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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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Clue (1982)
It's not just a game anymore.
Filmmaker(s): Jonathan Lynn

Clue finds six colorful dinner guests gathered at the mansion of their host, Mr. Boddy -- who turns up dead after his secret is exposed: He was blackmailing all of them. With the killer among them, the guests and Boddy's chatty butler must suss out the culprit before the body count rises.

Hasn't a Clue genre has more opportunities for mind-bending and/amusing bends than the mystery. Especially film mysteries. And this one has a very promising foundation: a parody of a parody: ‘Murder by Death,' which itself was rather clever in a lowbrow sort of way. Add to...


Published November 18, 2022
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Inspector Gadget (1983-86)

Inspector Gadget is a clumsy, dim-witted human cyborg detective with various bionic gadgets built into his body. Gadget stumbles around working the cases while his niece and dog do most of the investigating. Gadget's arch-nemesis is Dr. Claw, the leader of an evil organisation, known as "M.A.D."

The Token Investigator is about the series in general. My perspective is one that is a bit egg-heady I suppose. I study film and the evolution of film and how it sees itself. One milestone in any evolution is when something becomes so well known, so...


Published October 28, 2022
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Three Crowns of the Sailor (1982)
A voyage on the sea of dreams
Filmmaker(s): Raúl Ruiz

Shortly after murdering his professor, a young man encounters a sailor who offers him a position on his ship in exchange for 3 Danish crowns and his attention as he recounts his life story.

Writing with Tea on Oranges is just about perfect for what it is, and what it is elevates it to something that can change you. Life is a matter of stories and also about reflection on self. So all true stories are in some way at...


Published December 9, 2024
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Blade Runner (1982)
Man has made his match...now it's his problem.
Filmmaker(s): Ridley Scott

In the smog-choked dystopian Los Angeles of 2019, blade runner Rick Deckard is called out of retirement to terminate a quartet of replicants who have escaped to Earth seeking their creator for a way to extend their short life spans.

Offworld Truth the mid-seventies, I exchanged a few letters with Phil Dick, who had then dropped his obsession with parallel, valid visions and had developed a similar obsession with created realities. This concern maps well to the wave of film theory that was sweeping the...


Published December 9, 2024
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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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Beau-père (1981)
Filmmaker(s): Bertrand Blier

Rémi is a man trapped in a deteriorating marriage. When his wife is unexpectedly killed in a car accident, Rémi is left with his stepdaughter, Marion, who chooses to stay with him rather than live with her birth father. After the initial shock passes, Rémi is caught off-guard when Marion begins expressing her attraction to him. Initially repulsed, Marion's mature beauty wears him down as he finally caves to her seductions.

Music as Sex "Lolita" is a milestone in literature -- the narrator is obsessed to the point where anything he says is at least synthesised out of that obsession and at worse fabricated. It is only about sex in so far as giving a focus...


Published May 16, 2023
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Aunt Peg’s Fulfillment (1981)
Shocking...Daring...Erotic
Filmmaker(s): Anthony Spinelli

The continuing lustful sexual adventures of Hollywood producer Aunt Peg as she tries to continue with financing her latest movie project.

Unfulfilling porn, the kind celebrated in “Boogie Nights,” cannot be avoided if you are serious about studying film. An amazing number of these, mostly from the 70s, have pretty cleverly engineered contexts. It is completely different than the porn of today, where there is no attempt...


Published December 24, 2022
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Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (1981)
Filmmaker(s): Emir Kusturica

A young man grows up in Sarajevo in the 1960s, under the shadow of his good, but ailing father, and gets attracted by the world of small-time criminals.

The Lost First Time is something of a challenge for me to parse. The experience is a bit troubling because it seems so genuine that we should be ashamed for intruding. He does not seem to accomplish this by ordinary means. Yes, the acting is...


Published February 10, 2024
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