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Based on an Elmore Leonard novel and directed by Martin Ritt (NORMA RAE), HOMBRE is the typical kind of Western of the ‘60s and ‘70s. Genre films were safe arenas to tackle political and social issues of the day without being directly obvious with the message.

Simply put the film is a stagecoach hold-up combined with a siege tale. John Russell (Paul Newman, THE STING) is a white man who was raised by Indians. He’s soft-spoken, but quick to use violence. He’s cold and distant. He doesn’t get involved in other people’s business, putting himself first. His dual ethnicity gives him an interesting perspective. He inherits a boarding house and decides to sell it. This puts its manager Jessie (Diane Cilento, THE WICKER MAN) out of work. This is the first bit of tension that is attached to the stagecoach ride.

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For film trivia fans this film was the first film to receive an NC-17 rating. Based on a book by Anaïs Nin, the film chronicles Nin’s relationships with writer Henry Miller and his wife June.

Nin is played by Maria de Medeiros (PULP FICTION) with Miller played by Fred Ward (SHORT CUTS) and Uma Thurman (KILL BILL) playing June. Nin is married to a slightly prudish banker named Hugo Guiler (Richard E. Grant, WITHNAIL & I), who she loves but isn’t excited about. When Miller comes into her life, she is sexually as well as artistically awakened. Miller’s passion for June is his muse for writing TROPIC OF CANCER and Nin soon becomes infatuated with her as well. June is sexy and mysterious, which makes her very intriguing.

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French filmmaker George Sluizer’s character-based thriller is compelling on so many levels. The film opens up with an introduction to the young couple Rex Hofman (Gene Bervoets) and Saskia Wagter (Johanna ter Steege, IMMORTAL BELOVED). A common argument sets up a tension that drives the narrative and displays a fine eye for human nature. It’s a petty fight that Rex will come to regret for the rest of his life.

Rex and Saskia come to a rest stop on their way to the country. Then we are quietly introduced to Raymond Lemorne (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu), a shady character that we know is up to no good. Then Saskia vanishes and Rex becomes distraught. From here we flashback to Lemorne meticulously planning his crime, which is fascinating in its detail. Then we move ahead three years from the crime and witness Rex’s obsession with finding out what happened to Saskia. Lemorne taunts Rex with letters to meet with him. Rex is driven more by the nagging desire to know what happened than revenge.
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From what I have read, based is the key word in the phrase “based on the Michael Crichton novel” when one describes this film.

The movie opens with an archeological dig where Prof. E.A. Johnston (Billy Connolly, MRS. BROWN) searches for clues about a famed battle between Lord Oliver of England (Michael Sheen, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN) and Lord Arnaut of France (Lambert Wilson, CATWOMAN). The dig is funded by a mega-corporation run by Robert Doniger (David Thewlis, HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN). He has devised a teleportation machine that he hopes will put Fed Ex out of business. However, when the machine crosses wormholes, well, lets just say things end up in the past.

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Where the blame lies for the disaster that is this film, I am not quite sure I know. It would be an easy target to say it’s Hollywood execs remaking a foreign film and sucking out everything that made it good. However, the film was directed by Takashi Shimizu, the creator of the original JU-ON series, which this film is based on.

Having seen all four films in the original series, I can say that this film plays for the most part like Gus Van Sant’s PSYCHO, a shot for shot remake of the original. The film is like a highlight reel of the “scariest” moments from the entire series.

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Made for $218 on an iMac, Jonathan Caouette transforms home videos and stills, amateur short films and interviews into a personal diary film that holds true power.

Caouette tells the story of his mother Renee Leblanc through home footage edited in an experimental way. Leblanc was a beauty and was modeling by age 12. However, a fall from the garage left her paralyzed. A neighbor of her parents Rosemary and Adolph told them the paralysis was in the girl’s mind. So Renee’s parents took her to a psychiatrist who advised Renee’s parents to give her shock therapy, which she received two times a week for years. Renee recovered from the paralysis, but sunk into a variety of mental illnesses. She married young and her husband Steve left before Jonathan was even born.

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Hands down the best film ever based on a TV series, THE FUGITIVE is a wonder thriller that combines nice action with original characters.

Dr. Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK) has been convicted of murdering his wife. He claims to be innocent and that a one-armed man did the crime. As a result of an amazing action sequence involving a prison bus and a train, Kimble escapes and sets out to find out more about the one-armed man. Meanwhile, U.S. marshals led by Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones, MEN IN BLACK) take over the mission to recapture Kimble.

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One of the first films to really deal with mental illness as a feature topic on screen, THE SNAKE PIT is brought to life through its amazing central performance by Olivia de Havilland (GONE WITH THE WIND), who plays Virginia Stuart Cunningham, a woman who has suffered a mental breakdown.

The film begins with Virginia in an asylum suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, unable to even remember her husband Robert (Mark Stevens, OBJECTIVE, BURMA!) or even how long she was been in the institution. Her doctor Mark Kik (Leo Genn, THE LONGEST DAY) cannot get through to her, so he begins shock treatment to “awaken” her. Eventually, the treatment unclouds Virginia’s mind enough that her and Dr. Kik can delve into the source of her mental hang-ups.

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John Ford’s THE SEARCHERS is considered one of the best Westerns ever made by many critics. It was ranked 96th on the AFI’s 100 Greatest American Films. The film made SIGHT & SOUND magazine’s coveted top ten list in 1982 and 1992. That poll asks critics every decade what they believe are the 10 best films of all time. Director Ford is considered one of the best, influencing filmmakers like Orson Welles, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard.

But I try not to hold influence as top criteria for judging the quality of a film. Quentin Tarantino has been influenced by a lot of crappy films, but I’m not going to go out and say that SWITCHBLADE SISTERS is a masterpiece. I’m not saying that THE SEARCHERS is awful, but its flawed in such a way that it’s hard for me to overlook those flaws. Yet, the film still works remarkably well.

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Federico Fellini as a director had two periods in his career. His early work takes a neo-realistic approach while his later work is absurdist and surreal. His film 8 1/2 is the bridging film in his resume that makes the shift from realism to surrealism. SATYRICON definitely falls into the latter category.

Part historical drama, part modern social satire, the film follows two students Encolpio (Martin Potter, NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA) and Ascilto (Hiram Keller) as they stumble through 25 distinct adventures in ancient Rome. We first meet them as they are fighting over the affections of the boy Gitone (Max Born, only screen performance). Throughout the film, Encolpio finds himself at an orgy-like party, sold as a slave, married off to a gladiator, taken prisoner, having a three-some with a slave girl, enlisted in the army that leads to meeting a nymphomaniac in the desert, kidnapping an albino hermaphrodite healer, committing murder, facing a minotaur, being forced to impregnate a queen, visiting a witch and partaking in a very strange last request.

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