The second and last of Anthony Mann's historical epics is a smart, handsome spectacle of the decadence, corruption, and intrigue that tears apart the greatest empire the world has seen. The sprawling story spreads itself thin over a number of characters and stories. At the center are handsome but stiff Stephen Boyd as Livius, the loyal soldier and symbolic son of the aging emperor (Alec Guinness), and Christopher Plummer as Commodus, the corrupt heir to the throne-boyhood friends turned enemies when the latter accedes to the throne and sells out the values of his father for greed and hedonistic pleasures. The three-hour running time is filled out with the tales of Sophia Loren (as the beautiful Lucilla in love with Livius but coveted by greedy Commodus) and a gallery of heroes and villains that includes James Mason, Mel Ferrer, Anthony Quayle, John Ireland, Omar Sharif, and Eric Porter. The film is highlighted with spectacular scenes (a grandiose funeral fit for an emperor, brutal battles in the provinces as the barbarians threaten the empire, and a climactic duel to decide the destiny of Rome), which Mann weaves into the shadowy intrigue of the halls of power. Like his previous epic El Cid, The Fall of the Roman Empire remains one of the best of the 1960s epics: well written (and largely historically accurate) with strong performances and a consistently elegant style, but it lacks a central core and the magnetic hero of its superior predecessor. -Sean Axmaker.

Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (Klaus Kinski), known as Fitzcarraldo to the native Peruvians, is an avid opera lover and rubber baron who dreams of building an opera house in the Peruvian jungle. To accomplish this, he plans to reach an isolated patch of rubber trees and make his fortune. But these trees are not directly accessible by river because of dangerous rapids, so Fitzcarraldo runs his ship as close as possible via an alternate river and then enlists the aid of the native Peruvians to drag his ship over a mountain to the desired area. However, the natives seem to have their own agenda in so mysteriously acceding to Fitzcarraldo's wishes. The results manage to both mock and affirm the dreams of determined figures like Fitzcarraldo, making absurdity out of the stuff of human endeavor without negating the beauty of that effort. There is hardly a more awe-inspiring or arresting image than that of Fitzcarraldo's ship pulling itself up the mountain with cables and pulleys, or of the ship resting in mid-ascent as seen through the thick morning fog of the jungle. The tortured production history of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo (ably recorded in Les Blank's documentary Burden of Dreams) tends to take the spotlight away from this deeply mesmerizing film. And that's unfortunate, because the film itself is even more fascinating than the trials and tribulations, amazing though they might be, that led to its being made. Part of the problem is the film's deliberate, some might say ponderous, pace, which invites the viewer to experience the slow immersion into the jungle that Fitzcarraldo and company experience. Herzog did something similar in Aguirre, the Wrath of God, sometimes aiming his camera at the river rapids for extended periods of time, with hypnotic results. [+]

The plot device is so damned great that it simply had to be revisited: a scientist invents a device that transmits matter by disintegrating it in one chamber and reintegrating it in another. When he attempts to transmit his own body, he accidentally allows a fly into the chamber, and the resulting man-insect hybrid runs rampant across the Canadian countryside. Philippe, the son of that ill-fated scientist, is told the family history by a benevolent uncle (an oddly prim Vincent Price); possessed with the scientific will-to-know, he becomes determined to re-create his father's experiments. The legendarily silly costuming of the original Fly returns, and with it, the perplexing logic of transmogrification-it becomes difficult to decipher which of the man-insect hybrids we're meant to understand as possessing Phillipe's agency. The film is hampered by the lack of a strong female lead, and by performances by all principals that are disappointingly modern in their clear motivation and restraint. Almost normal-even by modern standards-Return of the Fly represents an interesting bridging piece between the arty, abstract, symbolist sci-fi aesthetic of the early '50s and the naturalist, highly mimetic, realist style that quickly came to dominate the genre. -Miles Bethany.

The short-lived (1965-66) Shindig! knockoff Hullabaloo epitomizes the often-faltering steps U. S. network television made to keep up with the explosion of rock & roll culture in the wake of Beatlemania. Sometimes inspired, sometimes silly (definitely the latter with hosts and guests like Jerry Lewis, Michael Landon, Freddie and the Dreamers, and Vikki Carr), seven episodes plus bonus performances fill this DVD compilation of previous VHS releases. Over its four and a half hours, in black-and-white and color, true rockers ranging from Chuck Berry, the Lovin' Spoonful, Martha and the Vandellas, and the Animals slam into the slightly clueless (Chad & Jill) and the utterly hopeless (Joanie Sommers, Frankie Avalon, the aforementioned Freddie). Moments of irrepressible pop genius (Marvin Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar") and sheer drama (Dionne Warwick's "Message to Michael") make this a must, though. Throw in a bit of apparent collusion between an NBC director and Byrd Roger McGuinn as he aims the "Your sons and daughters are beyond your command" verse of "The Times They Are A-Changin'" in extreme close-up to millions of American parents, and Hullabaloo's ultimate success is demonstrated. -Rickey Wright.