Zabriskie Point (1970)

I mainly knew that Zabriskie Point (1970) was a flop at the time of release, a disappointment for Italian art-film director Michelangelo Antonioni after the international success of Blow Up. That, and thanks to a SCTV sketch, I knew that things blew up real good at the end. Palace Cinemas Raine Square were screening Zabriskie […]

The Driver (1978)

The first time I watched Walter Hill’s The Driver (1978), I couldn’t get into Ryan O’Neal’s performance as the lead. I felt he was too milquetoast or lightweight to play the mysterious professional wheelman, available for hire to crews for heists and robberies. I kept thinking about Hill’s first choice, Steve McQueen, and how much […]

Crime Wave (1954)

I first heard about Crime Wave (1954; also known as The City Is Dark), a B-movie film noir directed by Andre DeToth (Day Of The Outlaw) from Patton Oswalt’s appearance on the Pure Cinema Podcast. Oswalt talked about how shooting on location, as Crime Wave does, was more in keeping with how low budget B […]

Society (1989)

I remember first reading about Society (1989) in a list of the worst sex scenes in an Empire magazine, and has grown in notoriety to the point of a satirical horror cult classic. Directed by Brian Yunza, the producer of Re-Animator who used the success of that film to broker a two picture deal where […]

The Velvet Vampire (1971)

I think I’d only come across The Velvet Vampire (1971) with some critics citing it as a reference point to Anna Biller’s The Love Witch (though I don’t think it was an actual influence on Biller’s film; it exists in the same milleu and vibe that The Love Witch is creating). That, and as one […]