Erich Kuersten is the gonzo-theorist behind the Acidemic Journal of Film and Media as well as an award-skipping filmmaker and freelance film and music critic whose work can be found in Bright Lights, The Weeklings, Slant, Modern Drunkard, McSweeney's, Scarlet Street, VHJ, Daily Om, Muze, Divinorum Psychonauticus, and Midnight Marquee. Write him at erichk9@aol.com. He lives in Brooklyn. 
Editor’s note: We’re posting Erich “Mr. Acidemic” Kuersten’s viewing guide a couple of days before Halloween to give our readers a chance to locate these “cool and strange” suggestions spanning cinema’s[…]
“There was a time in movies like The Purple Rose of Cairo when characters left the screen and came down to be incarnated into real life … Today, it would be reality that is transfused into the screen to be disincarnated. Nothing separates them anymore. The osmosis, the telemorphosis is complete.”
So even if you aren’t nostalgic for the heady sense of danger and decadence, do yourself a favor and crash the pod down into Carpenter country – an alternate reality[…]
I decided to review this massive collection as some kind of masochistic indulgence, and truly it’s been a long, soul-warping, awe-inspiring yet deeply troubling, at times maddeningly boring, 25+ hours[…]
“Even if Schrader would like to completely eliminate any ‘magic’ or dream-into-reality bleeding, it’s still there – the boundaries of his material threaten to swamp him at every turn, so kudos to him for at least not running in fear back behind the phallic bars of patriarchal condescension that was such an annoyance in the original. “
“Rather than some good safe white elephant of a film or a smutty feel-bad historical repressionist masterpiece, these are films that have escaped the maze of cliché with moxy, wit, and nutz.”
Now anyone who can scrape together a few hundred dollars can load up on enough movie streams and DV-R and giant LCD screens to never leave the house, so who needs a nice house?
Though last December’s lack of promised Mayan doomsday never panned out, December 2013 is laden with new DVDs and theatrical revivals that allow us to pretend the world ended as far back as 1979. Oh if only… we might all be rolling with Humongous by now, or Bane, or what’s the difference?
Crime · Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews
This is a film from the era of Bernhard Goetz, Curtis Sliwa and the Guardian Angels, and of course, Charles Bronson finding himself facing muggers wherever he may go.
“Studies like this misunderstand the basic use of cinematic myth (which includes action films) as a ceremonial exercise in psychic catharsis, meant to appease the angry darkness of the masculine unconscious.
“a La Notte blu-ray. And now it all makes sense, the rust is a poem, the vast stretches of party space and elaborate mirror reflections are so haunting and perfectly evoked you can smell the cigarette smoke, the grass, the chlorine, and cologne, all fusing into one empty gaze of a breeze. “
Man, Turner Classic Movies has gone off the deep end with this erratic last two weeks before the autumnal solstice and sacrifice of the virgin, the spilling of his blood across the fields, the burning of the Barleycorn effigy, the return of Guy Fawkes, the anti-pope in the silver castle, the shambling junkies of Dean Street. and Onwards. As a trained expert in the cinemarcane allow me to steer your DV-R record finger to these off-kilter spook shows:
The discriminating October film enthusiast knows that sometimes bad is better… unless there’s something great you still haven’t seen, and sometimes you can see too much, like the dispiriting amount of torture porn titles on Netflix… Well, HEY! Here’s ten films either free on youtube, AMC, or Netflix Streaming that are MIND-bending, not pliers-bending
And of course, there’s the horror movies. The speeding darkness and chill draws ghosts and candelabras, witches, demons, and monsters to our cinematic desires like a magnet. And TCM is there. As are we at the Bright Lights After Dark, where we turn those bright lights way, way, way down, so you can’t see the thing.
When witches lay curses down upon the cowardly townsfolk about to hang or burn them, it’s almost always “I’ll be back to haunt your ancestors in 100 years!” Is it time then for Frances Farmer to return for that long-awaited revenge on Seattle, the patriarchy, the legal system, Hollywood, and the American Medical Association? Let’s hope
DVD & Blu-ray · Exploitation & Erotica
With Scream! it’s now possible to realize that the 80s as the best decade ever for schlock movies; grindhouses and drive-ins still lured us in like evil aunts. And best of all, we could still be genuinely scared.
For the discerning cinema and motorcycle repair video connoisseur, youtube has launched over 69 channels, each around $1.99-$2.99 a month.
Set thy Tivo for: Rare Hawks, Orange-blazoned Shakes, Gish vs. Men, Glenda the kickass Reporter, Carpenter classics, and uncomfortable laughter…
Not since Gene Wilder made nice with his monster in Young Frankenstein or the cannibal mutant got the girl (Tucker and Dale vs. Evil) have our deformed horror staples been so effectively pulled from their scar tissue and replaced with loving stitches. We needed these films, like a salve to our nation’s red vs. blue infection.
…exposing the real end game fantasia of materialism as nothing less than bribing your way out of the moment.
