#nathaniel thompson

[brokehorrorfan]

The Masque of the Red Death has been released on Blu-ray via Scorpion Releasing. It’s available exclusively at Ronin Flix for $19.99. The 1989 horror film is based on Edgar Allan Poe's 1842 short story.

Alan Birkinshaw (Ten Little Indians, The House of Usher) directs from a script by Michael J. Murray (The House of Usher). Frank Stallone, Brenda Vaccaro, Herbert Lom, Michelle McBride, and Christine Lunde star.

The Masque of the Red Death has been newly mastered in high definition. Special features are listed below.

Special features:

Audio commentary by film historian Nathaniel Thompson

A hallmark of the writer Edgar Allan Poe, and never has his work received a more chilling film adaption than The Masque of the Red, a terrifying trip to the dark side of madness. A dying millionaire is determined to take his closest friends with him... straight to hell. It's a farewell party you'll never forget.

[filmstruck]

Not Quite the Last Man on Earth by Nathaniel Thompson

The fantasy of being the last human being on the planet is one that seems to have been around forever, but it’s actually something that has only been around in pop culture for roughly six decades. Going hand in hand with that idea is the global outbreak, something stemming from the plagues that swept medieval Europe, now known as pandemics. You can explore films tackling the idea of diseases running rampant and wreaking havoc on FilmStruck, though few have been as apocalyptic or as weirdly memorable as THE OMEGA MAN (’71).

The second of three official screen adaptations of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, THE OMEGA MAN is sandwiched in between a take with Vincent Price, THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (‘64), and the very long-gestating I AM LEGEND (2007) with Will Smith. Matheson’s novel is perhaps the Rosetta Stone of both modern end-of-the-world and zombie scenarios, fusing the two together with monsters, technically called vampires, but far closer to what George A. Romero and his successors would unleash on movie screens.

Although it’s an avowed lifetime favorite film of Tim Burton (among others), THE OMEGA MAN isn’t quite a vampire or zombie film. Instead it’s a decidedly post-Charles Manson parable with its sole living human, Neville (Charlton Heston), tormented by and constantly fighting off albino, white-eyed assailants in cult-style robes. It’s also the first adaptation that has a little fun with the concept, having Heston cruise around the deserted streets of Los Angeles by day and repeatedly watching the one film print he can run, WOODSTOCK (‘70). It’s a lonely but oddly compelling hook that captured the imaginations of moviegoers at the time and still works like a charm today; even being echoed in the later version by having Will Smith recite every single word to SHREK (’01) by heart.

More importantly though, THE OMEGA MAN has had longstanding ripples in subsequent films and television shows to this day. The obvious series touchstone is the recently ended The Last Man on Earth, of course, with its comic spin on the idea, but others include NIGHT OF THE COMET (‘84), 28 DAYS LATER (2002) and its 2007 sequel, 28 WEEKS LATER. This being the ‘70s, you also get a healthy dollop of Christian symbolism with an ending that plays straight to the Jesus movement that had been stirring in SoCal since the late ‘60s. The strange clash that resulted in that movement—the counterculture merging with evangelical Christianity—is a perfect mirror for this film, with its uneasy stance as a shell-shocked commentary on the recent turbulence involving issues of race, sexuality and most notably, the generation gap.

Heston, a prototypical Hollywood white male savior figure, if there ever was one, still gets to serve his role here but feels like an odd man out right from the beginning. He has no support network, and everyone around him is so physically different they might as well be from a different planet. That changes slightly with the arrival of Lisa, played by the underrated (and now much-missed) Rosalind Cash whose interracial romance with Heston was a major talking point at the time. The casting of Cash (whose race wasn’t a factor in early drafts) is fascinating and gives the film a particular potency, given that the worst fate one can suffer here is the loss of pigmentation that reflects what amounts to a degrading or entire loss of the soul and self-control. Some critics chided what they perceived as pandering to the Black Power movement (something that was also leveled at the equally fascinating and unsettling LIVE AND LET DIE two years later), but in the long run it proved to be the right call as the film uses race, age and gender to demonstrate how these differences are not only what make us human but could help us weather even the darkest and deadliest of storms.

