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It’s the summer of “Blaxploitation, Baby!,” the latest festival hosted by Film Forum.

The indie theater announced the upcoming festival which will take place August 16 through August 22. The program celebrates the early ‘70s genre of Black cinema, and features films wth iconic movie stars Pam Grier, Richard Roundtree, Ron O’Neal, Tamara Dobson, Jim Brown, Vonetta McGee, Fred Williamson, Isaac Hayes, and more.

“Blaxploitation, Baby!” is dedicated to author and pioneering film historian Donald Bogle, who collaborated on Film Forum’s first Blaxploitation festival in 1995. Bogle credited Melvin Van Peebles’ filmography for helping to establish the genre. “Blaxploitation, Baby!” additionally ranges from works from directors such as Ossie Davis, Gordon Parks, and Gordon Parks Jr.

As well as the screenings, the festival will include the sales of critic and historian Odie Henderson’s “Black Caesars and Foxy Cleopatras: A History of Blaxploitation” and Donald Bogle’s acclaimed TCM book “Hollywood Black” at concessions.

When The New Yorker first published Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” in June of 1948, the short story was met with confusion and disgust. To this day, apparently the magazine still hasn’t received that much mail over a work of fiction. Regardless of those early negative reviews, though, this shock tale has since gone on to become ingrained in the public consciousness. Everyone remembers their immediate reaction upon reading about a deceptively quaint village where the locals conduct the most heinous ritual every year.

Despite its widespread recognition, “The Lottery” has received only a few screen adaptations over the years. The earliest was in Cameo Theatre, a long lost 1950s anthology series notable for its minimalistic production design. Then there was Larry Yust’s ‘69 short-film; this piece of kindertrauma captures the source material’s unmatched ability to go from casual to ghastly in mere seconds.

In addition to direct adaptations...

May on the Criterion Channel will be good to the auteurs. In fact they’re giving Richard Linklater better treatment than the distributor of his last film, with a 13-title retrospective mixing usual suspects—the Before trilogy, Boyhood, Slacker—with some truly off the beaten track. There’s a few shorts I haven’t seen but most intriguing is Heads I Win/Tails You Lose, the only available description of which calls it a four-hour (!) piece “edited together by Richard Linklater in 1991 from film countdowns and tail leaders from films submitted to the Austin Film Society in Austin, Texas from 1987 to 1990. It is Linklater’s tribute to the film countdown, used by many projectionists over the years to cue one reel of film after another when switching to another reel on another projector during projection.” Pair that with 2008’s Inning by Inning: A Portrait of a Coach and your completionism will be on-track.

This remarkable black comedy is often listed as a horror film yet it has more nervous laughs than shivers. It’s a solid idea: cruelly marginalized old folks get madder than hell and just won’t take it any more. Or maybe they simply go nuts. The cast of ‘over seventies’ playing over eighty is just marvelous, and one murderous little pixie is a delight: Paula Trueman. Things do become absurd but the universally-understood premise stays firm. . . we’ll all be there sooner or later. “A Murder A Day Keeps the Landlord Away.”

Homebodies

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1974 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 96 min. / Street Date November 2, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Peter Brocco, Frances Fuller, William Hansen, Ruth McDevitt, Paula Trueman, Ian Wolfe, Linda Marsh, Douglas Fowley, Kenneth Tobey, Wesley Lau.

Cinematography: Isasdore Mankovsky

Art Director: John Retsek

Film Editor: Peter Parasheles

Original Music: Bernardo Segáll

Written by Larry Yust, Bennett Sims,...

This remarkable little black comedy is often listed as a horror film yet it has more nervous laughs than shivers. It’s a solid idea: cruelly maginalized old folks get madder than hell and just won’t take it any more. Or maybe more accurately, they simply go nuts. The cast of ‘over seventies’ playing over eighty is just marvelous, and one murderous little pixie is a delight: Paula Trueman. Things do become absurd but the universally-understood premise stays firm. . . we’ll all be there sooner or later. “A Murder A Day Keeps the Landlord Away.”

Homebodies

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1974 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 96 min. / Street Date November 2, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Peter Brocco, Frances Fuller, William Hansen, Ruth McDevitt, Paula Trueman, Ian Wolfe, Linda Marsh, Douglas Fowley, Kenneth Tobey, Wesley Lau.

Cinematography: Isasdore Mankovsky

Art Director: John Retsek

Film Editor: Peter Parasheles

Original Music: Bernardo Segáll

Written by Larry Yust,...

One of the lesser-sung items among umpteen offbeat little ’70s movies was Larry Yust’s “Homebodies.” That 1974 black comedy on the cusp of horror was about a community of frail old retirees who turn out to be surprisingly vigorous — even homicidal — in defending their homes from the callous forces of market-driven “progress.” A similar premise is the starting point for “Bingo Hell,” which alongside “Black as Night” kicks off the second quartet of genre features premiering under the “Welcome to the Blumhouse” umbrella on Amazon Prime. This first full-length solo directorial project for Gigi Saul Guerrero exchanges the Cincinnati grit of “Homebodies” for the hotter palette of a Southern California desert town.

The comedy and horror elements get amped up as well — maybe too much so. In any case, what starts out looking like another caustic commentary on gentrification at the expense of the elderly soon takes a turn into half-baked Stephen King territory,...

They'll always have Paris. Ryan Seacrest and Julianne Hough are making the most of their holiday vacation: the pair - along with Seacrest's parents and sister - have hit a selection of restaurants, art galleries and shops, as well as a sold-out Monet exhibition. On Wednesday, Seacrest and Hough visited Lumas Paris on Rue de Seine where the American Idol host, 35, bought a limited edition Larry Yust photograph of a Paris Metro station. Later, the party of five headed to lunch at Restaurant Frederic Simonin, where the group drank wine and sampled the chef's signature dishes. There's "nothing extravagant about them,...