Virus
Produced in 1980, Kinji Fukasaku’s apocalyptic downer peers into the distant future of 1982 to imagine a virus wiping out the earth’s population. A number of civilians and military stationed in...
View ArticleThe Trial of Billy Jack
The second in Tom Laughlin’s increasingly idiosyncratic Billy Jack trilogy, this three hour sequel is a passionate if ungainly political diatribe that touches on everything from Native American rights...
View ArticleThe Strawberry Statement
The 1968 student demonstrations at New York’s Columbia University are fictionalized and relocated to San Francisco in Stuart Hagmann’s no-nonsense polemic from 1970. Bruce Davison is a straight-laced...
View ArticleThe Night They Raided Minsky’s
TV’s Norman Lear produced William Friedkin’s good-natured farce about early American burlesque houses and the inadvertent invention of the striptease. Jason Robards plays a fast talking vaudevillian...
View ArticleThe Leather Boys
Audacious for 1964, Sidney Furie’s daring take on Kitchen Sink dramas stars Rita Tushingham as a young bride whose husband begins to show more interest in biker boys than herself. Based on Gillian...
View ArticleThe Lawyer
Probably best known as the basis for the TV series Petrocelli, Sidney Furie’s 1970 crime drama stars Barry Newman as an ambitious lawyer who makes his name in a high profile murder case. Diana Muldaur...
View ArticleThe Grasshopper
Best known for The Dick Dyke Show, director Jerry Paris manages to inject some needed humor in this bleak tale of broken dreams. Jacqueline Bisset plays an aspiring dancer who gets off on the wrong...
View ArticleThe Brave One
Based on a story by the then blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, Irving Rapper’s The Brave One is a heart tugging drama about a little Mexican boy named Leonardo and his bigger-than-life pet, a bull named...
View ArticleThe Appaloosa
Canadian born Sidney J. Furie directed this lightweight but entertaining horse opera right after his box office success with The Ipcress File in 1965. Marlon Brando plays a rancher on the trail of his...
View ArticleThat’s the Way of the World
In what could be another entry in “Movies You Never Heard Of”, Sig Shore’s musicalized drama tells the story of a funk band and their meteoric rise up the charts. Harvey Keitel plays their producer and...
View ArticleSuch Good Friends
Julie Messinger—accent on the “mess”—discovers her husband is a serial cheater whose conquests happen to be most of Julie’s best friends. Joan Didion and Joan Micklin Silver took their turns writing...
View ArticleStar!
1968’s Star!, a big budget biography of Gertrude Lawrence, was a risky endeavor, even with Robert Wise at the helm and Julie Andrews in the title role. The risk didn’t pay off—as one of the last...
View ArticleSoylent Green
Set in the distant future of 2022, Soylent Green is an ecological thriller with a twist ready-made for The Twilight Zone. Charlton Heston is a detective who discovers the synthetic food produced by the...
View ArticleSomething for Everyone
This black comedy has fallen by the wayside since its release in 1970 and considering its rich pedigree, it deserves another look. Directed by Harold Prince and written by Hugh Wheeler, Angela Lansbury...
View ArticleShort Cuts
After the unexpected success of 1992’s The Player, Altman directed one of his most acclaimed films, an intimate epic that features 22 separate characters adrift in the city of Angels. The massive cast...
View ArticleSheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York
Jeannie Berlin stars as Sheila, a misfit from Pennsylvania who finds New York’s dating scene no less daunting. Roy Scheider, on the cusp of superstardom in that year’s Jaws, plays a callous Romeo who...
View ArticleRhapsody in Blue
The composer George Gershwin died in 1937 and eight years later Hollywood paid tribute with this biography directed by Irving Rapper. The preponderance of musicians appearing as themselves, including...
View ArticleQuackser Fortune Has a Cousin in the Bronx
A distinctly ’70s movie, Waris Hussein’s film stars Gene Wilder as an Irish dung hauler who falls in love with an American student played by Margot Kidder. Supported by a sturdy cast of Irish actors...
View ArticlePuzzle Of A Downfall Child
Former Vogue photographer Jerry Schatzberg began his notable directorial career with this Bergmanesque tale of a fashion model’s nervous breakdown. Faye Dunaway plays the hard-partying fashion-plate...
View ArticleThe Sidelong Glances of a Pigeon Kicker
John Dexter directed this story about at a disaffected young cabbie, an older but no wiser incarnation of The Graduate’s Benjamin Braddock. Singer-actor Jordon Christopher plays Jonathan, the...
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