[brokehorrorfan]

Watch Me When I Kill will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on October 29 via Synapse Films. The Blu-ray will include a bonus CD of the soundtrack by Trans-Europa Express.

Also known as The Cat with the Jade Eyes and as The Cat's Victims, the 1977 Italian giallo film is directed by Antonio Bido (Bloodstained Shadow). Corrado Pani and Paola Tedesco star.

Watch Me When I Kill has been restored in high definition in anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen with DTS-HD MA English and 2.0 mono English and Italian (with English subtitles) soundtracks.

The release features reversible cover art (pictured below). Special features are listed below.

Special features:

Audio commentary by film historian and author Nathaniel Thompson

Isolated music-only track

Interview with academic Mikel Koven

3 short films from director Antonio Bido: Danza Macabra, Mendelssohn Im Judischen Museum, Berlin, and Marche Funebre D’une Marionette

Theatrical trailer

TV spot

Radio spots

Mara, a beautiful young nightclub dancer, witnesses a brutal murder and soon finds herself stalked by an animalistic killer! While enlisting the help of her boyfriend Lukas to track down and stop the maniac, the mystery surrounding the killings is slowly uncovered. As more bodies are found and secrets are uncovered, the truth behind the masked slasher is much more horrifying than anyone could imagine!

[filmstruck]

Female Bonding, Italian Style by Nathaniel Thompson

We’ve had great ongoing collaborations between male directors and male stars. And male directors and female stars, and female directors and male stars. However, the movies have come up short when it comes to great female director and actress teams; in fact, in America the only truly notable one that springs to mind is Sofia Coppola and Kirsten Dunst, or if you want to go super indie, Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams. However, there’s one uncompromising, powerhouse duo in cinema that ranks as one of my all-time favorites, even if they’re often (unjustly) overlooked today: director Lina Wertmüller and star Mariangela Melato. They worked on a total of four feature films together from 1972 to 1986, and each one is provocative, hilarious and undeniably the result of the magical alchemy between these two formidable women. You can see three of those four films on FilmStruck (along with other films directed by Wertmüller), and the good news is you can watch them in any order and still get the maximum level of enjoyment.

Though best known to mainstream American audiences as the kinkily-garbed Kala in Dino De Laurentiis’s eye-popping FLASH GORDON (1980), Melato was a major force to be reckoned with in 1970s Italian cinema. Her 11th film in only two years proved to be her big breakthrough: THE SEDUCTION OF MIMI (1972), her first Wertmüller outing and a political firebomb that managed to fill seats all around the world. Here, Melato is cast as Fiorella, a resolute young Communist who becomes the lover of Mimi (Giancarlo Giannini, another Wertmüller stock company player). On the run from the mob after his Communist vote is exposed in his village, he manages to cut a naïve path through class warfare and multiple locations throughout Italy including a stint as a metallurgist. What’s especially fun about this film is how you can watch the rapport between the two stars that would really explode in their next two films together with Wertmüller, followed most immediately by the daffy 1940s period piece, LOVE & ANARCHY (1973). Centered on the quirky consequences at a brothel where Giannini’s covertly plotting the assassination of Mussolini, it’s another good showcase for the pair with Melato cast as Salomé, a revolutionary also working as a prostitute. (Hey, it’s Italy!)

That one really sets the stage for what would become the most famous of all their films together, SWEPT AWAY (1974), a disturbing and gleeful grenade tossed into the public conversation about sexual equality and politics. Here the haughty, bourgeois Melato ends up stranded on an island with Giannini, a Communist sailor whom she’s been verbally abusing back in civilization. He ends up turning the tables in a way that disturbed more than a few viewers at the time, as did Melato’s reaction; anyone expecting a clear-cut feminist statement here will find things grayer and far more complicated all the way to the melancholy final shot.

