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  • Brian De Palma – Obsession (1976)

    1971-1980Brian De PalmaThrillerUSA

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Quote:
    Brian De Palma has often been accused of ripping off Hitchcock, the director he most admired as a young man. Nowhere is this influence more apparant than in Obsession which is so heavily inspired by Vertigo as to be suspiciously familiar. Having said that, De Palma’s film is very entertaining in its own right and full of technical virtuosity that serves the story as well as being impressive on a purely aesthetic level.

    On a technical level, the film is astonishingly well made. It’s here that De Palma really demonstrates his imaginative brilliance as a director. This was present in large portions of Sisters and Phantom of The Paradise, and even in his early work like the obscure Get To Know Your Rabbit and the underrated Hi Mom, but it flowers in Obsession into a signature style that he has been using ever since.Read More »

  • William Hamilton & Edward Killy – Murder on a Bridle Path (1936)

    1931-1940ComedyMysteryUSAWilliam Hamilton and Edward Killy

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    From TCM:
    When the body of Violet Feverel, who had taken her horse for an evening ride, is discovered in Central Park, Inspector Oscar Piper of the New York police arrives at the crime scene and is joined by his friend, amateur detective and schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers. After Hildegarde locates Violet’s horse and bloodied saddle, Oscar concludes that she was murdered and begins to question suspects, including Latigo Wells, the manager of Violet’s stable. Confronted by Oscar’s suspicions, Wells reveals that Violet had quarreled with Eddie Fry, her sister Barbara Foley’s boyfriend, just before the murder. Hildegarde then finds out from High Pockets, a stable employee, that Violet also had quarreled with Wells just before her death. At Violet’s apartment, Oscar and Hildegarde discover Eddie and Barbara hastily packing and question them. The young couple, who had become engaged in spite of Violet’s objections, defend their innocence and cast suspicion on Don Gregg, Violet’s ex-husband, whom Violet had jailed for nonpayment of alimony.Read More »

  • Rudolph Maté – The Rawhide Years (1955)

    1951-1960Rudolph MatéUSAWestern

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Synopsis :
    In this western, an adventurous gambler goes on the lam when he is falsely accused of a riverboat killing. He hides out for three years before returning to prove his innocence and find the girl he loves. Unfortunately, the girl is involved with the gang ringleader responsible for the killing.Read More »

  • William Castle – The Tingler (1959)

    1951-1960HorrorSci-FiUSAWilliam Castle

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    IMDB:
    Dr. Warren Chapin is a pathologist who regularly conducts autopsies on executed prisoners at the State prison. He has a theory that fear is the result of a creature that inhabits all of us. His theory is that the creature is suppressed by our ability to scream when fear strikes us. He gets a chance to test his theories when he meets Ollie and Martha Higgins, who own and operate a second-run movie theater. Martha is deaf and mute and if she is unable to scream, extreme fear should make the creature, which Chapin has called the Tingler, come to life and grow. Using LSD to induce nightmares, he begins his experiment.
    Read More »

  • Jack Hill – The Big Bird Cage (1972)

    1971-1980ActionExploitationJack HillUSA

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    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    review from :movies.com
    THE BIG BIRD CAGE/ FACTS Director Jack Hill followed up his genre-defining women-in-prison film THE BIG DOLL HOUSE with this action-packed sequel, also starring Pam Grier and set in the Philippines. Grier plays Blossom, the machine gun-toting girlfriend of revolutionary leader Django (Sid Haig). His fellow revolutionaries want girlfriends too, so Django and Blossom make plans to liberate the nearby women’s prison, a grueling sugar mill work camp run by the high-strung Warden Zappa (Andy Centera). Slender babe Anitra Ford co-stars as Torry, a free-spirited nymphomaniac whose bedding of important political figures has landed her in the prison, and who together with Blossom makes plans for the big, explosion-packed breakout. Grier and Ford are both dynamite with their bad attitudes and skimpy prison attire, and there’s plenty of catfights–both in and out of the mud, and showers. Aside from some dated gay-stereotype humor involving the male guards of the camp, this is still pretty rock-solid entertainment, replete with suspense, sex, bloodsoaked veangance, and captivating outdoor cinematography by Phillip Sandalan. Hill and Grier would follow up this success with the blaxploitation classic COFFY the following year. *Cast* Pam Grier , Anitra Ford , Sid Haig , Vic Diaz , Carol Speed , Andy CenteneraRead More »

