George Lucas' debut is a dystopian 1984-style fantasy of a loveless society, starring Robert Duvall. The studio hated it, hacking five minutes out of it (here restored) for its initial 1970 release, but even though bleak and predictable, it's visually breath-taking. Speculate on where Lucas might have gone from here if only he hadn't been waylaid by Wookies.
When blackmailers try extorting businessman Roy Scheider over his fling with a stripper, he thwarts them by telling his wife—so they film the girl being murdered and threaten to frame him. At which point, it gets personal. Although co-scripted by the author, John Frankenheimer's flat 1986 movie is just another unsatisfactory Elmore Leonard adaptation. The dialogue occasionally crackles, but the casting is off and the pace drags enough to let you count the implausibilities.
Muddled, witless look at the notorious 1981 murders on LA's Wonderland Avenue, with an unconvincing Val Kilmer as faded porn star John Holmes, in over his coke-addled head in drug scams and violence. A pale cousin of Boogie Nights, its attempted narrative/ editing tricks flop badly. Kate Bosworth and Lisa Kudrow weep, and there's a scorching soundtrack (lggy, Patti, T.Rex). But kindness to the living exacerbates the mess.
Originally seen as a disappointing follow-up to the all-conquering Halloween, John Carpenter's The Fog (1980) is now more widely regarded as a classic supernatural thriller, inspired by Poe and HP Lovecraft, in which the isolated Californian community of Antonio Bay is menaced by the ghosts of a pirate horde. Masterful.
