#Greg Ferrara

[genericamentegiuseppe]

DIVED - Deprogram Reprogram

Quando un album somiglia a molte cose senza ricalcarne nessuna sai già che crescerà di ascolto in ascolto. Questo è il caso di "Deprogram Reprogram".

Tra Warren Thomas e Mirrorism, DIVED è un viaggio in cui post punk e cantautorato trovano una originale via di mezzo, probabilmente all’altezza di Ferrara. Quando un album somiglia a molte cose senza ricalcarne nessuna sai già che crescerà di ascolto in ascolto. Questo è il caso di “Deprogram Reprogram”. Eccovi qualche link per ascoltarvi l’album suddetto: • APPLE MUSIC:…

[ulkaralakbarova]

When Queen Elizabeth’s reign is threatened by ruthless familial betrayal and Spain’s invading army, she and her shrewd adviser must act to safeguard the lives of her people. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Elizabeth I, Queen of England: Cate Blanchett Sir Walter Raleigh: Clive Owen Sir Francis Walsingham: Geoffrey Rush Sir Christopher Hatton: Laurence Fox Amyas Paulet: Tom Hollander Elizabeth Throckmorton: Abbie Cornish Robert Reston: Rhys Ifans King Philip II of Spain: Jordi Mollà Mary, Queen of Scots: Samantha Morton Anthony Babington: Eddie Redmayne Calley: Adrian Scarborough William Walsingham: Adam Godley Archduke Charles: Christian Brassington Count Georg von Helfenstein: Robert Cambrinus Dr. John Dee: David Threlfall Spanish Minister: Vidal Sancho Ursula Walsingham: Kelly Hunter Lord Howard: John Shrapnel Torturer: Sam Spruell Cellarman: David Sterne Admiral Sir William Winter: David Robb Courtier: Jonathan Bailey Walsingham’s Servant: Steve Lately Woman with Baby: Kate Fleetwood Infanta Isabel of Spain: Aimee King Annette: Susan Lynch Mary Walsingham: Kristin Coulter Smith Queen Elizabeth’s Waiting Lady #1: Hayley Burroughs Queen Elizabeth’s Waiting Lady #2: Kirsty McKay Queen Elizabeth’s Waiting Lady #3: Lucia Ruck Keene Queen Elizabeth’s Waiting Lady #4: Lucienne Venisse-Back Laundry Woman: Elise McCave Margaret: Penelope McGhie First Court Lady: Coral Beed Second Court Lady: Rosalind Halstead Manteo: Steven Loton Wanchese: Martin Baron Walsingham’s Agent: David Armand Sir Francis Throckmorton: Steven Robertson Ramsey: Jeremy Barker Burton: George Innes Mary Walsingham: Kirstin Smith Old Throckmorton: Tim Preece Dance Master: Benjamin May Royal Servant: Glenn Doherty Dean of Peterborough: Chris Brailsford Executioner: Dave Legeno Spanish Archbishop: Antony Carrick Marriage Priest: John Atterbury First Spanish Officer: Alex Giannini Second Spanish Officer: Joe Ferrara Courtier: Alexander Barnes Courtier: Charles Bruce Courtier: Jeremy Cracknell Courtier: Benedict Green Courtier: Adam Smith Courtier: Simon Stratton Courtier: Crispin Swayne Mary Stuart’s Lady in Waiting: Kitty Fox Mary Stuart’s Lady in Waiting: Kate Lindesay Mary Stuart’s Lady in Waiting: Katherine Templar Courtier (uncredited): Morne Botes Young Boy (uncredited): Finn Morrell Tyger Salior (uncredited): Shane Nolan Film Crew: Screenplay: William Nicholson Director of Photography: Remi Adefarasin Editor: Jill Bilcock Original Music Composer: A.R. Rahman Original Music Composer: Craig Armstrong Set Decoration: Richard Roberts Stunts: Peter Pedrero Stunt Coordinator: Greg Powell Casting: Fiona Weir Stunts: Rob Inch Stunts: Andy Smart Additional Camera: David Worley Costume Design: Alexandra Byrne Supervising Sound Editor: Mark Auguste Production Design: Guy Hendrix Dyas Supervising Art Director: Frank Walsh Director: Shekhar Kapur Screenplay: Michael Hirst Editor: Andrew Haddock Art Direction: David Allday Set Costumer: Martin Chitty Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Steve Single Scenic Artist: Rohan Harris Stunts: Ray Nicholas Art Direction: Andy Thomson Art Direction: Jason Knox-Johnston Production Manager: Mark Mostyn Stunts: George Cottle Stunts: David Anders Stunts: Peter Miles Visual Effects Supervisor: John Lockwood Stunts: John Kearney Stunts: Paul Kennington Stunts: Nick Chopping Costume Supervisor: Suzi Turnbull Hairstylist: Morag Ross Art Direction: Phil Sims Music Editor: Tony Lewis ADR Recordist: Robert Edwards Stunt Double: Abbi Collins Script Supervisor: Angela Wharton ADR Editor: Tim Hands Art Direction: Christian Huband Visual Effects Supervisor: Richard Stammers Stunts: Rowley Irlam Assistant Art Director: Helen Xenopoulos Foley Artist: Mario Vaccaro Visual Effects Supervisor: Steve Street Property Master: David Balfour Greensman: Ian Whiteford Foley Editor: Andrew Neil Stunts: Gordon Seed Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Tim Cavagin Dialogue Editor: Sam Auguste Scenic Artist: James Gemmill Unit Publicist: Stacy Mann Camera Operator: Ben Wilson Visual Effects Editor: Aled Robinson Stunts: Paul Herbert Hairstylist: Do...

