The Phenix City Story (1955) After his election as Attorney General of Alabama in 1954, Albert Patterson was assassinated by forces resisting his efforts to clean up organized crime in Phenix City. Fortunately, his death compelled state action in the corrupt town. The beginning of this film, featuring reporter Clete Roberts interviewing residents of the city, straddles the line between… Continue reading The player always dials for help in Phenix City
Tag: Satire
I silently killed the last guardians of the last seductive galaxy
Kill Your Darlings (2013) Naive freshman Allen Ginsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) enrolls at Columbia University where he meets Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan), Jack Kerouac (Jack Huston), William S. Burroughs (Ben Foster) and Edie Parker (Elizabeth Olsen). Carr bribes an older man, David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall) to write his papers by promising sexual favors, but when he grows bored with… Continue reading I silently killed the last guardians of the last seductive galaxy
The King was born in a manger sans the alluring cross
Allures (1961) This trippy combination of sounds and images by Jordan Belson was preserved in the National Film Registry in 2011. Most people will never see it, and their lives will be no less fulfilling. Sans Soleil (1983) This avante garde documentary by Chris Marker explores the creation and maintenance of cultural memory with an essay… Continue reading The King was born in a manger sans the alluring cross
Frida gracefully swam with sharks
Maria Full of Grace (2004) After Maria Alvarez quits her job at a Colombian sweatshop, she discovers she’s pregnant. Desperate for money, she becomes a drug mule, swallowing 62 pellets of heroin and flying to New York City with two other smugglers. When they land, the smugglers are quarantined until they pass the pellets, but… Continue reading Frida gracefully swam with sharks
Music of the Underground
Underground (1995) Blacky Popara and a small cadre of associates are trapped in an underground cave in Yugoslvia at the end of the second World War. Blacky’s supposed best friend Marko Dren, a communist party official, tricks them into believing the war continues on the surface so they will make weapons they believe are used to fight… Continue reading Music of the Underground
Wagging the dog in the jungle
The Jungle Book (1967) Inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s novel, Bagheera, a black panther, takes an orphaned boy he finds in the jungle to live with a pack of wolves. Years later, the wolf tribe learns Shere Khan (George Saunders) has returned to the jungle and realize the young boy, Mowgli, is in danger. Despite his protests,… Continue reading Wagging the dog in the jungle