  • Van Guylder – Hollywood Babylon (1972)

    1971-1980CampExploitationQueer Cinema(s)USAVan Guylder

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_zl3UkGFbDU/Tm8JNU3BfRI/AAAAAAAAXA4/8Tez4weZVG8/s400/Hollybab.jpg

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Packaging Copy:
    ” One wonders what Kenneth Anger thought of this cheapjack (and by the looks of it, wholly unauthorized) bastardization of his famous tome, if indeed he’s even aware that it exists. Hollywood Babylon follows the path of Anger’s book almost to the letter, with each “chapter” taking the form of a staged vignette, and tied together by tinted newsreel footage and old silent film clips.

    The first scandal on our tour of Sin City is that of Olive Thomas, popular silent star who, in 1920, swallowed a fatal dose of mercury granules in her Paris hotel room. The reason for her suicide: inability to score heroin for her addict husband, Jack Pickford, brother of Mary! In the staged footage, we get to see one of Pickford’s debauched parties, where guests smoke opium and get their gear off for an orgy with the likes of LYNN HARRIS, ANNETTE MICHAEL, EVE ORLON, JANE SENTAS, and SUSAN WESTCOTT.Read More »

  • John Ford – This Is Korea! (1951)

    1951-1960DocumentaryJohn FordUSAWar

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    Although it’s not even mentioned in Joseph McBride’s massive John Ford biography, this rare 1951 film is probably the best of Ford’s war documentaries. “This Is Korea!” was commissioned by the Navy to explain an unpopular war to the American public, but Ford, always a poet first and a propagandist second, chooses to depict, not a heroic battle against godless Communism, but the toll war takes on its participants.Read More »

  • George Kuchar – Symphony for a Sinner (1979)

    1971-1980CampExperimentalGeorge KucharQueer Cinema(s)USA

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Quote:
    Symphony for a Sinner (1979) was a long, lavishly photographed color film generally considered the magnum opus of the class productions. New York critic and coauthor of Midnight Movies J. Hoberman would rank it as one of the ten best films of the year, while Stan Brakhage would call it “the ultimate class picture.” John Waters, who now visited George regularly whenever he passed through San Francisco, envied the lurid color photography and wanted George to shoot his next picture (which would have been Polyester and didn’t happen). Symphony, Waters said, had the look he craved for Desperate Living (1977).Read More »

  • Miguel Picker & Chyng Sun – The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality & Relationships (2008)

    2001-2010DocumentaryEroticaMiguel Picker and Chyng SunUSA

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Price of Pleasure:
    Pornography, Sexuality & Relationships

    Once relegated to the margins of society, pornography has emerged as one of the most visible and profitable sectors of the cultural industries, assuming an unprecedented role in the mainstream of our popular culture at the same time that its content has become more extreme and harsh, more overtly sexist and racist. This eye-opening and disturbing film tackles the complexity behind this seeming paradox, placing the voices of critics, producers, and performers alongside the observations of men and women as they candidly discuss the role pornography has played in shaping their sexual imaginations and relationships. Honest and non-judgmental, The Price of Pleasure moves beyond the liberal versus conservative debates so common in the culture to paint a myth-busting and nuanced portrait of how pleasure and pain, commerce and power, liberty and responsibility have become intertwined in the most intimate area of our lives. An ideal tool for initiating classroom discussion about this notoriously difficult subject.
    Read More »

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