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A film about an affair with your best friend's daughter is probably the last place you would expect to find a lesson on morality. But oddly enough, that's exactly what you get in Larry Gelbart's sex comedy, Blame It On Rio. Like many of the films I saw during my childhood, I was well out of the prescribed age group for the story of a May-December affair, but I always remembered this movie for two reasons: it was where I learned about the world of mid-life crisis, and I even learned a little something about the consequences of your actions ... but we'll get to that later. So if you've never seen this movie, you're in luck because SlashControl offers the flick as part of their free film selection. Released in 1984, Rio was written by Gelbart, who is best known for his work in TV (as one of the creators of M.A.S.H) and in film (as the writer of Tootsie), and was directed by movie-musical legend, Stanley Donen (Singin' in the Rain). The story centered on two friends, Victor and Matthew (played respectively by Joseph Bologna and Michael Caine), who decide to go on vacation to Rio de Janeiro when their marriages have hit the skids. But things get a little tricky when Matthew (Caine) begins an affair with his best friend's teenage daughter, Jennifer (played by Michelle Johnson). Filed under: Comedy, Romance, Fandom, Home EntertainmentContinue reading Free Flick of The Day: Blame It On Rio Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

After nominating For a Few Dollars More and The Good the Bad and the Ugly for Free Flick of the Day, I'm going to sound like a very old and tired drum by nominating Hang 'Em High. But hey, you need something to watch today and it's just sitting there, waiting for someone to notice it. Hang 'Em High isn't a great film by any means, and it's not a very remarkable Western. It's full of missed opportunities, and the end hints that there may have been plans for a franchise centered around Marshall Jed Cooper. It's notable because it was the first film Clint Eastwood produced with his Malpaso shingle, which he would obviously go onto do great things with. (Would there be an Unforgiven without Hang 'Em High? Probably, but who knows!) It's also his first post-Sergio Leone Western, and one of the first attempts to bring Leone's style to America. It doesn't succeed in doing that very well, though a lot of the Man with No Name's trademarks remained. I think Eastwood sold himself a bit short by relying on that cigar so much, particularly since this is a character who is miles away from the cold bounty hunter of the Leone flicks. Jed Cooper is a man who is genuinely trying to do the right thing in life, and gets screwed over again and again. However, this film entertaining enough, and is worth watching just for the whole hanging sequence. I've already mentioned this film as the probable inspiration for Lt. Aldo Raine's hanging scar and while I'm still not sure if that's true or not, you can watch it and pretend Cooper is Raine's grandfather. Watch Hang 'Em High for free on SlashControl Filed under: Home Entertainment, Western Permalink | Email this | Comments

The '90s were a good time to be a teen -- especially if you were itching for more than just the mainstream. Nestled between the John Hughes '80s and the bubbly Disney '00s, the '90s were a time when teen films thrived in tunes-led rebellion. It wasn't all about spunky mainstream music marketing and bubbly personalities. Scores and strangeness got to go a little wild, and Gregg Araki ran with that idea when he made The Doom Generation. Dubbed Araki's "heterosexual movie," the film starred then-newcomer Rose McGowan as Amy Blue, a tough-as-nails, filthy-mouthed, self-proclaimed virgin in love with one Jordan White (James Duval). Their rather mundane lives are thrown through the ringer when they help out a strange boy named Xavier (Johnathan Schaech), who leads them through an insane road trip of unintended violence. A trip, mind you, that showcases a slew of names from all walks of life -- Skinny Puppy (band), Margaret Cho, Dustin Nguyen (21 Jump Street), Heidi Fleiss (the Hollywood madam), Perry Farrell (Janes Addiction), Parker Posey, Nicky Katt (Dazed and Confused), Zak Spears and Rex Chandler (gay adult film stars), Christopher Knight (Brady Bunch), Lauren Tewes (The Love Boat)... It is, however, a film spliced in tone. The first three quarters are violent, black comedy, while the last third makes the violence personal as the trio faces off against Neo-Nazis -- a rather apt juxtaposition between pulpy imaginary thrills and violence laced with a sense of reality. Get dark with The Doom Generation now on SlashControl!Filed under: Home Entertainment Permalink | Email this | Comments

