Shameless Self Expression

The story of Grigori Rasputin, the bearded and wild-eyed disgraced monk and supposed healer, who hypnotises the lady-in-waiting (Barbara Shelley) of the Russian Tzarina (Renee Asherson) and causes her to injure young Prince Alexei. This is in order to give Rasputin the opportunity to heal the boy and earn the Tzarina’s unwavering trust so that he can manipulate her to gain further power and influence! Richard Pasco plays Dr. Zargo, the alcoholic doctor Rasputin manipulates into being the Tzarina’s personal physician. Francis Matthews is Ivan, whose sister (Suzan Farmer) is another lady-in-waiting.   Entirely unsubtle and not especially historically accurate, this 1966 Hammer film from director Don Sharp ( “The Brides of Fu Manchu” , “Bear Island” ) and screenwriter Anthony Hinds ( “Captain Clegg” , “Taste the Blood of Dracula” , “Scars of Dracula” ) is nonetheless memorable. The chief reason for this is the wild-eyed, bellowing performance by Christopher Lee. Nowhere near the g...

Sly Stallone is an FBI agent whose destructive turn towards the bottle after a serial killer does away with his wife (Dina Meyer) sees his buddy Charles S. Dutton recommend a stint in a detox centre. Run by a gruff Kris Kristofferson, this is no ordinary rehab clinic, however. All the patients are traumatised cops (Kristofferson is also a cop), and the clinic is in a remote, snowy area of Wyoming. Unfortunately, Stallone doesn’t have much time for treatment when it appears the elusive serial killer has re-appeared and bumping everyone off. At first, the deaths are treated as the suicides they’ve been arranged to look like, but it doesn’t take long for Stallone to catch on. There appears to be a killer amongst the cops, which makes sense given the killer (aside from murdering Meyer) was always known to be a cop-killer. Meanwhile, there’s an horrendous snow storm outside, too, making escape very difficult. So, who is the culprit? Crusty old Robert Prosky? Hostile hard-arse Robert Patrick...

Set in the late 50s, impressionable young Sissy Spacek hooks up with emotionless bad boy Martin Sheen (whose resemblance to James Dean is always commented upon in the film), who leads her on a killing spree in South Dakota. Warren Oates is solid as Spacek’s stern dad who takes an instant disliking to Sheen.   Quite well-acted and fairly interesting 1973 Terrence Malick ( “Days of Heaven” , “The Thin Red Line” ) take on the Starkweather-Fugate case unfortunately hasn’t aged quite so well. It all seemed a bit romantic and laidback, too heavy on symbolism for my taste. Sheen’s character’s resemblance to James Dean is an interesting idea, however. Spacek plays her role pretty well, but her ‘Dear Diary’-style narration is a constant annoyance, when a more straightforward approach would’ve been much better, and complemented the stark photography by Tak Fujimoto ( “Silence of the Lambs” , “Philadelphia” ), Stevan Larner ( “The Buddy Holly Story” , “Steelyard Blues” ), and Brian Probyn...

Naive, somewhat bumbling young Joan Fontaine falls for somewhat prickly British nobleman Maxim de Winter (Lord Laurence Olivier), and quickly moves in with and marries him. She spends the rest of the film living (in the family estate dubbed Manderley) hopelessly in the constant shadow of the former Mrs. de Winter, who recently died a tragic death that Mr. de Winter can’t quite get over. Meanwhile, leering about, with a constant disapproving sneer is housekeeper Mrs. Danvers (an imperious Dame Judith Anderson), who was exceptionally devoted to the late Mrs. de Winter, instantly takes a disliking to the newer model, and appears to be harbouring many a secret. These secrets of the past are certain to be uncovered, especially once Rebecca’s favourite cousin George Sanders turns up, a possible blackmailer who cynically loathes Mr. de Winter, whom he suspects of having played a part in the death of the first Mrs. de Winter. Florence Bates is constantly irritating as Fontaine’s condescending,...