The series The Psychomagic Cinema of Alejandro Jodorowsky is now showing on Mubi.Fando y LisI can’t easily think of another filmmaker as uncompromisingly personal as Alejandro Jodorowsky. He and his cinema evoke either a magnetism for their idiosyncrasies, or a complete dismissal for their shock-value as distasteful nonsense. There is no in-between. His concoction of mysticism and erratic, physically aggressive cinema is part of a deeply personal and spiritual journey through art, one which he adapted into his own therapeutic practice known as “Psychomagic.” Over time I have come to understand Jodorowsky’s difficult and fascinating career as a cinematic odyssey composed of two halves—first an exploration of the external for a mystical and elusive “truth” and then an internal excavation and confrontation with trauma, reality, and the subconscious.Heavily influenced by surrealists like Dalí and Buñuel, as well as avant-garde boundary pushers like Antonin Artaud, Jodorowsky...

Mubi, the premier streaming service for curated independent films, has revealed its picks for December. The selection of films coming exclusively to Mubi includes the world premiere of Benoit Toulemonde’s “Tripping With Nils Frahm,” an extraordinary musical trip that brings a unique concert experience to the screen, and “Cold Meridian,” the latest experimental short film by acclaimed director Peter Strickland. Mubi will also exclusively present “Liberté”, a period-piece provocation by visionary Catalan filmmaker Albert Serra as well as Kirill Mikhanovsky’s award-winning comedy “Give Me Liberty.” For those in the mood to relive the vibrant 90’s rave scene, Mubi is excited to present the streaming premiere of “Beats” from Scottish director Brian Welsh and executive producer Steven Soderbergh.

Also in December, Mubi is proud to launch a retrospective dedicated to prolific South Korean director Hong Sang-soo. Capturing the pleasures and perils of attraction in anti-romantic comedies, this selection includes...

Abkco Films‘ “Alejandro Jodorowsky: 4K Restoration Collection” is a magnificent, grotesque sandwich. For the bread: “Fando y Lis” and “Psychomagic, A Healing Art.” For the fillings: “The Holy Mountain” and “El Topo.” Of this quartet, the latter pair of films is the most immediately recognizable, but the former pair of films is arguably more essential for understanding the Chilean master as both an artist and a human being, insomuch as Jodorowsky can be meaningfully “understood” the way that we understand the cinema of other celebrated auteurs.

Continue reading ‘Alejandro Jodorowsky: 4K Restoration Collection’ Shows The Psychedelic Auteur In Full Freaky, Grotesque Glory at The Playlist.

Alejandro Jodorowsky sees filmmaking as an art, not a business. He expands on this in the very title of his latest film: Psychomagic, A Healing Art. The film is a personal documentation of Jodorowsky’s theory of trauma therapy, called Psychomagic, in action. We can trust Jodorowsky when he calls action, though beware when he calls cut as his wife, artist Pascale Montandon, who has been his cinematographer on all his films, may keep the cameras rolling. Performance art is an effective placebo to confront psychic suffering and film does it in real time, breaking the wall between reality and performance. Those are real tears on the screen.

A son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, the “father of the midnight movie” was born in 1929 in Chile. His father was a staunch Stalinist who ran a dry-goods store called Casa Ukrania. His mother made him wear his hair long as part of a...

Alejandro Jodorowsky’s films are confounding, grotesque, beautiful and healing, often within the same frame. The post-violence images of the opening sequence of El Tropo are made more horrific as they are reflected through the eyes of a seven-year-old boy, still naked from a rite of passage. Jodorowky’s films are a gateway drug. The Alejandro Jodorowsky 4K Restoration Collection of his cult classics Fando y Lis, El Topo, and The Holy Mountain, as well as his new Psychomagic, A Healing Art, are a first taste. The most surrealistic of the psychedelic filmmakers had no special effects, or even fancy cameras in his earliest days. He had visions, and meticulously created a physical world to capture those visions–and then he stuck an objective camera in front of it.

No stranger to psychedelics, it was John Lennon who first brought Jodorowsky out of the after-hours circuit and into the daylight,...

In a packed edition of Horror Highlights, we have a clip from Crystal Eyes, details on the To Your Last Death Blu-ray release, info on The Year Without Halloween book, the short film We Got a Monkey's Paw, details on Joe Bob Brigg's drive-in event, and the trailer for Chop Chop!

