For years, Stanley Kubrick’s independently financed first feature, Fear and Desire, was a suppressed film, next-to-impossible to see. The man responsible for suppressing it was Kubrick himself, because he considered his youthful effort to be “nothing more than a bumbling amateur film exercise . . . a completely inept oddity, boring and pretentious.” One could ... read more »

As I write this, the jury has still not reached a verdict concerning whether eccentric record producer Phil Spector murdered beautiful exploitation film actress Lana Clarkson (The Haunting of Morella, Barbarian Queen). Speaking of the exploitation genre, in the 1970 Russ Meyer classic Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (above, co-scripted by Roger Ebert), we ... read more »

Tim Lucas writes a capsule review of this intriguingly titled 1971 film (Mädchen beim Frauenarzt in German): “starring you as the gynecologist. In a manner few films other than Robert Montgomery’s classic noir Lady in the Lake have attempted, the entire action is observed subjectively through the eyes of its principal character, whose face we ... read more »

Highly recommended: At the L.A. Weekly site, Quentin Tarantino, promoting his Grindhouse (above), conducts a roundtable discussion of exploitation filmmaking with a garrulous group of [former] exploitation filmmakers including Richard Rush (The Stunt Man), Brian Trenchard-Smith (Escape 2000), George Armitage (Miami Blues), Allan Arkush (Rock ‘n’ Roll High School), Lewis Teague (Cujo, The Lady in ... read more »