Review by Roger Carpenter
For 33 months in the late 70’s New York City became the epicenter for perhaps the most famous nightclub in the world. Birthed from the dreams of a couple of twenty-somethings and miraculously constructed in mere weeks, the rise and ultimate fall of the hottest discotheque in the world—Studio 54—is the stuff of legend.
Originally constructed as an opera house in 1927, there were a succession of owners until CBS Studios purchased the property in 1943. There the studio broadcast some of its most famous game shows like What’s My Line? and The $64,000 Question, as well as The Jack Benny Show and even Captain Kangaroo until they moved to a new location and started shopping the property around.
Enter two young hotshots named Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, who purchased the property and proceeded to renovate it with the backing of Jack Dushey. Rubell was a brash entrepreneur while Schrager,...
For 33 months in the late 70’s New York City became the epicenter for perhaps the most famous nightclub in the world. Birthed from the dreams of a couple of twenty-somethings and miraculously constructed in mere weeks, the rise and ultimate fall of the hottest discotheque in the world—Studio 54—is the stuff of legend.
Originally constructed as an opera house in 1927, there were a succession of owners until CBS Studios purchased the property in 1943. There the studio broadcast some of its most famous game shows like What’s My Line? and The $64,000 Question, as well as The Jack Benny Show and even Captain Kangaroo until they moved to a new location and started shopping the property around.
Enter two young hotshots named Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, who purchased the property and proceeded to renovate it with the backing of Jack Dushey. Rubell was a brash entrepreneur while Schrager,...
- 2/21/2019
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
“What’s in the basket? Easter eggs?”
Frank Henenlotter’s Basket Case (1982) screens Midnights this weekend (February 22nd and 23rd) at The Moolah Theater and Lounge as part of Destroy the Brain’s monthly Late Nite Grindhouse film series.
For those readers who may have existed under a rock over the last four decades—or, perhaps in a wicker basket, hiding yourselves from civilization—Basket Case is a zero-budget, Z-grade, grindhouse film. Most films that played the grindhouses of yesteryear didn’t intend on playing grindhouses; it’s just where they ended up. But Basket Case, by writer/director Frank Henenlotter, was intentionally made as a grindhouse film that would play in the grindhouses of 1980’s Time Square. In fact, that was Henenlotter’s only expectation for the film. His dream was to see his film up in lights at one of the theaters that he frequented throughout his youth.
Frank Henenlotter’s Basket Case (1982) screens Midnights this weekend (February 22nd and 23rd) at The Moolah Theater and Lounge as part of Destroy the Brain’s monthly Late Nite Grindhouse film series.
For those readers who may have existed under a rock over the last four decades—or, perhaps in a wicker basket, hiding yourselves from civilization—Basket Case is a zero-budget, Z-grade, grindhouse film. Most films that played the grindhouses of yesteryear didn’t intend on playing grindhouses; it’s just where they ended up. But Basket Case, by writer/director Frank Henenlotter, was intentionally made as a grindhouse film that would play in the grindhouses of 1980’s Time Square. In fact, that was Henenlotter’s only expectation for the film. His dream was to see his film up in lights at one of the theaters that he frequented throughout his youth.
- 2/17/2019
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Review by Roger Carpenter
Before Brian De Palma became That De Palma and before Robert De Niro scored big with multiple high-profile roles, they were just two twenty-somethings trying to put together film careers. De Palma was a film school student and De Niro was a no-name actor.
The two first met around 1963 when De Niro was cast in a supporting role in De Palma’s first film, The Wedding Party. The film is a farce about a groom who visits his soon-to-be bride’s family estate for the forthcoming nuptials. His two friends and groomsmen (played by De Niro and William Finley), who are there to support him, initially try to talk the groom out of the marriage. The groom refuses to listen to their arguments and turns them away. Yet as the day looms large, the groom begins having second thoughts even as the groomsmen have changed their...
Before Brian De Palma became That De Palma and before Robert De Niro scored big with multiple high-profile roles, they were just two twenty-somethings trying to put together film careers. De Palma was a film school student and De Niro was a no-name actor.
The two first met around 1963 when De Niro was cast in a supporting role in De Palma’s first film, The Wedding Party. The film is a farce about a groom who visits his soon-to-be bride’s family estate for the forthcoming nuptials. His two friends and groomsmen (played by De Niro and William Finley), who are there to support him, initially try to talk the groom out of the marriage. The groom refuses to listen to their arguments and turns them away. Yet as the day looms large, the groom begins having second thoughts even as the groomsmen have changed their...
