Original Cinemaniac

Author Archive: Dennis Dermody

Dr. Hambone & Mr. Hyde

            Robert Louis Stevenson knew plenty about doctors and medicine- he wrote most of his 1886 classic The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in bed, coughing up blood. After reading the book in seventh grade, I would retire to my…
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Bette Davis- The Anniversary

            M– is for the monstrous way she treats us.             O– means that she can be just obscene.             T– is for the torment that she causes.             H– is for the hatred she receives.             E– is for the eyepatch she wears smiling.…
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Gaspar Noe’s Vortex

            Opening at IFC Center on Friday April 29 is Vortex, director Gaspar Noe’s shattering portrait of an elderly couple shakily hanging on by a thread in their cluttered, lived-in flat.              The great Italian director Dario Argento plays the husband, with…
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Rock Hudson’s Home Movies

            Now out on DVD from Kino Lorber is director Mark Rappaport’s wonderfully meta take on closeted actor Rock Hudson.             Using Eric Farr as a stand-in for Hudson it begins seven years after the actor’s death from AIDs which shocked the…
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