Cult

            I can remember it like it was yesterday. My mother was in the basement ironing. And I was down on my knees, begging shamelessly. This had gone for nearly an hour. She wasn’t even acknowledging me by then. Periodically she…
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            I always thought author Thomas Hardy was one gloomy Gus, but I do agree with a quote attributed to him: “Fear is the mother of foresight.” Because there are some movies I have never had the guts to see. Sometimes…
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            When people get stressed or anxious or depressed they reach for anything to alleviate the pain. Some grab a handful of pills. Others surrender to the pipe or a bottle. Some stretch for a loaded syringe. Or use an entire…
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            Necrophilia is not a subject I’m very familiar with. When I played doctor as a child I never wanted my patients to be that still.             But recently I heard a wild rumor about a secret group called the Matterhorn Society, founded in…
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            I guess I’m happy for the success of Barbie at the box office. At least it got audiences back in theaters. And it’s a win for Greta Gerwig, who I’ve been rooting for ever since I saw her in Frances…
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            Talk about going down the rabbit hole. I just finished this terrific book about Italian exploitation director Umberto Lenzi (Seven Blood-Stained Orchids/Orgasmo/The Tough Ones/Cannibal Ferox) by Troy Howarth called “Make Them Die Slowly” and I was catching up with other…
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            I was saddened by the death of Oscar-winning director William Friedkin, and pleased by the outpouring of sympathy by actors and other directors who recognized his genius. I met him on the set of To Live and Die in L.A.…
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            I think it was my sadness reading about the death of the sublime Jane Birkin that encouraged me to revisit a 1985 film she was in that was directed by Paul Morrissey– Beethoven’s Nephew. I remember loving the movie when…
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            At the beginning of Ed Wood’s gloriously bonkers Plan 9 from Outer Space, a man is seen sitting at a desk wearing a tuxedo and with a ludicrous spit curl in his hair. He speaks in a stentorian deep voice:…
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