It has taken me a long, long time to warm up to Daniel Day-Lewis. Despite first meeting him in the tender and gentler characters he played in A Room With a View and The Age of Innocence, he was always that terrifying Method guy who sharpened knives on set and ate his own kills. I don't want to say I was scared of him, but I found him brilliantly off-putting, which is why I never saw The Boxer until this past weekend. Directed by Jim Sheridan, The Boxer delves into the last gasp of the Troubles in Ireland. Former IRA member Danny Flynn (Day-Lewis) is released from prison on the verge of the 1998 peace treaty. He simply wants to get back to his life, resume a boxing career, and live in peace. But his former IRA allies are busy plotting last ditch efforts of violence, and they're furious at his neutrality. To make matters worse, he meets up with Maggie (Emily Watson), the girl he left behind, and who is now married to his imprisoned best friend. As a prisoner's wife, Maggie is held to a high standard, and their fragile relationship endangers them both. This is a tragic, tense, romantic, and underrated movie that has really fallen through the cracks in lieu of Day-Lewis' flashier performances in The Gangs of New York and There Will Be Blood. Naturally, this film had Day-Lewis dropping everything to become a boxing expert, but it's his performance out of the ring that's really stunning. Danny is a kind and uncertain man, just trying to do the right thing in a situation that's politically and personally fraught with danger. Also, he's sexy as hell in it. You can't say that about Daniel Plainview, can you? Watch The Boxer for free on SlashControl Filed under: Drama, Home Entertainment Permalink | Email this | Comments

If you were anxious for another free dose of Sergio Leone after last week's suggestion of For a Few Dollars More, you're in luck! The third and final installment of the Dollars / Man With No Name Trilogy just happens to be up on SlashControl right now. I can't think of a better gang to spend Friday the 13th with than The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is an epic, dizzying adventure set in the middle of the Civil War, and circles around three unsavory fellows and their hunt for a fortune in Confederate gold. It's probably the most famous and the most popular of Leone's westerns and Ennio Morricone's soundtracks. Every moment of this film is iconic. But the best part of the film isn't the sweeping battles, the mournful soldiers, or the explosive shoot-outs; it's the hateful alliance between Blondie (Clint Eastwood) and Tuco (Eli Wallach). I heard once that Eastwood and Wallace shared a single room and a single bed that they used in shifts in order to maintain their thorny attitude toward each other. I'm not sure if it's true, but it would certainly explain a lot. Incidentally, though it's the last installment, Ugly actually comes first in the Dollars trilogy, something supported by the fact that Blondie obtains his signature look by the film's end. I'm pretty sure that first flip of the serape is what inspired a million "Let's delve into his origin!" stories, and certainly must have led Steven Spielberg to giving Indy's fedora an origin. Go stand off with The Good, the Bad, and The Ugly on SlashControlFiled under: Home Entertainment Permalink | Email this | Comments

One of the great fallacies of film history is that Orson Welles made his directorial debut at age 25 and then burned out and never made anything else of note. And it's true that he spent a lot of time doing acting jobs for money and starting projects that he never finished. But in reality, he directed, completed and released thirteen films between 1941 and 1976 -- including that debut, Citizen Kane -- and every single one of them is notable. Some are masterpieces, some are ahead of their time, and some, like Mr. Arkadin (1955), require a little work. Mr. Arkadin was only one of two original screenplays in Welles filmography (along with Citizen Kane), and they have many things in common: a flashback structure and a secondary character snooping around in the life of the title character. (A book was published with Orson Welles listed as the author, but Welles insisted that he wrote the screenplay himself and the book was ghost-written by someone else after the fact.)Filed under: DramaContinue reading Free Flick of the Day: Mr. Arkadin Permalink | Email this | Comments

