Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews
The Alley Cats (1966) on DVD
Can your heart stand it? More Radley Metzger! The title of Metzger’s “second film” (second by his own reckoning; other sources list it as his fourth, after Dark Odyssey, The[…]
Category: Genres
Experimental & Underground · Reviews
George Kuchar’s Secrets of the Shadow World
What do Sasquatch droppings and flying saucers have in common? George Kuchar, of course. Underground film impresario Jack Stevenson tells the story of how George Kuchar dealt with a problem[…]
Activist & Political · Documentaries · Reviews
Three Films by Richard Dindo: Grüninger’s Fall; Ernesto Che Guevara: The Bolivian Diary; Arthur Rimbaud: A Biography
The eminent Swiss documentarian looks at saints and sinners of history – without saying which are which “My films revolve around absence,” Swiss documentarian Richard Dindo has said, but the[…]
Three Films by Edgar G. Ulmer: Bluebeard, The Strange Woman, and Moon over Harlem
Making art in the most unlikely circumstances Edgar G. Ulmer (1904-1972) was one of many beneficiaries of the wave of auteurism that galvanized critics in France in the 1950s and[…]
Directors · Exploitation & Erotica · Reviews
Graverobbers and Drag Queens from Outer Space! Four Ed Wood Greats on DVD
Plan 9 from Outer Space; Glen or Glenda; Jail Bait; Bride of the Monster One of my fondest memories of a communal movie experience is seeing my first Ed Wood[…]
Punk Girls on Film: Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains
The kids are not all right! Riot girls have a long and noble history that extends far back beyond Hole and Courtney Love. No doubt the experts in this realm[…]
Directors · Exploitation & Erotica · Interviews
Roger Corman on New World Pictures: An Interview from 1974
Fun in the New World Corman founded New World in 1970; it was his second attempt to control production and distribution (after the ill-fated Film Group, which lasted a couple[…]
Directors · Experimental & Underground · LGBT & Queer
Laughing Pan: James Broughton
Ecstasy for all! says the pied piper of queer experimental film Every movement has its muses. James Broughton probably would have copped to being a muse, or perhaps more accurately,[…]
Crime · Noir · Reviews · Uncategorized
Carol Reed’s The Third Man on Criterion
Good golly, Mr. Holly! In one of the many extras in Criterion’s sumptuous DVD presentation of Carol Reed’s The Third Man, Peter Bogdanovich calls the film “the greatest non-auteur film[…]
Denounced, Cut, and Burned: The Passion of Joan of Arc
The film suffered almost as much as Joan before arriving in a gorgeous DVD. In spite of the hype, DVD is more often promise than fulfillment. Many, perhaps most, of[…]
Life Is … Pretty Good: Hermine Huntgeburth’s The Trio
Criminal high jinks with a different kind of family Family, aka “the F word,” comes in many forms, or so says Hermine Huntgeburth’s bittersweet black comedy The Trio (1998). This[…]
Still Breathing: Ana Kokkinos’s Head On
Ari’s a mess – it’s in his kiss Ana Kokkinos’s debut feature Head On was one of the more distinctive entries in San Francisco’s 1999 Lesbian and Gay Film Festival,[…]
Lukas Moodysson’s Show Me Love
Teenage lesbians gleefully terrorize Sweden Mention teenage love and lust, and images immediately arise of tabloid TV shows and creepy Internet chat rooms overrun by drooling chicken hawks and FBI[…]
Crime · LGBT & Queer · Reviews
Hell in the Heartland: Boys Don’t Cry
These boys do, and so do the girls The credits for Boys Don’t Cry list “Killer Films” as one of the production companies, and that’s as apt a description of[…]
Experimental & Underground · Reviews
Wojciech Has’s The Saragossa Manuscript
The legendary head flick from the ’60s in a polished new print “Head movies” – those mind-bending epics like 2001 or El Topo that are supposedly best viewed under the[…]
Worthy of the Slaughter? On Saving Private Ryan
It’s not just Ryan who needs saving. My friend Kevin and I were lingering over one too many bourbons. The jukebox was playing “What If God Was One of Us.”[…]
Percolating Paranoia: Fritz Lang’s The Big Heat
Fritz Lang brings the terrors of noir into the bright kitchens of America. Watch that coffee pot! In Bright Lights 12 devoted to film noir, Gary Morris locates the malaise[…]
Composers · Music & Musicals · SF & Fantasy
Bernard Herrmann’s The Twilight Zone on CD
Serling’s groundbreaking series was also a warm haven for Hollywood’s greatest composer Last weekend I purchased the Herrmann Twilight Zone double-CD, and I’ve played it about ten times by now[…]
Exploitation & Erotica · Producers & Studios · Reviews
Roger Corman’s New World Pictures: Notes Toward a Lexicon
The beloved low-budget exploitation company sampled New World Pictures (1970-1983) was the brainchild of Roger Corman. It was his second attempt (after The Filmgroup in the early ’60s) to run[…]
Experimental & Underground · Reviews
American Independent Narrative Cinema of the ’60s: A Brief Survey (Courtesy of the 1992 Torino Film Festival)
What better way to attack the monolith of social/sexual repression than by attacking the “sanctity” of the linear narrative? “The Official cinema of the world has run out of breath.[…]
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