Cinema, Stick It In Your Queue

20th Century Oz

Posted by: detourmag on May 2, 2008 at 12:00 pm

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20th Century Oz (Chris Löfvén, 1976, Australia)

Teenage groupie Dorothy (Joy Dunstan) is living in the land down under where she and her pal Jane (Paula Maxwell) spend Friday evenings at the local youth center catching unknown musical groups like Wally and the Falcons. Hitching a ride from the band, things go awry when their van goes in a ditch, sending Dorothy over the Read more

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Cinema, Stick It In Your Queue

Quintet

Posted by: detourmag on May 1, 2008 at 12:00 pm

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Quintet (Robert Altman, 1979)

The first thing a viewer notices about Robert Altman’s science fiction film is how dirty the camera’s lens is. The edges of the frame seem smeared, lending the film a dreamy, flashback quality. However, Quintet is not from the past but the future. It’s a post-apocalyptic film starring Paul Newman as Essex and Brigitte Fossey as the Read more

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Cinema, Stick It In Your Queue

Dinah East

Posted by: detourmag on April 30, 2008 at 12:00 pm

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Dinah East (Gene Nash, 1970)

Released the same year as Michael Sarne’s Myra Breckinridge, this is a lower rent but far more successful interpretation of similar themes. The film opens with aging starlet Dinah East dying in the back of her limousine. When a lecherous mortician Read more

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Cinema, Stick It In Your Queue

Carnal Knowledge

Posted by: Ryan Allen on April 29, 2008 at 12:00 pm

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Carnal Knowledge (Mike Nichols, 1971)

What the hell happened to Mike Nichols? The director once delivered consistent films that held up a mirror to American bourgeoisie society with such poignant fare as The Graduate and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but that was before his bite became Read more

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Cinema, Stick It In Your Queue

American Cannibal: The Road to Reality

Posted by: Ryan Allen on April 28, 2008 at 12:00 pm

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American Cannibal: The Road to Reality (Perry Grebin & Michael Nigro, 2006)

A mock-you-mentary about the business of so-called “reality” television, American Cannibal mixes talking head interviews with TV producers, writers, marketers, and stars with the story of an ill-fated reality show. The film follows writers Gil S. Ripley and Dave Roberts as they make pitches to various production companies. Their original idea, Read more

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Cinema, Stick It In Your Queue

The Cars That Ate Paris

Posted by: Ryan Allen on April 25, 2008 at 9:00 am

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The Cars That Ate Paris (Peter Weir, 1974)

Poor Arthur Waldo (Terry Camilleri). The painfully soft-spoken man is deathly afraid of driving after accidentally killing a man a year before, and then he has the bad luck to pass through Paris, Australia. There the residents have blocked and booby trapped all of the roads leading in and out of town to kill unsuspecting passersby. The local economy is Read more

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Cinema, Stick It In Your Queue

Decoy

Posted by: Ryan Allen on April 24, 2008 at 12:00 pm

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Decoy (Jack Bernhard, 1946)

This seldom seen film noir was recently rescued from obscurity by the “Film Noir Classics Collection.” The film stars Jean Gillie and was intended to be a showcase for her talents by her husband, director Jack Bernhard. She turns in a great performance as spider woman Margot Shelby, who plays three men against each other — the idealistic Dr. Craig (Herbert Rudley), condemned gangster (with a stash of dough) Frank Olins (Robert Armstrong), and tough guy Jim Vincent (Edward Norris). All the while she’s got straight-arrow Sergeant Joe Portugal (Sheldon Leonard in a huge hat) sniffing at her heels.

You have to hand it to Margot. She’s got an elaborate plan to spring Olins from the joint and get her mitts on his loot. She also knows what drugs the state will pump into Olins to execute him and, better yet, that there’s a cure. It’s Methylene Blue, and who better to administer it than Dr. Craig when he examines the “corpse” to declare Olins dead? Once he’s back amongst the living, the main characters engage in a Read more

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Cinema, Stick It In Your Queue

Stallone Goes Over the Top

Posted by: Ryan Allen on April 23, 2008 at 12:00 pm

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Over the Top (Menahem Golan, 1987)

Cannon Pictures bet the farm on Over the Top, and it lost. The story of a trucker named Lincoln Hawk (Sylvester Stallone) reuniting with his estranged son Michael (David Mendenhall, who acts as if he were an android learning to be human) through a road trip Read more

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Cinema, Stick It In Your Queue

Living Dead Girl / La Morte Vivant

Posted by: Ryan Allen on April 22, 2008 at 12:00 pm

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Living Dead Girl / La Morte Vivant (Jean Rollin, 1982)

“I’m not a goddamn photographer, I’m an actress,” screams American tourist Barbara (Carina Barone) at her husband Greg (Mike Marshall). Apparently he’s as unconvinced as the audience. It’s easier to believe that chemical waste could revive a corpse than to buy Read more

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Cinema, Stick It In Your Queue

Chosen Survivors

Posted by: Ryan Allen on April 21, 2008 at 12:00 pm

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Chosen Survivors (Sutton Roley, 1974)

Helicopters arrive, laden with the chosen few plucked from their everyday lives and allowed entrance to a secret bunker set into a mountainside. They’ve been hand selected as American’s next best hope of civilization in the face of nuclear Armageddon. These ten civilians (along with a military escort) inhabit one of twelve similar installations around the country, pockets of civilization meant to retake the surface world once radiation has reached acceptable levels.

Thank goodness for the foresight of the U.S. government, they always think of everything! The bunker has private rooms, a five year supply of food, and an infestation of killer Read more

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