- 2/3/2019
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Review by Roger Carpenter
Most true horror fans know the gothic excesses of Hammer horror in their heyday (late 1950’s through the 1960’s) are a high point of worldwide genre cinema. Many fans may even know that Hammer released alternate versions of many of their films in Japan with extra bits of gore and nudity. This points to the fact that Hammer horror films were quite popular in Japan, as they were in the U.K. and the U.S. In fact, they were popular enough for Japanese director Michio Yamamoto to try his hand at producing a homegrown version of Hammer-influenced vampires. This series of three films have become known as The Bloodthirsty Trilogy.
In 1970’s The Legacy of Dracula (also known as The Vampire Doll), Keiko and her friend go in search of her missing brother when the brother visits his girlfriend Yuko. In 1971’s follow-up, Lake of Dracula,...
Most true horror fans know the gothic excesses of Hammer horror in their heyday (late 1950’s through the 1960’s) are a high point of worldwide genre cinema. Many fans may even know that Hammer released alternate versions of many of their films in Japan with extra bits of gore and nudity. This points to the fact that Hammer horror films were quite popular in Japan, as they were in the U.K. and the U.S. In fact, they were popular enough for Japanese director Michio Yamamoto to try his hand at producing a homegrown version of Hammer-influenced vampires. This series of three films have become known as The Bloodthirsty Trilogy.
In 1970’s The Legacy of Dracula (also known as The Vampire Doll), Keiko and her friend go in search of her missing brother when the brother visits his girlfriend Yuko. In 1971’s follow-up, Lake of Dracula,...
- 10/29/2018
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Review by Roger Carpenter
Just after the turn of the Twentieth Century, a new artistic movement began to sweep Japan. Steeped in traditional works of art like sculpture and painting, this new movement, ero-guro-nansensu, or erotic-grotesque-nonsense, found its way into many other mediums as well. So it should come as no surprise that this sensibility would eventually be captured on film as well.
Nowadays many Japanese filmmakers take this concept to the very edges of taste, filling the screen with nudity, sex, and outrageously bloody special effects, perhaps culminating with films such as Organ (1996) and Grotesque (2009). But before the ero-guro-nansensu ideals bled over into torture porn, the original concept had more to do with eroticism and sexual corruption combined with the very Japanese taboo of malformation or deformation of the body. Wrap all this up with a general fascination for the decadent and the bizarre, and a new movement was born.
Just after the turn of the Twentieth Century, a new artistic movement began to sweep Japan. Steeped in traditional works of art like sculpture and painting, this new movement, ero-guro-nansensu, or erotic-grotesque-nonsense, found its way into many other mediums as well. So it should come as no surprise that this sensibility would eventually be captured on film as well.
Nowadays many Japanese filmmakers take this concept to the very edges of taste, filling the screen with nudity, sex, and outrageously bloody special effects, perhaps culminating with films such as Organ (1996) and Grotesque (2009). But before the ero-guro-nansensu ideals bled over into torture porn, the original concept had more to do with eroticism and sexual corruption combined with the very Japanese taboo of malformation or deformation of the body. Wrap all this up with a general fascination for the decadent and the bizarre, and a new movement was born.
- 10/22/2018
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Review by Roger Carpenter
By 1971 Peter Fonda was an icon of the counterculture. He’d starred in the LSD quickie The Trip as well as the pioneering biker film The Wild Angels. He was fresh off of Easy Rider and ready to spread his wings and show the viewing public that he was more than a pot-smoking hippie biker with his directorial debut, The Hired Hand.
The Hired Hand tells the story of Harry, a wayward soul who married too early and took off to see the world with his two buddies, Arch (Warren Oates) and Dan (Robert Pratt). After years in the wilderness, the three determine to head to California and the Pacific Ocean, but Dan unexpectedly dies along the way and Harry (Peter Fonda) decides it’s time to head home, to the wife and infant daughter he left seven long years ago. But will she take Harry back,...
By 1971 Peter Fonda was an icon of the counterculture. He’d starred in the LSD quickie The Trip as well as the pioneering biker film The Wild Angels. He was fresh off of Easy Rider and ready to spread his wings and show the viewing public that he was more than a pot-smoking hippie biker with his directorial debut, The Hired Hand.
The Hired Hand tells the story of Harry, a wayward soul who married too early and took off to see the world with his two buddies, Arch (Warren Oates) and Dan (Robert Pratt). After years in the wilderness, the three determine to head to California and the Pacific Ocean, but Dan unexpectedly dies along the way and Harry (Peter Fonda) decides it’s time to head home, to the wife and infant daughter he left seven long years ago. But will she take Harry back,...
