Entropy is the Damoclean sword Over our heads. Whatever we build breaks down: Pyramid schemes snap like a bungee chord, As stock markets crash and plutocrats skip town. Complexity science scales the world’s body Whose genetic drift spins ten times faster Than IQ scores for any minority That rank or caste can engineer stronger. … More THE KEY TO EVERYTHING
Baal (1970) Volker Schlöndorff recruited Rainer Werner Fassbinder and his Antitheatre troupe to perform in this television adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s infamous play about the poet as anti-hero. When Helene Weigel, Brecht’s widow, saw this production, she was outraged and prevented its release into movie theaters. Suppressed until 2014, this birth of New German Cinema … More Baal (1970)
Who’ll Stop the Rain (1978) Nick Nolte gives his most outstanding performance as Ray Hicks, a marine in Vietnam, whom a war correspondant [Michael Moriarty as John Converse] cons into smuggling heroin. Both become targets of a corrupt DEA agent in this memorable adaptation of Robert Stone’s National Book Award Winning novel, Dog Soldiers. Still … More Who’ll Stop the Rain (1978)
Raw Deal (1948) John Alton’s rapturous noir cinematography captures this stark tragedy about a palooka who breaks out of prison to “catch a breath of air.” Joe Sullivan [Dennis O’Keefe] is aided and abetted by Pat [Claire Trevor] who provides, quite a twist, the voice-under narration. Joe, forced to find a hideout, breaks into the … More Raw Deal (1948)
Nightfall (1988) A hippie version of Isaac Asimov’s short story, this movie luxuriates in burnished landscapes that the celebrated Paolo Soleri incorporated into designs to achieve what he called “Arcology,” “architecture cohered with ecology.” When finally Roger Corman could raise the money, Paul Mayersberg agreed to write an adaptation, provided he would direct. In … More Nightfall (1988)
Fando y Lis (1968) Alejandro Jodorowsky’s first film was an adaptation of Arrabal’s play, written as part of the 1962 Panic Movement, a celebration of surreal anarchy, after the Greek God Pan. Jodorowsky fled its premiere at the Acapulco Film Festival because “People wanted to kill me. Literally kill me!” Subsequently it was banned in … More Fando y Lis (1968)
L’Argent (1983) Robert Bresson’s last film is an austere study of the bleak Eighties where obsession with money drives youths into gangs of thieves. Their passing of counterfeit money implicates one young man who winds up in jail, with his daughter dying and his wife abandoning him. That act of injustice precipitates him into senseless … More L’Argent (1983)
Re-Animator (1985) Inspired by H, P. Lovecraft’s novella “Herbert West – Reanimator,” Stuart Gordon concocted this macabre comedy about a scientist who discovers a serum that can re-animate dead bodies. Aided and abetted by producer Brian Yuzna, writers Dennis Paoli and William Norris, very creative special effects technicians, with a film score by Richard Band intentionally … More Re-Animator (1985)
Dalí’s Greatest Secret (2013) Paul Perry wrote and directed this documentary that focuses on Salvador Dalí’s commission to paint the first vision of Fatima, The Vision of Hell. Conceived by John Hartford of the Blue Army as publicity celebrating the Vatican’s proposed 1961 disclosure of the secret third vision, the painting, over which Dalí … More Dalí’s Greatest Secret (2013)
The Big Parade (1925 silent) Another of King Vidor’s masterpieces, this epic tackles machine guns and gas warfare in the trenches of World War I. John Gilbert stars as the spoiled brat from a rich family who joins up to be with his friends in what they expect will be a great adventure. While stationed … More The Big Parade (1925 silent)
