Quatermass creator and screenwriter Nigel Kneale (1922 – 2006) has his roots in the Isle of Man, a small patch of over 200 square miles in size that is located between Great Britain and Ireland. Megalithic monuments that heralded a new development in human technology began to appear on the Isle of Man during the [...]

What do Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush (1925), Werner Herzog’s Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972), Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Delicatessen (also 1991), Frank Marshall’s Alive (1993), and Antonia Bird’s Ravenous (1999) – to name but a few [...]

Jerry Aronson, one of my weekly poker game buddies, gave me a last-minute invitation to a sneak-preview. Jerry’s a retired film instructor, and the movie in question was by one of his former students who had graduated back in 1998. That student was Drew Goddard, who later found success as a writer for Buffy the [...]

While watching a bunch of Italian Giallo-themed trailers there was one that stuck out as particularly promising. It had interesting compositions and impressive set designs, including a deliriously macabre and surrealistic scene of a skeleton collapsing between the teeth of a large and theatrically constructed vagina dentata that leaves the skull bouncing out between the [...]

SXSW was founded in 1986 as a music forum and later, in 1994, added film and multimedia events to their yearly shindig. Attracting, as it does, artists from all walks of life introduces new elements every year to add to its ever-changing melting pot ethos that is pivotal to both its popularity and vitality. It [...]

The picture above was taken a week ago. The elegant woman sitting center-stage is, of course, Pam Grier. She was the first African-American female to headline an action film and has over 100 titles to her credit for work in both television and cinema. That clown to her right spent most of his time coughing [...]

Acclaimed Greek fimmaker Theodoros “Theo” Angelopoulos died last month. He was killed January 24th when he was hit by a motorcycle a few blocks from where he had been shooting his latest film, The Other Sea (L’altro mare, 2012) – it was to be the final installment of a trilogy on immigration. Suranjan Ganguly, a [...]

Yesterday I got an email from IFC that promotes the latest Stephen Dorff film with a quote from the actor himself. The film is called Brake, and it’s about a guy trapped in the cargo compartment of a car. Dorff describes it as “Die Hard in a trunk,” which made me laugh. It reminded me [...]

Before delving into some highlights for my upcoming calendar film program, which has everything from singing cannibals and Robby the Robot to sex addicts and Pam Grier (in-person!)… I’d like to back-track a little. In my last post I wrote that the venues where I screen films were akin to a leaky rowboat. While this [...]