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February is a time for lovers. Romance, as well as the hope to find it are abound and what better place to seek it out than at your local repertory cinema. Sure, a dark theater full of strangers may seem like an odd space for finding a potential suitor, but who knows what can happen at the concession stand or under the marquee? One thing’s for sure: There’s nothing quite like the allure of the big screen.

This month’s offerings across New York and Los Angeles feature a whole host of fare designed to fill audience’s hearts, not just in the sense of discovering love, but also reaching to the soul. Starting January 31 and running through March 5, Film at Lincoln Center will be hosting a career retrospective titled “Frederick Wiseman: An American Institution” that is sure to envelop newcomers to the documentarian’s hypnotic work, as well as longtime fans.

Severin Films are releasing Russ Meyer's Vixen trilogy in Uhd, Blu-ray and DVD formats.

The first film, Vixen!, looks great on the 4K Uhd. This version is making use of High Dynamic range but Meyer's film does not derive much benefit from this. Most of the film is shot in a well lit outdoor environment, it's not in black and white or special effects heavy. The contrasts between light and dark are mild and can be adequately displayed without the need for Hdr.

The Uhd version comes with two audio commentaries, the first by Meyer and the second by the star of the film Erica Gavin. Both are entertaining, varied and provide a lot of information about the film. The second commentary by Gavin, the film's star, should put to rest any qualms people may feel about Meyer as a film maker. Despite making exploitation films, Meyer didn't sexually exploit his.

Russ Meyer, who singlehandedly put the sexploitation film on the map in 1959 with his pioneering The Immoral Mr. Tees, was a veritable one-man band. He produced, wrote, directed, shot, and edited his own films, which are instantly recognizable by an inimitable aesthetic dominated by cuts delivered at a stupefyingly rat-a-tat pace. Meyer described his personal tastes as centered on “big bosoms and square jaws”, and his films usually traded in stereotypes pushed to the limits of absurdity and the cartoonish. Meyer’s ability to serve up heaping helpings of unabashed sex laced with withering social satire is virtually unrivaled.

So it was a lamentable loss for lovers of film (smut or otherwise) when Meyer’s work, practically ubiquitous in the VHS era, sank into unavailability at the dawn of the DVD era, with the sole exception of his one major studio production: 1970’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. But...

When Severin co-founder and CEO David Gregory signed the deal to release five Russ Meyer movies, he had caught his white whale — and it has one hell of a rack.

For years, the filmography of Meyer has languished in a liminal space between lost and found — Gregory described it as being out of circulation. While many of Meyer’s self-released movies have been available on DVD for decades, they’ve lived there via Sd tape transfers that date back to the ‘80s, originally intended for VHS releases. Aside from 1970’s “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls,” one of two movies the usually independent Meyer made for 20th Century Fox, his body of work has eluded streaming.

Forget about 4K — many wondered if they’d make it to HD (aside from a long out-of-print Blu-ray of the beloved “Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!”). This has been a concern of Meyer fans for...

Is it hot in here, or is it just the recently announced re-release of three classic sexploitation films from nudie maverick Russ Meyer?

With a legacy rivaling Roger Corman’s, Meyer burst onto the film scene in the 1960s, establishing himself as a B-movie maestro with a penchant for big action and even bigger…well…you know. He would eventually garner wide acclaim for cheeky comedies like “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” and “Beneath the Valley of the Dolls,” the latter of which was scripted by renowned film critic Roger Ebert. However, as a fierce independent, Meyer maintained ownership of all his films until his death in 2004, making it difficult to produce physical copies for wide distribution.

Severin Films is changing that. Partnering with the Russ Meyer Charitable Trust, they are now set to release new editions of “Vixen!,” “Supervixens,” and “Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens” on DVD, Blu-ray, and Uhd.

What once seemed like a pipe dream is on track to become a reality as Severin plans to release brand new 4K restorations of three of Meyer's seminal films, 1968's Vixen!, 1975's Supervixens, and the filmmaker's theatrical swan song, 1978's Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens. Thanks to a new licensing deal struck between Los Angeles-based cult film specialists Severin Films and the Russ Meyer trust, the long thought impenetrable Meyer vault is now accessible. In a deal that has been years in the making, the Meyer trust has agreed to allow Severin access to restore and release at least some of Meyer's films. The initial trio, the very loosely linked Vixen trilogy, pre-order for the set on all major outlets opens in October with...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

In the pantheon of 1960s B-movie filmmakers whose work later became reappraised and celebrated for its progressive themes, Russ Meyer has the kind of legacy that rivals Roger Corman. Best known for a series of sexploitation films like “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” and “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!,” Meyer’s pornographic filmography is now viewed by many as boundary-pushing work that brilliantly encapsulates many of the changing social norms of his generation.

