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Reviews & Commentary by Adam Groves
HAPPINESS
A 1998 film that in its pitiless depictions of loneliness, jealousy and boredom is more relevant to the iPhone age than the time in which it was made
MONSIEUR ROBERT HOUDIN
Those wanting a straight biographical portrait of the legendary French magician Robert Houdin should probably avoid this 1966 telefilm, whose treatment is far from orthodox
THE DOOR IN THE WALL
An H.G. Wells adaptation that offered up a new, and never again utilized, innovation: The Dynamic Frame, in which the aspect ratio is shifted to serve “the dramatic needs of the story”
THE ANIMAL (1968)
An especially intriguing trash-fest combining period-specific sexploitation with HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER-esque psycho-horror
TALES OF THE DUMPSTER KID
The most ambitious product of the New German Cinema was this bawdy three-and-a-half-hour epic
THE DAY THE CLOWN CRIED
The most notorious “lost” film of our—if not all—time, reviewed in screenplay form
FULLY DRESSED AND IN HIS RIGHT MIND
Certainly one of the most unusual novels to emerge from the 1930s hard-boiled school
THE STRANGERS
A vastly overpraised novel, but one that imparts a powerful sense of near-otherworldly strangeness
THE LAST CHILDREN
This uber-bleak depiction of a post-nuclear Germany was published, unbelievably enough, as a children’s book
THE BARN OF FEAR
An underground comix anthology about homicidal animals. At least one of its parts is strong.
I APPEARED TO THE MADONNA
Contra Mundum Press deserves credit for publishing this, a book whose potential readership is not what anyone would call broad
MY FILMS WITH CARMELO BENE
One of the more pleasantly surprising developments of 2020 was the inrush of attention paid to the work of Italy’s late Carmelo Bene
ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT
Anyone doubting that the early 1990s were a golden age for cinema need only view DAZED AND CONFUSED, or read this oral history
BAD BOY BUBBY
Here’s something I say we all definitely need: a book about Rolf de Heer’s 1993 cinemutation BAD BOY BUBBY
JOHN FRANKENHEIMER: A CONVERSATION WITH CHARLES CHAMPLIN
A lively film-related biography structured entirely as a long conversation
Fred Ward: 1942-2022
I greatly respect Fred Ward as an actor, but ultimately I like him because, simply, he graced quite a few of my favorite movies
On THE SWIMMER
“DEATH OF A SALESMAN in swimming trunks” is how Burt Lancaster described his 1968 starring vehicle THE SWIMMER
Anime, Insanity, and a Cursed Dress
About THE CURSED ONE-PIECE, the finest haunted dress narrative ever filmed
TV Flashback: TÉLÉCHAT
A show that spoofed TV newscasts via a surreal universe of animal newsreaders and sentient objects, warping an entire generation of French youngsters
NOSFERATU at 100
March, 2022 marked a most auspicious anniversary: the centennial of NOSFERATU, EINE SYMPHONIE DES GRAUENS