Watch a Clip from Crystal Eyes: September's Arrow Video Channel offerings bolster the already great lineup with an eclectic mix of titles that include Crystal Eyes, Graveyard of Honor, Return of the Killer Tomatoes, and more. Here's a look at a clip from Crystal Eyes and more details on Arrow's September lineup:

"London, UK - Arrow Video is excited to announce the September slate of titles on their subscription-based Arrow Video Channel, including the Argentinian giallo homage Crystal Eyes, Fukasaku's Graveyard of Honor, and Miike's 2002 remake. The stylish slasher Crystal Eyes, Fukasaku's classic crime thriller Graveyard of Honor...

Abkco Films’ Alejandro Jodorowsky: 4K Restoration Collection arrives this week, and in honor of the massive box set, we’re debuting an exclusive clip featuring the filmmaker discussing his film Fando y Lis. You can check out the clip below along with details on the box set, which includes Fando y Lis, El Topo, and The Holy Mountain. Jodorowsky 4K […]

The post Watch an Exclusive Clip from the Alejandro Jodorowsky 4K Restoration Collection appeared first on /Film.

September's Arrow Video Channel offerings bolster the already great lineup with an eclectic mix of titles that include Crystal Eyes, Graveyard of Honor, Return of the Killer Tomatoes, and more:

"London, UK - Arrow Video is excited to announce the September slate of titles on their subscription-based Arrow Video Channel, including the Argentinian giallo homage Crystal Eyes, Fukasaku's Graveyard of Honor, and Miike's 2002 remake. The stylish slasher Crystal Eyes, Fukasaku's classic crime thriller Graveyard of Honor and Miike's reimagining lead a selection of cult classics, hidden gems and iconic horror films coming to the Arrow Video Channel September 1st.

Crystal Eyes, Graveyard of Honor (1975), and Graveyard of Honor (2002) will be available September 1st on the Arrow Video Channel in the US and the UK. Additional new titles available September 1st include Ivansxtc (UK/US), The Holy Mountain (UK), Fando Y Lis (UK), El Topo (UK), and Return of the Killer...

“You are seven years old. You are a man. Bury your first toy and your mother’s picture.”

Alejandro Jodorowsky: 4K Restoration Collection

will be available on September 18th. The deluxe box set by Abkco will include the surrealist filmmaker’s latest Psychomagic, A Healing Art, along with 4K restorations of El Topo, The Holy Mountain, and Fando Y Lis.

Loaded with extras and ephemera, the box set features a 78-page book

with photos and essays, a set of art cards together with four

Blu-ray discs, and two CDs housed in a high-quality case. Check Out this ‘Unboxing’ Video:

Psychomagic, A Healing Art will be available as part of Abkco Films’ Alejandro Jodorowsky: 4K Restoration Collection, due to release on September 18, 2020. This deluxe box set also includes The Maestro’s films Fando y Lis, El Topo, and The Holy Mountain, each meticulously restored in 4K on Blu-ray, along with...

With the psychedelic zaniness of “El Topo” and “The Holy Mountain,” Chilean-born director Alejandro Jodorowsky invented the concept of the midnight movie, but even the filmmaker’s most outrageous gambles weren’t weird-for-weirdness’ sake. His filmmaking matches its trippier elements with sensitive, even sensual, qualities, so it’s unsurprising that a director keen on burrowing inside his audience’s mind also fancies himself a therapist.

“Psychomagic, A Healing Art” is a wandering non-fiction collage of the shamanic service Jodorowsky has offered tortured souls for decades and allows the 91-year-old to make the case for his strange services. The result is , a dreamlike chronicle of human suffering for which Jodorowsky offers a wild solution on par with his craziest filmmaking conceits.

Jodorowsky has appeared in his own stories before, guiding audiences through autobiographical dramas “The Dance of Reality” and “Endless Poetry,” but in “Psychomagic” he’s less storyteller, more interdimensional reality show host.

“When I decided to invent an art to heal, I jumped out of my prison as if out of an ivory tower, and entered the pain of the world,” Alejandro Jodorowsky begins in this never-before-seen clip from his upcoming documentary Psychomagic, A Healing Art. The film which will be released on Alamo on Demand Aug. 7, explores the director’s theory of trauma therapy, using performance art to offset psychic suffering real world acts of confrontation.

The 91-year old father of the “midnight movie,” is not only behind the camera but also featured as the subject in Psychomagic, A Healing Art. “I used a humble set of Tarot cards as an instrument,” he says in the clip. “I did not read the future but the present. When I began to read the present of people, the problems of family fell onto me.”

From there taught reason to speak the language of dreams.

Turning 91 earlier this year, surrealist master Alejandro Jodorowsky is continuing to stay busy after a rather prolific last decade. His latest film, Psychomagic, A Healing Art, is a documentary that takes a look at his dedication to a specific process of therapy to heal suffering around him. Coming from Abkco Films, the film will be premiering on Alamo on Demand on August 7, preceded by a retrospective of the Chilean-French director’s work.

