot of merchandising finally come down to a final adventure featuring the plucky young wizard and his best friends going head to head with a noseless evil who looks like a tapeworm. After mooning about without doing anything interesting for three…
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 1
B.5 (out of 5) Films that began as a series of imaginative adventures have descended into self-important, jargon-spouting fan conventions that defy all manner of patience. This adaptation of half of J.K. Rowling’s final literary chapter in one of the most popular book franchises in publishing history is much ado about nothing, an opportunity to…
Melancholia
BB.5 (out of 5) Lars Von Trier goes for epic grandeur but never quite reaches the limits of his magnificent scope with this science-fiction melodrama. The first half takes place at a wedding being held at a ritzy golf course, where bride Kirsten Dunst is unable to shake off her massive depression enough to be satisfied…
Dogville
BBBB.5 (out of 5) Lars Von Trier has made his most audacious film yet with this powerful drama, whose most extreme moments are so over the top as to actually make them humorous. It takes place in a tiny American mountain town in the thirties but uses a theatrical approach to its setting, with all…
Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer
BB.5 (out of 5) Tiresome adaptation of the novel by Patrick Suskind, about a young boy born under a table in a fish market and raised by luck and chance into adulthood in possession of a singular talent: he has an uncanny ability to detect scent about as well as the best bloodhound. What should…
The Oxford Murders
B.5 (out of 5) Elijah Wood shows up at Oxford to study mathematics and, almost within minutes of arriving, finds himself embroiled in a web of murders. While running from victim to victim trying to make the connections that might solve the case, he also sparks up an affair with sexy Leonor Watling and befriends a…
