1982 was an amazing year for sci-fi, fantasy, and horror films: E.T., Conan the Barbarian, Blade Runner, Creepshow, The Thing, Poltergeist, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Tron, and The Dark Crystal all debuted that year. Another 1982 movie that was full of fantastic elements as well as fantastic music was Pink Floyd — The Wall. One of the greatest rock films of all time, The Wall tells the story of a young boy who grows up in post-war Britain and becomes a famous rock star. Eventually lost love sends him on a downward spiral of self-loathing that conversely sees him rise to the position of a fascist demigod. It’s all one big sprawling metaphor for the interpersonal traumas that find us detaching from friends and family until we’re each living behind these walls of our own making in the prisons we’ve created for ourselves.

Celebrating the 35th anniversary of this landmark film, here’s Pink Floyd — The Wall…

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In addition to Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight, The Killing Joke has had a massive impact on our contemporary conception of Gotham’s greatest crime fighter, and especially on the image of the Joker — Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan and Heath Ledger all cite the influence of the book. Without giving too much away here’s what happens in The Killing Joke: Commissioner Gordon is tortured, Batgirl is crippled, and Batman is shown to be nearly just as, well, bat-shit-crazy as the Joker. Moore intended to show Batman and his greatest nemesis as two sides of the same coin. In the process he gave us one of the most iconic and brutal Batman stories of all time.

Over the weekend the makers of the new Killing Joke film leaked a preview of their feature online. If you didn’t know, this is the same team behind the universally celebrated Batman:The Animated Series. They tell a little bit about themselves and The Killing Joke comic before revealing a prologue they’ve added to their movie version of the story as well as some very familiar faces behind their characters…

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One of my favorite movie-going experiences of 2012 was spending four Saturday and Sunday afternoons watching Mark Cousins’ The Story of Film: A 15-hour history of cinema that A.O. Scott of The New York Times called  “a semester-long film studies survey course compressed into 15 brisk, sometimes contentious hours…stands as an invigorated compendium of conventional wisdom.”

Before taking on such an ambitious project, Cousins had established his reputation as a film critic as well as the host of the BBC show Scene by Scene. The program found Cousins in coversation with some of the world’s best film directors, discussing their most iconic images and sounds.

In keeping with my occult/terror theme for the month of October, this episode of Scene by Scene features Cousins in a bristly interview with Roman Polanski. Besides Polanski’s personal horrors, the gifted director has made important contributions to the horror/supernatural genre including: The Fearless Vampire Killers, The Tenant, The 9th Gate and the classic, Rosemary’s Baby.

Here is Roman Polanski, Scene by Scene:

What’s your favorite Polanski film? Leave a comment and share your thoughts. 

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