Email Author Elliott Stein

2010 Stories by Elliott Stein

• DARK OBSESSIONS

  published April 27, 2010

  When João César Monteiro died, it was front-page news in Europe, where the Portuguese director is considered a major figure.... More >>

• Mystery of the Wax Museum

  published April 6, 2010

  Dir. Michael Curtiz (1933). Not to be missed. Filmed in eerie two-color Technicolor, this nicely crafted horror flick stars baroque Lionel Atwill,... More >>

• The Front Page

  published April 6, 2010

  Dir. Louis Milestone (1931). The first screen version of Hecht and MacArthur's play set in a cynical newspaper world suffers from uneven direction... More >>

• La Chienne

  published April 6, 2010

  Dir. Jean Renoir (1931). Idiosyncratic Michel Simon gives a bravura performance as a henpecked unhappily-married clerk led into a life of crime by... More >>

• The Human Beast

  published April 6, 2010

  Dir. Jean Renoir (1938). One of Renoir's blackest films transfers the action of Emile Zola's novel to the present day and supplies French cinema's... More >>

• Toni

  published April 6, 2010

  Dir. Jean Renoir (1935). Not a single scene was made in a studio in Renoir's naturalistic treatment of a melodramatic story based on a real rural... More >>

• Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

  published February 9, 2010

  Dir. Robert Aldrich (1962). This bitchy grand guignol battle played out in a decaying Hollywood mansion between warring sister divas Bette Davis... More >>

• Mississippi Mermaid

  published February 9, 2010

  Dir. Francois Truffaut (1969). Jean-Pierre Belmondo who owns a cigarette factory on the exotic island of Reunion advertises for a wife and gets... More >>

• L’Effrontée

  published February 9, 2010

  Dir. Claude Miller (1985). Miller's treatment of the delicate topic of the pangs of adolescence bears comparison with the films of his compatriots... More >>

• Basic Instinct

  published February 9, 2010

  Dir. Paul Verhoeven (1992). What most people remember about this audacious in-your-face sex thriller is the scene that went down in movie history... More >>

• Lessons of Darkness

  published February 9, 2010

  Dir. Werner Herzog (1990). This portrait of post–Gulf War Kuwait reveals the place as a blazing inferno, an evocation of pure hell on earth.... More >>

• The Hellstrom Chronicle

  published February 9, 2010

  Dir. Walon Green (1971). This oddity is a mixture of fright flick and entomological documentary, whose message is that insects are taking over the... More >>

• The Atomic Cafe

  published February 9, 2010

  Dir. Kevin Rafferty & Pierce Rafferty (1982). This disturbing film, mostly a compilation of film clips of U.S. government propaganda that... More >>

• Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent Van Gogh

  published February 9, 2010

  Dir. Paul Cox (1987). This art film is not really documentary or fiction. One of Australia's foremost directors, Cox has made a fascinating... More >>

• The Last Laugh

  published February 9, 2010

  Dir. F.W. Murnau (1924). One of the major European silent films of the 1920s, this groundbreaking film is a successful attempt to tell a story... More >>

• Une Simple Histoire

  published February 9, 2010

  Dir. Marcel Hanoun (1958). Hanoun was a talented filmmaker who never received the attention he deserved. His understated first feature is a spare,... More >>