The Hourglass Sanatorium
Polish director Wojciech Has harbored no desire to make a political film. But in Poland under Soviet rule, where film promoting social realism was the mandate, not being political was the most political thing he could do.
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
A fairytale about a young girl attempting to navigate the many predators surrounding her becomes an allegory for the challenges of womanhood and the trials faced by then Czechoslovakia in the face of Soviet aggression.
Whatever Happened to Saturday Night?
Over on the Cultural Gutter, I’m celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The world doesn’t need another review of the movie, so Whatever Happened to Saturday Night? is instead a mini-memoir about my first time seeing the movie, at Louisville’s Vogue Theater in 1987, what it meant to me, and how radically the movie — and that old theater — changed my outlook on life for the better .
Trashy Trio: The Blood-Spattered Bride
I hate the Spanish horror movie The Blood-Spattered Bride, but I still managed to involve myself in nearly two hours of talking about it on an episode of The Trashy Trio Podcast. OK, maybe 40 minutes was about The Blood-Spattered Bride.
Eyes Without a Face
A fan of silent serials and a precursor to the French Nouvelle Vague, Georges Franju was inspired by the early thrillers of Louis Feuillade when he made the haunting, at times shocking, story of a disfigured woman, a driven scientist, and the horror of physical beauty.
Mulholland Drive
David Lynch’s tale of an aspiring actress becomes a surreal nightmare, a puzzle box of a film about the dark side of Hollywood played out against the sunny Los Angeles landscape.
Creature of Destruction
“There is no monster in the world so treacherous as man.” So we are reminded at the beginning of Larry Buchanan’s Creature of Destruction and, just in case we forgot, at the end of the film as well. I like a film with a message, but the message is considerably less interesting if the film…