His new film draws, as the official synopsis states, “from a life-long study of philosophy, psychology, ethnology, and world religions, from Freud to shamans, from Kabbalah to Gurdjieff, and everything in between, Jodorowsky’s films have dealt with the individual quest for redemption and enlightenment, the protagonist facing bizarre and provocative challenges that lead to personal catharsis.”

Fans of the director will also get another treat. On August 21, a new Jodorowsky box set will be released as well,...

Theatre director, novelist, poet, and mime, Alejandro Jodorowsky has carried many different monikers throughout his 91 years; although for none of these careers is he more well-known than filmmaker. In fact, the director, known as the so-called “father of the midnight madness movie” may be more well-known for the legacy he cast onto other filmmakers’ gore-soaked, outtré psychedelic careers such as Nicholas Winding Refn. Now more than fifty years since the release of Jodorowsky’s first feature, “Fando Y Lis,” a box set of 4K restorations of his films is set to be released.

Continue reading ‘Psychomagic:’ Watch The Trailer For Jodorowsky’s New Doc & Epic Box Set Of Outré, Psychedelic Classics at The Playlist.

Sky-diving, live burial, and body paint are just a few of the wild images seen in the first trailer for “Psychomagic, a Healing Art,” the new film from Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky. IndieWire shares the trailer exclusively below, ahead of the film’s VOD release on August 7 via Alamo on Demand, Alamo Drafthouse’s new digital platform.

The movie’s distributor Abkco Films will drop a deluxe box set August 21 featuring 4K restorations of Jodorowsky classics such as “El Topo,” “Fando y Lis,” and “The Holy Mountain” supervised by the director using the original 35mm elements, as well as “Psychomagic, A Healing Art.” Here’s a synopsis:

“Psychomagic, A Healing Art” is an intimate exploration of the visionary director’s theory of trauma therapy. Jodorowsky’s unique concept of healing uses performance art as a vehicle to counter deep, debilitating psychic suffering with literal “acts of confrontation” in real world applications.

Sky-diving, live burial, and body paint are just a few of the wild images seen in the first trailer for “Psychomagic, a Healing Art,” the new film from Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky. IndieWire shares the trailer exclusively below, ahead of the film’s VOD release on August 7 via Alamo on Demand, Alamo Drafthouse’s new digital platform.

The movie’s distributor Abkco Films will drop a deluxe box set August 21 featuring 4K restorations of Jodorowsky classics such as “El Topo,” “Fando y Lis,” and “The Holy Mountain” supervised by the director using the original 35mm elements, as well as “Psychomagic, A Healing Art.” Here’s a synopsis:

“Psychomagic, A Healing Art” is an intimate exploration of the visionary director’s theory of trauma therapy. Jodorowsky’s unique concept of healing uses performance art as a vehicle to counter deep, debilitating psychic suffering with literal “acts of confrontation” in real world applications.

Cult Chilean-French filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky’s new film, a documentary about trauma therapy titled “Psychomagic, A Healing Art,” is set to debut from Abkco Films via Alamo On Demand this summer. Alamo Drafthouse’s VOD platform will premiere the film August 7, preceded by a five-film retrospective of the “Holy Mountain” director’s best work beginning August 1. The five films included in the lineup are “Fando y Lis,” “El Topo,” “The Holy Mountain,” “The Dance of Reality,” and “Endless Poetry.” Additionally, the platform will host a virtual master class with Jodorowsky August 8.

Abkco Films will also drop a deluxe box set August 21 featuring 4K restorations of Jodorowsky classics, supervised by the director using the original 35mm elements, as well as “Psychomagic, A Healing Art.” Here’s a synopsis:

“‘Psychomagic, A Healing Art’ is an intimate exploration of the visionary director’s theory of trauma therapy. Jodorowsky’s unique concept of healing...

Chilean master cult filmmaker, and father of the “midnight movie,” Alejandro Jodorowsky’s latest film Psychomagic, A Healing Art will premiere in the U.S. and Canada on August 7 through an exclusive arrangement with Alamo Drafthouse‘s new VOD platform, Alamo On Demand.

Jodorowsky made two surreal classics in films of the 1970s, the spiritual western epic El Topo (1970), and The Holy Mountain (1973), which was partly funded by John Lennon. The Holy Mountain sparked controversy at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival due to its sacrilegious imagery. It also established Jodorowsky as an auteur of Surrealist Cinema. The documentary-form avant-garde movie Psychomagic, A Healing Art is being presented by Abkco Films. The ex-Beatle introduced Jodorowsky’s work to his then-manager Allen Klein, whose Abkco Music & Records houses catalogues from Sam Cooke, The Rolling Stones, Bobby Womack, The Kinks, and Marianne Faithfull. Klein had an interest in film, and would go on to produce Blindman,...

