USA

Packaging Copy:
” One wonders what Kenneth Anger thought of this cheapjack (and by the looks of it, wholly unauthorized) bastardization of his famous tome, if indeed he’s even aware that it exists. Hollywood Babylon follows the path of Anger’s book almost to the letter, with each “chapter” taking the form of a staged vignette, and tied together by tinted newsreel footage and old silent film clips.

The first scandal on our tour of Sin City is that of Olive Thomas, popular silent star who, in 1920, swallowed a fatal dose of mercury granules in her Paris hotel room. The reason for her suicide: inability to score heroin for her addict husband, Jack Pickford, brother of Mary! In the staged footage, we get to see one of Pickford’s debauched parties, where guests smoke opium and get their gear off for an orgy with the likes of LYNN HARRIS, ANNETTE MICHAEL, EVE ORLON, JANE SENTAS, and SUSAN WESTCOTT.Read More »

Although it’s not even mentioned in Joseph McBride’s massive John Ford biography, this rare 1951 film is probably the best of Ford’s war documentaries. “This Is Korea!” was commissioned by the Navy to explain an unpopular war to the American public, but Ford, always a poet first and a propagandist second, chooses to depict, not a heroic battle against godless Communism, but the toll war takes on its participants.Read More »

Quote:
Symphony for a Sinner (1979) was a long, lavishly photographed color film generally considered the magnum opus of the class productions. New York critic and coauthor of Midnight Movies J. Hoberman would rank it as one of the ten best films of the year, while Stan Brakhage would call it “the ultimate class picture.” John Waters, who now visited George regularly whenever he passed through San Francisco, envied the lurid color photography and wanted George to shoot his next picture (which would have been Polyester and didn’t happen). Symphony, Waters said, had the look he craved for Desperate Living (1977).Read More »

Price of Pleasure:
Pornography, Sexuality & Relationships

Once relegated to the margins of society, pornography has emerged as one of the most visible and profitable sectors of the cultural industries, assuming an unprecedented role in the mainstream of our popular culture at the same time that its content has become more extreme and harsh, more overtly sexist and racist. This eye-opening and disturbing film tackles the complexity behind this seeming paradox, placing the voices of critics, producers, and performers alongside the observations of men and women as they candidly discuss the role pornography has played in shaping their sexual imaginations and relationships. Honest and non-judgmental, The Price of Pleasure moves beyond the liberal versus conservative debates so common in the culture to paint a myth-busting and nuanced portrait of how pleasure and pain, commerce and power, liberty and responsibility have become intertwined in the most intimate area of our lives. An ideal tool for initiating classroom discussion about this notoriously difficult subject.
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Quote:
The short film was made from material shot for a Levi’s commercial on which Gus Van Sant was given complete freedom. Van Sant delivered the ad, and separately made his own short film; one that feels complete in and unto itself. The stunning, natural-lit frames are the result of what might be the filmmaker’s first collaboration with his long-time collaborator, the much revered, and sadly passed, cinematographer Harris Savides. The pair later worked together on all of Van Sant’s features from Gerry (2002) to Restless (2011). In Four Boys in a Volvo, repeating images of a car driving through a desert road remind us of Van Sant’s later films Gerry or Last Days (2005). This elliptical film conveys one of the filmmaker’s most beloved themes; a portrait of youth in search of meaning and escape.Read More »

In late 1960s America, at Zabriskie Point, United State’s lowest point, two perfect strangers meet. Mark, a young undergraduate dreamer, during a massive students’ revolt, armed and on the run from the police, he steals a small aeroplane and flies to the safety of the Death Valley, across the vast Californian desert. There, the young hippie student, Daria, is driving across the empty stretch of highway in her Buick, and before long, the two rebellious youngsters will meet, starting off an unrestrained romance, making love at Zabriskie Point’s dusty terrain. Two perfect bodies in a flawed world.
— Nick Riganas.Read More »

Moss Hart’s best-selling autobiography provided the basis for this colorful backstage story. The film depicts Hart as a struggling young playwright in 1929, searching for a sympathetic impresario. Although his manuscript is rejected by a Broadway tycoon, a less prominent manager finally agrees to produce it – on the condition that Hart will get George S. Kaufman, a leading comedy writer, to collaborate on the final script. Hart sets out to convince Kaufman of his play’s value, and so begins one of the most famous partnerships in the American theatre. Read More »

allmovie wrote:
David Brandon (James Gordon) is a surveyor in the Old West who dreams that one day the entire North American continent will be linked by railroads. However, to make this dream a reality, a clear trail must be found through the Rocky Mountains. With his boy Davy (Winston Miller), David sets out to find such a path, but he’s ambushed by a tribe of Indians led by a white savage, Peter Jesson (Cyril Chadwick); while the boy manages to escape, David is killed. Years later, the adult Davy Brandon (George O’Brien) still believes in his father’s dream of a transcontinental railroad, and legislation signed by President Abraham Lincoln has made it an official mandate.Read More »

The companion film to “Before Stonewall” by Greta Schiller & Robert Rosenberg (link), “After Stonewall”, narrated by Melissa Etheridge, explores gay history in the U.S. from the 1970s through the 1990s. Like its predecessor, After Stonewall attempts to cover much ground in a short amount of time; however, with only three decades to span, the assignment is more manageable. – Amazon.comRead More »