Film

  From the moment that Warren Oates swings open the bank teller’s window and greets the audience on the other side with a grin equal parts sleaze and charm, DILLINGER (1973) appears to be another production mining the gangster-as-folk-hero vein ala BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967). A wealthy pigeon of a woman has just turned her…

  Like the malcontent MARTIN (1977) who sought answers and an alternative nightside to the dull, crushing poverty of his daylit hours, Joan Mitchell (Jan White) plunges into the world of all-the-rage witchcraft to distract from the role of compliant housewife that has been both pressed upon her and eased into without much personal pushback.…

Back in January I stopped over in Tampa to check out Grindhouse Video, a new movie store that had just set up shop. Generally speaking, my tastes lean more towards dustier and Gothic fare than sweaty exploitation, but GV had some pretty tempting titles in stock and I was just very pleased to see a specialty store…

THE GOLEM (1920), originally titled THE GOLEM: HOW HE CAME INTO THE WORLD (Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam), has an interesting cultural lineage, at least in regards to the lovely DVD put out by Kino Lorber. Introductory texts to the film report that the majority of the footage in Kino’s release was…

Producer Dan Curtis resurrects another literary classic for the small screen in this stately—if slightly dry—adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s novel. After having his portrait painted by famed artist Basil Hallward (Charles Aidman), the young and beautiful Dorian Gray (Shane Briant, FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL) comes under the wing of hedonistic aristocrat Sir Harry…

The wife and I decided to celebrate the birthday of our mutual idol/love interest Tim Curry by viewing CONGO (1995) on Netflix Instant, a film I had never seen before but was cautiously intrigued by mostly due to my wife’s go-to impression of tapping her chest and chiming “I’m Amy!” whenever the subject of the…

Back in October, I spoke at some length on how HOWLING III: THE MARSUPIALS served as a low point in the already-risible-by-the-first-sequel series, citing its cheekiness and utterly bizarre creative choices as indicative of its poor quality. Since that time, I’ve come to understand that unorthodox artistic decisions do not go hand-in-hand with badness. There…