Foster on Film

Scaramouche is a gasp from a dying genre.  The simplistic moral structure that was so uplifting in the films of the 30s and 40s was beginning to look silly in the post war world.  Add in that most everything that could be done with the genre in that form had been done, and it’s not

Distraught physician Peter Tompson (Brook Williams) writes his mentor, Sir James Forbes (André Morell) a rambling letter about deaths with no natural explanation in a rural village. Forbes’s daughter (Diane Clare), interested in seeing her friend Alice (Jacqueline Pearce) who happens to be Tompson’s wife, convinces her father to take train and coach to visit

As world leaders meet to discuss—and fail to do anything about—environmental destruction, a spaceship crashes, releasing the giant Guilala on the people of Japan. Realizing this will be great PR, the leaders stick around and come up with one ridiculous (and culturally revealing) scheme after another to defeat the monster. Meanwhile, a cute tabloid reporter

There’s been an “accident” at a secret, isolated lab. They’ve been developing a new form of artificial human, one with emotions. Its name is Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy), and this five-year-old that looks eighteen just stabbed one of its keepers (Jennifer Jason Leigh) in the eye. The corporate office has sent Lee (Kate Mara), a risk

Eight year’s after Batman took the blame for Harvey Dent’s crimes, Gotham City appears better on the surface, but, if anything, is worse for the 99%. In it, idealistic police officer John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) tries to make a difference while jewel thief Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) just tries to get by in a world

Captain America teams up with Black Widow to uncover a conspiracy at the highest levels of government while also meeting an old friend who’s become a killing machine. Where Captain America: The First Avenger felt like a 1950s war movie, The Winter Solder feels like a 1970s spy thriller, just with a lot more exploding

An old sub-genre is getting a kick in China now—tomb raiding adventures stories. The newest incarnations are not examples of China just now discovering Indiana Jones, as some have suggested, but are part of a movement set off by an ebook: Ghost Blows Out the Light (2006). The series set records in China and physical

Dr. Eduardo Almada (Ramón Gay) did not take the criticism of his theory of past life regression well. So with the help of his mentor (Jorge Mondragón) and his cowardly comic relief (Crox Alvarado), he hypnotizes his fiancée—who also happens to be his mentor’s daughter—Flor (Rosita Arenas). Luck would have it she used to be

A Cornish fisherman turns up dead with radiation burns, and overly enthusiastic scientist Steve Karnes (Gene Evans) is sure that a giant sea monster is responsible. With the aid of various government officials and scientists, he seeks to solve the mystery until the beast turns up and solves it for him. It is a radiation

Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), The Punisher, is a new vigilante in town, who has no problem killing. Daredevil decides he must take him down while Karen feels there is more to his story that needs to be revealed. Simultaneously, Matt Murdock’s old love, Elektra Notchios (Elodie Yung) has returned to town, her appearance corresponding to

During a period of unrest in Japan, a mother and her daughter-in-law (Nobuko Otowa & Kiwako Taichi) are raped and murdered by a band of disheveled samurai. They return as ghosts, seducing and then killing samurai. The local samurai lord Raiko (Kei Sato) tasks newly minted samurai Gintoki (Kichiemon Nakamura) with finding who or what

Edward Parker (Richard Arlen) is tossed overboard by a surly and drunken sea captain at the first port-of-call, the Island of Dr. Moreau. The mysterious doctor (Charles Laughton) isn’t happy with his uninvited guest, but soon changes his mind. The island is inhabited by beast-men created by Moreau and his assistant Montgomery (Arthur Hohl) via