- 10/17/2018
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Review by Roger Carpenter
The Italian giallo boom of the early 1970’s was mostly over by 1977, when The Pyjama Girl Case was released. But that’s not the only odd thing about this film. The writer/director was Flavio Mogherini who mostly specialized in comedies. He was a longtime production designer and art director, who collaborated with the likes of Fellini and Pasolini, and came to actual film direction rather late in his career. The film was set and filmed in and around Sydney, Australia, quite a different setting than traditional gialli which were typically set across Europe and in metropolitan American cities. Finally, there is only one murder in the entire film, and very little actual violence. For a genre which thrived on its murder set pieces, The Pyjama Girl Case is remarkably bloodless. In fact, the film is more a character study of two very different people who...
The Italian giallo boom of the early 1970’s was mostly over by 1977, when The Pyjama Girl Case was released. But that’s not the only odd thing about this film. The writer/director was Flavio Mogherini who mostly specialized in comedies. He was a longtime production designer and art director, who collaborated with the likes of Fellini and Pasolini, and came to actual film direction rather late in his career. The film was set and filmed in and around Sydney, Australia, quite a different setting than traditional gialli which were typically set across Europe and in metropolitan American cities. Finally, there is only one murder in the entire film, and very little actual violence. For a genre which thrived on its murder set pieces, The Pyjama Girl Case is remarkably bloodless. In fact, the film is more a character study of two very different people who...
- 10/16/2018
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Review by Roger Carpenter
With the huge popularity of the Leone-Eastwood spaghetti westerns featuring Eastwood’s iconic The Man with No Name character, it was inevitable that other characters would be rolled out to cash in on the craze. Django, Trinity, Ringo, and Sabata all had series of their own. But perhaps the most popular spaghetti western character after The Man with No Name is Sartana.
And, much like Django, there were both official and unofficial sequels to the Sartana films. These unofficial “sequels” bore no real resemblance to the original Sartana films other than tacking the name Sartana onto the title in an effort to cash in on the popularity of the character. Arrow is now releasing, in one complete, deluxe box set the five official films in the Sartana series.
The basis of the Sartana character actually derives from a completely different spaghetti western that had huge box...
With the huge popularity of the Leone-Eastwood spaghetti westerns featuring Eastwood’s iconic The Man with No Name character, it was inevitable that other characters would be rolled out to cash in on the craze. Django, Trinity, Ringo, and Sabata all had series of their own. But perhaps the most popular spaghetti western character after The Man with No Name is Sartana.
And, much like Django, there were both official and unofficial sequels to the Sartana films. These unofficial “sequels” bore no real resemblance to the original Sartana films other than tacking the name Sartana onto the title in an effort to cash in on the popularity of the character. Arrow is now releasing, in one complete, deluxe box set the five official films in the Sartana series.
The basis of the Sartana character actually derives from a completely different spaghetti western that had huge box...
- 8/1/2018
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Review by Roger Carpenter
Abel Ferrara has always existed on the fringe of filmmaking. The themes he tackles, the controversial content of his films, and his New York City attitude all help in keeping him on those fringes. Even when he attempted to cross over in the early 90’s to bigger-budgeted Hollywood films–with limited success– it wasn’t long until he again embraced the outsider attitude and moved right back into making no-budget films. The Addiction is a case in point. Shot for around $500,000, most of the cast and crew were employed for delayed compensation, a big gamble considering the typical earning potential of an Abel Ferrara film. But one doesn’t work with Ferrara for a big payday. One works with Ferrara because one appreciates pure cinema, the authenticity of Ferrara, and his guerrilla-style filmmaking. After dabbling with the Hollywood elite, The Addiction was a breath of fresh air for Ferrara,...
Abel Ferrara has always existed on the fringe of filmmaking. The themes he tackles, the controversial content of his films, and his New York City attitude all help in keeping him on those fringes. Even when he attempted to cross over in the early 90’s to bigger-budgeted Hollywood films–with limited success– it wasn’t long until he again embraced the outsider attitude and moved right back into making no-budget films. The Addiction is a case in point. Shot for around $500,000, most of the cast and crew were employed for delayed compensation, a big gamble considering the typical earning potential of an Abel Ferrara film. But one doesn’t work with Ferrara for a big payday. One works with Ferrara because one appreciates pure cinema, the authenticity of Ferrara, and his guerrilla-style filmmaking. After dabbling with the Hollywood elite, The Addiction was a breath of fresh air for Ferrara,...