[indiejones]

OH F****

OH F****.

Kids, close your eyes right now. Adults, copy quick. Erm I meant, get around to put the final screws on! Ugh. There's no good way of saying this. F*** this now.

We understand late, the reason why love's always triumphed over hate.

.

.

Full top list:

JOSE BENAZERAF (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1022! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 1.7 CRORE LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

JEAN-DANIEL CADINOT (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1022! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 2 CRORE LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

GREG CENTAURO (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1022! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 2.3 CRORE LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

PIERRE CHEVALIER (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR)- LINEAGE 1022! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 1.4 CRORE LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

CRISTOPH CLARK (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1023! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 1.7 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

LIZA DEL SIERRA (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1024! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 2.5 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

PETER DE ROME (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1025! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 2.7 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDENTS TODAY!

MARC DORCEL (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1025! – (0 M 0(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 2.8 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

MANUEL FERRARA (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1026! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 3.3 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

OLYMPE DE G. (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1026! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 4.8 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

ALBERT KIRCHNER (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1027! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 8.2 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

GREG LANSKY (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1028!- (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 3.7 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

MICHEL LEMOINE (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1029! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 2.5 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

CLAUDE MULOT (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1030! – 0 M)(0 C(0 GOV COUN) – 2.6 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

BERNARD NATAN (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1030! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 2.4 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

OVIDIE (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1031! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 13.5 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

ALAIN PAYET (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1031! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 18.4 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

CLAUDE PIERSON (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1031! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 6.9 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

JEAN ROLLIN (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1032! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 6.2 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

JOHN B. ROOT (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1033! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 4.5 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

FRANCOIS SAGAT (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1033! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 3.5 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

JACQUES SCANDELARI (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1033! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 4 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

CELINE TRAN (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1033! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 4.4 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

JEAN-MARC PROUVEUR (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1034! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 3.4 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

JEAN-CLAUDE ROY (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1035! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 3 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY!

PIERRE WOODMAN (FRENCH PORN DIRECTOR) – LINEAGE 1035! – (0 M)(0 C)(0 GOV COUN) – 3 CRORE FELLOW LIVING DESCENDANTS TODAY! .

[filmstruck]

OVERLORD ('75) by Greg Ferrara

Directed by Stuart Cooper, OVERLORD is a brilliantly expressionistic meditation on the machinations of war. It is the story of Tom (Brian Stirner), a soldier who has been called to duty to fight in World War II. As the title suggests, he takes part in the D-Day landings (codenamed Operation Overlord), but the film is not about battle or military strategy. It is about being one small part of a giant machine. In the overall war machine, the soldiers are nothing more than ball bearings. Important, yes, but easily substituted and changed out when necessary.

Cooper doesn't give us a plot so much as a series of moments involving Tom. Interspersed with Tom's moments are real footage from training films shot during the War. This footage of fantastic machines and men being battered about and knocked around on the beaches pops in and out of the film, like fleeting glimpses of Tom's memory popping in and out of his head. But Tom also sees himself—in a war he has not yet joined—either as a premonition or fantasy. As often as not, his premonitions of himself are blurred.

Cooper worked with cinematographer John Alcott, the Oscar winning photographer of BARRY LYNDON (’75). Together, they create an eerie atmosphere of both anticipation and dread, feelings that Tom cannot shake, even more so when he laments to a newfound lover that he may never see her again.

He sees her in premonitions too, as if she is with him in the war, stuck in the middle of the machine.

OVERLORD didn't get a proper release in the United States until 2006 and it's a shame it took so long. It truly is one of the most beautiful and haunting films ever made about war. It’s visually stunning and emotionally numbing. Watch it now on FilmStruck.

[revolutionaryjackelving]

UNCAST AND UNMADE: The "Spider-Man" Films That Never Came To Pass

After #SpiderManNoWayHome put a capstone over 20 years of #SpiderMan movies, let's raise a toast to the Spider-Man movies that never came to pass, the movies that were unmade, the actors who were never cast.

I have spent the entire month of December talking about Live-Action Spider-Man movies. This is my final post (for hopefully a good while) on live-action Spider-Man movies, before I get back to regular programming. This post will examine some of the Spider-Man projects that never got made and explore their potential. I will then explore the “platonic” ideal of casting Spider-Man characters and…

[libr-tumbl-alternative]

In the fall of 2014, when health officials were fighting to contain an Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Emilio Ferrara was tracking…. Powered by AutoBlogger.co

[luxe-pauvre]

From an evolutionary perspective, stress contagion makes a lot of sense. As social creatures, our ancestors may have gained a survival advantage by learning to recognize when others feel threatened and quickly react. Responding impulsively to another person’s stress prepares our bodies to fight or flee while our conscious minds try to work out the cause of the distress and decide what to do about it. By the time we identify a stalking lion, for instance, our legs are ready to run. On the Internet, however, fear and anxiety can spread faster and further than ever before. People who use social media tend to be more aware of stressful events in others’ lives, according to the Pew Research Center. And the more aware they are, the more stressed they feel. “Let’s say you read your news stream, and all of these people are posting about a shooting,” Ferrara explains. “Even though you may not interact with it directly, in a latent form, that information can affect your internal wellbeing—it can cause a negative emotion and reaction. [...] “Emotion is a language,” says Greg Norman, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago. “It’s not nearly as explicit as English—it’s far more subtle—but it has a considerable effect: If a negative emotion is caught and conveyed above a certain threshold, it’s capable of being sent across the world.” [...] Stress is so pervasive, though, it’s unlikely we can ever really escape it. As social creatures, our anxieties are never just ours alone. And there will always be people—politicians, trolls, even our own friends—who rile us up about bogus, or exaggerated, threats. When the next global crisis looms, the one pandemic we can count on is fear.”

