When it came to solving crime on television, male-led shows like The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and I Spy dominated espionage and crime entertainment throughout the 1960s. Although women did have some important roles, they were mainly featured alongside men. Just over 40 years ago, on Sept. 22, 1976, Charlie’s Angels premiered. Its leads[Read More…]
Tag: Flashback
Flashback: Ikiru (1952)
“A man dying of cancer searches for life meaning.” When condensed into this single phrase, the plot of Ikiru seems trite and simple. Yet renowned director Akira Kurosawa is an original storyteller who uses this familiar narrative to create an existential masterpiece. The opening shot of the film is an[Read More…]
Flashback: Ray Johnson’s Mail Art
“Ray Johnson are the funniest artist currently working in America.” This sentence is not written in error, nor was it originally when first scrawled in black marker across a page of addresses and cryptic notes. Ray Johnson is the founder of the New York Correspondance School, which included over 100[Read More…]
Flashback: Pretty Baby (1978)
“Storyville, New Orleans, 1917.” This is the title card that opens Louis Malle’s Pretty Baby. The film tackles the scandalous topic of child prostitution in a strikingly elegant and elegiac fashion through chronicling an upscale brothel in one of New Orlean’s most notorious red-light districts. Madame Nell (Frances Faye) is[Read More…]
Flashback: Belle de Jour (1967)
Belle de Jour is Luis Bunuel’s most recognizable and commercially successful film, praised for its status as an erotic masterpiece despite demonstrating virtually no sexual explicitness. Friends with both Salvador Dali and André Breton, Bunuel was a pioneer of surrealist cinema and enjoyed using the medium of film over his[Read More…]
Flashback: London Calling by The Clash (1979)
London, 1979. It has been a decade of rebellious confrontation, slashed jeans, and protests against mainstream society. To sum it all up: Loud. However, this active time of musical production, pioneered by individuals who desired to create and say something, should not be confused with ‘noise.’ The raging guitar riffs[Read More…]
Flashback: The Swimmer (1968)
The Swimmer opens by tracking Neddy Merrill (Burt Lancaster) in his tight swim trunks as he cuts through the wilderness into his neighbours’ yard and gracefully takes a dive into their pool. Slicing through the water with powerful breaststrokes, Merrill surfaces to receive a glass of gin. A midsummer sun beams,[Read More…]
Flashback: Barfly (1987)
Deemed a “laureate of American lowlife” by Time in 1986, Charles Bukowski was a 20th century poet, novelist, and working-class alcoholic. His deadpan confessional style, glorification of alcohol, and misanthropic view of humanity has appealed to a large cult readership over the years. In 1987, unknown to most, Bukowski entered the[Read More…]
Flashback: “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (1974)
The Vietnam War and the correlated counterculture movement disenchanted many young people with the way society functioned, and for some, the outlet to this frustration was murder. The ‘60s also saw a rise in serial killers, including Charles Schmid—also known as the Pied Piper of Tucson—who murdered three young women[Read More…]
Flashback: A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
A Woman Under the Influence (1974) is an impressive study of madness and conformity, serving as one of the benchmark films of American independent cinema. The film’s maverick director, John Cassavetes—best known for Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and The Dirty Dozen (1967)—often shot his films in a hand-held style known as cinema[Read More…]
