A terrific batch of Blu-rays this month- Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s wild last film; an exceptional Raoul Walsh Warner Brothers melodrama starring Ida Lupino; a fascinating new Woody Allen; a bonkers Lucio Fulci erotic thriller; a double-bill of hillbilly harlots; a crackpot…
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Years ago, I was reading in Michael J. Weldon’s exhaustive and exhilarating second installment to The Psychotronic Video Guide about a bizarre 1975 film, shot in Spain, directed by Silvio Narizzano (Georgy Girl) and reuniting actors Dennis Hopper and Carroll…
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Anyone who knows me well knows that the one thing you can’t say Is anything disparaging about actress Kim Novak. Critically maligned through the years, even Alfred Hitchcock dismissed her acting in his masterpiece Vertigo, to which Francois Truffaut, who…
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I used to love hitchhiking. I remember defiantly announcing to my father I wasn’t going to get a driver’s license and he angrily asked, “How the hell are you going to get around?” “I’ll hitchhike,” I sarcastically replied. And that’s…
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I always find it amusing when people tell me physical home media is dead. For film collectors, this is a golden age with boutique Blu-ray labels cranking out astounding rare titles each month, digitally restored from their negatives. I can’t…
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Fayard Nicholas (of the legendary Nicholas Brothers dancing duo) said about dancer Eleanor Powell (dubbed the “Queen of tap”), “Eleanor Powell was one of the greatest, period, bar none. Not only one of the greatest women- one of the greatest,…
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Alright I admit it- I have a fondness for psychos. Most of my closest friends have often been referred to as “nuts.” Many of the guys I dated were so disturbed they probably deserved to be permanently outfitted for strait–jackets…
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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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Phase IV is, sadly, the only feature film by legendary graphic artist Saul Bass, who designed great title sequences for directors Otto Preminger and Alfred Hitchcock (including acting as “pictorial consultant” for the all-important shower sequence in Psycho). The movie…
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This wildly eclectic selection of newly remastered cult films on Blu-ray makes me an April fool, for sure. One from the director affectionately called “Mr. B.I.G” Bert I. Gordon, a big-budgeted Jess Franco chiller, two sleaze greats from Bob Cresse…
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