Fight Club Hits New Low in Testosterone Impairment
This just in – men are stupid. “It is useless,” Dr. Johnson1 once remarked, “to criticize an unresisting imbecility.” He was referring, of course, to Carrot Top’s act, but his[…]
Activist & Political · Asian · Reviews
The Politics of Deepa Mehta’s Water
An acclaimed auteur’s new film gets caught in the cultural crossfire. Author’s Statement In February this year I traveled to India to work as a camera assistant on the film[…]
The Lesbian Vanishes: These Three, Lillian Hellman’s Adaptation of The Children’s Hour (1936)
“All right, which one of you took the lesbian?” In 1935, the movie producer Samuel Goldwyn bought the rights to Lillian Hellman’s play The Children’s Hour, intending to turn the[…]
Casino Royale at 33: The Postmodern Epic in Spite of Itself
It’s really a courtly epic in ’60s drag. It was a coup that Columbia Pictures had banked on: the one 007 property that got away from Broccoli and Saltzman’s cash[…]
Here’s Lookin’ at You, Kid! Alfred Hitchcock and Psycho
Hitch’s – and by now the whole damn culture’s – seminal Oedipal nightmare revisited Read the companion photo essay “Alfred Hitchcock: A Hank of Hair and a Piece of Bone”[…]
Dogma/Dogme, or Live Cinema
From the land of Kierkegaard and crullers, the newest New Wavers resuscitate – and reform – an artform ready for last rites. “The time to make up your mind about[…]
All Hail the Superbrat! Patty McCormack is The Bad Seed
“What would you give me for a basket of dead lovebirds?” The Bad Seed came out in 1956, the same year as Carousel and Tea and Sympathy. But while the[…]
Woman in the Dunes (Hiroshi Teshigahara, 1964) on DVD
The cruelty and clarity of life in a sand pit in Japan, circa 1964 Revisiting past pleasures – long-past pleasures in this case – has its particular perils. In the[…]
The Killing of Sister George (Robert Aldrich, 1968) on DVD
Dykes in distress in Robert Aldrich’s late ‘60s masterpiece Robert Aldrich ranks with Samuel Fuller and Nicholas Ray as one of the “golden boys” of postwar commercial cinema whose formal[…]
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[…]
Actors & Personalities · Interviews
Interview with Louise Hassing, or Live Cinema
Dogme secrets revealed by Lars von Trier’s “most promising actress” The 17th International Short Films Festival of Aix en Provence, in December 1999, apart from the competition, focused on Scandinavian[…]
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[…]
Book review: Sin in Soft Focus, by Mark A. Vieira
Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood, by Mark A. Vieira. (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1999). Cloth, $39.95, 340pp. ISBN 0-81094-475-8 “Pre-Code” is the catchall term, now familiar to[…]
Book review: The Werewolf Book, by Brad Steiger
The Werewolf Book: The Encyclopedia of Shape-Shifting Things, by Brad Steiger. (Detroit: Visible Ink Press, 1999). Trade paperback, $19.95, 397pp. ISBN 1057859-078-7 The werewolf, like most other monsters of folklore, has[…]
Book review: Little Joe, Superstar, by Michael Ferguson
Little Joe, Superstar: The Films of Joe Dallesandro, by Michael Ferguson. Laguna Hills, CA: Companion Press, 1998. ISBN 1-889138-09-6, Trade paper, $18.95. Monique von Vooren was mesmerized by his “translucent skin”; Sylvia Miles called it[…]
Book reviews: The New Historical Dictionary of the American Film Industry; Joseph H. Lewis
The New Historical Dictionary of the American Film Industry, by Anthony Slide. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press,1998. Oversize hardcover, ISBN 0-8108-3426-X, 207pp, $55.00. Film dictionaries have become a genre unto themselves lately, and[…]
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