Queen of the Roller Derby
Raquel Welch. Not a name that conjures up Oscar-winning movies. Instead, a vision of a cavegirl in a bikini comes to mind. Or maybe a buff female fitness instructor with a video line for women with...
View ArticleQueen of the Roller Derby
Raquel Welch. Not a name that conjures up Oscar-winning movies. Instead, a vision of a cavegirl in a bikini comes to mind. Or maybe a buff female fitness instructor with a video line for women with...
View ArticleSun Tribe Redux
When Ishihara Shintaro died on February 1, 2022 at age 89, most obituaries focused on his career as a politician in Japan. He first served as a member of the House of Councillors (1968 to 1972) and...
View ArticleJoe Meek: Studio Recording Wizard
Most record collectors and music lovers of the baby boom generation fondly remember some of the top forty hits created by such innovative producers like Phil Spector, Bob Crewe and Eddie Kramer during...
View ArticleShattered Bodies, Shattered Souls
When director Fred Zinnemann left MGM Studios after his contract expired with Act of Violence in 1949, he embarked on a new career as an independent filmmaker. After trying to find a suitable movie...
View ArticleJohnny Rotten’s Alter Ego
Some movies fall through the cracks and then are rediscovered years later by movie geeks who are amazed that such formerly “lost films” even exist. Such is the case with Corrupt (1983), which was also...
View ArticleA Nouvelle Vague Musical?
Of the more than 120 movies and short films in director Jean-Luc Godard’s oeuvre, there is really nothing like Un Femme est une Femme (English title: A Woman is a Woman, 1961). What other Godard...
View ArticleKay Kyser Meets the Three Horror Men
It’s hard to imagine what moviegoers today would make of Kay Kyser and his Kollege of Musical Knowledge, but during the late thirties and early forties the big band conductor was one of the most...
View ArticleTales from the Balkans
When Yugoslavia ceased to exist as a country in 1991, the six republics within that nation – Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Slovenia and Macedonia – split up into individual...
View ArticleCanuxploitation or Social Realism?
Canadian writer/director Denys Arcand burst upon the international film world in 1986 with his film The Decline of the American Empire, which won the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes and the Best Foreign...
View ArticleBalancing Act
When was the last time you went to the circus? For most people, that form of popular entertainment has changed drastically over the years and is now more likely to be a showcase for human acts like...
View ArticleJust Deserts
Men behaving badly could easily qualify as a cinema subgenre with such classic examples as Kirk Douglas in Champion (1949) and Robert De Niro in Raging Bull (1980) leading the pack but the athletic...
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