I just finished a fascinating, heartbreaking book by Laura Wagner– Hollywood’s Hard-Luck Ladies, another one of those offbeat, great, movie books published by McFarland & Company. It chronicles 23 Hollywood actresses whose careers and lives sometimes careened off cliffs. They…
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There are quite a few films that fall into a certain category. The kind of movie you are watching and you say to yourself, “am I reading too much into this or is this really gay?” There’s that funny monologue…
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Every year around this time of “Pride” celebrations I try to set up a film festival in my apartment of movies that aren’t exactly what many would consider life-affirming or particularly queer-positive, but I consider radically gay. Not that I…
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Way before the denigrating cinematic term “chick flick” there was the “woman’s picture.” It was a catch-all for gloriously soapy melodramas where females were the main focus of the movie. It was similarly a put-down, but since then film historians…
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About a million years ago, while I was living in Denver, I rescued a Siamese cat from the streets who I named “Belle de Jour.” One day I remember the cat was glaring at me from across the room and…
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Lately I’ve been uncovering all these loony theme songs to horror and sci-fi movies from the 50s and 60s on Youtube. Some were actually attached to the films; others were novelty records to promote the movie. But they all are…
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Don’t you weary of films and TV procedurals where women are walking down a darkened street only to be abducted by a psycho killer? You know that it’s going to go either two ways, and even a rescue is not…
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Someone recently asked what gives me pleasure these days. I guess it’s a valid question during a time when there seems to be light ahead but everything still feels stuck in place. I have to say what fills me with…
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In honor of the new Blu-ray release of Werewolves on Wheels (Code Red) it got me thinking about lycanthropy movies in general. I’ve been a fan of hairy shapeshifters ever since the gypsy hag (Maria Ouspenskaya) warned infected Larry Talbot…
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Criterion really is the gold standard of home media. Aside from some questionably oblique covers, their Blu-rays are all sensational restorations of movies by legendary directors such as Fellini: Bergman; Antonioni; Bunuel; Bresson; Fassbinder; Varda; Renoir; Denis; Powell; Akerman– it’s…
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