Adrienne Berard, Why Fear Is So Contagious

[watching-pictures-move]

Put On Your Raincoats #15 | Rainbows in the Dark

To the extent that a porn director crossed over to the mainstream, Gregory Dark would be it. Certainly, there have been directors who did one or two porn features early in their careers, like Abel Ferrara, William Lustig and Wes Craven, but they're known almost entirely for their mainstream work. There are also porn directors who did maybe one mainstream movie, like Gerard Damiano, but their careers were relegated to porn for the most part. Dark is the rare director who was prolific on both sides, so to speak, starting with massive hardcore hits like New Wave Hookers, moving on to directing softcore, thrillers and softcore thrillers with some regularity and eventually becoming a popular music video director. My initial plan was to explore the full gamut of Dark's career. I wanted to get a sense of each phase of his work and to see what elements of his style translated across them. Essentially I wanted to understand Dark as an auteur. But then something miraculous happened. I got lazy. (Also I had a muted reaction to some of his movies and became more interested in another director in the meantime.) So I decided to limit my exploration to a few of his early movies and call it a day.

The first one I watched was New Wave Hookers, his best known hardcore title and considered a classic in the genre. What I expected going in and what worked for me can be deduced from the title. Dark's visual style very much brings to mind the "new wave" in the title: big hair, fog machines and neon lighting, all of which are first seen in the opening credits, in which the female talent almost ritualistically present themselves to the camera. There's some stylistic precedent in the work of Rinse Dream AKA Stephen Sayadian (the artist I got more interested in as I delved into Dark's work), but Sayadian's aesthetic feels culled from the art underground. (Dark reuses a few of Sayadian's actors in some of his films.) Dark's style feels more commercial, almost packaged for MTV. (Dark intended his film as a reaction to hardcore porn features of his era, although I'd argue that his choice of camera angles still feels in line with other films of the era.) This is a movie that looks good and, thanks to some choice music courtesy of the Plugz (whose song "Electrify Me" accompanies the opening credits) and the Sockets (who provide the theme song), sounds good too.

What I gelled to much less was the sense of humour. The movie opens with two buddies played by Jamie Gillis (wearing a tie over a t-shirt) and Dark regular Jack Baker shooting the shit and watching another Dark production. ("That fuckin' guy looks exactly like you. Is that you?") Baker starts expounding on his thoughts about pimping and "programming" women to fuck with music. Baker also notes, "a pimp calls a chick a bitch". They doze off, and when they wake up they find themselves inexplicably in an office. Baker is wearing a yellow tracksuit, Gillis is sporting an East Asian accent, and there's a guy on the floor substituting for their phone. (Gillis asks: "Why do we not have a regular telephone?" Baker explains: "He got the power, the second sight.") As the movie proceeds to make good on its premise, wherein women have sex after listening to new wave music, we're treated to a steady stream of racial taunting. Baker grouses about black music being ineffective for their purposes, dropping the N-bomb. Gillis continues with his accent. The two get into racially charged arguments. A middle eastern client is served in a tent and barks like a dog after he's finished. At one point, Gillis wants sushi and is served by Kristara Barrington while East Asian style music plays on the soundtrack. I recognize that a lot of humour from the era is extremely politically incorrect and has aged poorly, but there's something about Dark's use of racist and misogynist humour that feels especially confrontational. I admit I was a bit bothered by all of this.

Still, there are moments of humour that did work for me. One of the headsets that the characters use has dildos protruding from both earpieces (pointing outwards, of course), and the production design, while not always stylish, is at least endearing in its blatant cheapness. To their credit, Baker and Gillis have undeniable chemistry and do sell the material as well as they can. (I laughed when Gillis, when confronted by the vice squad, drops his accent and exclaims "I used to work in your fuckin' office, and now I'm rich, I'm satisfied, and I'm Chinese, you assholes." Am I a bad person? Probably.) And in terms of how it meets genre expectations, I do think Ginger Lynn and Kristara Barrington have a real magnetism in their scenes.

Given the racial content in New Wave Hookers, it probably won't surprise anybody that Dark was a pioneer in interracial pornography. I am not a sensitive enough writer to begin unpacking all the implications of the concept, but I did watch one of his movies in the subgenre, Black Throat. This was a shot-on-video effort and looks considerably cheaper and uglier than New Wave Hookers, but shares some other qualities. It opens and closes with a punk song that references that film as well as Let Me Tell Ya Bout White Chicks, Dark's first interracial feature, and to be honest, the song is pretty fucking catchy. The movie follows Roscoe, a man who wears yellow sunglasses and both a polo and a Hawaiian shirt and his friend Mr. Bob, a talking rubber rat. He's searching through the garbage while arguring with Mr. Bob over what to eat when he finds a business card. "Madame Mambo's House of Divine Inspiration Thru Fellatio!" (All of the characters pronounce fellatio differently. Mr. Bob says "fell-uh-tee-oh" and calls Roscoe a "fuckin' honky", to which he responds "Fuck you, Mr. Bob!")

