The new film by Fatih Akin is based on a true Hamburg serial killer in the 1970s and it’s so outrageously twisted and grindingly appalling it’s kind of amazing. The director- Fatih Akin is a real favorite of mine-…
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There’s a surprising tender heart beating beneath the deliriously violent, blackly funny surface of the exhilarating new film by prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike. Leo (Masataka Kubota) is a young aspiring boxer who is informed by doctors he has…
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The new promos for Ryan Murphy’s upcoming season of American Horror Story hints that it might be an homage to 80s slasher films. My heart leapt at this. True, most of today’s more successful modern horror movies like…
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You cannot beat a month in which you can purchase digitally restored Blu-rays of movies by film maverick Ida Lupino, not to mention other gems like Criterion’s glorious version of John Waters’ Polyester, Warner Archive’s new editions of Jezebel…
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Opening Friday Sept. 13th at IFC Center (323 6th Ave.) is Larry Fessenden’s macabre, inspired take on the Frankenstein story which is heartbreaking as it is horrifying. Set in a warehouse/loft in Brooklyn, Henry (David Call) is a former army…
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“Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me,” is an old quote that has always annoyed me. Anyone who has ever survived a withering rebuke from a lover or been mercilessly trolled online to…
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There have been great documentaries about the fashion world. From The First Monday In May, Dior And I, The September Issue, McQueen, Valentino: The Last Emperor to my favorite Unzipped. But I love it, when, in a fiction film,…
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Lately I’ve been on a mission. And I don’t think anything is impossible when you never say die. I’ve been trying to get death row inmates final DVDs to watch. I hear about “victim’s rights” all the time. But what…
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I just finished a fascinating book on one of my favorite character actors- A Hollywood Tragedy- Laird Cregar by Gregory William Mank (McFarland). It’s one of those books that I knew was in the works and I wondered how…
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An impressive batch or demented favorites, classics and cult oddities on Blu-ray this month. From Busby Berkeley-choreographed insanity like Footlight Parade to Billy The Kid Vs. Dracula– what more could one ask for? Footlight Parade (Warner Archive) One…
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