Without the war in Vietnam, the civil rights movement, Calgon detergent and Fred Rogers’ tonsils, Night of the Living Dead would not exist. And without Night of the Living Dead, there would be no The Walking Dead, no World War Z, no entire cottage industry centered around those “all messed-up” ghouls who crave and dine […]
documentary
Posted inArts & Culture
Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th
You read correctly. Crystal Lake Memories: The Complete History of Friday the 13th runs for a butt-punishing 400 minutes, which signals two things: 1. It’s not required to be consumed in one sitting. 2. It’s not for the casual Friday the 13th fan. Based on Peter Bracke’s 2006 book of the same name — as indispensable as it […]
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Room 237
Only the first of these is true. Just don’t tell the unseen interviewees of Room 237, Rodney Ascher’s extraordinary documentary about all the crazy conspiracy theories surrounding Kubrick’s 1980 horror classic, The Shining. You’ve heard about The Shining, right? It’s the film that Kubrick loaded with subliminal messages and made synchronic when simultaneously played forward […]
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Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie
This meteoric rise and fall is chronicled in Évocateur: The Morton Downey Jr. Movie, a documentary that both celebrates and vilifies its subject, because it tells the truth. Mort would’ve loved it; Mort would’ve hated it. I love it. Predictably, directors Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller and Jeremy Newberger gain much mileage from the prodigious […]
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Stories We Tell
In this intensely personal, potentially embarrassing work, actress-turned-director Sarah Polley (Take This Waltz) gathers her brothers, sisters, father and family friends in order to piece together a portrait of her late mother, Diane, who died of cancer when Sarah still a child. That alone is hardly remarkable enough to merit a feature-length look. Note, however, […]
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My Amityville Horror
Now a father himself of two teenagers, Lutz — a dead ringer for actor Michael Chiklis (Parker) — recounts what he, his siblings, his mom and his wretched stepfather went through in the Long Island home at 112 Ocean Ave., reportedly haunted because of the six murders that occurred there. Whether speaking to a psychiatrist, […]
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Bert Stern: Original Madman
New to DVD from First Run Features, it is one of the very best nonfiction films of the past year. The former soda jerk and Korean War vet earned fame and fortune as a conceptual photographer in the Madison Avenue ad game, helping revolutionize the industry in the 1950s and ’60s with his creative thinking […]
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The Jeffrey Dahmer Files
Now available on the IFC Midnight label, The Jeffrey Dahmer Files is built largely on interviews with three people tied directly to the notorious serial killer who confessed to 17 murders: apartment neighbor Pamela Bass, police detective Pat Kennedy and medical examiner Dr. Jeffrey Jentzen. Each grabs your attention and holds it with his or […]
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Berberian Sound Studio
Berberian Sound Studio isn’t directed by Italian horror maestro Dario Argento, but it may as well be. His influence is draped lovingly all over the British film: • A projectionist seen only by his hands dons black gloves — the requisite accessory for many a murderer in the director’s giallo efforts. • The movie within […]
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Prisoners and pooches
What you notice first in this scene is the bond between man and dog, both content to sit side by side as long as they’re allowed. Then your eyes drift to Miller’s standard-issue gray uniform, and you remember that this tableau is taking place not in a recliner in the living room, but rather the […]