Eros + Massacre

For the latest Eros + Massacre episode, designer, writer, musician, and jack of all trades Christopher Norris joined me to talk about one of our mutual favorites, Alain Robbe-Grillet, a giant of modern French literature, a genius filmmaker, and an unabashed pervert. We focused on three of his classic films, each from a different decade: Trans-Europ-Express (1966), Le jeu avec le feu (Playing with Fire, 1975), and La belle captive (The Beautiful Prisoner, 1983). And of course the conversation includes everything from Jess Franco and Jacques Rivette to Marguerite Duras and White Chicks, among other things.

You can find Christopher at Steakmtn.com, on Instagram, and on Twitter. His fiction is here at Asterism Books.

Additional notes:

We talk a lot about Pete Tombs and Cathal Tohill's extremely influential Immoral Tales book, which is out of print but absolutely worth hunting down. Read the Catherine Robbe-Grillet profile I mentioned here. Here's some short evidence of Robbe-Grillet's genius as a thinker and critic (on Hitchcock vs Antonioni, with subtitles).

Thanks as always to Cinepunx and please rate, review, follow, and share!

Andrew Nette, my co-editor on Revolution in 35mm, joined me for this rather intense episode about Gillo Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers (1966). We talk a lot about the film's powerful impact, the Algerian struggle for independence from French colonial occupation, the cost and effectiveness of violence, Pontecorvo's time in the Italian resistance during WWII, his career more broadly, and the use of The Battle of Algiers as a training tool for political radicals.

We also discuss films made around the same time that addressed the war, particularly Youssef Chahine's incredible Jamila, The Algerian (1958). In addition to being one of the only films in cinema history to focus on a female freedom fighter as central to a battle for independence, it was also one of the only film actually made during the Algerian War and from a North African country. And Jean-Luc Godard's forgotten and neglected Le petit soldat (1960) also makes an appearance. 

You can find Andrew at @pulpcurry on social media and here on his website! And of course you can find our book here from PM Press. Thanks as always to Cinepunx and please rate, review, follow, and share!

Starting this September, the Criterion Channel is running a series on giallo films. It includes thirteen films from The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) through Tenebrae (1982), covering a lot of the greatest hits of the genre with a few added bonus in the mix as well. Criterion video editor, Channel programmer, and all around lovely person Clyde Folley was kind enough to join me to talk about this series, which he programmed. We discuss the challenges of programming a series like this, the genre as a whole, our favorite films in the series, the magic of Nieves Navarro, our mutual love for In the Folds of the Flesh, and a lot of other unexpected topics (like Thai made for TV horror).

In the episode, Clyde mentions that he's programming a Brad Dourif series in October at Anthology: you can learn more about that here. I also mention that I wrote an essay on the giallo subgenre to go along with the series which is now up on the Criterion site.

Here’s an obligatory reminder that my upcoming book Revolution in 35mm through PM Press is on its way out in the world this September! Thanks as always to Cinepunx and please rate, review, follow, and share!

It broke my heart that the absolutely wonderful Donald Sutherland died this summer, even though he lived a long, extremely full life, so I knew I needed to do an episode on some aspect of his sprawling career. Robert Skvarla was kind enough to join me to talk about some of Sutherland's thriller films from the 1970s and '80s. We focused primarily on Alan Pakula's Klute (1971), but also discussed Bob Clark's Murder By Decree (1979), Richard Marquand's Eye of the Needle (1981), and naturally brought up a host of other related films like Don't Look Now and my new favorite, The Disappearance (1977).

One of my love languages is listening to Rob talk about conspiracy theories, so there is a lot of that in here, ranging from Sutherland's own experience with radical politics and activism in the '70s, as well as a broader history of FBI surveillance. You can find Rob here on Twitter (where he is famous) and here on Instagram.

And you can see us together for the Revolution in 35mm book launch in Philadelphia at PhilaMOCA later this month on September 25.

Here’s an obligatory reminder that my upcoming book Revolution in 35mm is up for preorder through PM Press and is on its way out in the world this September! Thanks as always to Cinepunx and please rate, review, follow, and share!

Over the years I've talked a lot about how Fulci's City of the Living Dead (1980) changed my life as a young teenager and so it goes without saying that Fabio Frizzi's music has also had a huge impact on me. This September, he's taking a Zombie live score on an American tour and he was kind enough to speak with me ahead of that. We talk about his process composing, how he approaches films, and what it was like to work with Fulci, but it was also important to me to get in some questions about his incredible scores for with other directors like Aldo Lado, Bruno Corbucci, and Enzo Castellari. And YOU KNOW I had to ask about Superfantagenio.