Watching all three films in succession is especially rewarding as you can study how the director toyed with the appearance and demeanor of Melato, whose unusual and strikingly expressive face adapts to any number of temperaments and even looks great screaming. (If someone ever does a Melato biopic, here’s hoping they can get Lady Gaga to star.) Endlessly fascinating, she’s the perfect subject for Wertmüller’s camera and an integral part of their intoxicating atmosphere. It’s worth pointing out that all of these films are enjoyable on a purely sensory level, with both MIMI and SWEPT AWAY featuring rapturous scores by the great Piero Piccioni. In fact, it’s no exaggeration to say that his swirling, infectious work on SWEPT AWAY is one of the crown jewels of Italian film music. (In case you’re wondering, the fourth Wertmüller/Melato film is 1986’s SUMMER NIGHT, which may be the slightest of the quartet but is still worth tracking down.) It’s a tragedy that Melato didn’t live long enough to make the long-planned SWEPT AWAY sequel she and Wertmüller wanted so badly to make (and the mind boggles at how the story could have gone), but what we have from them is certainly worth its weight in gold.

[filmstruck]

Life’s a Drag by Nathaniel Thompson

As we celebrate Pride Month this year in all its complicated shades and rich history, it’s also time to take a look at how LGBT culture has played a huge role in the way films have been made and written about for decades. You can find a sampling of six key titles in FilmStruck’s “Dressing the Part” spotlight, which reflects four decades of cross-dressing milestones on the big screen. You’ll notice that there are two films from the 1970s here, and they’re fascinating and important ones in the history of gender bending on film. Here are three reasons why…

The Stonewall Riots:

The watershed demonstrations and uprisings that began on June 28, 1969 are regarded as ground zero for the creation of the gay rights movement, setting off a chain of activism and public representation that’s still thriving and evolving today. Movies were quick to jump on the sea change, and some of the earliest ones require some explanation and context to work for first-time viewers today. That doesn’t apply to the two films here, FEMALE TROUBLE (‘74) and OUTRAGEOUS! (‘77), which will work like a charm as they show off two very different sides of drag and gay pop culture during the “Me Decade.”

Divine:

The mightiest titan in the pantheon of movie drag queens, Divine shot to underground fame as the fearless, boundary-bashing star of John Waters’ films right from the beginning with MONDO TRASHO (‘69) and appearing in all but one of his films through HAIRSPRAY (’88; the same year Divine passed away far too young). Fans continue to debate which film is Divine’s finest hour, but there’s no doubt that the one performance that stretched the punk-era provocateur to the greatest acting heights is FEMALE TROUBLE. 

Cast as juvenile delinquent turned professional glamour queen criminal Dawn Davenport, Divine is a force of nature whether scarfing down a meatball sandwich at school (“Right out in class!”), ruining Christmas over after a disappointment involving cha-cha heels, giving birth in a stairwell or terrorizing the leather-wearing, hetero-hating Aunt Ida (Edith Massey, another Waters gem) by locking her in a giant bird cage. You’ve never seen anything else like this film, which comes packed with an uncountable number of great one liners and plenty of brilliant physical comedy (that trampoline!). Plus Divine even plays a dual role… out of drag and doing a sex scene with himself. You’ll have to see it to figure out how that works.

Judy, Judy, Judy:

Though not discussed all that often today, the Canadian film OUTRAGEOUS! earned a solid cult following in the late ‘70s as a showcase for the amazing Craig Russell, whose female impersonations included spot-on renditions of famous women like Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, Tallulah Bankhead, Mae West and a jaw-dropping Carol Channing. There’s a lot more to it than that though, in this landmark snapshot of a subculture within the gay community in a pre-AIDS world where entertainment could be found from cabarets to bathhouses. It’s an affecting look at Russell’s friendship with fellow “kook” Hollis McLaren, a platonic male-female friendship unlike anything else you’d see on a movie screen at the time. 

I love how Danny Peary pointed out the film’s message in his landmark book, A Guide for the Film Fanatic: “The picture is not about being gay but about being an outcast (a crazy) among people (gays) who are already outcasts… [Russell] wants to break down the barriers gays have set up for themselves; he wants to be a female impersonator and become part of the more adventurous and dazzling gay element which many ‘normal’ gays shun.”

These films point the way to where drag would be heading for decades to come; in fact, we still owe both of them a huge debt. Without FEMALE TROUBLE, OUTRAGEOUS! and all the other cross-dressing classics of the era, we wouldn’t have RuPaul’s Drag Race, TOOTSIE (’82), HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (2001) and on and on. The world would be a much duller and far less glamorous place.

