THE DANMAN CAN

Delta Space Mission (1984) is a trippy Romanian gem and it's very worth your time if you like beautiful, bizarre animation and vintage synth soundscapes. Recommended for fans of Fantastic Planet (1973), Son Of The White Mare (1981),  The Point   (1971) ( review ), Danger Mouse (1981–1992), and early Sesame Street (1969–present) animated shorts.

At its core,  The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue   (aka  Let Sleeping Corpses Lie ) (1974) is Spanish director  Jorge Grau 's version of  Night Of The Living Dead   (1968) ( review ). That’s not meant as a slight. Grau takes the same sociopolitical approach that  Romero  did in many of his horror films—in this case to comment on pollution, agriculture, and the police state—and uses it as a springboard to showcase grisly makeup f/x by Italian gore-master  Giannetto De Rossi , who would use many of the same techniques and gags in  Fulci 's  Zombie  ( review ) five years later. In fact, its quite striking how much the atmosphere in the earlier  Manchester Morgue  resembles that Fulci film, along with his 1980 film  The City Of The Living Dead  ( review ). It also precedes both Romero's  Dawn Of The Dead  (1978) ( review ) and  Zombie —concerning its display of gut munching, entrail ripping...

1988's Slime City   arrived during the "melt movie" boom of the mid to late '80s. It's not as good as the reigning king of that micro-genre,  Street Trash   (1987) ( review ), the big budget  The Blob  remake from the same year ( review ),  Larry Cohen 's  The Stuff   (1985) ( review ), or even the later  Body Melt  (1993) ( review ), but it's a commendable little goopy indie horror film. Frank Henenlotter ,  Stuart Gordon ,  David Cronenberg , and  Sam Raimi  were clear influences on  Greg Lamberson  for his debut feature, which lacks the finesse of any of those directors' work (even Henenlotter, ha), but there is a certain charm to the subpar effects work, the stilted performances (particularly Mary Huner attempting to be seductive in her late '80s  Cher  outfit), the awkwardly framed shots, and the poor lighting and production design (I use that term loosely here). I will say that the scor...

I guess there’s just two kinds of people. My kind of people (who love John Waters ' 1972 film  Pink Flamingos ) and assholes. John Waters Feature Films Ranked My Criterion Top 10 [Vol. 7]

Uncle Sam (1996), William Lustig 's final film (to date), is only marginally better than Maniac Cop 3: Badge Of Silence   (1993) (where the director took an Alan Smithee credit), which is his worst. The film has a very similar premise to Bob Clark 's Deathdream (1974) [ review ], which is a better movie. That's because Uncle Sam  "is incoherent as social satire and perfunctory and routine as a horror film" (to quote the The A.V. Club ). However, it is a lot of fun. The gore is lacking, the acting is not great (despite the presence of a number of solid genre actors), and the logic is mostly non-existent, but there are many laugh out loud moments.  US  provides the same kind of enjoyment gleaned from 1997's Jack Frost  [ review ], which clashes with the rest of Lustig's oeuvre (where, despite limitations, he made better use of budgets and production values), but this little slasher is a good time regardless. William Lustig Films Ranked

James Bond Feature Films Ranked

I love Steven Soderbergh 's  Out Of Sight (1998). I've always loved this film. It's my favorite Elmore Leonard adaptation. Along with Jackie Brown  the year before it, OOS was responsible for my fascination with Leonard novels. I believe I saw 1995's  Get Shorty  prior to either of those films but it wasn't until JB  and OOS  that I really started paying attentions and then buying many of Leonard's books. (And wow—all three of those great Leonard adaptations arrived within a three-year span!) GS is a fun one, and JB is a masterpiece in its own right because it manages to be both one of the best Leonard adaptations and still feel like a Quentin Tarantino film (it's my second favorite by him). But OOS  is the most authentic Leonard adaptation, as if it's ripped straight from the pages of his 1996 novel  (and really just perfectly captures that "Elmore Leonard feel").  OOS  is effortlessly cool, charming, sexy, and stylish. Some of the...

Sam Mendes Feature Films Ranked James Bond Feature Films Ranked

Blade Runner  (1982) is one of those films that is worthy of hyperbole—it's one of my  Top 100 Films  (#19). It operates at peak level in every department—the assured direction by  Ridley Scott , the existential screenplay by  Hampton Fancher  and  David Peoples , the gorgeous cinematography by  Jordan Cronenweth , the incredible production design by  Lawrence G. Paull , the beautiful synthesized score by  Vangelis , and the complex performances of  Harrison Ford ,  Sean Young , and, in particular,  Rutger Hauer . Some viewers find  BR  to be an exercise in style over substance, but I don't agree. The film presents its themes in broad strokes, without the need for minute detail (at least in the script; the level of detail that went into the production is astounding). It's a slower moving film punctuated by short bursts of action, focusing more on its characters and their "human" desires. BR  underperformed a...