Roscoe insists he has to find her. "If I don't find her, I'm gonna die!" (When asked why, he responds, "I dunno, it sounded kinda dramatic, I guess.") Mr. Bob enlists the help of a "young urban professional pimp" named Jamal, played by Jack Baker. (He prefers the term "flesh broker" and describes upgrading his diet, clothes and investments.) Roscoe, Mr. Bob and Jamal go from scene to scene, watching other characters having sex in different racial combinations, asking them where they can find Madame Mambo. (Sometimes they ask the characters directly, other times they talk to their private parts.) The best of these scenes, in my humble opinion, is a light domination flavoured sex scene featuring Christy Canyon. Perhaps because of the dynamic, there's an element of actual acting involved here, and because Canyon is, uh, pleasingly proportioned and has a certain magnetism, I found this scene more engaging than the others, at least until it turns into a regular sex scene.

Eventually they go back to Roscoe's place and find a voodoo ritual taking place where a black woman with multicoloured hair (think the George H.W. Bush rainbow wig from the Simpsons, but straight, not curly) is jumping on their bed while a bunch of white dudes in hats, capes and sunglasses jack off around her. This of course is Madame Mambo and at this point the movie makes good on the title while drumbeats and funk play on the soundtrack. Given the premise, this movie proved (thankfully) lighter on racial humour than I expected going in. There is an element of racial critique in Baker's character, and Madame Mambo is certainly exoticized, but the racial content otherwise is limited to the interracial couplings and doesn't overload the dialogue. However, this is a fairly ugly looking movie, shot on video, featuring unimpressive camerawork and lighting as well as extremely cheap looking production design (although the movie does mine this for laughs). I also found the sex scenes overlong and the music a bit repetitive. I imagine if you were jerking off to this back in the '80s it was easier to get through, but trying to watch it now as an actual movie, despite some decent humour throughout, proved a bit of a challenge.

The next one I watched was White Bunbusters, which despite the first half of the title is not particularly racially charged. The theme song here, crooned in the style of early '60s rock'n'roll, explains that the movie is about anal sex, as the second half of the title suggests. We begin with Tom Byron thrusting into his wife Shanna McCullough (while wearing his glasses) only to be disappointed by her refusal to take it in the butt. The next day at the office (decorated by construction paper all over the walls, drawers sketched in magic marker and a crude sign with their business' name "Acme Proctology"), he hears an ad for the "A-Busters", an enterprising duo who will convince your wife or partner to let you put it in their butt. We cut to the A-Busters office and see them in yellow shorts, lime green suspenders and orange baseball caps, fiddling with their hi-tech instruments (which include an "anal listening device"). Soon we see them go to work on Jack Baker's girlfriend, taking a cash payment after the fact.

Meanwhile, Byron's friend Greg Rome hears about his woes and offers to let him fuck his wife Keli Richards (Rome is named Bob and Richards is named Bobette). Of course Byron takes advantage of Rome's generous offer, but later gets annoyed when Rome insists it was a "one time deal". They're interrupted by Jennifer Noxt, who asks about a secretarial position for the law office next door. Rather than correcting her, which would be the right thing to do, they have sex with her, which is absolutely not the right thing to do. ("So do I get the job?" "We'll call you later, baby.") We go back to the A-Busters, who go to work on a pornstar warming up for her first anal scene (the movie is called Hershey Highway to Hell). Eventually, Byron decides to make use of their services, and in the climax, when he's having a nice dinner with his wife (complete with plastic cups and paper plates), they crash the party and get to work. After it's all over, Byron thanks the A-Busters and shakes one of their hands, only to promptly wipe it off on his suit.

This is as lo-fi as Black Throat, and features a lot of raunchy humour, but thankfully no real racial content outside of the title. Perhaps because the focus is on a specific set of acts (threesomes, anal sex, double penetration), the execution seems more consistently energetic. The ratio of the threesomes is a little off from what I prefer, but I was not unmoved by the scenes involving Keli Richards, Jennifer Noxt and Shanna McCullough. I realize there are more dignified ways to spend one's time than watching in its entirety and singing the praises of a movie called White Bunbusters, but sometimes the lizard brain takes over. I feel compelled to report the facts, and the facts are that this is good at what it does. As an actual movie, there isn't a whole lot to this, but were I to rate this on the Peter-Meter as the filmmakers intended, it would fare respectably.

Where Gregory Dark's style and the sum of his provocations really worked for me was in The Devil in Miss Jones 3: A New Beginning and The Devil in Miss Jones 4: The Final Outrage, a two-part odyssey through hell. (Attentive viewers may note that the original Devil in Miss Jones takes place before the heroine is sentenced to hell, but this is not a direct sequel. There is also a second part by Henri Pachard and later sequels directed by Dark that I did not see. The narrative in the third and fourth entries feels pretty self contained.) The movie begins with close-ups of our heroine, played by Lois Ayres, taking a shower while "A Christian Girl's Problems" by the Gleaming Spires plays over the soundtrack, her interiority hinted at with an astute song choice. (It's worth noting that this was not an original song made for the movie.) The structure intersperses her story with a series of interviews with those who knew her: an ex-boyfriend who "had a disagreement about the relationship" (he slept around); a woman speculates that Ayres was "a closet lesbian" and that "she probably went to live in one of those lesbian islands in the Caribbean"; a girl who knew her as a prude back in high school, a priest with a thick accent who offers a eulogy; her brother, who speaks in new age euphemisms and resents that she was the favourite growing up; and a blind ex-boyfriend who claims she was the loveliest person he knew "after Helen Keller". (This last character describes his sex life as very "normal": no peeing or dogs, wouldn't fuck pizzas, etc.) All these people knew her, but they didn't really know her.

