[AMENDED SLIGHTLY, PHOTOS ADDED, AUGUST 10, 2021] A retired—but still heavily armed—right-wing Dominican general who used to strip his victims and torture them with golf clubs, now living high on the hog in Miami. A one-time foot soldier in the 1965 Dominican Civil War, now fronting a run-down Miami hotel. His search for the female …
Continue reading “A Snake Pit Gig”: The Making (and Undoing) of Abel Ferrara’s “Cat Chaser”
Amory (Tom Byam Shaw) is a failing screenwriter who rarely forgets the faces of his detractors--especially if the face in question is that of the strikingly beautiful, strikingly aloof Camilla (Charlotte Riley), a film exec. A year after she rejects his deeply personal script ("Just because it happened to you doesn't make it interesting," she …
I had never heard of "The Game," a political drama made by two of Spike Lee's former business partners/friends, until I stumbled upon the negative review by the notoriously dry New York Times critic Vincent Canby, from April 1990. That month, the film, which wrapped in 1987, hit New York City's Criterion Center theater, having …
Continue reading “The Game” Re-emerges 25 Years Later…in Panama
There are few in-depth Elliott Gould profiles that don't mention "A Glimpse of Tiger," the abandoned 1971 Warner Bros. dark comedy that Gould was slated to co-produce and star in. Fresh from the harrowing but ego-boosting tutelage of Ingmar Bergman, who'd selected Gould as his first American actor to star in his 1970 melodrama "The …
When I called the now-retired actress Kim Darby at her California home a few months ago--to discuss her more obscure 1960s and 1970s work--she apologized (needlessly) for having taken a few days to free up her schedule. Her sister was in town, she explained, and her house was a total mess. Dishes were piled up …
Continue reading The Mouse That Charmed: An Evening with Kim Darby
I have spent a great deal of time on this blog bringing forgotten or undiscovered trash classics to people's attention, but the first legitimately great film I watched, where I felt a real sense of loss from its obscurity, was Jan Egleson's 1979 drama "Billy in the Lowlands." Shot on location in working-class Cambridge, it is …
Continue reading The Early Days of Boston/Cambridge Cinema: An Interview with Director Jan Egleson
Paul Lynch's 1973 slice-of-life film "The Hard Part Begins" (previously discussed in a profile of Lynch on this blog) may never have seen the light of day if not for Donald Shebib. Three years earlier, Shebib directed and co-wrote "Goin' Down the Road," a downbeat tale of two drifters that is still considered to be …
Continue reading Sung Antiheroes: An Interview with “Goin’ Down the Road” Director Donald Shebib
Before I launch into a long overdue defense of the critically savaged "Lemon Sisters" (in which Elliott Gould plays a small but key role), I want to devote a little space to its director, Joyce Chopra, whom I interviewed over the phone in July and who has been sadly out of the public eye for …
Continue reading Elliott Gould’s More Obscure Films, Part 3: 1990 to Present
Precious few of Elliott Gould's 1980s films are available on Netflix. The exceptions are "The Muppets Take Manhattan," in which he cameos as a harried police officer; the criminally underrated Christopher Guest Hollywood satire, "The Big Picture," another delicious cameo opportunity for Gould; the lame 1989 horror flick "The Night Visitor"; and two children's films …
Continue reading Elliott Gould Discusses His Lesser-Known Films, Part 2: The 1980s
Most Elliott Gould interviews conducted between 1974 and today chronicle the same career high and lows. Born in 1938 and raised in Brooklyn, he was pushed into show business uneasily at an early age by his mother, presumably to get over a persistent shyness. Nonetheless, he blossomed into a tap dancer, singer and impersonator; he landed a starring …
Continue reading The Lesser Known (or Less Celebrated) Films of Elliott Gould (Part 1)
Hidden Films 