[filmstruck]

Falling in Love with THE TIME MACHINE and TIME AFTER TIME by Nathaniel Thompson

Few things get your imagination fired up more than a good time travel story, and you can find some of the very best ones on FilmStruck. Of course, love stories tend to be major themes in time travel movies; after all, what’s more irresistible than the idea of going back and visiting a period in the past, or tinkering around with prior events to change your present for love? Hollywood has been running on the idea that love trumps all other forces in the universe, so it makes perfect sense to apply this to the ideas of love lost, love possible or love just out of reach.

Most people don’t tend to classify THE TIME MACHINE (‘60) as a love story in its many incarnations, starting with H.G. Wells’ 1895 source novella which is considered the Rosetta Stone for all modern time travel tales on screen and on the page. That’s for a very good reason: in its original incarnation, it wasn’t a love story at all. In George Pal’s feature film version of THE TIME MACHINE, the nameless time traveler becomes George (Rod Taylor), a Victorian-era inventor who catapults to the distant future where the world’s population exists in only two groups: the peaceful but passive Eloi and the predatory underground Morlocks.

That central metaphor of a future divided has been played around with for decades, but here Pal and screenwriter David Duncan had the clever idea of having George fall in love with the pretty, innocent Weena (Yvette Mimieux), a non-romantic and far more tragic character in the book but an alluring figure here playing a major role in the story’s resolution. Neither Taylor nor Mimieux have a ton of character development to work with here, so it’s to their credit that we’re rooting for them all the way to the end. Essentially faithful to the novel’s narrative, the movie makes some understandable tweaks along the way, most notably dropping the chilling and deeply haunting voyage to the end of Earth’s history near the end, resulting in a rousing, audience-pleasing film that set the template for decades of Wells-inspired films to come.

After watching, be sure to take a look at two brief supplements included here in service, where Taylor and the beloved TCM host Robert Osborne giving you some extra insight into this all-time screen classic.

Speaking of Wells, he turns up as the actual hero of one of my very favorite time travel films, TIME AFTER TIME (‘79). Here, Herbert George Wells (Malcolm McDowell, never more charming) uses a real time machine to pursue Jack the Ripper (David Warner) into late 1970s San Francisco. There, he experiences deep culture shock but finds aid and ultimately true love with Amy (Mary Steenburgen, who married McDowell soon after shooting), a bank teller who plays a major role in the final confrontation. This was the directorial debut for writer Nicholas Meyer, who had earlier dabbled in gimmicky combinations of famous figures with his Sherlock Homes meets Sigmund Freud hit, THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION (‘76). There must have been something in the air in 1979, since it produced two films – this one and SOMWHERE IN TIME – that are perhaps the most convincing cases for the human heart overcoming any obstacle including time itself.

McDowell and Steenburgen have crackling chemistry here, and Meyer wisely lets them do the heavy lifting whenever the tangled time travel plot threatens to become too gimmicky. That sense of real stakes and soulfulness really counts here, so much so that some viewers have been known to slip out a tear or two at the end. Meyer is also keenly aware of both literary and cinematic history, complete with nods to THE TIME MACHINE, in its book and film incarnations, and a knockout of a score by one of the few Hollywood Golden Age music legends still around at the time, Miklós Rózsa. In short, you’d have to look far and wide through times beyond our own to find a better date night double-feature.

[filmstruck]

L.A. Sprawl in the ‘90s by Nathaniel Thompson

As someone who moved to Los Angeles in 1999, I can say that you never quite get used to the unique vibe that hums through this place every day. Despite periods of infamous runaway productions to places like Vancouver and Atlanta, it’s still the movie capital of the world and continues to draw millions of visitors to places like Hollywood Blvd. (which has only had the slightest wisp of a connection to the industry for decades, but no one seems to care). The currently running spotlight “The Essence of L.A.” on FilmStruck is a fun opportunity to compare and contrast how the city sees itself on film.