The actual story follows her after she breaks up with her boyfriend (over the phone, as he shaves another woman's pubic hair while feigning innocence). She heads for a bar, brushing off a stereotypical black pimp played by Jack Baker who mistakes her for a prostitute, and promptly orders a "taco" (a draught beer, a Bloody Mary, and a draught beer in three separate glasses). Beside her is a man asleep on bar in tuxedo, who turns out to have been stood up at his own wedding. They hook up, leading to a sex scene scored by a blaring saxophone that I assume was practice for Dark's softcore work. The scene ends when the heroine knocks her head against the headboard and wakes up in a pitch black space near a grave. In comes Jack Baker, riding atop a woman, to tell her what the situation is. "You are dead, you got no clothes, and this is hell!"

The rest of the movie follows them going through different rooms, the heroine being unable to comprehend her fate, as they watch the different punishments endured by the denizens of hell. There's the room full of "peepers", virgins doomed to only watch sex for all eternity. (One of them explains: "I showed my tits to a guy to get a Gucci purse. He went off an overpass.") There are characters doomed to fuck until their genitals wear out or are ravaged by venereal disease. Baker gives Ayres a raincoat "to keep the come off", but the moment she forgets about it she finds herself getting gangbanged and promptly has to be rescued by Baker (okay, not that promptly, we get to enjoy this for a few minutes). Along the way we're led to believe from the interviews that the heroine might have a fetish for black men, and the conversation between Ayres and Baker grows increasingly heated and racially charged. This idea culminates in a trip to the "racist room", where a white man with a swastika armband is having a threesome with two women of colour while a white woman is sucking off two black men in tribal makeup. Ayres and Baker have a final confrontation on the subject.

"What about all the black racists?"

"Look bitch, when a black man hits a white man, we don't call it racist!"

"What do you call it then?"

"Smart!"

"That's ridiculous, there are plenty of black racists!"

"No dig, you stupid ass white bitch!"

"Look, you're even one of them, calling me a stupid bitch and a white bitch!"

"We'll you're stupid, you're white and a bitch, so what is your motherfucking problem?"

"You're crazy, negro, and you're one of the sickest people in here!"

"That's right, I'm a crazy negro! I'm so crazy I'll eat my own arm!"

This is a deeply uncomfortable scene, and what follows is even more disturbing, as we learn the true nature of the heroine's relationship with her father, a reveal that Dark plays for maximum shock value in depicting "The Ordeal of the Taboo Breakers".

In some ways this isn't all that different from New Wave Hookers, but Dark's direction seems more purposeful here. The stylized depiction of hell, with its black backgrounds and harsh neon lighting, imbue a real sense of menace into the proceedings. With the exception of two scenes, the sex isn't all that outrageous, but Dark's mise-en-scene has a way of rendering it almost as horror. It's not exactly scary and probably still "does the trick" if you're watching this for those reasons, but there's an undeniable charge here. Likewise, the dark humour and the racial content seem to work in tandem here, and Ayres and Baker really sell their adversarial chemistry. (It's worth noting that even by the standards of the video vixens that appear in Dark's movies, Ayres has an amazing hairdo.) Dark may not have entirely thought out his thesis along these lines, but the movie is provocative in its handling of this content, and unlike New Wave Hookers, not in a way that hurts it. At a combined 2+ hours, this probably runs a bit too long, but it does shape the usual procession of sex scenes into a structure that carries an uneasy momentum that matches the heroine's trepidation. We might not like what we're seeing, but we also can't help but keep looking.

[01sentencereviews]

“new-to-me” - mar 2020

the green fog (2017, guy maddin + evan johnson + galen johnson)

the river (1997, tsai ming-liang)

shakedown (2018, leilah weinraub)

light sleeper (1992, paul schrader)

the great muppet caper (1981, jim henson)

bobbycrush (2003, cam archer)

blissfully yours (2002, apichatpong weerasethakul)

stan brakhage exits the cinema and enters the light of day (2002, phil solomon)

pasolini (2014, abel ferrara)

forever’s gonna start tonight (2011, eliza hittman)

+++

auto focus (2002, paul schrader)

frozen ii (2019, chris buck + jennifer lee) 

i am the pretty thing that lives in the house (2016, oz perkins) 

sorrows (1969, gregory j. markopoulos)

butterfly (1967, shirley clarke + wendy clarke)

the quiet earth (1985, geoff murphy)

“forky asks a question: what is time?” (2019, bob peterson)

guess who’s coming to dinner (1967, stanley kramer)

i am jonas (2018, christophe charrier)

new releases:

bacurau (kleber mendonça filho + juliano dornelles)*

bloodshot (dave wilson)

cheer [docuseries] (greg whiteley)

inventing the future (isiah medina)*

the jesus rolls (john turturro)

so pretty (jessie jeffrey dunn rovinelli)*

tiger king: murder, mayhem and madness [docuseries] (eric goode + rebecca chaiklin)

[tcm]

Getting Older by The Day: LOGAN’S RUN (’76) by Greg Ferrara

In the 1950s and ’60s, a doomsday idea began to gain traction: over-population. The idea, stated simply, was that human population would outpace food production. In 1968, Paul R. Ehrlich released his book, The Population Bomb , to overwhelming commercial success. The doom and gloom tome predicted everything from hundreds of millions dying in the 1970s from starvation, to London ceasing to exist by the year 2000. Yes, that actually was one of its predictions. A year before its release, another book debuted to a more restrained reception, though it too took its cue from the overpopulation fears and mixed them with fears of a youth revolution. The result was Logan's Run.

