Caged Heat (1974)

Caged Heat (1974) was written and directed by a young Jonathan Demme for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures. Working within the lurid ‘women in prison’ genre with all that entails, the movie is a cut above due to its singular characters (such as Barbara Steele’s imposing yet strange warden), surreal dream sequences, broad jokes, and […]

Love And Anarchy (1973)

I’d not heard of Love And Anarchy (1973; Film d’amore e d’anarchia, ovvero: stamattina alle 10, in via dei Fiori, nella nota casa di tolleranza..) until Lewis Rice O’Donnell talked about it. Directed by Lina Wertmüller and set during the 1930s, it’s about a fuzz-faced yokel named Tunin (Giancarlo Giannini) who travels to the city in […]

The Silent Partner (1979)

After rewatching one of my all time favourite movies The Long Goodbye, I was keen for some more Elliott Gould movies. The Silent Partner (1978) is a thriller I’d not heard of before, shot in Canada and set at Christmas time. Gould plays a bank teller in a shopping mall who gets wind of a […]

Investigation Of A Citizen Above Suspicion (1970)

Recommended to me by Lindsay Hallam, Investigation Of A Citizen Above Suspicion (1970; Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto) has a classic theme score by Ennio Morricone, which adds to the film’s unusual tone. Better known as the bad guy from A Fistful Of Dollars and A Few More Dollars More, […]

Girlfriends (1978)

Girlfriends (1978) is a buried treasure of independent cinema whose influence was touted awhile back by Lena Dunham (who held a revival screening and hired director Claudia Weill to helm an episode of Girls). It also feels like the inspiration to filmmakers like Nicole Holofcener, Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig, etc as it is about […]