Erotic Asphyxiation: Paul Vecchiali’s Recently Restored “The Strangler” Is Horny as Hell
Film

Erotic Asphyxiation: Paul Vecchiali’s Recently Restored “The Strangler” Is Horny as Hell

The most shocking part of late French filmmaker Paul Vecchiali’s 1970 giallo The Strangler (L’Étrangleur), newly restored and given its first ever US theatrical release by Altered Innocence, isn’t baby-faced serial killer Émile (Jacques Perrin) pulling an endearingly quaint homemade-looking white knit scarf around the necks of lonely-hearted Parisian women and yanking. It’s his faithful … Continue reading

Are You Elvis? Are You God?: Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla” Slips from Her Childhood Skin
Film

Are You Elvis? Are You God?: Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla” Slips from Her Childhood Skin

“Are you Elvis? Are you God?” So asks PJ Harvey on her astonishing new album I Inside the Old Year Dying. The song, titled “Lwonesome Tonight” in reference to Presley’s own “Are you Lonesome Tonight?”, sees Harvey sing from the perspective of the album’s protagonist, a “not-girl” named Ira-Abel, as she calls out to the … Continue reading

Wherefore Art Thou Baby-Face?: “Mutiny in Heaven: The Birthday Party” Is a Fan-Pleasing Doc with Two Glaring Absences
Film / Music

Wherefore Art Thou Baby-Face?: “Mutiny in Heaven: The Birthday Party” Is a Fan-Pleasing Doc with Two Glaring Absences

I am the KING! Slicing through a grotesque staccato sludge of clashing drums, atonal piercing guitars, and obscene throbbing bass, that’s the howl that kicked off one of the most berserk televised performances, at least that I’ve ever witnessed. Clashing against a Bauhaus (the design not the band)-inspired stage set for more respectable New Wave … Continue reading

To Be Ugly: A Conversation on Kristoffer Borgli’s “Sick of Myself”
Film

To Be Ugly: A Conversation on Kristoffer Borgli’s “Sick of Myself”

“Narcissists are the ones who make it,” declares Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp) at a house party she attends with her budding art star boyfriend Thomas (Eirik Sæther) in Kristoffer Borgli’s Sick of Myself. This statement, tossed off with a cigarette, lays out both Thomas and Signe’s modus operandi, as well as the point of the … Continue reading