The authors of Logan's Run, William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, begin with an impossible premise and quickly segue into a far-fetched story. The premise is that 75% of the population of the planet is under 21 by the’ 70s, then 80% by the 1980s, 85% by 1990 and so on. This is, of course, impossible. If 75% of your population is under 21, say in their mid-teens, then in 10 years they're all going to be older than 21. To get to 80%, all of them have to have twice as many children before then and more than half of the over 21 population would have to die in the same 10 years. And this would have to repeat itself every few years without missing a beat, a heartbeat that is.

The solution to all of this out of control baby production, in both book and movie, is euthanasia, although how that's carried out in each is quite different. In the book, one’s death is known to them instantly. In the movie, the population participates in something called Carousel with the false hope of possibly being reborn. The other difference? In the book, your final day is your 21st birthday. In the movie, it's your 30th.

In the futuristic society of LOGAN'S RUN, people live out their lives in domed cities never worrying, never struggling, never aging. Babies are assigned by name and number to their lifelong career. No one questions what they do, and everyone accepts that at the age of 30, a small light embedded in your palm begins to blink red. When that happens, it's time to go put on your white and red flaming anatomy jumpsuit, float up to the ceiling like Charlie Bucket high on Fizzy Lifting drink then hope like hell you get renewed. What actually happens is you get blown up and the population is kept in check.

Except, of course, for those few who don't accept it. They're called Runners because, let's be blunt here, they're not idiots. They know Carousel is a one-way street and they're going to do everything in their power to take a detour. Once someone runs, Sandmen jump into action. Those are the security guards of the domed cities who make sure if you run, you die. And since Runners have already figured out they're going to die anyway, why not go for the brass ring one last time?

Enter Logan, a Sandman. Logan (Michael York) isn't just any Sandman, though. He genuinely wonders why people run. Maybe it's not so crazy to live beyond 30 after all. When the computer running everything assigns him the task of posing as a Runner to find out where Sanctuary is—that's where the Runners go—Logan and his companion, Jessica (Jenny Agutter), begin to realize they've all been duped. The air outside is fine and growing old isn't nearly as awful as it's been made out to be. But that still doesn't mean he can change anyone's mind and, even if he could, attempting to do so will most likely result in his death.

That's because the other Sandman all think Logan really is running, including his friend Francis (Richard Jordan). But once they find a mad robot living in the area just outside of Sanctuary and an old man living in it (Peter Ustinov), all of their preconceptions are challenged.

LOGAN'S RUN is particularly relevant today. Sure, as a film it has a definite pre-STAR WARS hokiness to it and special effects too reliant on high-tech shopping malls and well-made but poorly lit miniatures. But as a story, it works quite well and speaks to some of the most popular doomsday scenarios facing us today. When AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (2018) was released, in was following in the footsteps of LOGAN'S RUN. After all, Thanos is concerned with overpopulation as well, it's just that he goes with "kill half of everyone" over "only let people live until 30." Nonetheless, the two dubious solutions are brothers in arms and both strike a primordial chord, not just that concerned with survival, but with living itself.

The frightening thing about being told you can't live past 30 becomes immediately evident to you once you hit 31. Life continues and, surprisingly, you get wiser and more settled into the rhythms of life that keep you from the kind of existential panic a younger you might face. No one wants to be told they have to end all the learning, all the living and all the fun, just to make things better for everyone else because, deep inside, we know that's a bunch of hooey. If everyone can't live how they want to live, no one is better off.

LOGAN'S RUN gets that. The movie and book approach the story in vastly different ways, and I'd love to see a movie get made that follows the book's story, but until then the 1976 classic is a pretty good start. The costumes, settings, effects and music are all deeply entrenched in a ’70s sensibility which usually earns it the dreaded "dated" label from far too many people. The fact is, science fiction is of its time and in 1976 dealing with overpopulation issues was front and center. LOGAN'S RUN was about that, but it's also about depleting resources and how to handle that. And its villain is far more compelling than Thanos, the mighty Titan who wants to snap his fingers and kill off half the universe. That's because the villain isn't the computer running everything, it's the population itself. A population of people who have, for decades, willingly gone along, questioned nothing and lost their lives as a result. The enemy in LOGAN'S RUN isn't age, it's us. But like a lot of science fiction, it assures us that in the end, we can do better.

[dear-indies]

Hello! If asks are back open - this page says yes, but you posted before it wasn't, so I'm not sure, but I'd figure I'd ask just in case - can you please suggest some FC's that would fit as a part of a Supernatural Mafia? Thank you!

Claire Holt - especially in TO.

Phoebe Tonkin - especially in TO.

Kate Beckinsale- especially in Underworld.

Victoria Smurfit - especially in Dracula.

Katie McGrath - especially in Dracula. 

Jessica De Gouw - especially in Dracula.

Emily VanCamp - especially in Revenge. 

Madeleine Stowe - especially in Revenge.

Krysten Ritter - especially in Jessica Jones.  

Anna Paquin - especially in True Blood. 

Kristin Bauer van Straten - especially in True Blood. 

Greta Scarano - especially in Suburra.

Leighton Meester - especially inBy the Gun

Cristiana Dell'Anna- especially in Gomorrah.

Cristina Donadio - especially in Gomorrah.

Maxim Roy - especially in Bad Blood.

Radha Mitchell - especially in Red Widow.

Maggie Siff- especially in Sons of Anarchy.  

Eliza Dushku -  especially in Dollhouse.

Jodie Comer - especially in Killing Eve. 

Eliza Coupe - especially in Future Man.

Emma Dumont - especially inThe Gifted

Lauren German - especially in Lucifer.    