In particular, there’s something wonderful to be found in two audacious, troubling and divisive films studded in this spotlight, Robert Altman’s THE PLAYER (’92) and Paul Thomas Anderson’s MAGNOLIA (’99)…

Both are looks at Los Angeles and its surrounding areas on a massive canvas and how it treats its citizens on different levels of the pecking order, with more than a few people drawing similarities between MAGNOLIA and Altman’s caustic Raymond Carver adaptation, SHORT CUTS (’93)-- essentially a spiritual sequel to THE PLAYER.

PTA was open for years about his admiration for Altman’s technique, even casting Altman breakthrough Philip Baker Hall from SECRET HONOR (’84), as part of his repertory players in numerous films starting with HARD EIGHT (’96). Anderson went on to dedicate THERE WILL BE BLOOD (‘07 ) to Altman, who died in 2006.

Anderson was famously hired to serve as a backup director on Altman’s last film, A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION (’06), an artistic bonding experience that both seemed to enjoy immensely.

Both men have a cinematic knack for capturing the loose, hazy, sometimes destructive experience of being in L.A., albeit from opposite ends of the telescope. Altman was born in Missouri and moved to Los Angeles to break into the industry. By the time he had an Oscar-nominated hit with M*A*S*H (’70), Altman had a conflicted and somewhat jaded view of L.A. that felt like a habit he couldn’t kick. THE PLAYER marked his big comeback after years in the art house wilderness, with members of Hollywood’s elite turning up in wall-to-wall cameos throughout the running time. Though it’s a highly unflattering depiction of the studio system, Hollywood has always been able to take a joke. 

Paul Thomas Anderson was born in the San Fernando Valley – Studio City, to be exact, just a hop away from Universal Studios – and both MAGNOLIA and BOOGIE NIGHTS (’97) are character tapestries reflecting the very diverse people inhabiting the various cities within it. Though the majority of the major movie studios are now located in the Valley (Burbank and Glendale), the area stretches as wide across as L.A. proper and constantly goes through different phases of ethnic and socioeconomic demographics. The meaning of MAGNOLIA’s title has been the subject of interpretation for years given the number of times you see artistic representations of the title flower popping up. (You could easily build a drinking game out of it.) However, it’s also the name of a particularly massive boulevard that stretches across the Valley and offers a pretty fascinating cross section of contrasting buildings if you go along it for more than a couple of miles. Though not all of MAGNOLIA was actually shot in the Valley, it does offer a great snapshot of what it looked like at the end of the ‘90s with North Hollywood and Studio City getting particularly heavy coverage. 

THE PLAYER shot in a different valley (San Gabriel) with its Pasadena scenes and really hops all over the place, with locations including the beachside Malibu eatery Geoffrey’s, West Hollywood, and a peek at Westwood just down the street from UCLA. • MAGNOLIA’s release in 1999 puts it in very rich company for what is now widely regarded as one of the best years in movie history. However, THE PLAYER matches it for its eye-filling number of famous faces and (very) darkly comic look at morality and (lack of) consequences. Fortunately you don’t have to choose between them, and both films can easily be ranked among the greatest time capsules of a city that never stops changing right in front of your eyes.

[filmstruck]

Vanessa Redgrave Goes Mod by Nathaniel Thompson

As a moviegoer, there’s a certain joy in watching actors evolve over the years, especially when their careers span several decades and you can see how their looks, body language and vocal deliveries change with the times. Just watch a sampling of films starring Meryl Streep, Daniel Day-Lewis or Isabelle Huppert, and it’s like jumping in an instant time machine as you get to observe an artist in transformation. One of the most fascinating examples in the past century has to be the great Vanessa Redgrave, who’s firmly enshrined as one of the shining lights of British acting royalty and, though not really thought of today as a movie star in the conventional sense, a steady and often astonishing presence on the big screen since the late ‘50s.

You can find a handy selection of Redgrave’s work studded throughout FilmStruck and The Criterion Channel in a currently running spotlight encompassing 11 titles as of this writing, ranging all the way from her 1958 debut in BEHIND THE MASK to her indelible turn in VENUS (2006). However, I’ve always had a certain fascination with Redgrave’s work in the second half of the 1960s when Swinging London came into its own and became an epicenter of pop culture innovations from fashion to music to movies, and even architecture and public transportation. And no film represents that state of all things London better than BLOW-UP (‘66), a milestone that can now be enjoyed here for the first time or the 15th.