- 7/31/2018
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Review by Roger Carpenter
During the Nazi Regime’s reign over Germany and much of Europe, over 1,200 feature films were made. At least 100 of these films were blatant Nazi propaganda and, of those films, at least 40 of them are still kept from public viewing in Germany and Austria except under extraordinary circumstances.
These films include The Eternal Jew, an anti-Semitic documentary, The Rothschilds, which featured the Jewish Rothschilds family in a negative light, as well as Jew Sus, widely believed to be the most anti-Semitic film of all time, with director Veit Harlan actually standing trial for crimes against humanity after the war.
But 70 years on, do these films really retain the same impact as they did upon their initial release? Would people really take these films seriously? What impact might they have on children? These, and many other questions, are explored in this fascinating documentary about the Hitler-Goebbels propaganda film-making machine.
During the Nazi Regime’s reign over Germany and much of Europe, over 1,200 feature films were made. At least 100 of these films were blatant Nazi propaganda and, of those films, at least 40 of them are still kept from public viewing in Germany and Austria except under extraordinary circumstances.
These films include The Eternal Jew, an anti-Semitic documentary, The Rothschilds, which featured the Jewish Rothschilds family in a negative light, as well as Jew Sus, widely believed to be the most anti-Semitic film of all time, with director Veit Harlan actually standing trial for crimes against humanity after the war.
But 70 years on, do these films really retain the same impact as they did upon their initial release? Would people really take these films seriously? What impact might they have on children? These, and many other questions, are explored in this fascinating documentary about the Hitler-Goebbels propaganda film-making machine.
- 6/6/2018
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Review by Roger Carpenter
As so often has happened over the years, silent films have been lost to time, or survive only in very poor or often incomplete prints. Because these films weren’t thought of as “art” many were scrapped due to high storage costs, recycled for their silver content, or were destroyed by fire due to their high combustibility. Others were resold to budget distribution companies, recut and retitled, and released as totally different films. Thus was the fate of many Douglas Fairbanks movies from his time at Triangle Pictures. The Half-Breed is a classic case in point.
Based upon a short story and rewritten for the screen by its author in collaboration with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes novelist and pioneering screenwriter Anita Loos, The Half-Breed tells the story of a baby abandoned by his white father and Native American mother and raised by an elderly man who lives deep in the woods.
As so often has happened over the years, silent films have been lost to time, or survive only in very poor or often incomplete prints. Because these films weren’t thought of as “art” many were scrapped due to high storage costs, recycled for their silver content, or were destroyed by fire due to their high combustibility. Others were resold to budget distribution companies, recut and retitled, and released as totally different films. Thus was the fate of many Douglas Fairbanks movies from his time at Triangle Pictures. The Half-Breed is a classic case in point.
Based upon a short story and rewritten for the screen by its author in collaboration with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes novelist and pioneering screenwriter Anita Loos, The Half-Breed tells the story of a baby abandoned by his white father and Native American mother and raised by an elderly man who lives deep in the woods.
- 5/22/2018
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Review by Roger Carpenter
After changing the landscape of American drive-in movies forever with 1963’s Blood Feast, Herschell Gordon Lewis quickly followed that film up with 2,000 Maniacs! and Color Me Blood Red. But Lewis was never one to sit around and relax after another drive-in triumph was in the can. In between these primitive gore classics he also directed other films including nudie cuties, roughies, documentaries, and even a family film entitled Jimmy, the Boy Wonder. But 1967 saw Lewis return to the horror genre with not one, but three, horror features. Two of these films are included in this package.
First up is the film that is highlighted on the packaging for this Blu-ray: The Gruesome Twosome. While H.G.’s first three horror opuses may have generated some (unintentional) laughs, his goal with The Gruesome Twosome was to inject some true black humor into the mix. This begins with the title of the flick.
After changing the landscape of American drive-in movies forever with 1963’s Blood Feast, Herschell Gordon Lewis quickly followed that film up with 2,000 Maniacs! and Color Me Blood Red. But Lewis was never one to sit around and relax after another drive-in triumph was in the can. In between these primitive gore classics he also directed other films including nudie cuties, roughies, documentaries, and even a family film entitled Jimmy, the Boy Wonder. But 1967 saw Lewis return to the horror genre with not one, but three, horror features. Two of these films are included in this package.
First up is the film that is highlighted on the packaging for this Blu-ray: The Gruesome Twosome. While H.G.’s first three horror opuses may have generated some (unintentional) laughs, his goal with The Gruesome Twosome was to inject some true black humor into the mix. This begins with the title of the flick.
