Glad to revisit this on a beautiful IB Technicolor print (a 1971 original) tonight, introduced by George Pelecanos as part of his series at AFI Silver. His intro included quotes from Peckinpah’s notorious Playboy interview about the film, and lemme just say — woof! I will also give him props for calling out Quentin Tarantino’s bullshit take on the rape scene (from his Video Archives podcast).
This is a complicated film, and all of the discussions around me as I…
“Well I haven’t quite got that figured yet.”
Watching this on the day of Lynch’s passing made this especially moving, but I felt compelled to finish his feature filmography today. Considering this deals with aging and mortality only made it easier to tear up throughout. When Alvin’s doctor mentions possible emphysema, one can only think of Lynch’s (much later) diagnosis.
It’s sort of Lynch’s The Swimmer, where Richard Farnsworth sets off in a lawnmower (a slower, feebler vehicle — hint,…
Watched as Wages of Sin
“Societies that practice death control,
must also practice birth control.”
I have a soft spot for European white-coater medical dramas that masquerade as sexploitation, an uber-niche sub-genre that has yet to be fully represented on physical media (shoutout to the Kino Lorber Blu-ray of this film!). Films like Girls at the Gynecologist, made in countries like Germany and Switzerland, then sold to U.S. grindhouse distributors and re-edited and dubbed. Usually these films have awful (at best…
One of my all-time movie-going regrets is not making the trek to see Star! in its full glorious 70mm roadshow presentation at a retrospective back in 2021. Looking back it was poorly timed (having just driven to a concert and a first-time visit to the Mahoning Drive-In), but I could’ve made one of the shows. Even if the film wasn’t a masterpiece, that was an opportunity I’ve since lamented missing.
Tonight’s DVD viewing didn't quite alleviate that feeling, but having…
Very mean-spirited W.A.V.E. movie that I definitely vibed with more than I thought I would. Lots of nasty lo-fi gore and plenty of fetish-coded scenes — Tina Krause’s centerpiece death is preceded by several prolonged shots of her bare feet, cutoff jean shorts, and pendulous breasts as she runs on a treadmill — to the point that this would fit on a slasher triple bill pretty well. At 108 minutes it definitely can overstay its welcome (the second half loses…
I don’t care for reality TV, but this piqued my curiosity based on testimony from a podcast and a friend. This is super watchable junk — awful, fake junk, but super watchable. It’s like Spring Breakers without the irony.
The obvious person for me to relate to is Alan, but I also related super hard to one of the girls who says “I don’t like anyone here”. It’s nonstop 2000s cringe and unbridled hedonism, and I can only hope my upcoming Mexico vacation is half as fun as this movie thinks it looks.
