Original Cinemaniac

Movies

Infested

            Alright, I admit I am fearful of spiders. I understand their importance in the ecological chain of things. And their webs are a thing of beauty. But if I ever see an eight-legged critter skitter across the kitchen floor my…
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Femme

            Spellbinding, superbly acted, tale of queer revenge, expertly directed by Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping.             Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) is a black performance artist in a London gay club. His drag attire gets him savagely beat up by a…
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When Evil Lurks

            It’s ironic that the talk this weekend is the opening of The Exorcist: Believer, when the really brilliant, nightmarish film about demonic possession is also premiering- When Evil Lurks by the Argentine director Demian Rugna.             Demian Rugna’s previous film- Terrified–…
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Winter Kills at the Film Forum

            Winter Kills is a brilliant 1979 paranoid political thriller by novice director William Richert, which got great reviews but was pulled from theaters after a short run. It also has garnered a well-deserved cult following.             Jeff Bridges plays the brother of an assassinated…
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Fear the Night

            Maggie Q plays a toughened, yet damaged, Iraqi war veteran named Tes who begrudgingly accompanies her sisters to their parents’ farmhouse way out in the desert for a bachelorette party. Her sister Beth (Kat Foster), a Stepford Wife with an…
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The Mother and the Whore

            Film at Lincoln Center and Janus Films announced an incredible retrospective from July 7-13: “The Dirty Stories of Jean Eustache” celebrating the career of the iconoclastic French post-New Wave director. “The films I made are as autobiographical as fiction can…
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Swallowed

            Director Carter Smith’s new film is a nightmarish, nerve-shredding, queer love story/body horror film. Two best friends are spending a final night on the town together in Maine. Long-haired, tattooed Dom (Jose Colon) is straight and his handsome buddy Benjamin…
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Infinity Pool

            If you think you’ve seen how horrible the wealthy can be at ritzy resorts by watching The White Lotus you still will be unprepared when you experience Brandon Cronenberg’s bizarre, twisted, hallucinatory- Infinity Pool.             Alexander Skarsgard plays James Foster, an…
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