Whit Stillman hasn't made a lot of films. In fact, there are only three: Metropolitan, Barcelona, and The Last Days of Disco. All filmed in the '90s, his trio of movies morphed from upper-class teen Manhattanites, to heading out into the international working world, and finally to a look into the end of disco. Unfortunately, the last was sadly overlooked because another big disco fest hit the big screen -- 54 -- which may have been terrible, but with the likes of Mike Myers and a big-name cast, it was the flick in the spotlight. Nestled in the shadows was The Last Days of Disco, starring Chloe Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale as two young book editors who fill their nights with dance and banter while looking for romance. Each night, as they head to the club, they come across a myriad of faces, from the Stillman pro Chris Eigeman, to the likes of Mackenzie Astin, Matt Keeslar, Robert Sean Leonard, Jennifer Beals, Burr Steers (recently directed 17 Again), and even Drew's mom, Jaid Barrymore. They gossip, discuss intellectual pursuits, analyze Lady and the Tramp, and even purr over the sexiness of Scrooge McDuck -- all to a classic disco soundtrack. If you love satire, and a mixture of surreality intermingled with spot-on dialogue (think intellectualism on the back-drop of all-out glam), you've got to check it out. Best of all, should you adore watching this for free, you can then pick up the new Criterion on sale at Barnes & Noble, where they're having their wicked 50% off sale again. Watch The Last Days of Disco over at SlashControl!Filed under: Fandom, Home Entertainment Permalink | Email this | Comments

"You can't put words back in your mouth. What you can do, is spread false gossip so people think that everything that's been said is untrue ... It's like the end of Spartacus. I have seen that movie half a dozen times and I still don't know who the real Spartacus is. And that is what makes that movie a classic whodunnit." -- The Office I know very well there isn't a single Cinematical reader who doesn't know who the real Spartacus is. There's probably little children who haven't even seen Stanley Kubrick's Roman epic who know who the real Spartacus is because the movie has become such a cultural touchstone. But just because it's ubiquitous doesn't mean you shouldn't sit down and watch the movie again, especially since it's playing for free on SlashControl. Its lengthy runtime might make it a little uncomfortable to view on your laptop, but just make sure you have plenty of snacks and drinks, and you should be just fine. Spartacus is quite dated (this is the era of filmmaking when no one thought flattops and beehives would be out of place in any time period), and Howard Fast's version of the myth was skewed toward his own political beliefs. But it's still a pretty brutal movie, and runs counter to Hollywood's vision today in that it makes the ending worse than the history. Eyewitnesses claim Spartacus died in battle. No one really knows, as his body was never recovered, but history is reasonably certain he wasn't one of the 6,600 crucified along the Via Appia. But Hollywood brutally chose to put him among them, and didn't even spare his wife and infant son the sight. That final farewell between Spartacus and Varinia traumatized me as a kid (it has to be one of the first movies I saw where the good guy didn't win), and still gets me every time. Watch Spartacus now on SlashControl! Filed under: Classics, Home Entertainment Permalink | Email this | Comments

I hate saying "They just don't make movies like they used to" because it really yearns for a golden age that I don't believe ever truly existed in Hollywood. Every age has had its share of studio dreck, every decade has its gems, and audiences have always complained that movies were better in a mystical "back then." But with a film like Charade, the grumpy adage rings true. They don't make movies like this anymore. But luckily they did once upon a time, and you can watch this one on SlashControl. If you've never seen Charade, you are in for a dizzying treat. I won't describe the plot too much as the knots are half the fun. The rest of the charm rests solely on the shoulders of Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, who are thrown together in a plot of intrigue, romance, politics, and war crimes. Despite all the deaths and danger, the movie is light, charming, and very, very funny. And the clothes! If it's a Hepburn and Grant movie, you know Givenchy will be a silent cast member. Marvel at the way everyone manages to do action scenes in crisp and beautiful outfits. Go get acquainted with a classic (if it isn't your friend already), and long for the days when they made a lot of things (suits, luggage, and dialogue) a little bit better than today. Watch Charade now on SlashControl. Filed under: Classics, Comedy, Home Entertainment Permalink | Email this | Comments

