Whenever I admit that I actually enjoy this flick, I get this uncomprehending LOOK, followed by, “And you call yourself a FILM CRITIC?” No, I call myself Monica. Under threat of social torture, I will confess to being a movie reviewer, but that's a full step away from what I really am, a movie buff who doesn't care a hoot whether my opinion on a flick is shared or not. …
The films of Danish director Carl Theodor Dreyer require considerable patience from audiences, even horror film devotees. To a certain extent, Dreyer anticipates the viewers’ perceptions and plays with them. (In a slow way.) (Very slow.) Vampyr, AKA The Strange Adventure of David Gray, stars the film's backer, Baron Nicholas de Gunzberg, AKA Julien West. T…
The Vanishing is one of the saddest, most chilling movies ever made. The first part of the plot focuses on a young Dutch couple embarking on a holiday. Their relationship has slid into one of easy intimacy. They talk of inconsequentials, they bicker, they get separated for part of an evening because of car trouble. We learn that Saskia (charmingly portrayed by Johanna Ter Steege) is …
If you wanted to send away for My Dinner with Andre action figures when you saw Waiting for Guffman, you'll probably find Vanya on 42nd Street an equally rewarding experience. Louis Malle's swan song shows a 1993 rehearsal at New York's New Amsterdam theatre of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, adapted by David Mamet. Wallace Shawn acquits himself admirably in the title role…
1950's Variety Lights is often overlooked and underrated by Federico Fellini buffs, partly because he shared directing credit on this maiden effort with Alberto Lattuada. But it is a jewel of a film to discover on a video shelf. Carla Del Poggio is its beautiful but not particularly talented protagonist. She wants to be a star and the terribly smitten Peppino de Felippo wants her. Giulietta…
The making of Vegas in Space reveals how difficult assembling a truly independent film really is. The enormously talented, much-missed Doris Fish (1952–91) spent the last nine years of his life helping writer/director Philip R. Ford complete the project, three years before its premiere. It may have seemed like a fun thing to do after a successful party given by future c…
Among my favorite not-so-guilty pleasures is watching the early films of television's most iconographic heroes. Before his image congealed into sterling saintliness on the small screen, Raymond Burr was one of the toughest thugs you could ever find on the late, late, late show. And you haven't lived until you've seen William Talman play a vicious killer or a religious maniac. …
Victim was an important film in 1961 when homosexuality was still illegal in Great Britain. Actor Dirk Bogarde was then famous as everybody's favorite Dr. Simon Sparrow in a series of four medical comedy films he made between 1954 and 1963. At the time, his decision to play a gay barrister might have called a halt to his thriving career. It didn't, but it certainly marked a professio…
Victory March, filmed in Italy, is a savage examination of military life. Although there are no deaths until the final moment, it drew extended hissing at 1976's San Francisco International Film Festival, largely because director/screenwriter Marco Bellocchio also dabbles with another theme: the greatest enforcers of violence may be its greatest victims. He draws back from exploring …
Wolf Rilla's vintage 1960 chiller, Village of the Damned, based on John Wyndham's novel, The Midwich Cuckoos, was shot in creepy black and white and focused on the efforts of an unlikely married couple to humanize their weird offspring. (Well, if you were 27 years old, gorgeous, brilliant, and sensitive like Barbara Shelley, would 54-year-old GEORGE SANDERS be on YOUR short li…
The trial of Violette Noziere was among the most notorious in French legal history. On August 23, 1934, 19-year-old Violette poisoned her father's coffee with 20 tablets of Veronal. After she gave her mother six tablets, she took a nap until two the following morning, turned on the gas stove, stole 1,000 francs from her mother and yelled for help, adding that the pipe attached to the stove …
A Virgin Named Mary is an effective and amusing religious satire by Sergio Nasca, who also made 1974's The Profiteer.
Punk/film noir style in which a female private eye becomes immersed in corporate paranoia and political corruption.
This extremely sad film is based on one of the most disgraceful episodes of World War II. In 1939, the S.S. St. Louis, a ship full of Jewish refugees, left Germany for asylum in Cuba. When they reached their destination, they were not allowed to disembark. Refugee organizations tried to intercede on their behalf, but no country would permit them to land, including the United States. Many passenger…