Laura Vandervoort - especially in Bitten.  

Peyton List - especially in The Tomorrow People. 

Sarah Paulson - especially in Ocean’s 8.

Anne Hathaway - especially inOcean’s 8.

Cobie Smulders - especially in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Willa Holland (1991) - especially in Arrow.       

Lena Headey - especially in Dredd.   

Emily Blunt - especially in Sicario . 

Chiara Caselli (1967) 

Maria Grazia Cucinotta (1968) 

Jaime Murray (1977) 

Valentina Lodovini (1978) 

Elisabetta Canalis (1978) 

Jodi Lyn O'Keefe (1978)

Vanessa Ferlito (1980)  

Natalie Dormer (1982)

Katie McGrath (1983)

Jaimie Alexander (1984)

Fahriye Evcen (1986) 

Tonia Sotiropoulou (1987)

Tonia Sotiropoulou (1987)

Heida Reed (1988)

Ashley Benson (1989)

Matilde Gioli (1989) 

Gia Mantegna (1990)

Elizabeth Gillies (1993)

and:

Cody Fern - especially in AHS.

Mark Sheppard - especially in Supernatural. 

Jonathan Rhys Meyers - especially in Dracula. 

Oliver Jackson-Cohen- especially in Dracula.

Joseph Morgan - especiallyin TO.

Daniel Gillies- especially in TO. 

Tyler Hoechlin- especially in TW.

Tom Ellis - especially in Lucifer. 

Stephen Moyer - especially in True Blood.

Alexander Skarsgård- especially in True Blood.

Luke Pasqualino - especially in Snatch.  

Jaime Lorente Lopez - especially in Elite.

Alessandro Borghi - especially in Suburra.

Giacomo Ferrara- especially in Suburra.

Marco D'Amore - especially inGomorrah.

Salvatore Esposito - especially in Gomorrah.

Fortunato Cerlino - especially in Gomorrah.

Goran Višnjić - especially in Red Widow.

Luke Goss - especially in Red Widow.

Ron Perlman- especially in Sons of Anarchy.   

Tommy Flanagan- especially in Sons of Anarchy.  

Matthew Daddario  - especially in Shadowhunters.  

James Mackay - especially in Dynasty.     

Jason Statham - especially in Fast and Furious and in like every movie he’s been in to be honest! 

Frank Grillo - especially in The Purge and in like every movie he’s been in to be honest! 

Mads Mikkelsen - especially in Polar and Hannibal.  

John Krasinski - especially in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan.

James Purefoy - especially inAltered Carbon.

Pablo Schreiber - especially in Skyscraper.

Ansel Elgort- especially in Baby Driver.  

Jon Hamm- especially in Baby Driver.  

Greyston Holt - especially in Bitten.  

Greg Bryk - especially in Bitten.  

Brett Dalton - especially in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Norman Reedus - in like every movie he’s been in to be honest!

Robert De Niro - in like every movie he’s been in to be honest!  

Alessio Boni (1966) 

Billy Burke (1966)

Gabriel Garko (1972) 

Dominic Cooper (1978) 

Riccardo Scamarcio (1979) 

Andrew Lee Potts (1979) 

Giulio Berruti (1984) 

Oliver Stark (1991) 

Brock O'Hurn (1991)

Douglas Booth (1992) 

Hey anon - I don’t really promote mafia roleplays since most of them have been rather questionable but since this is supernatural based I made an exception! All of these facecalims are white because villainizing people of colour in very prominent in the community as of late and it isn’t cool!  -C

[smoothshift]

Hi, r/cars! We're the editors at Autoblog here to talk about cars. Ask us anything! via /r/cars

Hi, r/cars! We're the editors at Autoblog here to talk about cars. Ask us anything!

Hi, everybody. Starting at 1 p.m. Eastern, we're back to answer questions about cars, trucks and anything else auto related. We've just wrapped up coverage on CES 2019 and the 2019 Detroit Auto Show. We can talk Supra, Shelby GT500 or any of the cool tech we saw at CES. If you have any questions about cars in general, fire those out, too.

On hand:

Editor-in-Chief Greg Migliore

Senior Editor, Green, John Beltz Snyder

Associate Editor Reese Counts

Social Media Manager Michael Ferrara

Shameless plugs:

Autoblog.com

Facebook

Twitter — @therealautoblog

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Proof: https://i.redd.it/w7q0fxpfv1c21.jpg

[suspected-spinozist]

Look, I love Filmstruck, but this is an astonishingly bad take: 

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s when someone brings up a movie that tells a fairly straightforward story and hits you with a, “but you know what it’s really about, right?” Ugh. Unearthing the hidden meanings of movies has become a definite thing in an online culture that rewards hot takes even if they’re not so hot.

Perhaps the all-time champion of this is the 1954 Oscar winner, ON THE WATERFRONT. Not only will people tell you what it’s “really” about, but they’ll ask you to hate it for that very reason.

For context: On the Waterfront was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg, both of whom were “friendly witnesses,”  meaning they named names of suspected Hollywood communists before the House Unamerican Activities Committee. On the Waterfront stars Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy, a small-time gangster who risks his life by naming key members of the local mob at a murder trial, making the docks safe once again for decent people. 

Many people believe that Brando’s character is a not-so-subtle stand-in for Kazan - because he almost certainly is. Fererra’s argument is that 1) Kazan began work on the film in 1951, before he testified before HUAC, and 2) the first draft of the screenplay was written by Arthur Miller, a noted communist sympathizer. 

