Revolt of the Slaves (MGM), a 1961 Italian-made sword-and-sandal epic, is a remake of the story Fabiola, filmed twice as a silent picture and once as a big-budget 1949 production. Christians are being persecuted circa 250 A.D. Slave Vibio (Lang Jeffries) refuses to fight in the arena, incurring the wrath of his owner Fabio (Gino Cervi). Fabio’s daughter Claudia (Rhonda Fleming) has …
The Lady in the Van” (Sony Pictures Classics) is the story of writer Alan Bennett (Alex Jennings), who allows the elderly, cantankerous Miss Shepherd (Maggie Smith) to park the van in which she lives in his Camden Town driveway until she gets things “sorted out.” The temporary arrangement lasts 15 years. Based on Bennett’s 1989 memoir and 1999 …
The Revenant (20th Century-Fox) is set during the winter of 1823 on the Great Plains. This Alejandro Inarritu-directed film stars Leonardo Di Caprio as real-life Hugh Glass, a frontiersman hired as a scout to guide a team of fur trappers through harsh territory. The journey is plagued by Indians, bitter cold, and dangerous terrain. Glass keeps watch over his …
Only Angels Have Wings (The Criterion Collection), directed by Howard Hawks, stars Cary Grant as daredevil pilot Geoff Carter, the manager of a small post office in Barranca, Colombia, where pilots fly the mail to hard-to-reach places over the Andes Mountains. The planes badly need …
Key Largo (Warner Archive) stars Humphrey Bogart as ex-GI Frank McCloud, who visits the widow (Lauren Bacall) and father (Lionel Barrymore) of a man who died under his command. They run a hotel in the Florida Keys, and when McCloud arrives, he discovers that sadistic mobster Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) and his henchmen have …
The Great Hypnotist (Well Go USA) is a supernatural mystery thriller from China. Dr. Xu Ruining (Xu Zheng, who also directs) is a nationally renowned therapist skilled in hypnotherapy whose new patient, Ren Xiaoyan (Karen Mok), brings him a difficult problem. In this particular case, the struggle between doctor and patient isn’t as easy as Dr. Xu expected. Despite her thin …
Dixieland (IFC Films) focuses on the plight of Kermit (Chris Zylka), newly released from prison, who returns to the impoverished town of Pearl, Mississippi. Though determined to steer clear of the law and lead a clean life, Kermit underestimates the grim influence of his surroundings. When he develops a relationship with a neighbor, Rachel (Riley Keough), who dances in a seedy …
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Walt Disney Studios), the most eagerly anticipated and most hyped motion picture of 2015, has taken in over two billion dollars in worldwide sales. Directed by J.J. Abrams from a script by Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote two of the original films, the new episode is set thirty years after the events in 1983’s Return of the Jedi and offers three new major characters as well as the return of characters from the original trilogy.
The Winter (IndiePix Films) is the story of young, impoverished writer Niko Gounaras (Theo Albanis), an immigrant in London who, to escape financial difficulties, leaves for his shabby family home in the Greek mountain town of Siatista, only to discover that the home has been abandoned and is now haunted by the ghosts of the past.
In The Hateful Eight (Anchor Bay), director Quentin Tarantino presents a Western set in post-Civil War Wyoming during a raging blizzard. Bounty hunter John Ruth (Kurt Russell) is in a stagecoach en route to Red Rock with his prisoner, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh), to deliver her to the authorities and collect a $10,000 reward. On the way, he encounters fellow bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren (Samuel …