Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control on DVD
“We’ve agreed to be part of a collective perception … To become a crowd is to keep out death. To break off from the crowd is to risk death as[…]
“I Don’t Know Dick”: Heavy Metal 2000 on DVD
“The ‘key’ to the ‘chamber’ of immortality looks like a glowing white penis” Contrary to the title of this review, anyone who knows the prolific output – 92 B-movies since[…]
The Bowery: Raoul Walsh’s Gangs of New York
They spit! They swear! They smoke in bed! Back in 1933, The Bowery scored a big hit, introducing Darryl Zanuck’s new independent venture called Twentieth Century Pictures, yet this nostalgic[…]
Undisputed: Wesley Snipes vs. Ving Rhames
Cinema meets the sweet science at the multiplex, and nobody gets knocked out After a long hot summer of mismatches in 2002, we finally got to see a competitive heavyweight[…]
Activist & Political · Documentaries · Reviews
Estela Bravo’s Fidel (2001), a Documentary
This documentary offers an affectionate, in-depth portrait of the enduring world leader who stood up to the U.S. Over the course of the last 40 years, the CIA has tried[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
Come Back, Jack! Why Schmidt Is Shit
Payne capsized an actor and a novel in this misfire About Schmidt drives another nail in the coffin of irony. About Schmidt is as lacking in irony as its blatant[…]
Actors & Personalities · Reviews
Two Hour Movie (Starring Robin Williams in One Hour Photo)
Robin Williams morphs again, and still nobody’s laughing We all have met a man like Seymour Parrish at some point in our lives. Whether he was refilling our slurpies at[…]
Watch Me While I Die: Stephen Daldry’s The Hours
This “sensitive” film prefers its women dead – metaphorically or literally What happens when a film about women tries to force us to the conclusion that the thinking woman, or[…]
Ho-hum Intrigue in Barcelona: Gaudi Afternoon on DVD
It’s little wonder this yawner didn’t get a theatrical release Gaudi Afternoon, a 2001 San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival entry, never got a theatrical distributor and has[…]
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[…]
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[…]
Daddy and Father in The Emerald Forest
On civilization and its discontents I recently saw a list of Luddite movies that listed Cameron’s The Terminator (1984), Chaplin’s Modern Times (1936), and Lang’s Metropolis (1927), among others. Luddites[…]
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 · Essays · Reviews
Andy Kaufman, Tony Clifton, Mr. Ripley, and the Elisions of Identity
I had an opportunity to see a double feature a couple of years ago on a British Airways flight to Madrid. The size of the screen certainly reduced any desire[…]
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[…]
Book review: German National Cinema, by Sabine Hake
German National Cinema, by Sabine Hake. London and New York: Routledge, 2002. Trade paper, $22.95, 232pp. ISBN 0-41508-902-6 It is certainly astonishing, although not unexpected, that it has taken almost[…]
Book review: The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, by David Thomson
The New Biographical Dictionary of Film by David Thomson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002. Cloth, $35.00, 963pp. ISBN 0-375-41128-3. Hours will be lost, then days. The New Biographical Dictionary of Film is[…]
Book review: Joan Crawford, by Lawrence J. Quirk and William Schoell
Joan Crawford: The Essential Biography, by Lawrence J. Quirk and William Schoell. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2002. Cloth, $27.50, 294pp. ISBN 0-8131-2254-6. Joan Crawford was not Mommie Dearest.[…]
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[…]
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