Meyer was fiercely independent and maintained ownership of all of his films until his death in 2004, and quality copies of all but his most famous works have been hard to come by in the 21st century. But thanks to Severin Films, fans will now have a chance to own three iconic Meyer films on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Uhd. The distributor has partnered with the Russ Meyer Charitable Trust to release new editions of his trilogy consisting of “Vixen!,...

For the first time in decades, the films of legendary exploitation director Russ Meyer are coming to home video. Severin Films has negotiated the rights to release Meyer's catalog on 4K Blu-ray for the first time. Variety reports that their first release will be a box set of Meyer's loosely-connected trilogy of Vixen!, Supervixens, and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens.

It’s hard to put into words the kind of the disappointment that comes with realising that one of your favourite filmmakers has made a truly terrible movie. That realisation hit me approximately 10 minutes into Drive-Away Dolls, the new film by one half of acclaimed filmmaking duo The Coen Brothers.

Alongside his brother Joel, Ethan Coen has given us more than 4 decades of brilliant films ranging from quirky black comedies – A Serious Man, Hail, Caesar!, Inside Llewyn Davis – to beautifully devised crime capers – Blood Simple, No Country for Old Men and True Grit being just a few – but recently the prolific brothers took a break from working together. This resulted in Joel Coen’s multi-awarded nominated The Tragedy of Macbeth in 2021, and the soon to be released chaotic lesbian sexploitation comedy Drive-Away Dolls from his brother Ethan.

Written by Coen and Tricia Cooke, Drive-Away Dolls follows the antics of Jamie...

Vixen By Micheline Pitt Announces New Ghostbusters™ Clothing And Accessories Collection: "Los Angeles, CA – June 21, 2021 – Vixen by Micheline Pitt, the LA-based design house known for vintage-style fashion inspired by 1950s bad girls and ‘80s flair, is thrilled to announce the launch of an all-new officially licensed collection celebrating everyone’s favorite paranormal investigators - Ghostbusters!

Launching today at 4pm Pt/7pm Et at MichelinePitt.com, the Vixen by Micheline Pitt Ghostbusters Collection includes dresses, skirts, shirts, and bags featuring and inspired by the Ghostbusters rogues gallery of spectral baddies including the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, Slimer, Gozer, Terror Dogs, and more, along with the ever-iconic “No Ghosts” Ghostbusters logo.

“Being a kid of the 80’s, I grew up watching the original Ghostbusters film religiously. Like anyone who watched this movie, I wanted to be a Ghostbuster. I definitely pretended to be Venkman on too many occasions growing up while playing with my vintage proton pack.

A new Ghostbusters collection of clothing and accessories has been revealed by Vixen by Micheline Pitt, the LA-based design house known for its vintage-style fashion designs. On Monday, the new officially licensed collection was announced with the products launching at the Micheline Pitt website. Some of the options include dresses, skirts, shirts, and bags featuring the Ghostbusters rogues gallery of spectral baddies including the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, Slimer, Gozer, Terror Dogs, and more.

"Being a kid of the 80's, I grew up watching the original Ghostbusters film religiously," Pitt said of the collection. "Like anyone who watched this movie, I wanted to be a Ghostbuster. I definitely pretended to be Venkman on too many occasions growing up while playing with my vintage proton pack. Being a female fan of this film franchise, it was really important to me to make items for other female fans like myself, while also...

In a second helping of today's Horror Highlights, we have details on the Pet Sematary collection from Vixen by Micheline Pitt and the trailers for Shorcut and Anonymous Killers:

Pet Sematary Collection from Vixen by Micheline Pitt: Paramount Pictures and Los Angeles-based apparel company Vixen by Micheline Pitt have announced a licensing partnership for Stephen King’s Pet Sematary property for apparel and accessories, which kicks off today with an exclusive collection.

“We have an amazing collection of apparel and accessories inspired by both of the feature films which are based on the iconic 1983 Stephen King novel Pet Sematary,“ said Vixen CEO & Designer Micheline Pitt. “Each collection, like the films on which they are based, has its own story to tell, and its own style, and as the first female owned horror/genre company to have ever licensed a horror property, we’re excited to celebrate Pet Sematary through fashion.

