A homicidal maniac, riddled with police bullets and failing on the operating table, is given an untested regenerative serum and becomes, overnight, an invulnerable superman. Chuck Norris is the Texas sheriff (he actually uses the expression "dad gum") who must deal with this unusual problem, when he isn't single-handedly destroying …
Unflinching depiction (unflinching enough for most sensibilities, anyway) of the alley-cat existence of a rock-and-roll low-lifer in Lower Manhattan: where is the next meal coming from? the next bed? the next pipe dream? It is not too hard to take: there is an appalled sense of humor beneath it all, …
Richard Pryor as a G.I. Joe who falls into the hands of the Viet Cong and, after years of holding out, signs a treasonous "confession" in order to procure medical aid for his dying cellmate, who dies anyway; returns home to find that his wife is in love with another …
A boil-down of a large William Styron novel, and an intransigently literary movie. The growth of the bond between the central trio — Stingo, the aspiring young Southern novelist (and narrator of the tale); Sophie, the beautiful Polish-Catholic concentration-camp victim; Nathan, her volatile Jewish lover — is quite lifelike and …
Follows the same itinerary as Ticket to Heaven -- the transformation of a vibrant young man into, and out of, the blissful zombiedom of a religious cult -- and seems to rely on the same sources of information, down to such fine points as the communal sing-alongs and the chaperoned …
Good-natured kidding of movie musicals, as an Australian barmaid becomes, in the prescribed manner and with a minimum of trouble, a New Wave sensation. Playful and energetic, but also somewhat facile and soft-headed. The pivotal locale is an attractively tiled and formicaed pub; gaudiness tends to prevail elsewhere. The characters …
Slimmer, faster, but not better than the original Star Trek movie. The larger scale and contemplative tempo of the earlier one were perfectly suited to a ten-year reunion party and to the unveiling of the new suits and hardware. With those formalities out of the way, the follow-up can just …
Or more specifically, the state of the art. Wim Wenders's exercise in self-analysis is, firstly, a rumination on the importance of story. On the one hand: "Stories only exist in stories, whereas life goes by without the need to turn into stories." But: "Life without stories -- it isn't worth …
Well-crafted suspense film from a technical stand-point, but not from a narrative one. The technique derives from Hitchcock, with much subjective camerawork, and with a few specific signposts to help point the way: an auction scene out of North by Northwest, a dream scene out of Spellbound, an icy blond …
A lushly lipped and eyebrowed American pretty-boy (Peter Gallagher) goes on holiday to the homeland of Dionysus, and experiences personal liberation in the form of public skinny-dipping, bondage and hot wax, and the ménage à trois of his dreams. Randal Kleiser's dialogue attains a directness and simpleness seldom found outside …
The first half of the title refers to a triple-bladed trick weapon (two of the blades are push-button projectiles, and an additional, fourth blade is concealed in the hilt), and the second half to a genie in a fright mask who speaks at 16 rpm. Neither is put to very …
A familiarity with Shakespeare's The Tempest might be a source of annoyance for purists, but the more licentious will probably be impressed at how facilely Paul Mazursky makes the play adjust to, and disappear beneath, the mid-life crisis of a prosperous Manhattan architect. Only as the end draws near does …
That this comes out of the Disney Studio is a distraction that would be better put, if at all possible, out of mind. If we feel specially inclined, on grounds of its origins, to give bonus points for its frank acknowledgment of such phenomena as Middle-American class-consciousness — unfit parents, …
Who on earth (or off it) could have felt the necessity to re-do Howard Hawks's sci-fi classic? Since the answer to that seems to be John Carpenter, the question becomes: hasn't Carpenter paid sufficient tribute to Hawks on other occasions? But perhaps Carpenter wanted to disconnect himself from Hawks by …
In four short years, John Carpenter followed his wholeheartedly fearsome Shatner-masked mutation with the unseen terror of homichlophobia before confronting the ultimate in evil: a heedless remake of one of horror cinema’s Pantheonic achievements, The Thing From Another World. Filmmakers Christian Nyby and Howard Hawks went out of their way …