Silent Whoopee Pictures

August 29, 2010, 10:55 am

≫ Next: “Terror Has a New Face”–It’s Called Straight-to-DVD Marketing

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A friend recently brought my attention to a Craigslist posting for some 16mm films that were being sold by a private collector in Denver who was offering a 16mm Kodak Pageant 2505 projector, take-up reels, plus a collection of vintage 16mm shorts. Titles listed included: Grand Hotel, Matinee, The Plumber, and Krazy Kat. It seemed [...]

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“Terror Has a New Face”–It’s Called Straight-to-DVD Marketing

August 30, 2010, 9:53 am

≫ Next: Raoul Walsh, Adventurer

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Earlier this week, I found myself leafing through the sellsheets for those outrageous productions that straight-to-DVD companies market to Facets, hoping that we will carry them for our online rent-by-mail service or in our videotheque. I like to poke through these sheets every so often, because they are truly good for a laugh. Either the [...]

Raoul Walsh, Adventurer

August 31, 2010, 11:00 am

≫ Next: A Sneak Peak at Telluride Film Festival 2010

≪ Previous: “Terror Has a New Face”–It’s Called Straight-to-DVD Marketing

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For a man who toiled in the studio system for close to 50 years, cranking out genre quickies and prestige productions with equal aplomb, Raoul Walsh’s work remains astonishingly coherent. My grab-bag syle of viewing has made this resoundingly clear. This week I watched his earliest work, Regeneration (1915) and The Thief of Bagdad (1925) through [...]

A Sneak Peak at Telluride Film Festival 2010

September 2, 2010, 2:35 pm

≫ Next: With Special Guest Star Claudia Cardinale… as Herself

≪ Previous: Raoul Walsh, Adventurer

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The 37th Telluride Film Festival promises to be another memorable event for the lucky attendees at this four-day film mecca that occurs over the Labor Day weekend, Sept. 3-6. Classic movie fans, in particular, will be excited to know that Italian screen legend Claudia Cardinale will be one of the honorees with a screening of [...]

With Special Guest Star Claudia Cardinale… as Herself

September 3, 2010, 11:29 pm

≫ Next: Dispatch from TFF 2010

≪ Previous: A Sneak Peak at Telluride Film Festival 2010

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It’s hard to keep a secret anymore, even among the seasoned hush-hushers at The Telluride Film Festival.  Constructing the line-up of special guests and honorees must be a logistical nightmare for festival planners, who have to gauge the temptation of releasing advance word of their celebrated guests against the possible last minute likelihood that said [...]

Dispatch from TFF 2010

September 5, 2010, 12:49 pm

≫ Next: Notes on Telluride: Day of the Directors

≪ Previous: With Special Guest Star Claudia Cardinale… as Herself

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I’m staying up until 2am, waking up five hours later, making mad dashes between one place and another with no room for error, and taking along food and clothing to sustain me for what might be a full day away from home-base with temperatures that soar up into the 80′s in the afternoon and then [...]

Notes on Telluride: Day of the Directors

September 6, 2010, 10:00 am

≫ Next: VCI. DVD. OMG.

≪ Previous: Dispatch from TFF 2010

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On Saturday, I saw Ed Harris strolling casually down the middle of Pacific Street; later, I watched a woman outside the Galaxy Theater flirt shamelessly with French actor Edgar Ramirez, star of the remarkable Carlos, the five-and-a-half hour epic about the infamous terrorist. No one seemed to notice Ramirez as he tried gracefully to escape [...]

VCI. DVD. OMG.

September 7, 2010, 11:00 am

≫ Next: Maggie Smith in Capturing Mary

≪ Previous: Notes on Telluride: Day of the Directors

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Last week VCI Entertainment released two obscure DVDs into the wild: William Witney’s Apache Rifles (1964, above) and Four in the Morning (1965), which features Judi Dench in her first leading role. Neither are deathless masterpieces, but each are valuable in their own inimitable way. Witney, a prolific director of movie serials for Republic Pictures [...]

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Maggie Smith in Capturing Mary

September 9, 2010, 9:40 am

≫ Next: The HorrorDads meet The Mist

≪ Previous: VCI. DVD. OMG.

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I didn’t watch the Emmy Awards this year but I was disappointed to learn that Maggie Smith didn’t win the award she was nominated for, which was Lead Actress in a Television Miniseries or Movie for her starring role in Capturing Mary. This fascinating television drama originally aired on British television in 2007 but has [...]

The HorrorDads meet The Mist

September 10, 2010, 8:26 am

≫ Next: After The Show – Telluride Film Festival Potluck

≪ Previous: Maggie Smith in Capturing Mary

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In follow-up to our three-part roundtable discussion on raising children in the shadow of our shared love of horror, the HorrorDads have reunited and will reteam periodically to discuss works important to the genre.  This week, we’ll chew the fat about the controversial ending of Frank Darabont’s THE MIST (2007).  SPOILERS AHOY! As before, this [...]

