J.D. Dawes (Chuck Norris) has just returned to his home in California after a long-term trucking job in Alaska. His little brother Billy (Michael Augenstein) idolizes him and wants to be a truck driver, too, so J.D. lets him deliver a load of frozen foods by himself — T.V. dinners, more specifically, a fact that hilariously comes into…
Because 1962 was still in the grips of the 1950s, Panic in Year Zero touts the benefits of survival through rampant commercialism. Harry, who very sensibly takes about a thousand bucks in cash with him on fishing trips, soon realizes that there’s nothing in L.A. to go back to, and money is all they’ve got to help them survive. He systematically purchases guns, gas and food… or at least tries to, but is thwarted at every turn by raging selfishness, like when a hardware store owner doesn’t want to take his $200 check. Hey, Harry’s just trying to screw the guy over, as is his God-given right. What’s the problem?
While the link between Westerns and noir films is well documented, very few films have been as literal as Station West in borrowing tropes from one genre and superimposing them onto another.
Fritz Lang’s Spies (Spione, 1928) is gorgeous, as all of Lang’s silents are, full of art deco designs and sharp-edged shadows and perfectly posed extras set amongst some truly stunning visual effects, impressive today, but so incredible at the time that they must have been nearly indistinguishable from magic.
Stanley Kramer was one of the few producers who could make earnest social problem films really work; the melodrama in Pressure Point is a feature, not a bug.
Hitch Hike (Autostop rosso sangue) (1977) is one of the more original and esoteric of the 1970s exploitation flicks, primarily thanks to the unpredictable relationship that develops between Adam, Eve and Walter.
It’s the dawn of the 1980s, and the upper-class hippie holdouts of Marin County, California are snarking and screwing their way through life, certain that health foods and open marriages will save their souls while blissfully unaware that they’re emotionally and psychologically adrift.
Fantômas, a series of five films by Louis Feuillade released in 1913 and 1914, follows the eponymous criminal as he steals, seduces and murders his way through Paris. Based on a popular pulp novel series of the same name…
Darling Lili is a beautiful film, with some fine aerial shots during the battle scenes, some truly fantastic costuming, plus gorgeous sets and lighting.
To modern eyes, Hustle tries way too hard to be edgy, though it’s all in the service of creating a gritty take on films noir and early police dramas.