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Near the pinnacle of director-driven ’70s cinema is this marvelous comedy about a ‘American Miss’ contest, and the swirl of personalities that come to support, promote and ogle the teen beauties just learning the ropes of the good old U.S. hype machine. Bruce Dern, Barbara Feldon and Michael Kidd are just wonderful as the adults in charge of the pageantry; Annette O’Toole, Joan Prather and Melanie Griffifth are among the hopefuls, learning an early lesson in a time honored, entirely bogus Americana ritual: as Michael Kidd says, he teaches these sweet kids to dance and behave like Vegas showgirls. It’s deceptively, distractingly funny — and as true as the day is long.

Smile

Blu-ray

Fun City Editions

1975 / Color /1:85 widescreen / 113 min. / Street Date May 25, 2021 / Available from Vinegar Syndrome / 34.99

Starring: Bruce Dern, Barbara Feldon, Michael Kidd, Eric Shea, Geoffrey Lewis, Nicholas Pryor, Titos Vandis, Paul Benedict, William Traylor, Dick McGarvin,...

As noted above, the invite for Steve Balderson's latest feature, El Ganzo, swore that something special was going to occur between a gay man of color and a white female within its running time. Here was an intriguing come-on, one hard to cold-shoulder, so I didn't. Happily, the film is a well-acted, beautifully shot, two-hander about a couple of gentle souls, thrown together by fate, who wind up the better for the confrontation.

Susan Traylor plays Lizzy, an attractive American tourist in Mexico on her way to a hotel. After her cab gets into an accident midway to her destination, she abandons her nonplussed driver, grabs her shoulder bag, and starts walking in the midday heat, seemingly stunned. Maybe she's received a slight concussion or maybe . . .

Many sunstruck hours later, Lizzy arrives at the hotel and falls instantly asleep even before the manager who shows her to her room can leave.

Stars: Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Christopher Lloyd, Jeff Goldblum, Ellen Barkin, Lewis Smith, Rosalind Cash, Robert Ito, Pepe Serna, Ronald Lacey, Matt Clark, Clancy Brown, William Traylor, Carl Lumbly, Vincent Schiavelli | Written by Earl Mac Rauch | Directed by W.D. Richter

Arrow Video know their cult movies, you just have to look at the ones they’ve released to see that. If you were to ask the question, how crazy can a cult movie be? I think you just have to look at their latest release for that. The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is probably one of the strangest (yet still good) Eighties movies you’ll ever see.

When Buckaroo Banzai (Peter Weller), the brilliant physicist-neurosurgeon-martial arts master-secret-rock star manages to use the Oscillation Overthruster to travel to the 8th dimension he draws the attention of the Red Lectroids (an alien race obviously.) Working with Banzai’s...

I have places inside me where there are works of art: internal abysms that feel full, physical, like forces that fuse past and present. In the early 2000s, I spent four straight days in the Prado; all of it's still within me like some huge, Proustian madeleine. Almost every Bosch, Cézanne, Matisse, Alice Neel, Bill Traylor, Martín Ramírez, and Marsden Hartley that I've ever seen can flash like lightning at will. I spent a day enraptured by Matthias Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece in Colmar. (I still wonder if I became invisible that day, when guards silently allowed me to remain in the museum while it closed for its two-hour lunch.) I have a psychic zero-point for all the Seurat drawings I've ever seen, and at the center of this point is the small Giovanni di Paulo in Chicago that I saw when I was 10 years old, which set me on the...

Angela Dufresne was born in Connecticut and grew up in Kansas. She studied painting and video at the Kansas City Art Institute and painting at Tyler School of Art. She did residencies at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown in 2002–2004 and 2003–2004 and at Yaddo this year. She taught painting, and culture at large, in various places: Sarah Lawrence, Princeton University, and Rhode Island School of Design (Risd). Dufresne curated several show and video screenings nationally, including Portraiture for the Silicon Enlightenment: (Fuckheads); Negative Joy, a video screening at 443 Pas, New York; and Available, a show about still life at Monya Rowe Gallery. She has exhibited her work in various group shows in museums: The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, the Rose Museum, Mills College Art Museum, Richmond University Museum of Art, and MoMA PS1. She has also had various solo shows nationally and internationally: a project at the Hammer Museum...

Anybody who has taken an acting class has likely looked at the instructor and wondered, "What if the tables were turned? How would I be as the one devising the improvisations and coaching students through scenes?"Such thoughts get self-censored for various reasons. Even actors with extensive experience and knowledge sometimes feel unworthy to teach a class. Others may feel that if they were to pursue teaching, it would interfere with their performing career—perhaps even signaling defeat. After all, the maxim "Those who can't do, teach" has been repeated so many times that people tend to believe it. But teaching acting doesn't necessarily mean giving up on acting.Back Stage spoke with five actors who have incorporated teaching or coaching into their working lives. They shared how they came to be teachers, how they've grown in the classroom or studio, and how they balance the twin parts of their work.