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Frances (1982)
Her story is shocking, disturbing, compelling... and true.
Filmmaker(s): Graeme Clifford

The true story of Frances Farmer's meteoric rise to fame in Hollywood and the tragic turn her life took when she was blacklisted.

Metaexploitation continue to be astounded at films that are self-destructively self-referential. That’s where a story is about a certain trend, often in filmmaking, that is portrayed as evil. But at the same time, with the same players, the form of the film is precisely along...


Published November 20, 2022
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Fitzcarraldo (1982)
Dare to dream the impossible.
Filmmaker(s): Werner Herzog

Fitzcarraldo is a dreamer who plans to build an opera house in Iquitos, in the Peruvian Amazon, so, in order to finance his project, he embarks on an epic adventure to collect rubber, a very profitable product, in a remote and unexplored region of the rainforest.

Constrained Frenzy invention of modern drama was the birth of twins, and they have been spatting ever since. One of these is the Shakespearean tradition: characters transform, sometimes even extending beyond the constraints of the movie to create themselves or some reality. Situations are complex,...


Published January 6, 2025
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Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
If adventure has a name, it must be Indiana Jones!
Filmmaker(s): Steven Spielberg

When Dr. Indiana Jones – the tweed-suited professor who just happens to be a celebrated archaeologist – is hired by the government to locate the legendary Ark of the Covenant, he finds himself up against the entire Nazi regime.

Masculinity Fades in my several thousand comments, a contemporary comment is missing for this popular movie. I’ve seen this now again after more than 40 years. It has not aged well. In its time, it was a phenomenon, created by the two biggest filmmakers in...


Published January 27, 2025
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The Stunt Man (1980)
"If God could do the tricks that we can do, he'd be a happy man..."
Filmmaker(s): Richard Rush

A fugitive stumbles onto a movie set just when they need a new stunt man, takes the job as a way to hide out and falls for the leading lady while facing off with his manipulative director.

Citizen Crane are quite a few movies like this, films that reference films and that also aver that the drama within can bend the reality without. The kernel of this idea was ‘Citizen Kane’ but it seemed to flower after John Fowles published ‘The Magus'...


Published May 22, 2022
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Altered States (1980)
A dream is the key that unlocks the mysteries of the waking world.
Filmmaker(s): Ken Russell

A research scientist explores the boundaries and frontiers of consciousness. Using sensory deprivation and hallucinogenic mixtures from native American shamans, he explores these altered states of consciousness and finds that memory, time, and perhaps reality itself are states of mind.

A Beautiful Mind director would have been better for this material in my mind. The production is off: the effects, the drama and the love story all fail. But the idea behind the story… the idea, that has power and is enough to keep you...


Published March 12, 2023
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All that Jazz (1979)
All that work. All that glitter. All that pain. All that love. All that crazy rhythm. All that jazz.
Filmmaker(s): Bob Fosse

Joe Gideon is at the top of the heap, one of the most successful directors and choreographers in musical theater. But he can feel his world slowly collapsing around him - his obsession with work has almost destroyed his personal life, and only his bottles of pills keep him going.

Your Death just watched an energetic, colourful film on the overlap between life and death, I had to revisit this one from my past. It was one of my early experiences in folded narrative: • a film about a man written and directed by that very...


Published February 14, 2023
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Kramer vs Kramer (1979)
There are three sides to this love story.
Filmmaker(s): Robert Benton

Ted Kramer is a career man for whom his work comes before his family. His wife Joanna cannot take this anymore, so she decides to leave him. Ted is now faced with the tasks of housekeeping and taking care of himself and their young son Billy.

Split Decision drama is considered successful. I think it is not because it tells us anything special, or that the characters are particularly worthy. I believe it is because of the way the narrative is constructed. It has two arcs. One of these has the husband establishing...


Published February 27, 2023
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China 9, Liberty 37 (1978)
The deadliest crossroad.
Filmmaker(s): Monte Hellman

Gunslinger Clayton Drumm is about to be hanged when he is given a chance to live if he will agree to murder Matthew (Oates), a miner who has steadfastly refused to sell his land to the railroad company. Matthew’s refusal is a major obstacle to the railroad’s plans for expansion.

Whoring and Teaching so we have it: arguably the last spaghetti western. Wonderfully photographed. Well acted. This time around what we get is an erotic western. Our hard boiled hero is a gunslinger as usual but good hearted enough to not kill his mark simply...


Published September 19, 2022
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Alice in Wonderland: An X-Rated Musical Fantasy (1976)
The world's favorite bedtime story
Filmmaker(s): Bud Townsend

Alice offends her would-be lover William by rejecting his advances. Upset, she falls asleep reading Alice in Wonderland. The white rabbit appears to her in a dream and takes her into a sexual wonderland. The story loosely follows Carroll's original plot, and includes many of his characters, but with considerable sexual license.

Mock Turtle appears in scores of films, and many of the appearances are subliminal. I’ve made a hobby of collecting all the references and looking to see how cleverly they exploit the story. As it happens, there is a natural fit between Alice and sex,...


Published November 30, 2022
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Storm Boy (1976)
Wild things should be free.
Filmmaker(s): Henri Safran

Mike is a lonely Australian boy living in a coastal wilderness with his reclusive father. In search of friendship he encounters an Aboriginal native loner and the two form a bond in the care of orphaned pelicans.

Mockingbird had the advantage of being old, and living in both the US and Australia and raising kids in each. That gives me a perspective on the book before seeing the film. Every so often, a young adult book hits a sweet spot in the...


Published May 16, 2023
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