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Stephen King has been a certifiable master of horror for decades, inspiring countless creatives from authors to artists to filmmakers and many, many more. His prolific writing is the subject of awe and mockery, but it’s undeniable that some of our favorite films of all time were born out of King’s eccentric mind. It’s only natural that the author would try his hand at directing after seeing his work adapted by so many others, and in 1986 his one and only directorial venture was released: Maximum Overdrive.

Based on King’s short story Trucks from the anthology Night Shift, Maximum Overdrive follows a group of survivors battling sentient machinery (mostly trucks) trying to take over the planet. It’s a wacky premise that could be an interesting commentary on the way the technologies we create ultimately subjugate us. Instead, it’s a chaotic B-movie full of logic gaps,...

Sex and swastikas! — that combo shows up in both trash cinema and high art. Luchino Visconti’s searing look at Nazi corruption sees an industrialist family torn apart by murderous greed and ambition worthy of the Borgias. The fiendish Countess Ingrid Thulin has raised a twisted son (Helmut Berger) to serve her deadly schemes; her path to power involves framing one heir for a killing while another rival is sacrificed in an SS massacre for the good of the Reich. The chilling treachery plays out at family dinner tables, in the offices of a steel mill, and in various bedrooms; Nazi fervor is equated with sex perversion. The uncut original version, remastered, also stars Dirk Bogarde, Helmut Griem, Renaud Verley, Umberto Orsini, René Koldehoff, Charlotte Rampling and Florinda Bolkan.

The Damned

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1098

1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 157 min. / La caduta degli dei, Götterdämmerung / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 28, 2021 / 39.95

Starring: Dirk Bogarde,...

She's beautiful, desired and enjoys a social mobility in the improving Italian economy... but she's also a pawn of cruel materialist values. Stefania Sandrelli personifies a liberated spirit who lives for the moment, but who can't form the relationships we call 'living.' Antonio Pietrangeli and Ettore Scola slip an insightful drama into the young Sandrelli's lineup of comedy roles. I Knew Her Well Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 801 1965 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 115 min. / Io la conoscevo bene / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 23, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Stefania Sandrelli, Mario Adorf, Jean-Claude Brialy, Joachim Fuchsberger, Nino Manfredi, Enrico Maria Salerno, Ugo Tognazzi, Karin Dor, Franco Nero. Cinematography Armando Nannuzzi Production design Maurizio Chiari Film Editor Franco Fraticelli Original Music Piero Picconi Written by Antonio Pietrangeli, Ruggero Maccari, Etore Scola Produced by Turi Vasile Directed by Antonio Pietrangeli

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Did a new kind of woman emerge in the 1960s?...

Love is most definitely not a many splendored thing in the bedazzled artifice of Rome’s swinging 60s, at least as far as the good time gal depicted in Antonio Pietrangeli’s obscure 1965 title I Knew Her Well is concerned. A director lost in the shadows of other 60s Italian auteurs, where names like Antonioni, Fellini, Petri, Pasolini, Risi, or Visconti dominate contemporary conversations of the cinematic period, Criterion enables the resuscitation of Pietrangeli, a director whose filmography, notable for his complex portraits of women (sort of like the Italian version of later period Mizoguchi), is deserving of wider renown.

Adriana (Stefania Sandrelli) is a young, beautiful woman who thrusts herself into the burgeoning social scene of Rome after fleeing her rural roots. A series of random lovers finds her elevating her occupational merits through a variety of professions before she begins to land opportunities as a model and budding actress,...

The robbery spree of ‘the machine gun soloist,’ as the real life smash-and-grab jewelry thief Luciano Lutring was dubbed by the exploitative inflammatory Italian press of the day, sprawled across Europe like a globetrotting Bonnie and Clyde, complete with wife, mistress, child, disguises and enough flippant flamboyancy to waste his stolen riches on whatever pleasure awaited around the corner. Just three months after Lutring’s final capture and subsequent 20 year prison sentence, director Carlo Lizzani went into production on a fly-by-night chronicle of Lutring’s criminal career. The result was Wake Up And Kill, a la nouvelle vague inspired, loose canon crime thriller that thrives on style, but lacks the connective tissues to keep the wily tale together.

With a cinematic background in documentary and neo-realist melodrama, having spent much of the ’50s directing non-fiction and co-wrote the Oscar nominated Giuseppe De Santis picture Bitter Rice, Lizzani was obscenely quick...

Gian Maria Volonté has a big part in this prime quality Italo crime thriller blessed with a great score by Ennio Morricone. But the movie belongs to Robert Hoffman as the real-life public enemy who earned the alias 'The Machine Gun Soloist.' Director Carlo Lizzani's realistic treatment glamorizes nothing and implicates the police in shady policies as well. Award-winning co-star Lisa Gastoni is the woman who loves Hoffman, and is tempted to betray him. Wake Up and Kill Blu-ray + DVD Arrow Video (UK) 1966 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 124 98 min / Svegliati e uccidi; Lutring; Wake Up and Die / Street Date November 24, 2015 / 29.95 Starring Robert Hoffmann, Lisa Gastoni, Gian Maria Volonté, Claudio Camaso, Renato Niccolai, Ottavio Fanfani, Pupo De Luca, Corrado Olmi. Cinematography Armando Nannuzzi Film Editing Franco Fraticelli Original Music Ennio Morricone Written by Ugo Pirro, Carlo Lizzani Produced by Jacques Bar, Joseph Fryd, Carlo Lizzani Directed by Carlo Lizzani  

Reviewed by...

The past year has been a great one as concerns the availability and restoration of several titles from Italian auteur Liliana Cavani, a director who came to fame and notoriety alongside peers such as Pasolini, Bellocchio, and Bertolucci. Her work has often faced difficulty in achieving the same sort of international acclaim as those male colleagues, each of them certified as a particular brand within the cinematic canon. And yet, Cavani is as equally provocative and prolific, with boundary pushing titles languishing in obscurity, usually historical reconstructions with gender or sexuality as a unique entry. Her work has often been described as having a feminist bent, but Cavani isn’t aspiring to create female agency in spaces dominated by masculinity. Rather, her concern resides in honest depictions of women ravaged by male dominated systems. Cavani’s most notorious title, 1974’s The Night Porter, received a Blu-ray transfer from Criterion recently,...