Cult Crime Movies: Discover the 35 Best Dark, Dangerous, Thrilling and Noir Cinema Classics
by Danny Peary
Print Length: 451 pages
Publisher: Workman Publishing Company (December 2, 2014)
Language: English
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IMDb Description: A painfully shy noodle-shop owner and a prostitute have a chance encounter when destiny arrives in the form of a car accident.

Variety Review:
In terms of raw power, the new Singaporean film “Mee Pok Man” can be described as “Taxi Driver” without the latter’s cathartic violence and Scorsese’s visual pizzazz. Eric Khoo makes an impressive directorial debut in a rather depressing tale of two alienated youths whose lives fatefully intertwine. Though damaged by a last reel that is unnecessarily long and a bit indulgent, pic deserves berths in festivals and perhaps even limited theatrical release if only for its novelty, being a rare export from Singapore.

The lead performers, Joe Ng as the slow-witted man and Goh as the world-weary prostitute, are decently credible if not totally engrossing. Still, pic’s overall impact is disturbing, showcasing a new director who is seriously intent on documenting the malaise of contemporary life in Singapore.Read More »

Synopsis:
Jamie Gillis plays successful writer Paul and starving artist Phillipe both living in Paris. He is two people because he must balance a delicate sexual situation involving Frannie and Natasha. What makes OUTRAGEOUS more than watchable is the introduction of these two incredibly gorgeous newcomers to the world of explicit films. They are worth it. Lots of Paris footage and good production… Joey Silvera and Anna Ventura have a hot scene, shot about the time Joey was coming into his own as an adult film major name.Read More »

Quote:
Le collectionneur

La réalisation de son premier long métrage de fiction, The lost door, n’empêche pas Roy Stuart de poursuivre sa collection de Glimpses avec un nouvel opus, le neuvième de la série. Collection est bien le mot : hétéroclite et baroque, comme en un cabinet de curiosités. Ici, l’ordre des scènes importe peu. L’unité organique de l’ensemble est assurée par ce qu’il faut bien appeler la topique stuardienne. L’appartement haussmannien; les rues du quartier ; quelques villes européennes : autant d’éléments appartenant à l’espace obligé de sa dramaturgie. Le spectateur y retrouve quelques modèles déjà aperçus, des situations récurrentes se succédant de chapitre en chapitre et que sépare un sobre fondu au noir. L’action, en l’occurrence, retrouve les grands figures du cinéaste : masturbation au fauteuil, urologie, sexe sur le tapis ou dans les bois, semi exhibition dans la rue. Pas de récit – ou si peu – mais un enchaînement de l’ordre de la représentation, tant l’impression est forte pour le spectateur de se retrouver en terrain connu.Read More »

From peek-a-boo panties to girl on girl petting to more “indiscreet” activities, Stuart’s titillating mises-en-scene challenge us to break loose from traditional moral codes. Also included is a rare interview with Stuart.Read More »

Quote:
As a movie-freak I get to see perhaps almost as many movies as an official critic and, like a critic, I am always looking for The One, the film that stands out from the (vast) crowd and makes you think you haven’t wasted any precious time in the watching. But more than that, the one that makes you feel a sense of gain, moving forward in some way, in your thinking or even in your perception of certain things. Only master film makers can make you feel like this, from Tarantino to Eastwood, from Jackson to Spielberg. Then of course you have the rogue directors, the rebels against convention who want to show you something different, not just for different’s sake but because they are themselves motivated and inspired by things most people haven’t yet approached or experienced. Bergman was such a director, as were the great Italians, Pasolini, Visconti and Fellini, and still we have Bertolucci. Now I find a New Yorker turned Parisian, whose work calls to mind some of these Masters, but through an influence that is subtle enough for it to be subconscious rather than a heavy handed copying of style and technique. Read More »

In his new book, the fifth to date, Roy Stuart hones this exploration into something more forthright, close to film. The photos “tell” short stories, like short films, and the models become actors, their movements caught in freeze frame studies, between portrait and narrative. Sex is more explicit, while retaining some of the mystery characteristic of erotic images. A DVD, which comes with the book, contains several scenes from which the photos are taken, with extracts from the “Glimpse” DVD series and Stuart’s full length feature film, The Lost Door. The overall impression produced by this work is that Stuart has introduced eroticism into pornography, or vice versa. He clouds issues, confuses codes, disorientates and takes risks, all the while behaving as an artist who is exploring a new middle road – fusional, original and hard to follow, but promising. Somewhere between simplistic X-rated films and pure eroticism, between trivial reality and abortive dreams, he seeks and finds a third way, the royal way.Read More »

The Budapest department store run by Hugo Matuschek (Frank Morgan) is a happy little society of salesclerks, where assistant manager Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) and salesgirl Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) don’t at all see eye to eye. But in secret pen-pal letters they’re madly in love with one another, each hardly guessing who their mysterious secret admirer might be.Read More »

The Apartment is a 1960 American comedy-drama film produced and directed by Billy Wilder, which stars Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray. It was Wilder’s next movie after Some Like It Hot and, like its predecessor, a commercial and critical smash, grossing $25 million at the box office. The film was nominated for ten Academy Awards, and won five, including Best Picture. The film was the basis of the 1968 Broadway musical Promises, Promises, with book by Neil Simon, music by Burt Bacharach, and lyrics by Hal David.

Synopsis:
A man tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but complications and a romance of his own ensue.Read More »