So, we want to apologize for the films we saw and didn’t write about, i.e. the wonderful The Cheerleaders, Alone in the Dark, Sunrise, Sleeper, Night Nurse, and probably others. Rest assured, we are now finished and will be writing with regularity and 20% more cleverness. Expect many more posts in the coming months.

There is also some good news. The four of us are all staying in Austin for the time being. That means that Austin Cinephile will not be breaking up, ending, or splintering. More reviews, more assignments, more pictures of Lindsay Lohan and, starting today, more theatre descriptions.

There are few things in this life that I can look forward to, movie-wise. A trip to New York is good, as I know I can return to all of the marvelous theatres in the best cinema town in the US. Terror Tuesday’s upcoming showing of Psycho II is also pretty damn exciting. I even look forward to the Paramount Summer Series, because, while it may be classic film-lite, it is still the best film series in Austin.

New releases are harder to get excited for. Yes, I look forward to the semi-regular films by auteurs like Woody Allen, Jim Jarmusch, Paul Thomas Anderson, etc. I am thankful that Stephen usually compiles our weekly Cinema Opportunities list, because it makes me sad sometimes to think of the poor things that we have in our future.

But, there has been some buzz this past week that has got me pretty damn excited. Lindsay Lohan has been cast in a Linda Lovelace biopic!

She's beautiful as Marilyn, we can only imagine what she can do with Lovelace

You might think I am being sarcastic. You are very, very wrong. Here are the top five reasons why I am more happy about this than any other movie slated to be released in the next decade (with the 3D Star Wars excluded, naturally):

1. Lindsay Lohan really is a beautiful young girl.
2. She is a competent and talented actress whose personal life is a mess, and the electric self-destructiveness she exudes can only be good for a movie about such a tormented figure.
3. This movie will feature (God help us) some interesting pop history of stag films and hardcore pornography, hopefully educating some people about this stuff that I care about.
4. In real life, Lovelace shot stag films in which she engages in oral and genital sex with a dog. Even if it is only implied, it would be the most awesome and horrifying sex scene of the new millennium.
5. The whole idea of Lohan doing a biopic about a porn star is so absurd that it’s got to be REALLY GOOD in order for anyone to allow it to happen. No one would set themselves up for this much mockery without a lot of confidence that it won’t ruin the careers of everyone involved.

I can’t wait to see how far Lindsay Lohan will go to untangle her tingle.

Monday, April 26, we lost a friend of the cinema, sexploitation director Joseph W. Sarno. At the age of eighty-nine, Sarno passed away having made a significant contribution to erotic and underground cinema.

Sarno directed some of the key films in the sexploitation cycle, offering beautiful and psychologically probing pictures that contrasted sharply with much of the dreck that his contemporaries produced. His work in New York and in Sweden, including Sin in the Suburbs, Flesh and Lace, The Bed and How to Make It, Inga, and Abigail Lesley is Back in Town, will long remain classics. His work in hardcore, including Inside Jennifer Welles and Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle, also represents considerable accomplishments in that style.

Later in his life, he received the praise he deserved from a number of sources, most impressively through screenings at the Cinémathèque Française, and scholarly assessment of his work. He also took great pleasure from the attention and friendship of his biographer, Michael Bowen.

Here’s a video tribute to him, with footage from his trip to the Cinémathèque Française:

I had the privilege of meeting Joe on a number of occasions, and he was a funny and soulful man. I remember he was very proud of the many films he made, and was always interested in investigating human relationships and dynamics. This shows in his films and the legacy he has left behind.

Luckily, the Alamo Drafthouse will be showing Moonlighting Wives next month as a Weird Wednesday film, on May 12.

Rest in Peace

Well, it ain’t much, but it’s something.

Are you planning to attend? It will be the cinematic event of the season, to be sure.

Click here to get your tickets now! Come and support Austin Cinephile!

I also want to point out that an article I wrote for Flow before I started working there was alluded to in the story from the Chronicle. The paper reads:

“And the variety is one of our selling points. We’ve had articles on everything from Twilight fan girls, to the politics of cell phone towers camouflaged as trees, to international relations and Korean talk shows, to Sarah Palin Internet porn.”

Sarah Palin Internet porn! That’s what I wrote about.

Go here to read the rest of the article.

Hey everybody,

I blogged on Alamo site today about how last’s nights film The Apartment is related to Ninotchka, the first film in our new series, Cinema Club. I am pretty excited that in less than a month, I’ll be up on stage introducing Charles Ramirez Berg as he introduces the great Lubitsch classic written by Charlie Brackett and Bill Wilder.

What I liked best about the Alamo blog is that I used a hilarious tag line for the film that I saw on an original theatrical poster. Click on the link to read it.

P.S. Isn’t that a beautiful poster if you ever saw one?