Blog Archives
Kiss This
This scary October post recalls a subject many of you likely find terrifying: the career of Nicolas Cage. Cage has done a lot of cash cow trash since he won the Oscar for Leaving Lost Vegas. That said, he’s also brought the wild edge to films like Bad Lieutenant, reminding me of the strange brilliance [...]
I, Madman
Another scary post for the month of October, this time I’m looking at horror flicks that were released on October 13. 13′s seem especially potent during this witchy month and, of course, October is always prime time for a horror flick to open in the theaters. Luckily I’m not the only person interested in this [...]
Celebrating Ed Wood
Continuing our string of spooky October posts, today we celebrate the birthday of filmmaker Ed Wood who was born on October 10, 1924. Wood died of a heart attack at the age of 54, but first he made a series of science fiction and monster films that weren’t so much scary as they were scary-bad. [...]
Monster Maker
Little Big Man, The Godfather, The Exorcist, Taxi Driver, Scanners, Amadeus — the makeup and practical effects of master artist Dick Smith have made some of American cinema’s scenes, characters and stories come to life with thrilling realism and to chilling affect. Smith started out in TV, but his work in film literally created modern [...]
Back to Twin Peaks
Continuing with the scary October posts, and reveling in the announcement of the return of Twin Peaks, I found an example that distills the aesthetics of the original, providing a map back to the place where Laura Palmer and a beloved, bizarre television series were both killed. While the mind reels at what David Lynch [...]
Cronenberg’s Brood
Beginning a month of spooky posts, we start off our October offerings with David Cronenberg’s The Brood. While the Canadian filmmaker had already established his horror cred with films like Rabid, The Brood was the first film to bring mainstream credibility to the the fantasy/horror auteur that would go on to create Scanners and Videodrome. [...]
Leonard Cohen Acid Test
I’ll finish up three days of Leonard Cohen posts with this last gem that reminds us that it’s Cohen’s dazzling songs and intensity as a performer that have won him almost five decades of attention from music listeners with ears to hear his erotic prayers and sensual meditations on love, sex, ecstasy, women, death and [...]
Extraordinary Madness
Got a lot of action on my Bukowski post last week, so I wanted to share another video I found. This time it’s an out-of-print BBC documentary that has some pretty unique, early footage of the man himself — stuff that I don’t think even Born Into This included. Here’s The Ordinary Madness of Charles [...]
Medium Cool at 45
“Beyond the age of innocence…into the age of awareness,” read the caption at the top of Medium Cool‘s stylized poster when the film was released 45 years ago in 1969. The line is telling in that it speaks to the real-life events at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago that are captured in the film. [...]
Werner’s Vampyre
We’ve just begun to experience the first cooler days in awhile here in Nashville, and the drop in temperature has put me in mind of autumn and Halloween. It’s too early for aisles of orange and black in the grocery stores, but they’ve already turned their leaves. It’s too early for costume store ads, but [...]
