Obscene (2009)
Fascinating film about maverick publisher Barney Rosset. The complex doccumentary details his rise as a poor little rich kid with too much time and money on this hands to the free speech icon he is today.
Along the way we see him found The Evergreen Review, turn Grove Press into a cutting edge book company and distribute amazing films. Countless interviews fill in the details. My only complain is the soundtrack draws too much attention to itself. You also get to see the aging Rosset interviewed by Al Goldstein right before the latter was about to have some major legal problems of his own. Not to be missed.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Living Dolls (1980)
Here’s a creepy little film which used to be in rotation on the USA Network’s “Saturday Nightmares” show. It’s about a janitor at a dress store who finds himself trapped in the attic with the mannequins. I worked as a shipping clerk at a similar store some years ago, so it brings back some seriously bad memories.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
The Deadliest Man Alive
Floyd Web has been trying to put togather an amazing documentary video for several years about “Count Dante”, a martial arts master from Chicago who passed away in the 1970′s. You can see the trailer for it by going here. This will be one fascinating movie should it ever be made.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Quo Vadis?
But what it really comes down to is that there isn’t much to write about. Once you’ve seen The Mysterious Island of Beautiful Women and The Stone Tapes in one month, it’s hard to equal the experience. And, if you haven’t already noticed, I don’t like to write negative reviews. Enough fanboys out there doing that already. It’s easy to sneer at all the crap. Not so easy to hunt down such exotic plants as Terror In The Jungle.
I could start reviewing newer films, but I don’t care for much made after 1980. As far as I’m concerned, 1980 was the last good year. Afterwards came VHS, thousand channel cable and the last few Drive-Ins closing. It was never the same. I know there are good genre movies out there, I just lack the time to watch enough garbage to find the good stuff. And after reading the synopsis for The Collector, I am less likely to do it.
There’s also the matter about what I can say. I’ve started watching the Sartana Euro-westerns, but what new insight can I add? Shall I adopt a Poststurcturalist Autodidatic Premodernist approach? Perhaps delve into the inner symboliam of the gun? Right. Leave such nonsense for people with too much time on their hands.
I’m not sure what to do. But I’ll come up with something
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Daddy’s Gone A Hunting (1969)
There are movies I waited to see for a long time just because of the way the ad affected me as a kid. Faster Pussycat was one, this movie was another.
Set your time machine back to 1969. I’m sitting in my dad’s car listening to the AM radio. On comes this creepy commercial for a movie featuring a man reciting a nursery rhyme. Cut to a woman’s scream. I knew at that moment I would someday have to see this flick.
Too bad the movie itself doesn’t deliver on the promise of the radio ad. It’s basically a thriller from the (to steal a concept from Bill Landis) “endangered child” subgenre. Woman dumps psycho boyfriend when she finds out she’s preggers. Woman has the pregnancy aborted. Boyfriend comes after her years later when she has a baby she did want to keep. But she’s now married to a powerful lawyer with political ambitions, so she can’t tell her new hubby the whole truth.
I will say the final half-hour, involving a hunt for the psycho ex-boyfriend, was pretty gripping. But the actor who played him just couldn’t pull-off the cloud of fear necessary for the role
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Jack Smith and the Destruction of Atlantis (2008)
Excellent film about 60′s experimental visionary Jack Smith. Smith, who achieved notoriety with FLAMING CREATURES, never went on to the big art film leagues and died in 1989, forgotten by all but a a few dedicated fans. He never finished another film after CREATURES, perfering to live the life of a pure artist.
The film portrays his life and work via interviews with the various friends and family who knew him. You even get a few interviews with Smith himself, who comes across as a tortured artiste. The narrative tries to be as objective as possible, but it does suggest that several critics made their fame off Smith’s work.
A good look into a different era when filmmakers actually had to worry about getting busted on obscenity charges.
Posted by Tim Mayer at 11:02 AM 0 comments