Now that most of us acquire our music online these days, radio DJs don't have the same sway as taste-makers that they used to. But in the '70s, the final word in rock music was Rodney Bigenheimer. In George Hickenlooper's 2003 documentary about the infamous DJ and rock music icon, Mayor of Sunset Strip, we are shown Bigenheimer as an awkward and strange little fellow who, in the end, did it all for the music. Now, thanks to the nice folks at SlashControl you can now watch the documentary as one of their collection of (pretty awesome) free movies. You wouldn't know it to look at him, but Bigenheimer was one of the biggest names in the rock music scene, and was credited with helping to break bands like The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Nirvana, and even Coldplay. Bigenheimer has been relegated to the 'graveyard shift' these days at KROQ, but considering that Hickenlooper was able to get appearances from some of the biggest names in rock (everyone from Mick Jagger to Rob Zombie) you can't deny Bigenheimer still has some clout. Hickenlooper's film is more than just a walk down music history lane. It also manages to show you someone who truly loves the music, and maybe it's a little sad that it never quite loved him back. But this documentary reminds us that his legend lives on -- you might even remember a certain homage to Bigenheimer in Cameron Crowe's rock n' roll tale, Almost Famous when he works in one of Rodney's famous quotes "It's all happening!", and during the 'Mayor's' reign at KROQ, it really was... Watch The Mayor of Sunset Strip at SlashControlFiled under: Documentary, Music & Musicals, Fandom, Home Entertainment Permalink | Email this | Comments

Amazon sellers are selling copies of Ken Russell's Salome's Last Dance on DVD for a minimum of $214.89. It's not on Netflix. However, if you're in the mood for the kind of bizarrely decadent films that only writer/director Ken Russell (Gothic, The Lair of the White Worm) can serve up, it's high time you headed over to this hard-to-find Oscar Wilde adaptation for free over at SlashControl. In Salome's Last Dance, Russell plays around with Oscar Wilde's banned play Salome, adding a bit of meta-goodness to the whole shebang by making the film about Oscar Wilde (Nickolas Grace) and his lover Lord Alfred Douglas (Douglas Hodge) watching a performance of the famous play in a brothel. The actors are all employees or patrons. And it's no accident that this is also Guy Fawkes Day. Alfred Taylor, the brothel-owner played by Stratford Johns, announces, "Guy Fawkes wanted to strike a spark for freedom and blow up a Parliament he considered oppressive; you have done the same with your play, Salome... In defiance of the law and in honor of our greatest playwright, the premiere of Salome will take place here tonight, the 5th of November, 1892."Filed under: Independent, Fandom, Home EntertainmentContinue reading Free Flick of the Day: Salome's Last Dance Permalink | Email this | Comments

I think the mania for Sergio Leone is stronger than it's ever been. It's undoubtedly due to the championing of Quentin Tarantino, and films like Sukiyaki Western Django and The Good, the Bad and the Weird, which are driving fans to seek out where they borrowed their serapes and squints from. There also seems to simply be a hunger for good adventure stories and rugged antiheroes, and there's no better place to get sated than Leone's films. If you feel like spending two hours in the broiling sun with a man who'll shoot you as soon as look at you, then you'll love today's free flick: For A Few Dollars More. For A Few Dollars More might be my favorite of the Dollars Trilogy. I love them all on their own merits, but this installment stands on its own (I hate saying it, but Fistful is decidedly less cool after multiple viewings of Yojimbo), and is less operatic than The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. More also tips the balance thanks to the way it adds a little to the Man with No Name. Here, he's dubbed Monco (Spanish / Italian for maimed) due to the way he keeps his right hand hidden, and he doesn't just ride quietly out of the dust. Now he has a trail in a score of bloody newspaper clippings which suggests he could afford more than one serape. Ennio Morricone fans will also appreciate the little flourish he gave to Monco's gun hand Even if you hate Westerns, you should watch it. Leone called his films "fairy tales for adults," and that's really what they are. They feel like every genre rolled in one, and have been borrowed from 1965 onward. Fans of everything from Tarantino to Pirates of the Caribbean will see something they recognize here. Watch For A Few Dollars More on SlashControl! Filed under: Classics, Quentin Tarantino, Home Entertainment, Western Permalink | Email this | Comments