- 5/7/2018
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Review by Roger Carpenter
After several critical and financial successes, Henri-Georges Clouzot was at the top of his game as a filmmaker. Widely considered one of the greatest French filmmakers and continental Europe’s answer to Hitchcock, Clouzot had directed such genuine classics as Le Corbeau, Quai des Orfevres, The Wages of Fear, and Diabolique. By this time he was being courted by many large film companies, but it was Columbia who won out, giving him complete creative control and an unlimited budget to create what was to be his masterpiece: L’enfer (Inferno in English).
Clouzot, rightly recognizing this exceptional opportunity, set to work creating a unique slice of cinema. L’enfer was to tell the story of a newlywed couple, he a middle-aged man and she a twenty-something debutante. But soon after the nuptials, the new husband, Marcel, spirals into jealousy and paranoia, convinced his wife, Odette, is sleeping with others.
After several critical and financial successes, Henri-Georges Clouzot was at the top of his game as a filmmaker. Widely considered one of the greatest French filmmakers and continental Europe’s answer to Hitchcock, Clouzot had directed such genuine classics as Le Corbeau, Quai des Orfevres, The Wages of Fear, and Diabolique. By this time he was being courted by many large film companies, but it was Columbia who won out, giving him complete creative control and an unlimited budget to create what was to be his masterpiece: L’enfer (Inferno in English).
Clouzot, rightly recognizing this exceptional opportunity, set to work creating a unique slice of cinema. L’enfer was to tell the story of a newlywed couple, he a middle-aged man and she a twenty-something debutante. But soon after the nuptials, the new husband, Marcel, spirals into jealousy and paranoia, convinced his wife, Odette, is sleeping with others.
- 4/2/2018
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Review by Roger Carpenter
In a day and age when video distribution companies are mostly concerned with the bottom dollar and release or re-release films they know are guaranteed to sell (anyone care to count the number of Us releases of The Evil Dead series or Night of the Living Dead?), one of my favorite things about Arrow Video USA is their apparent fearlessness in releasing films and box sets that are probably only going to appeal to a very small niche audience.
Along with Arrow Academy, Arrow Video USA’s arthouse imprint, the company has released a good portion of Walerian Borowcyzk’s films and is busily releasing the early works of Seijun Suzuki as well as other, relatively obscure, 50’s and 60’s Japanese films. While I applaud Arrow for releasing these films and enjoy them all immensely, I’m just not sure the typical movie fan has a...
In a day and age when video distribution companies are mostly concerned with the bottom dollar and release or re-release films they know are guaranteed to sell (anyone care to count the number of Us releases of The Evil Dead series or Night of the Living Dead?), one of my favorite things about Arrow Video USA is their apparent fearlessness in releasing films and box sets that are probably only going to appeal to a very small niche audience.
Along with Arrow Academy, Arrow Video USA’s arthouse imprint, the company has released a good portion of Walerian Borowcyzk’s films and is busily releasing the early works of Seijun Suzuki as well as other, relatively obscure, 50’s and 60’s Japanese films. While I applaud Arrow for releasing these films and enjoy them all immensely, I’m just not sure the typical movie fan has a...
- 2/12/2018
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Review by Roger Carpenter
Back in 1986 Clive Barker was a hot property. His successful, six-volume collection entitled Books of Blood were major international bestsellers, as was his first full-length novel, The Damnation Game. In fact, Barker was one of the early pioneers of the splatterpunk movement in horror fiction, helping to popularize the genre throughout the mid- to late-eighties and into the nineties. Many of his novels and quite a few of his short stories have been adapted for the screen, including Rawhead Rex, originally a short story collected in Books of Blood, Volume 3.
Unfortunately for Barker—and perhaps very fortunate for horror film fans—the first two films made based upon Barker’s work turned out so badly that he not only disowned the films but decided he would direct the next film himself. That film was the seminal Hellraiser (See? Good for us!). The two films Barker, to this day,...
Back in 1986 Clive Barker was a hot property. His successful, six-volume collection entitled Books of Blood were major international bestsellers, as was his first full-length novel, The Damnation Game. In fact, Barker was one of the early pioneers of the splatterpunk movement in horror fiction, helping to popularize the genre throughout the mid- to late-eighties and into the nineties. Many of his novels and quite a few of his short stories have been adapted for the screen, including Rawhead Rex, originally a short story collected in Books of Blood, Volume 3.
Unfortunately for Barker—and perhaps very fortunate for horror film fans—the first two films made based upon Barker’s work turned out so badly that he not only disowned the films but decided he would direct the next film himself. That film was the seminal Hellraiser (See? Good for us!). The two films Barker, to this day,...
- 12/29/2017
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
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