Most of us remember the first movie witch that freaked us out. From the green-skinned Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz, to the evil Maleficent of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. Honestly, for me the thought that you could ride a broom and…
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I have to admit I’ve been weary of Netflix for a while- strolling their menu in vain for anything to watch. There’s always a glut of choices but nothing that speaks to me, that’s for sure. And then, like magic,…
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Another great month for Blu-ray fanatics, with rare made-for-TV thrillers including the loony Scream, Pretty Peggy; the precursor to X-Files– Kolchak: The Night Stalker; a brilliant existential sci-fi classic- The Incredible Shrinking Man; an eerie Japanese chiller- Onibaba; the hilarious…
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Shout! Factory sneakily released a Blu-ray of one of my favorite so-bad-it’s-good movies- Bluebeard starring Richard Burton and sex-kitten Joey Heatherton. I remember vividly seeing this 1972 stinker in a sparsely attended movie theater and had to jam my scarf…
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It’s fall and The New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center is back, and not virtual (a word I’ve come to loathe). In the 70s every fall I would hitchhike to New York from Provincetown, Mass. with my tickets for…
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Heartbreaking documentary by Kristina Lindstrom and Kristian Petri about Bjorn Andresen, who won the part of Tadzio in Luchino Visconti’s 1971 Death in Venice. Visconti went on a world-wide search for the beautiful object of obsession for Dirk Bogarde’s Gustav…
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Japanese director Sion Sono has always pushed the envelope in his own crackpot way. One thinks back to Suicide Club with all those Japanese schoolgirls merrily leaping to their death in front of a train; or forever-growing killer hair in…
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Starting in 1995 the US Post Office released a series of “Legends of Hollywood” stamps that were a thrill for collectors and fans. From James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Alfred Hitchcock to Shirley Temple there…
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This month of Blu-ray releases feel like a great big pile of deliriously deranged birthday party gifts. From Luchino Visconti’s wildly controversial The Damned; a pristine version of an early film by Francis Ford Coppola– Dementia 13; a fabulous box…
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Watching Luke Kirby’s extraordinary performance as serial killer Ted Bundy in No Man of God got me to thinking of other actors who were able to sharpen their acting skills portraying murderers. It must be wild channeling some twisted mind…
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