A Great Hook! – Rolling Thunder (1977) – Blu-ray Review
“when asked by his rival/buddy about the eight years of hell he endured over some back room beers, Devane says merely, “you learn to love it.” “
Author: Erich Kuersten
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.
In Illuminated Memory of Richard Matheson (February 20, 1926 – June 23, 2013)
“Matheson was able to get right to the heart of the matter, to expose the raw nerve at the base of our collective paranoia and atomic anxiety, to realize all inner demons were projections outward, and vice versa…”
Shyamalan’s a Ding-Dong: After Earth (Will Smith is a great dad, please)
We don’t want to see dead people, but we damn sure want them to see us.
Marathon Season: Arrested Development 4
(this is a) breakthrough in the way media is delivered, solidifying the idea that the voice of the fans can revive just about anything, and introducing the full season ‘back-to-back’ marathon as the new ideal form of immersive simulacratic experience.
Rarities, Ho! TCM Recommendations for May 17-31
Obscure Hollywood gems, from the depths of the TCM May 2013 schedule for your DVD-R-ing pleasure
Experimental & Underground · Reviews
A Boy and His Atom: The Smallest Movie Ever Made
IBM releases a movie starring actual atoms, on a screen you can’t even see with an ordinary microscope.
Actors & Personalities · Books
Book review: Lee Marvin, Point Blank, by Dwayne Epstein
Lee Marvin: Point Blank, by Dwayne Epstein. Tucson, AZ: Schaffner Press, 2013. 303pp. Hardcover. $27.95. With his many iconic films, his record of combat action in the Pacific during WW2,[…]
Book review: Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds, by Maitland McDonagh
Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento by Maitland McDonagh. University of Minnesota Press, 2010 (revised with new material from 1994 edition). Trade paperback, $22.95, 296pp, illustrated. ISBN 0-816-65607-X..[…]
Chump’s Ticket: BED OF ROSES (1933), SMART WOMAN (1931)
“Who’d of thunk there was a fake Mae West?”
TCM Alert! Myrna Loy Ahoy! THE BARBARIAN (1933) and PENTHOUSE (1933)
If Zita Johan went off into the Gary Cooper Morocco desert with Valentino as a stud MUMMY and there was 50 SHADES OF GREY UN-PC whipping and dominance head games Stockholm Syndrome romance, well that gives you some of the plot. PRE-CODE RULEZ!
Exploitation & Erotica · SF & Fantasy
Roots of ALIEN: A pre-pre-PROMETHEUS Triple Feature
If you’re excited about the promos for the Ridley Scott science fiction movie coming out this summer, Prometheus… it might be a good time to visit some of the films that have been mentioned over the years as the inspirations for ALIEN, and it just so happens they’re all pretty short and all available on Netflix streaming – a perfect weekend triple bill.
Autogyros and Zeppelins: How Cinematic They Fly
Who wouldn’t love to go to L.A. from NYC via zeppelin? So what if it takes a week? Open air rear observation compartments! Farmers looking up, amazed, waving, scratching their heads in disbelief… rivers, lakes, Montana…
VistaVision Makes Sense now: TO CATCH A THIEF (1955) on Blu-Ray
istaVision, it’s also what Hitch shot VERTIGO on… and now both those films too make more sense, VERTIGO especially always seemed too traveloguey for a supposed top ten of all time classic. Now, if it was on Blu-Ray I’d get it even though the DVD version I have is pretty damned good and I don’t even really love it… yet
Horror · Reviews · TV & Streaming
FridayLight NetfixStreamFest: The Corman-Price Poe Cycle
Price’s florid hamminess fills in the sparse patches of Corman’s sometimes spare mise en scene, and the sparseness conversely gives Price lots of room to floridly ham. Add Les Baxter’s crazy scores, some good freaky psychedelic California painters to make the portraits of dead and evil
uncles and incestuous sisters and flowing red paint credits, and sharp scripts by Richard Matheson and pre-CHINATOWN Robert Towne, and viola!
Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews · TV & Streaming
Sex, Drugs and Germans: 6 Hidden Gems of Netflix Streaming
Homicidal gang debs, tripping youth, murderous charismatic hippie cult leaders,German lesbian junkie spies, sexy German terrorists: 6 Rare, Strange, awesome films (all on Netflix Streaming) from or about the late 60s-early 70s.
It’s a bourgeois town: the feel-good Oscar Nominees for 2011
There’s nothing wrong with these films per se, they stir deep emotions; they move us, en masse; they spark enraptured conversation on the drive home from the mall-tiplex, are superb examples of craftsmanship, and most importantly, they make bourgeois Oscar voters feel good about themselves, and their profession; these films rub the voters’ shoulders and whisper in their wrinkly ears – “you, my darling Academy member, are the makers of our dreams.”
The Savvy Tivo: Exotic Pre-codes for 12/12-12/20
In darker shadowy lairs, Myrna Loy meets with her devoted astrologer, Swami Yogadaci (the ever villainous C. Henry Gordon) to figure out how and when the constellations want her to assassinate her former sorority snubbers. Loy’s the villain, ostensibly, but you’ll be rooting for her all the way (unless you’ve never felt the sting of a snubbing yourself).
DVD & Blu-ray · Pre-Code · Reviews
Criterion goes Pre-Code: DESIGN FOR LIVING (1933)
Unseen for years thanks to its “dangerously progressive” attitudes towards sexual relationships outside wedlock, tomorrow, Tuesday 12/6/12! Criterion has released it in the stand-alone glory it deserves, replete with extras and an essay by the great Kim Morgan.
TCM Must-tapes this week 11/28 – 12/4: MARY (2005), William Powell, and a day of Warren William!
William is one of the great re-discovered icons of the pre-code era, exhumed by TCM like a King Tut of badass Satanic bravado and good humor, a cross between the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood and Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes.
Book review: The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of Pauline Kael, ed. by Sanford Schwartz
The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of Pauline Kael, ed. by Sanford Schwartz. New York: Library of America, 2011. Hardcover, 750pp, $40.00.. As perhaps the most well-known name in film criticism,[…]