By now, you've had your fill of ghosts, goblins, and things that go bump in the night. You've cleaned up pumpkin guts, peeled off your skin along with your spirit gum prosthetics, hoping OxyClean gets fake blood stains out of your carpet. You need a movie with class, wit, and Cary Grant. You need Howard Hawks' classic His Girl Friday, which is playing right now on SlashControl. There's nothing I can say about this movie that hasn't already been said. Rosalind Russell's Hildegard "Hildy" Johnson remains one of the gutsiest heroines to ever grace the silver screen, and the fact that Cary Grant's Walter Burns loves her for her byline makes him one of the sexiest men of all time. The romance, the scheming, and the race to the presses will still leave you dizzy and laughing. Oh, and let's not forget the clothes. Oh, to spend a day looking as impeccable and sharp as Johnson ... ! I fully intended this to be an anti-Halloween selection, but I imagine it could inspire my fellow females to look for pinstripes and fedoras for next year's festivities. This movie is especially poignant to watch now in the waning days of the newspaper industry. It's very sad to think of movies like Friday and State of Play being period pieces beyond clothing, hairstyles, and politics. While I have confidence that journalism will find its fast talking feet again, there will always be something romantic about the presses. At least they've been preserved in the background of so many movies as good as His Girl Friday. Watch His Girl Friday on SlashControl right now! Filed under: Classics, Home Entertainment Permalink | Email this | Comments

The great Italian horror director Mario Bava isn't as well-known today as he should be; perhaps it's because his films relied more on mood and atmosphere than on plot and character, and very often his plots and characters were a little pathetic. But in terms of crafting a moody, moving picture with a genuine sense of nightmarish dread, he was practically unequaled. He had worked as a cinematographer in Italy for nearly 20 years when he made Black Sunday (1960), his official directorial debut. It was low budget, but considered rather sophisticated -- and even violent -- for its day (at least compared to things like Attack of the Giant Leeches). Today it's Bava's best known film and considered to be his masterpiece, which is ironic given that his greatest strength is his mysterious, majestic use of color, and that Black Sunday is in black-and-white. Apparently based on a story by Nikolai Gogol, Black Sunday was a huge hit. It also made a star out of the haunting, sensuous Barbara Steele, who plays two roles here. She's a 200 year-old witch, Asa Vajda, who was burned at the stake and forced to wear a horrible mask with spikes on the inside. Two centuries later, she plays Katia who lives in a (haunted) castle with her father and brother. Some weary travelers become stranded near Asa Vajda's tomb and accidentally bring the old witch back to life (don't you hate that). She revives her old lover, turns people into vampires and plans to drain the blood of Katia so that she can gain immortality. Everything takes place in or around the creepy castle and the unholy graveyard. Bava's very simple use of the elements, like fog, light and shadow are still amazingly effective today. (No one could arrange spidery tree braches in the frame quite like Bava.) Enjoy a day of rest and watch Black Sunday!Filed under: Horror Permalink | Email this | Comments

In keeping with the evil spirit of the season, allow me to commit a little blasphemy: I enjoyed the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead more than George Romero's original, which I've always felt was pretty clumsy with its social commentary. The remake has nothing on its mind other than gore, laughs, and thrills, and it delivers them in buckets. That's why I've chosen it as the Free Flick of the Day at SlashControl. 'Tis the season, you know. Sarah Polley and Ving Rhames star as a couple of the suburbanites holed up in a shopping mall as zombies take over the city. These are the speedy zombies of the 21st century, you'll recall, not the lumbering, cow-like creatures of yesteryear. While I agree with the logical argument that you wouldn't be light on your feet if you'd just crawled out of a grave, fast zombies are a lot scarier. I'm just sayin'. The film has a wicked sense of humor, too. I love the scene of zombie-hunting set to a cheesy lounge-singer version of "Down with the Sickness," and the way the bored refugees kill time by picking off zombies that look like celebrities. If you've got 100 minutes to kill, why not head over to SlashControl and enjoy some late-October mayhem and carnage? Watch Dawn of the Dead at SlashControl. Permalink | Email this | Comments