BLOW-UP can sound like a daunting film if you read reviews or try to sift through the stacks of academic papers written about Michelangelo Antonioni’s celebrated, taboo-pushing premiere feature shot in English. He was already a darling of the art house circuit thanks to his quartet of existential brain ticklers: L’AVVENTURA (‘60), LA NOTTE (‘61), L’ECLISSE (‘62) and THE RED DESERT (‘64). His shift to color with that last film really laid the groundwork for what he did with BLOW-UP, a radical expansion of an enigmatic short story by Argentine writer Julio Cortázar about an amateur photographer whose worldview is upended one day while taking some dockside shots. The slippery narrative in the film is a puzzle with no clear answer, taking fashion photographer David Hemmings through a series of encounters that leave him in a radically altered state of perception. It actually isn’t a difficult film at all if you just roll with it and realize you’re watching what amounts to a cinematic Rorschach test whose colors, movement and music are meant to provoke ideas and responses more strongly than the mystery itself which remains in limbo.

At the heart of that mystery is Redgrave herself, playing a mysterious woman who approaches Hemmings to retrieve the negatives for a series of possibly incriminating photographs he’s taken in the park (whose grass was famously spray painted an intense shade of green as part of Antonioni’s bold color experimentation). She’s the perfect casting choice here as her nervous temperament is masterfully conveyed by her choreographed physical responses to Hemmings’ character with unpredictable gestures keeping the viewer sifting through her possible motives and emotions even on repeated viewings. It’s also a bold choice in that she spends a significant portion of her screen time topless, albeit discreetly framed and posed for the most part; rather than showing vulnerability or desire as most nude scenes are designed to do, her exposure here is strange, chilly and unsettlingly beautiful. The film’s then-shocking levels of sexuality and nudity were a big conversation piece back in the day and played a big role in the film’s box office success, despite the fact that MGM defied the Production Code and set up a temporary company to release it so the more extreme content wouldn’t be censored. Redgrave and company ended up playing a big role in the dismantling of the Code itself, which would soon give way to the MPAA system we all know today.

As the daughter of actor Michael Redgrave and part of the acting dynasty that also includes Lynn Redgrave, Joely Richardson, the late Natasha Richardson and (via marriage) Franco Nero, Vanessa Redgrave was already a firmly established theatre star when BLOW-UP, only her third credited feature film. However, 1966 would turn out to be quite a year for her as she also appeared in the counterculture comedy MORGAN – A SUITABLE CASE FOR TREATMENT, which netted her first of six Oscar nominations (with one win for 1977’s JULIA), and a surprise turn in what would prove to be the year’s Oscar winner for Best Picture, A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS (‘66), Fred Zinneman’s depiction of the turbulent fate of Sir Thomas More when he locked horns with King Henry VIII. Here Redgrave decided for sheer enjoyment to appear in an extended cameo as Anne Boleyn, accepting neither payment nor credit for the role opposite her brother, Corin Redgrave. Also seen in a more prominent role in the 1988 made-for-TV remake, she gives the film a significant jolt when she appears, her piercing eyes managing to convey everything we need to know about her ill-fated character as soon as she appears. (Her wedding, incidentally, was added to the film and does not appear in the source play.) Only 29 years old at the time, she more than holds her own her in her few minutes of screen time opposite such heavy hitters as Paul Scofield, Orson Welles, Robert Shaw and Wendy Hiller—and the film itself is still one of the very best costume dramas ever made.

If watching these two films isn’t enough Redgrave for you, there are still nine other ones left to stream until your heart’s content. Just be sure to check out that ‘60s pairing for a look at the range she displayed at the height of Britain’s 20th century cultural influence, creating a screen presence that planted the seeds for her later roles that decade during her “Franco Nero period” in CAMELOT (‘67), ISADORA (‘68), and the fascinating, often overlooked Italian chiller A QUIET PLACE IN THE COUNTRY (‘68), which finds her using her BLOW-UP skills to unnerving effect. There’s really no one else out there like her.