Even those who consider themselves experts in the subject will find a provocative treasure trove of images and anecdotes in “Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies.” Danny Wolf’s documentary is a breezy, open-eyed, and often encyclopedic compendium of all the ways the cinema has celebrated, exploited, and negotiated the power of the naked body. The film opens with a montage of actors and directors recalling the first movie they ever saw that had nudity in it, and that allows the film, in its early moments, to leap through some of Nudity’s Greatest Hits.

As it moves back in time, one of the documentary’s fascinations is the way it’s constantly juxtaposing big Hollywood movies and European art movies and softcore exploitation films and everything in between. That, of course, is just as it should be. Aesthetically, there’s a world of difference between “Vixen” and “The Virgin Spring,...

Exclusive: Anonymous Content’s Charlie Scully and Tara Timinsky have joined The Gotham Group as Managers, Deadline has learned first hand.

Scully will be a Manger in the Gotham Group’s literary division while Timinsky will be a Manager in the books/packaging division.

A University of Texas grad whose first job in the biz was interning for award-winning filmmaker Terrence Malick, Timinsky began her career as a trainee at Anonymous Content and subsequently worked in Business and Legal Affairs before moving over to help open up the company’s Media Rights Department, where she was promoted to Manager, working with a range of critically acclaimed and bestselling authors including Cecelia Ahern, Francisco Cantú, Ishmael Beah, Sebastian Junger and Nathaniel Rich, as well as publications including The New York Times. Coming over to Gotham with her is internationally bestselling author Lori Nelson Spielman.

Scully recently was at Anonymous Content for...

” For I am Superwoman, and you have spurned her!”

Article by Jim Batts, Dana Jung, and Tom Stockman

Russell Albion “Russ” Meyer was born in California in 1922 and spent WWII as a combat photographer. In 1953 Playboy magazine debuted and Meyer was one of its first centerfold photographers. Meyer had a knack, and a passion, for photographing gorgeous, busty women and felt that the gals in the nudist camp movies that were popular in the ’50s were far too plain-looking for his tastes. In 1959, Meyer scraped together $24,000 and made The Immoral Mr. Teas, a quaint, colorful, and cartoonish movie about a nerdy fellow whose life is constantly interrupted by beautiful large-breasted women in various stages of undress. There was no sex in Meyer’s film and he made no pretense of presenting nudity as a lifestyle choice, as did the nudist camp movies. It was a simple and honest film about...

Russ Meyer, legendary for his lascivious approach to cheerfully lurid fare like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Vixen, plays it relatively straight in this adaptation of trash-meister Irving Wallace’s free-speech manifesto on pornography. The result is neither fish nor fowl and something that had never existed till The Seven Minutes – a dull Russ Meyer movie. Even so, Meyer’s editing rhythms are so out of the mainstream that it’s still almost experimental for a Fox studio movie. The 1971 release starred Wayne Maunder and Meyer mainstays Edy Williams and Charles Napier along with a few ringers including Yvonne DeCarlo, John Carradine and Wolfman Jack.

The post The Seven Minutes appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

Russ Meyer, the filmmaker who helped put "sexploitation" films on the map and whose name was practically synonymous with big-busted vixens, died Saturday at his home in Hollywood Hills; he was 82. According to a spokeswoman from his company, RM Films International Inc., Meyer had suffered from dementia and complications from pneumonia. A combat photographer who began working in Hollywood upon his return from World War II, Meyer found fame with his 1959 filmmaking debut The Immortal Mr. Teas, a movie that changed the standard "nudie film" format by working in an actual plot . as well as the amazingly endowed women that would become his trademark. In essence creating a new film genre, Meyer cemented his reputation (and his legacy) in the 60s with cult classics like Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! And Vixen, which poured on violence as well as healthy doses of sex antics. It was the latter film's success that attracted the interest of 20th Century Fox, which signed him to helm the 1970 major studio release Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which was scripted by film critic Roger Ebert; a year later he made his most mainstream film, The Seven Minutes, which featured then-wife Edy Williams. With the advent of hard-core pornography (Meyer's films were titillating but never explicit) and the demise of drive-ins, Meyer found his career success waning, but he continued to promote his movies on video and DVD through the 80s and 90s. Meyer was married and divorced three times, but left behind no children. --Prepared by IMDb staff...