Tag: 1971

‘Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song’ – Melvin Van Peebles’ outlaw indie on Criterion Channel

!Featured, African-American cinema, African-American filmmakers, American Independent Cinema, Blu-ray, Classic, Crime Cinema, Criterion, Criterion Channel, Cult Movies, DVD, Essential Viewing, National Film Registry, socially aware cinema, SVOD, thriller 02/16/202202/15/2022 Sean Axmaker

Raw, jagged, explosively angry, and shot guerrilla style on a starvation budget on the streets of Los Angeles, this is a landmark of American independent cinema.

Warren Beatty and Julie Christie in the 1971 western by Robert Altman

Last chance: Warren Beatty and Julie Christie are ‘McCabe & Mrs. Miller’ on Criterion Channel

!Featured, Academy Award nominee, based on a novel, Blu-ray, Classic, Criterion, Criterion Channel, drama, DVD, Essential Viewing, Last chance, National Film Registry, SVOD, western 06/26/202106/27/2021 Sean Axmaker

McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), Robert Altman’s third film since staking out his claim on 1970s cinema with M*A*S*H (1970), turns the western myth into a metaphor for the fantasy of the American Dream colliding with the power of big business. Warren Beatty is John McCabe, a drifting gambler who rides into the mining camp […]

Karl Malden and James Franciscus in the giallo by Dario Argento

Dario Argento’s ‘Cat O’Nine Tails’ on Amazon Prime and Criterion Channel

!Featured, Amazon Prime Video, Blu-ray, Cult Movies, DVD, giallo, Halloween, horror, suspense 05/12/202105/12/2021 Sean Axmaker

The Cat O’Nine Tails (Italy, 1971), Dario Argento’s second feature, follows up his directorial debut The Bird With the Crystal Plumage in genre, style and “animal” theme (stretched into a trilogy with Four Flies on Gray Velvet). In Bird, Argento explores, pushes at, and plays with the mechanics of suspense and murder mystery spectacle in […]

James Garner and Jack Elam star in Burt Kennedy's comedy western

‘Support Your’ James Garner comedy westerns on Amazon Prime

!Featured, Amazon Prime Video, Blu-ray, Classic, Comedy, DVD, Hollywood Classic, VOD, western 04/18/202104/18/2021 Sean Axmaker

James Garner established himself as a natural for the comic western with the TV series Maverick, playing the reluctant hero who avoided conflict and gunplay with charm, wit, and a con-man’s knack for keeping his opponents off balance. The brought that sensibility to the big screen with Support Your Local Sheriff (1969), playing a drifter […]

Albert Finney plays ‘Gumshoe’ on Amazon Prime Video

!Featured, Action, Amazon Prime Video, Blu-ray, Cult Movies, DVD, Have You Seen...?, Mystery, Streaming Movies, suspense, SVOD 01/31/201902/03/2019 Sean Axmaker

“I want to write The Maltese Falcon, record ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ and play Las Vegas.” So proclaims Eddie Ginley (Albert Finney), a small-time bingo caller and wannabe stand-up comic, to his therapist in the opening scene of Gumshoe (1971). But he’ll settle for running an ad in the local paper offering his services as a […]