There's only a few days left until Halloween, and your supply of DVDs might be running a little low. But SlashControl has a few classic horror films up to entertain you on these final, spooky nights, like the original House on Haunted Hill. If all you've ever seen is the 1999 remake, then you owe it to yourself to spend a night with some old school horror. Modern viewers won't find Haunted Hill very scary, although I challenge you to watch the opening in the dark, alone, while wearing a pair of headphones. If you don't find the screams and moans a little unsettling in your isolated state, you have nerves of steel. I commend you! But the fun of this classic isn't in its scares (which are few even for 1959 standards), it's all in Vincent Price's performance. The sadistic, spiky interaction between him and his beautiful wife Annabelle remains funny long after the ghosts have left the scene. (The sour marriage is also the high point of the 1999 remake. No one does gleeful nastiness like Geoffery Rush.) Their bitter bon mots stress that the horror of this film isn't the skeletons and severed heads, it's the depths to which people sink for money. Watch House on Haunted Hill on SlashControlFiled under: Home Entertainment Permalink | Email this | Comments

You may have heard about Bobcat Goldthwait's current film, World's Greatest Dad, possibly from all the raving various people at Cinematical have done about it. It's an outrageously dark comedy -- but that should be no surprise if you've seen any of Bobcat's previous films, including Sleeping Dogs Lie, which I've chosen as AOL/SlashControl's free flick of the day. Sleeping Dogs Lie premiered under its original title, Stay, at Sundance in 2006, where its perverse subject matter was taboo even by Sundance standards. It's about a young woman who has fallen in love with a guy she hopes to marry, but she's not sure whether she can ever tell him about a certain embarrassing moment in her sexual history. It involves a dog, that's all I'm sayin'. Finally she takes the plunge and tells her boyfriend, and that's when the squirm-inducing comedy really takes off. Not surprisingly, Goldthwait had a hard time finding a distributor for the movie. The best it ever got was a two-week run on six screens, grossing $15,745 in the U.S., but another $622,000 internationally. (Apparently this sort of thing plays better in foreign countries. Make of that what you will.) It's obviously not for everyone, but if you like bawdy, clever, shocking comedy, it's worth watching. It will almost certainly make you feel better about whatever shameful secrets you have in your own past. Watch Sleeping Dogs Lie at SlashControl.Filed under: Comedy, Sundance Permalink | Email this | Comments

Yesterday, we kicked off our first installment of Cinematical's Free Flick of the Day, where one of our writers will humbly suggest a good, bad, or truly ugly film you can watch for free over at AOL's /SlashControl. Since the content over there is constantly shifting, we'll try our very best to point you towards the good, the bad, and the ugliest films you can watch there for free. Today's pick is an ugly little time-waster. Before Troll 2 rose to such "So bad it's good" acclaim, Frogs had the dubious honor of being called "The best bad movie I've ever seen in my life" by Fran Lebowitz, and was reportedly Andy Warhol's favorite horror movie. I first encountered it on a dollar DVD rack, and purchased it as a gift for a friend who adores bad movies. How can you resist a DVD cover like the one to your right for a whole dollar? How can you resist it for free? You can't, and it might be the most fun you have this Halloween. (I hope not.) Frogs is a 1970s eco-"horror" flick that stars Ray Milland, Sam Elliott, Joan Van Ark, Adam Roarke, and Judy Pace. Milland plays a wealthy, wheel-chair bound Southern patriarch, who has no compassion for wildlife. His chemical company is responsible for wrecking havoc all over the wilderness, but its the critters that surround his plantation that decide to rise up and defend their wetlands. Don't watch this movie alone if you can help it -- not because it's scary, but because it's stupid, and you'll want the company. It's the perfect film to play MST3K / Rifftrax with, and if you can't make at least one trouser snake joke during its mercifully short runtime (particularly with the deliciously hunky Elliott running around in very tight pants), then I don't know what to make of you. I want to hop Over to AOL /SlashControl, and watch Frogs!Filed under: Horror, Home Entertainment Permalink | Email this | Comments