High camp or just plain trash? A cultural-cinematic swamp in perfectly rotten taste, this adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's supermarket 'dirty book' seeks out tawdry sleaze like no American movie had before. Junk beyond belief, and great entertainment if you're in a sick frame of mind. Valley of the Dolls Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 835 1967 / Color / 2:40 widescreen / 123 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 27, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, Paul Burke, Sharon Tate, Susan Hayward, Tony Scotti, Martin Milner, Charles Drake, Alexander Davion, Lee Grant, Naomi Stevens, Robert H. Harris, Jacqueline Susann, Robert Viharo, Joey Bishop, George Jessel, Dionne Warwick, Sherry Alberoni, Margaret Whiting, Richard Angarola, Richard Dreyfuss, Marvin Hamlisch, Judith Lowry. Cinematography William H. Daniels Film Editor Dorothy Spencer Conductor / Music Adaptor John Williams Written by Helen Deutsch, Dorothy Kingsley Jacqueline Susann Produced by Mark Robson, David Weisbart Directed by Mark Robson
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
I...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
I...
- 9/27/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
A major talent of the New German Cinema finds his footing out on the open highway, in a trio of intensely creative pictures that capture the pace and feel of living off the beaten path. All three star Rüdiger Vogler, an actor who could be director Wim Wenders' alter ego. Wim Wenders' The Road Trilogy Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 813 1974-1976 / B&W and Color / 1:66 widescreen / 113, 104, 176 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 30, 2016 / 99.95 Starring Rüdiger Vogler, Lisa Kreuzer, Yetta Rottländer; Hannah Schygulla, Nasstasja Kinski, Hans Christian Blech, Ivan Desny; Robert Zischler. Cinematography Robby Müller, Martin Schäfer Film Editor Peter Przygodda, Barbara von Weltershausen Original Music Can, Jürgen Knieper, Axel Linstädt. Directed by Wim Wenders
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
This morning I 'fessed up to never having seen David Lynch's Lost Highway. Now I get to say that until now I've never seen Wim Wenders'...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
This morning I 'fessed up to never having seen David Lynch's Lost Highway. Now I get to say that until now I've never seen Wim Wenders'...
- 5/16/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Ambiguous Ave.? Bizarro Blvd.? David Lynch's major mystery movie is back looking better than ever in a 4K transfer. Criterion's presentation accompanies it with a stack of interesting interviews with Lynch, Naomi Watts, Laura Herring plus other actors and crew people. The movie began, it seems, as sort of a non-spinoff spinoff of Twin Peaks. Mulholland Dr. Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 779 2001 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 146 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 27, 2015 / 39.95 Starring Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Ann Miller, Scott Wulff, Robert Forster, Brent Briscoe, Maya Bond, Patrick Fischler, Michael Cooke, Bonnie Aarons, Lee Grant, Chad Everett, James Karen, Dan Hedaya, Monty Montgomery, Rebekah Del Rio. Cinematography Peter Deming Production Designer Jack Fisk Film Editor Mary Sweeney Original Music Angelo Badalamenti Written by David Lynch Produced by Neal Edelstein, Tony Krantz, Michael Polaire, Alain Sarde, Mary Sweeney Directed by David Lynch
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Time alters everything,...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Time alters everything,...
- 11/10/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Following rounds 1 and 2, this one will take us right on through the countdown to Halloween and will surely be the most actively updated of the bunch. Best to begin, then, by grounding it in a classic, so we turn to David Kalat: "Frankenstein isn't a science fiction story about an arrogant scientist who intrudes on God's domain, it's a metaphor about our relationship to God." That's his argument, and I'll let him explain, but I want to pull back to a couple of earlier sentences in his piece. Mary Shelley's novel, "and the 1910 film version, treated the 'science' of Frankenstein as just so much folderol, a MacGuffin to introduce the artificial man into the story. Whale was so good at providing a reasonably convincing visualization of reviving the dead — no, more than that, a stunningly satisfying visualization of reviving the dead — it focused popular attention on that part of...
- 10/27/2011
- MUBI
More than halfway through October now, and it's high time for a followup to the first "Scary Monsters" roundup of the year, the one that pointed to several ongoing month-long cinephilic celebrations of Halloween. Before taking a look at a few recent and upcoming releases, let's begin with a list, namely, Glenn Kenny's at MSN Movies, the "50 Scariest Movies of All Time." At Some Came Running, Glenn kicks himself for forgetting to include Erle C Kenton's Island of Lost Souls (1932) with Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi: "In my defense, I've long held that it's not a real 'greatest' list unless it complains at least one completely bone-headed and inexcusable omission, and the omission of Souls, I would say, constitutes a particularly distinguished instance of such." Update: At Criterion's Current, Susan Arosteguy lists "10 Things I Learned" about Souls — factoids, some odd, some nifty, some a little spooky. Update, 10/21:...
- 10/22/2011
- MUBI
Updated through 5/23.
"Leonard Kastle, writer-director of 1969 film The Honeymoon Killers, which became a cult classic, died May 18 in Westerlo, NY," reports Carmel Dagan in Variety. "He was 82. The Honeymoon Killers starred Shirley Stoler and Tony Lo Bianco in the true story of notorious 'lonely hearts killers' Martha Beck and Ray Hernandez, who lured a series of lovelorn women, robbed them and murdered them in the late 1940s." He also notes, as everyone must, that "François Truffaut called it 'his favorite American film.'"
"Leonard Kastle seized the tabloid case of plug-ugly criminals as a rebuke to Bonnie and Clyde's sham lyricism, and his vehement denunciation of 'beautiful' shots — more Frederick Wiseman than Diane Arbus — is bracing." Fernando F Croce: "Kastle is a born filmmaker with an uncanny feeling for the startling close-up and the excruciating long-take, Edgar G Ulmer would have applauded his mise en scène of light bulbs and cellar burials.
"Leonard Kastle, writer-director of 1969 film The Honeymoon Killers, which became a cult classic, died May 18 in Westerlo, NY," reports Carmel Dagan in Variety. "He was 82. The Honeymoon Killers starred Shirley Stoler and Tony Lo Bianco in the true story of notorious 'lonely hearts killers' Martha Beck and Ray Hernandez, who lured a series of lovelorn women, robbed them and murdered them in the late 1940s." He also notes, as everyone must, that "François Truffaut called it 'his favorite American film.'"
"Leonard Kastle seized the tabloid case of plug-ugly criminals as a rebuke to Bonnie and Clyde's sham lyricism, and his vehement denunciation of 'beautiful' shots — more Frederick Wiseman than Diane Arbus — is bracing." Fernando F Croce: "Kastle is a born filmmaker with an uncanny feeling for the startling close-up and the excruciating long-take, Edgar G Ulmer would have applauded his mise en scène of light bulbs and cellar burials.
- 5/23/2011
- MUBI
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