At the end of the episode, I also monologued more about his career and tried to focus on some films he scored that I think are underrated or outright neglected. I also compiled an ultimate Fabio Frizzi playlist! 

Here’s an obligatory reminder that my upcoming book Revolution in 35mm is up for preorder through PM Press and will be out in the world next week (!!!), so please spread the word! Thanks as always to Cinepunx and since this is a brand new show and it needs all the help it can get, please rate, review, follow, and share!

I have been wanting to do an episode on American International Pictures' beach party series with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello FOR YEARS. I absolutely love these films and I'm so grateful to my pal Keith Allison, a film and pop culture writer, for going on this long and very sandy journey with me. We talk about what I consider the main films in the series -- Beach Party (1963), Muscle Beach Party (1964), Bikini Beach (1964), Beach Blanket Bingo (1965), How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965), and Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966) -- and a lot of related topics like teen culture, surfer music, the innovations of American International Pictures, America in the '60s, the ARKOFF formula, why Frankie and Annette do not remotely belong on a beach in California, and much much more.

Keith wrote a great book that you should check out, Cocktails and Capers: Cult Cinema, Cocktails, Crime, & Cool, and you can find him here on Instagram.

Here's an obligatory reminder that my upcoming book Revolution in 35mm is up for preorder through PM Press and will be out in the world next week (!!!), so please spread the word! Thanks as always to Cinepunx and since this is a brand new show and it needs all the help it can get, please rate, review, follow, and share!

Happy belated birthday to Mario Bava, who was born on July 31 (much like me). This is a loaded episode: guest host Bill Ackerman, from Supporting Characters podcast and a number of commentaries and other blu-ray special features, shares my love of Bava and his final feature film, Shock (1977). We talk about: Shock and its relationship to Ovidio Assonitis's Beyond the Door (1974), to which it is an unofficial sequel; Bava's collaborations with his son, director Lamberto, in the late '70s; the wonderful Dario Nicolodi and her performances in Shock and the television film Venus of Ille (1979), which Mario and Lamberto Bava co-directed; why Bava is the best; the evolution of gothic literary themes in Italian '70s cinema; and a lot more!

Here’s an obligatory reminder that my upcoming book Revolution in 35mm is up for preorder through PM Press and available now as an ebook, so please spread the word. Thanks as always to Cinepunx and since this is a brand new show and it needs all the help it can get, please rate, review, follow, and share!

Learn more about what wild and obscure movies I'm watching by following me on Patreon to unlock this full episode and access the entire back catalogue of bonus episodes, video essays, written essays, and podcast series! This episode covers everything from Hong Kong action and horror to Stephen Chow movies, classical Japanese melodrama, Yaphet Kotto, and much more.

For this episode, I was joined by Adam Torel, the owner of Third Window Films, a blu-ray label focusing specifically on more unusual Japanese cinema. We talked about the ins and outs of running a blu-ray label, working in Japan, the complexities of releasing more obscure Japanese films, and so much more. Even if you aren't a huge fan of Japanese films, there's so much detail in here about some of the difficulties of getting films released on disc. We started to get into specific films Third Window has released, like some of Nobuhiko Obayashi's '80s movies and a few of the great films made by the organization known as Director's Company, like Typhoon Club and The Crazy Family. After the interview with Adam, I discussed the films in a bit more detail, as a sort of primer to what you should check out from Third Window and from that incredible period in Japanese cinema.

Here's an obligatory reminder that my upcoming book Revolution in 35mm is up for preorder through PM Press, so please spread the word. Thanks as always to Cinepunx and since this is a brand new show and it needs all the help it can get, please rate, review, follow, and share!

This Fourth of July, I wanted to celebrate a real American hero and who better than one of the greatest Americans to ever do it -- Rudy Ray Moore. My friend Klon Waldrip joined me to talk about everything from Rudy's entrepreneurial spirit (he printed and sold his own records... in the '70s), his important role as a sexual anarchist, and his underground cinema, focusing mostly on his classics like Dolemite and Petey Wheatstraw. We love Rudy so much and Klon actually got to meet him a few times over the years, so he was kind enough to share some stories about the great man.

Klon is a talented artist, maker of some amazing zines, and programs underground cinema in Athens, Georgia. Find his zines here, check out his art and follow him on Instagram and Letterboxd. Special thanks to his friend Steph with some recording equipment assistance -- Klon was also a guest on her podcast, My Bloody Horror, which you can check out here.

Thanks as always to Cinepunx and since this is a brand new show and it needs all the help it can get, please rate, review, follow, and share!