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[…]
40th New York Film Festival (Sept. 27-Oct. 13, 2002)
“No reassurance and little escapism – just right for the current state of uncertainty” New York feels unsettled these days, an agitation reflected even at the venerable Film Festival, whose[…]
38th Chicago International Film Festival (2002)
“The Scandals of 2002” “There is no more universal experience than sitting in a darkened theater, watching the magic of the movies.” So says Richard M. Daley, mayor of Chicago.[…]
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[…]
Candy, or Libertinism
“I’ll do anything … ANYTHING” to save Daddy!” Introduction Based on the famous – or better, notorious – faux pornographic novel by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg, Candy (Christian Marquand,[…]
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[…]
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