Cult

  • Jesus Franco – Sinfonía Erótica (1980)

    1971-1980CultEroticaJesus FrancoSpain

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    All of us Jess Franco fans know that he was a musician before being a filmmaker, yet we don’t know much about his musical tastes. Jazz apart, what musical genre or what composers does he prefer?

    The choice of using Franz Liszt’s scores in some of his films could give us our first answer. Many Franco fans will remember the trumpet solo in the night-club where Miss Death performs her shows (MISS MUERTE, 1965): it’s a transcription from Franz Liszt’s Dream of Love No.3 in A Flat Major (as a matter of fact a nocturne), one of those piano “Love Melodies”, once very popular, that all good-family ladies and girls liked to play in their houses. Franco has used this sentimental melody numerous times, in the most disparate transcriptions. It will be just the Dream of Love No.3, strummed by Lina Romay on a small piano, which will magically open a strong-box full of gold bars in the last scene of LA NOCHE DE LOS SEXOS ABIERTOS (1981).Read More »

  • Floyd Mutrux – Dusty and Sweets McGee (1971)

    1971-1980CultDramaFloyd MutruxUSA

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    From allmovie.com:

    Maverick director Floyd Mutrux made his feature debut with this offbeat semi-documentary look at the realities of the Los Angeles drug scene. Mutrux and his camera crew follow a handful of real-life heroin addicts as they go through their daily routines of scoring dope and whiling away the hours until their next fix. (The dealers are played by actors, among them William Fraker, a noted cinematographer who helped shoot the film, and Billy Gray, a former child star from Father Knows Best.) Dusty and Sweets are a thirty-something couple whose often strained relationship is held together by their shared dependence on heroin. Kit is a blasé male hustler who turns tricks to support his habit. Tip is a self-described “everyday card-carrying dope fiend” who demonstrates his technique for ripping off supermarkets and explains how to keep up a habit behind bars. And a cheerfully blank teenage couple seem to spend their days either shooting up, nodding off, or wondering where to get more dope. Though featuring enough on-screen skin popping to make nearly any audience wince, Dusty and Sweets McGee’s beautiful photography and languid mood captures the blissfully narcotic allure of Los Angeles in a way that makes the film compelling, while allowing its subjects to seem both human and tragic. Dusty and Sweets McGee also includes a soundtrack of vintage rock and roll radio, and a brief appearance by the group Blues Image, playing their sole hit “Ride Captain Ride”.Read More »

  • Robert Hartford-Davis – Gonks Go Beat (1965)

    1961-1970CultMusicalRobert Hartford-DavisRock n' Roll MusicalsUnited Kingdom

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    Quote:
    Bizarre sixties fable resembling Romeo and Juliette, but instead of Montagues and Capulets, there are two musical communities, one who like rock and roll and one who like ballads, who become reunited through the love between a couple who love across their grouping. It features little furry puppets called Gonks.Read More »

  • Adolfo Best-Maugard – La mancha de sangre (1937)

    1931-1940Adolfo Best-MaugardCrimeCultMexico

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    This stunning film is one of a few films made by Adolfo Best Maugard (“Fito Best”), the great Mexican painter.  Initially banned under the administration of Lázaro Cárdenas, it was released in a badly censored form for a short run under his successor’s administration but was critically panned and disappeared for the next half century. Read More »

  • Paul Schrader – The Comfort of Strangers (1990)

    1981-1990CultDramaPaul SchraderUSA

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    IMDB:
    An English couple holiday in Venice to sort out their relationship. There is some friction and distance between them, and we also sense they are being watched. One evening, they lose their way looking for a restaurant, and a stranger invites them to accompany him. He plies them with wine and grotesque stories from his childhood. They leave disoriented, physically ill, and morally repelled. But, next day, when the stranger sees them in the piazza, they accept an invitation to his sumptuous flat. After this visit, the pair find the depth to face questions about each other, only to be drawn back into the mysterious and menacing fantasies of the stranger and his mate. Written by jhaileyRead More »

  • Joseph Strick – Tropic of Cancer (1970)

    1961-1970CultDramaJoseph StrickUSA


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    Quote:
    In 1960s Paris, an expatriate American novelist (Rip Torn) still struggling to find his voice lives life to the fullest without much regard for his wife (Ellen Burstyn) as he embarks on a succession of sexual encounters with beautiful women. Adapted from Henry Miller’s controversial 1934 novel — which was banned in the United States for nearly 30 years — this passionate drama also stars James Callahan.Read More »

  • Dante Marraccini – La sensualità è…un attimo di vita (1975)

    1971-1980CultDante MarracciniEroticaItaly

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    A kind of shot “piéce of avantgarde theater” with an obscure plot. The beginning of the movie destroys the limits of cult cinema: Gianni Dei and Margaret Lee ride stark naked on a beach, then Gabriele Tinti comes there, rummaging in their jeep. A lot of dialogues in the classic cult Polselli’s style. Later they join a kind of errant company, they ride, get undressed and dressed again, do weird things, cross land and sea. The movie also features Rita Calderoni, Orchidea De Santis and a character called “Polselli”(!!). Where the hell is the script of this madness?!?Read More »

  • Bitto Albertini – Emanuelle nera AKA Black Emanuelle (1975)

    1971-1980Bitto AlbertiniCultEroticaItaly

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    USER COMMENTS FROM IMDB:
    A sexy photographer in Africa

    Laura Gemser plays a magazine photographer who is sent to Africa for a photo shoot. There she is met by a couple and other swinging couples. They all stay at this huge, very touristy hotel with a gigantic swimming pool. One night they have a pool party complete with “real live” native dancers. It’s very un-politically correct and very kitschy. Later, Emanuelle finally has her photo shoot, which turns out to be in one of those drive-through, stay-in-your-car safaris (albeit the photography is gorgeous). Throughout the film, Emanuelle is going after every man she meets. The photography is very well done in this film. There are scenes with cascading waterfalls, galloping giraffes and ancient ruins. The film is worth seeing for the soundtrack by Nico Fidenco alone.Read More »

  • Hugo Santiago – Invasión (1969)

    1961-1970ArgentinaCultHugo SantiagoSci-FiWar

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    from IMDB:
    a “missing piece” in the puzzle of 60’s cinema,
    10/10
    Author: l-c-a-161-582869 from Canada

    a day after i saw invasion (at tiff) i had already come to take it for granted as a part of the essential canon of 60’s film. though the affinities with some new wave and related trends of the period (godard, antonioni, resnais) have been noted- and i would certainly add bunuel to that list- hugo santiago’s film adds something decisively different to the mix, something you maybe always unconsciously felt belonged there but wasn’t really represented by any particular film or “auteur”. unfortunately the original negatives were seized (and presumably destroyed) by the military in the early 70’s, and the restored print is variable in quality with shoddy french subtitles over which the English titles are projected in real time. this resulted in many mistakes which threatened to render the story even more mysterious than it was intended to be! someone badly needs to do a new restoration on this one! regardless, invasion is, especially when taken in context (1969!) a remarkable achievement in every way. superb, velvety black-and-white cinematography, fabulous location shooting, brilliant performances, and all that, combined with a meaningful, prescient story of the “inevitable, irresistible invasion” which was shortly to overtake argentina and subsequently all of us… the brutally inhuman men in suits…! the protagonist herrera (lautaro murua) is the quintessential borgesian knife-fighter reconfigured as a gun-toting ruthless thug defending civilization-as-we-know it from the “invaders”… the counter-revolution, as is made clear in the film, remains well below the the radar of the everyday football-obsessed citizen… superb, and more timely than ever!!! Read More »

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