FanFare

Cult film club: Edward Woodward stars as Sergeant Howie, a naive young police officer sent to Summerisle, a secluded island off the coast of Scotland, to investigate the disappearance of a young girl named Rowan. When he arrives there, he finds a very tight-knit community that is mistrustful and hostile to outsiders. Soon, Howie begins to realize that the town might be a strange pagan cult, one given to unbridled sexuality and possible human sacrifice. Seeking an audience with the oddly civilized Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee), Howie hopes to get to the bottom of the mystery, but instead he finds something more shocking than he could have ever imagined. [more inside]
posted by maxsparber on Oct 13, 2014 - 10 comments

The best film ever made, followed the following week by the remake of The Wicker Man, starring Nicolas Cage, which somehow manages to be terrible and wonderful at the same time. See you Monday. Summerisle, Summerisle, Summerisle, Summerisle.
posted by maxsparber on Oct 9, 2014 - 4 comments

Cult Film Club: Streetwise charmer and cardshark Eddy (Nick Moran) walks into the biggest card game of his life carrying a stake backed by the life-savings of his three best mates, Tom (Jason Flemyng), Bacon (Jason Statham) and Soap (Dexter Fletcher). Eddy is the sharpest player on the circuit but the game is a set-up, and Eddy leaves owing the underworld boss "Hatchet" Harry (P.H. Moriarty) half a million. Harry gives Eddy a week to come up with the money before he starts taking fingers as collateral. (Continued) [more inside]
posted by maxsparber on Oct 6, 2014 - 10 comments

Cult film club: "I like that. Turn it up!" Performance is the Altamont of '60s cinema; psychedelic and hallucinatory, decadent and depraved, polymorphous-perverse. And you can dance to it! Melding the sex, drugs, and rock & roll ethos of swinging '60s London with the gangster film, Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell's genre-bending cult classic is so mind blowing that star James Fox did not act in a film again for nearly a decade. [more inside]
posted by maxsparber on Sep 29, 2014 - 0 comments

Cult Film Club: Recruited by an intelligence agency, outstanding martial arts student Bruce Lee participates in a brutal karate tournament hosted by the evil Han. Along with champions Roper and Williams, he uncovers Han's white slavery and drug trafficking ring located on a secret island fortress. In the exciting climax, hundreds of freed prisoners fight in an epic battle with Lee and Han locked in a deadly duel. [more inside]
posted by maxsparber on Sep 15, 2014 - 16 comments

Cult Film Club: Step back into the psychedelic ’60s in this sexy, hilarious parody of Valley Of The Dolls, co-written by Roger Ebert. When three fun-loving bombshells with a rock band head for Hollywood to make it big, they find themselves at a hedonistic love-in thrown by an eccentric music promoter. Soon, it seems, superstardom is within reach. That is, if their newfound distractions don’t get in the way! [more inside]
posted by maxsparber on Sep 8, 2014 - 3 comments

Cult Film Club: Lured by their dreams of fame and fortune, three ambitious young women enter the world of show business and discover how easy it is to sink into a celebrity nightmare of ego, alcohol and 'pills' - the beloved "dolls." A prim New Englander (Barbara Parkins) unexpectedly skyrockets from her job as secretary in a talent agency to a glamorous TV model. A determined singer (Patty Duke) finds that Hollywood success can also spell self-destruction. And a beautiful sex symbol (Sharon Tate) is torn between the money commands and the shame of feeling exploited. Based on Jacqueline Susann's phenomenal best-seller about the underside of Hollywood, this fascinating melodrama was once seen as a shocking behind-the-scenes look at how show business creates instant stars, destroys romances and changes personalities forever. [more inside]
posted by maxsparber on Sep 1, 2014 - 5 comments

Cult film of the week: Comic actor Ben Stiller co-wrote, directed, and stars in this spoof of the fashion industry that began as a short skit for the 1996 VH1 Fashion Awards. Stiller is Derek Zoolander, an intellectually challenged but bone structure-blessed male model who's despondent after being eclipsed in popularity by an equally vacuous rival, Hansel (Owen Wilson). Upon his reluctant retirement, Derek is invited to a day spa by previously standoffish fashion designer Jacobim Mugatu (Will Ferrell), where the befuddled model is brainwashed by the mysterious Katinka (Milla Jovovich) into assassinating the prime minister of Malaysia. In addition to Stiller's real-life wife Christine Taylor, Zoolander co-stars his father Jerry Stiller, along with Jon Voight, David Duchovny, Andy Dick, and Fabio. [more inside]
posted by maxsparber on Aug 25, 2014 - 19 comments

Cult Film Club film of the week: Pink Flamingos is a 1972 American transgressive black comedy exploitation film written, produced, scored, shot, edited, and directed by John Waters. When the film was initially released, it caused a huge degree of controversy due to the wide range of perverse acts performed in explicit detail. It has since become one of the most notorious films ever made and made an underground star of the flamboyant drag queen actor Divine. The film co-stars David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Danny Mills, Cookie Mueller, and Edith Massey.
posted by maxsparber on Aug 18, 2014 - 6 comments

In David Lynch's "dream of dark and troubling things," Henry is left alone in his apartment to care for his deformed baby and has a series of strange encounters with the beautiful girl across the hall and the woman living in his radiator. [more inside]
posted by maxsparber on Aug 4, 2014 - 20 comments

Eraserhead, David Lynch's early midnight hit. I will post this on Monday, lively discussion sure to follow.
posted by maxsparber on Aug 1, 2014 - 4 comments