Sad, Angry Man: Basil Dearden’s Victim on DVD
A landmark work in the queer canon arrives on DVD Basil Dearden’s excellent thriller Victim was released in 1961, during roughly the same time as the ascension of Britain’s “angry[…]
Category: Genres
Brainpower: Ken Russell’s Billion Dollar Brain Reassessed
“Into the 21st century, son. This is how wars are gonna be fought and life is gonna be lived.” 1967 was a fascinating year for thrillers. John Boorman sent Lee[…]
Animation · Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews
Treasures of Puppet Cinema: Pinocchio, Attack of the Puppet People, Black Devil Doll from Hell
Wooden bottom boyz, teensy teens, and a Satanic blackface Charlie McCarthy – these are just a few of the offerings from le cinema puppet! Pinocchio Walt Disney made horror movies[…]
Actors & Personalities · Music & Musicals · Reviews
Fred Astaire Meets Artie Shaw in Second Chorus
New DVD also includes Ezio Pinza, Lena Horne, and Duke Ellington “The worst picture I ever worked on.” That was Fred Astaire’s overly sour take on Second Chorus. It’s easy[…]
Brotherlove and Motherlove: Rocco and His Brothers on DVD
These brothers may be a little too close “Viscontiesque” doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue, and hasn’t entered the language as “Felliniesque” has. But Visconti’s movies are at least as[…]
Directors · Experimental & Underground · Interviews · Visual Artists
An Actionist Begins to Sing: An Interview with Otto Mühl
“I have been making art for 50 years and have never allowed myself to be corrupted. Quite the opposite, I was locked up.” – Otto Mühl As I tremulously reflect[…]
Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews
Of Horny Hunchbacks and Stitch Bitches: Le Cinema Milligan
If you think his films are bad, wait till you see his life Among its many pleasures, the sixties opened the floodgates for cinematic sleaze. Subjects hitherto found only in[…]
Two by Sturges: Sullivan’s Travels and The Lady Eve on DVD
Criterion serves up two more deep-dish DVDs from yesteryear Sullivan’s Travels (1941) Hollywood’s self-exams are usually dipped in acid: What Price Hollywood?, A Star is Born, Sunset Boulevard, The Bad[…]
The Wizard of Awe: Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away
The creator of Princess Mononoke brings his sleek Boschian vision to America, courtesy of Disney “Being enclosed, protected, and kept away from dangers, children cannot help but enlarge their fragile[…]
Exploitation & Erotica · LGBT & Queer · Reviews
Chained Girls (1965): A Twilight Tale of the Third Sex
Who is that comely, vicious gal plotting mayhem from the shadows? Why, the dyke of 1960s pop culture, of course. “Lesbians have their variations from one group to another. There[…]
Essays · Reviews · SF & Fantasy
Defense of the Clones: Lucas’s Latest: Cheap Thrills or Sophisticated Filmmaking?
A close reading points to the latter. For those who see popular film as capable of providing more than cheap visceral thrills, the dismal nature of recent writing on Attack[…]
Actors & Personalities · Music & Musicals · Reviews
Fred Goes Over the Top with Eleanor Powell in Broadway Melody of 1940
The semi-sweet smell of excess Have you got a yen for understated elegance and class? Then keep on truckin’, dude, because this 1940 M-G-M black-and-white monster/masterpiece ain’t for you. M-G-M[…]
Activist & Political · Reviews
Censorship and Indian Cinema: The Case of Anand Patwardhan’s War and Peace
Cutting-edge films continue to be cut – or suppressed entirely – by India’s clueless Censor Board “Censorship is when a work of art expressing an idea which does not fall[…]
LGBT & Queer · Reviews · Uncategorized
Boys on the Side: A Survey of Adult/Youth Relationships in Movies and TV
Surprise – it could be a lot worse. In a February 2002 commentary for her syndicated column “Lesbian Notions,” Paula Martinac recalls her angst at browsing through her local lesbian[…]
Being a Kid Is a Drag – Onscreen
There are drag queens and then there are drag princesses Why would an eight-year-old boy want to wear a dress? “Scotsmen wear dresses, they’re called kilts. King Tut wore a[…]
Goodbye Warren, Hello Tim: How Clinton Demobilized Liberalism and Anti-Capitalism Came into Hollywood
Hollywood shows some unsuspected radical tendencies – after eight years of Clintonian “liberalism” “Hollywood is at its best when it is relating to a progressive left political force that’s already[…]
Essays · Historical & Epic · Reviews
Black and White Breakfast: Race, Class, Sexuality, and Corn Flakes in Alan Parker’s The Road to Wellville
Parker’s “ode to bathroom humor” plumbs surprising depths Contemporary American comedy evades realistic treatment of social issues, opting instead for escape from these issues. That the bulk of racial representation[…]
Frederic March and Carole Lombard Find Nothing Sacred in the Big Apple
“There she is, in all her beads and ribbons!” How Manhattan is Nothing Sacred? To be more Manhattan, it would have to be Manhattan. Because once more we’re on that[…]
“Fascinating. Horrible, but Fascinating”: 20 Million Miles to Earth on DVD
In which Harryhausen’s most poignant monster mixes it up After pioneering French filmmaker Georges Mêlies, there are few special effects icons left to trip over on your way to current[…]
Documentaries · Noir · Reviews
DVD Sampler: Cuban Story, The Vanishing, The Joke, Salesman, and Strange Illusion
In DVD land, the world’s your oyster – pearls included (sometimes) Cuban Story (Victor Pahlen, 1959) By the mid-1950s, Errol Flynn was enjoying the low high life of a bloated[…]
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