What he doesn’t mention is that Arthur Miller left the film because he was disgusted by Kazan’s testimony, and because they had very different opinions about the message they were trying to convey (this is something of a theme in later Miller/Kazan collaborations; see also After the Fall). Schulberg, another friendly witness, made major changes to Miller’s script. While Miller had written the Malloy character as a hard-bitten investigative reporter, Schulberg made him the younger brother of the mob boss’s second-in-command. The central emotional arc of the film, about the heroic necessity of testifying against one’s friends and family, was added by Schulberg and Kazan after Miller left. 

More to the point, Elia Kazan made no effort to deny what he was doing. He’d been a communist in the ‘30s, when he was heavily involved with the Group Theater. He left, or was forced out - it’s not clear which came first - due to political and aesthetic differences with the party leadership. Kazan remained left-leaning, but felt that he’d been bullied into compromising his artistic vision.  This experience would blossom into a lifelong resentment. Still, he resisted testifying, and only named names after first appearing as an unfriendly witness. It’s hard to pin down Kazan’s psychology at this point. He was certainly too individualistic, or maybe just too egotistical, to make a good party member. At the same time, he had definite leftist sympathies and strong sense of loyalty. 

Personally, I think he testified to save his career. To justify that decision to himself, he had to make it a heroic act. In his 1988 autobiography, he describes his feelings on Oscar night, 1954, when On the Waterfront won almost every major award: 

“I was tasting vengeance that night and enjoying it. `On the Waterfront' is my own story; every day I worked on that film, I was telling the world where I stood and my critics to go and - - - - themselves.”

In other words, critics think that On the Waterfront is about Kazan’s decision to testify before HUAC because Kazan was pretty fucking clear that On the Waterfront was about his decision to testify before HUAC. 

But what really bothers me about Greg Ferrara’s article is the inane dichotomy between people who appreciate the film and those who think it’s just about politics. Let’s be clear, here: On the Waterfront is a masterpiece. It’s one of the most powerful movies I’ve ever seen, and among the most beautifully shot. It’s also really clearly Elia Kazan playing out his personal psychodrama in the most breathtakingly narcissistic way possible. (Making Marlin Brando your heroic alter ego in 1954 is one hell of a power move). 

Part of me wishes I hadn’t known all this context before watching the film. All the obvious self-aggrandizement does detract from its - still considerable - emotional force. At the same time, it makes it a much more interesting movie. On the Waterfront is undeniably great, but it’s not the greatest movie to come out of the Kazan/Schulberg collaboration. That’s largely because it’s not very subtle. Brando’s performance is correctly recognized as one of the most important in American cinema, and he manages to give Terry some psychological depth,  but the ethical framework in which he’s operating is painfully simplistic. There’s no question of what the right choice is, or even what motivates him to make it - we’re just waiting for him to get there on his own. 

In the end, the most interesting character in the film is Elia Kazan. It’s fascinating that a director at the height of McCarthyism, in the era of HUAC and the blacklist and the Hollywood 10, could really, genuinely believe that naming suspected communists was an act of courage But he did. And as someone with any experience of leftist communities, it’s not hard to see how he ended up there. If you’re a former member of the Group Theater, best friend with Arthur Miller, moving in circles dominated by communists and ex-communists and fellow travelers, and if the cell you were part of genuinely was kind of authoritarian, and you desperately need to think of yourself as a good person - it makes sense. And it’s much more interesting than anything that happens on screen. 

That might be the real takeaway from On the Waterfront: how easy it is to assume your bubble is the world. Kazan may have been a more perceptive director than he knew. It’s hard not to think that his portrayal of oppressive fear owed something to the social climate of hollywood in the 1950s. In the end, Terry’s decision to testify is an act of trust. He has other motivations - love, anger, revenge - but none of that means anything until he loses his belief in the utter inevitability of the mob. 

[filmstruck]

It’s Us vs. THEM! By Greg Ferrara

THEM! from 1954 was one of the first generation of movies about atomic radiation creating natural monsters right in our backyard. This time, it was ants produced from the radiation from atomic bomb tests. Directed by Gordon Douglas, the movie was originally intended to be both 3D and color. Both processes fell through the budgetary cracks and they went for black and white widescreen instead, except for that awesome title card.

But this movie is more than just a studio quickie for the summer crowd. The acting by James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon and James Arness is all top-notch. And the framing of “us and them” by Douglas is a visual delight throughout.

The movie starts with a little girl wandering through the desert in a bathrobe with a doll. From there, it only gets weirder.

You see, she’s fleeing THEM!

But she’s got help. Whitmore, as a police sergeant, Arness as a G-Man and Gwenn and Weldon as a father/daughter Myrmecology team, um, ant-studiers. Wandering through the desert, in protective eyewear, they put the pieces of the puzzle together.

And decide to fight fire ants with fire…

And firearms.

Before getting the word out.

Playing on FilmStruck right now, check out this great monster movie before time runs out. What are you looking this way for?

They’re over there.

It’s THEM!

[topdiyhub]

Trump urges agriculture secretary to speed up COVID-19 help to farmers

President of the American Farm Bureau Skippy Duvall and Greg Ferrara of the National Grocers Association join Arthel Neville to provide insight into the COVID-19 impact on agriculture and food supply chains. via FOX NEWS https://ift.tt/2yL1fhx

[tammymazzocco]

NPR News: National Grocers Assoc. Says Stores Are Keeping Up With Demand

National Grocers Assoc. Says Stores Are Keeping Up With Demand NPR's Rachel Martin talks with Greg Ferrara, CEO of the National Grocers Association, about how grocery stores are faring as buyers clear the shelves. Read more on NPR