After The Show – Telluride Film Festival Potluck

September 11, 2010, 8:35 am

≫ Next: Whiskey Mountain

≪ Previous: The HorrorDads meet The Mist

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One of the best kept secrets about the Telluride Film Festival is what happens AFTER the event. The town residents are treated to a 3 day, 6-film sampler with two different screenings at the Palm Theatre each night. The selection is purely random and usually based on which films don’t have to be shipped out [...]

Whiskey Mountain

September 12, 2010, 11:10 am

≫ Next: The Real Stars of Prohibition

≪ Previous: After The Show – Telluride Film Festival Potluck

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As anyone who read his post yesterday knows, fellow Morlock Jeff is in Colorado. At the moment, he’s here in Boulder. I told him I’d give him a semi-private screening in the backyard of anything he wanted to see from the 16mm film collection that I have access to, and he picked an obscure film [...]

The Real Stars of Prohibition

September 13, 2010, 10:00 am

≫ Next: Magnificent Ruin: Secret Beyond the Door(1948)

≪ Previous: Whiskey Mountain

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This Wednesday, September 15, TCM presents “The Stars of Prohibition,” an evening of gangster movies set during the Roaring 20s. The “Stars” are not movie actors from the 1920s but gangsters, who became rich and powerful by providing liquor to the millions of Americans left parched by the 18th Amendment. Part of the fabric of [...]

Magnificent Ruin: Secret Beyond the Door(1948)

September 14, 2010, 11:00 am

≫ Next: Clive Donner’s Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1967)

≪ Previous: The Real Stars of Prohibition

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Before I start this week’s blather, I wanted to acknowledge the passing of the great Claude Chabrol at the age of 80. Dave Kehr’s NY Times obituary is here, the AP’s is here, and David Hudson has an exhaustive collection of links at MUBI. His filmography is massive (near 70 titles), and I’ve barely made [...]

Clive Donner’s Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1967)

September 16, 2010, 12:21 pm

≫ Next: That Strange Fellow

≪ Previous: Magnificent Ruin: Secret Beyond the Door(1948)

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In an unfortunate coincidence I watched Clive Donner’s coming of age sex farce Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush for the first time last week and a few days later I learned that Clive Donner had passed away on September 6th due to complications from Alzheimer’s disease. The British director was 84 years old [...]

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That Strange Fellow

September 17, 2010, 7:59 am

≫ Next: Secret Agent Super Dragon

≪ Previous: Clive Donner’s Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (1967)

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Boris Karloff is Frankenstein’s Monster – no one’s saying he isn’t – a role he essentially invented (Mary Shelley be damned) back in 1931, when he played the title creature for director James Whale and Universal Studios.  Already in his 40s at the time, Karloff only had three at-bats as the Monster before age, infirmity [...]

Secret Agent Super Dragon

September 18, 2010, 9:51 am

≫ Next: “They’re here already! You’re next!”

≪ Previous: That Strange Fellow

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One of countless Eurospy actioners released in the wake of the James Bond film craze in the sixties, SECRET AGENT SUPER DRAGON (aka New York chiama Superdrago, 1966) has been mercilessly ridiculed on MST3K but served straight up, it’s often funnier in its own poker-faced way and has some oddball flourishes to set it apart [...]

“They’re here already! You’re next!”

September 19, 2010, 12:32 pm

≫ Next: The Return of Fright School

≪ Previous: Secret Agent Super Dragon

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With the passing of Kevin McCarthy on September 11th it seemed appropriate to screen Don Siegel’s classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). Seeing him run around the highways getting honked at by angry motorists as he tries to warn them of impending doom still chills to the core. His famous warning echos the ending [...]

The Return of Fright School

September 20, 2010, 10:15 am

≫ Next: The 48th New York Film Festival, Part 1

≪ Previous: “They’re here already! You’re next!”

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October at Facets brings out the dead, the demon cats, and the devil-possessed nuns as our second annual Fright School begins on the first of the month. Fright School, our Halloween edition of Night School, features horror films every Friday and Saturday night at midnight for the month of October. Each film is introduced by [...]

The 48th New York Film Festival, Part 1

September 21, 2010, 11:00 am

≫ Next: Vinyl is Dead, Long Live Vinyl

≪ Previous: The Return of Fright School

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The 48th New York Film Festival begins this Friday night, with David Fincher’s The Social Network, and I’ll be hemorrhaging words about it for the next few weeks. J. Hoberman finished his term as a programmer last year, and the more populist-oriented Todd McCarthy (formerly of Variety, now at Indiewire) took his spot on the [...]