In today’s film news roundup, a directors’s cut of “Everest” has been scheduled for release, “John Lewis: Good Trouble” has been set for international sales, RightsTrade hires Bill Lischak, Gerard Butler’s “Greenland” is scheduled and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s latest film gets a release.

Releases

MacGillivray Freeman Films has set a February release for a special director’s cut edition of the 1998 giant-screen documentary “Everest.”

The new version will be released in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of the historic 1996 storm on the world’s highest mountain. The original film is the highest-grossing giant-screen documentary of all time, earning more than $152 million in worldwide ticket sales.

Narrated by Liam Neeson, “Everest” centers on the team of four climbers who ascended Mount Everest just days after fellow

mountaineers and friends died in the 1996 disaster. Produced and directed by Greg MacGillivray, with co-directors Stephen Judson and David Breashears, the director...

Continuing the autobiographical story he began in The Dance of Reality, Endless Poetry is an ode to the quest for beauty and inner truth, as a universal force capable of changing one’s life forever, written by a man who has dedicated his existence to creating spiritual and artistic awareness, told through Jodorowsky’s unique surreal and psychedelic visual language.

In 1967, Jodorowsky directed his first feature Fando Y Lis in Mexico. The film provoked riots when it debuted at the 1968 Acapulco Film Festival. His next film, the cult Western classic El Topo opened [Continued ...]...

Cult filmmaker to appear in conversation at film festival.

Chilean filmmaker and artist Alejandro Jodorowsky is to be awarded with a Pardo d’onore at the 69th Locarno Film Festival (Aug 3-13).

As well as screening a selection of his films and the award ceremony on the Piazza Grande, Jodorowsky will also participate in a conversation open to all festival-goers.

As son of Russian immigrants exiled in Chile, Jodorowsky began his artistic career as a puppeteer, poet and theater director. At 23, he moved to France and joined Marcel Marceau’s mime troupe, and five years later founded - alongside Roland Topor and Fernando Arrabal - the performance art movement Panique, which aimed to counter the mainstreaming of surrealism.

Jodorowsky subsequently moved to Mexico, where, over the next 17 years, he created avant-garde theater de Mexico, and directed Fando And Lis (1968), El Topo (1970), The Holy Mountain (1973) and Santa Sangre (1989), films which made him a cult filmmaker around the world...

Special mention: Häxan

Directed by Benjamin Christensen

Denmark / Sweden, 1922

Genre: Documentary

Häxan (a.k.a The Witches or Witchcraft Through The Ages) is a 1922 silent documentary about the history of witchcraft, told in a variety of styles, from illustrated slideshows to dramatized reenactments of alleged real-life events. Written and directed by Benjamin Christensen, and based partly on Christensen’s study of the Malleus Maleficarum, Häxan is a fine examination of how superstition and the misunderstanding of mental illness could lead to the hysteria of the witch-hunts. At the time, it was the most expensive Scandinavian film ever made, costing nearly 2 million Swedish krona. Although it won acclaim in Denmark and Sweden, the film was banned in the United States and heavily censored in other countries for what were considered, at that time, graphic depictions of torture, nudity, and sexual perversion. Depending on which version you’re watching, the commentary is...

Sometimes it’s psychological. Sometimes it’s visceral. It can be a masked killer’s twisted pastime. A labyrinth our poor heroes must find their way out of. Perhaps a nasty round of torture by the Big Bad. Whatever it is, the sick feeling of impending doom overcomes us as we realize the characters might not make it out alive. Sometimes they can think their way through. Sometimes they can fight. But when the exits are closed and the madman decides to get creative, all bets are off.

****

Alucarda, La Hija De Las Tinieblas / Innocents From Hell (1977) – A Dracula takes revenge

Director Juan López Moctezuma came along during the new wave of 70′s Mexican genre pics that expressed radical and subversive views. An important intellectual figure in Mexico in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, Moctezuma produced Jodorowsky’s El Topo and Fando Y Lis. Of his three horror films (which also includes Mansion of Madness,...

Some pretty significant viewing has appeared this week. Jonathan Rosenbaum and Kevin B. Lee have collaborated on an audiovisual essay about Jacques Rivette's Out 1: Noli Me Tangere (1971); Nicole Brenez talks with Eric Hurtado and Marc Hurtado about the work that desistfilm has made available online; and Milena Kans examines Alejandro Jodorowsky's view of humans and animals in Fando and Lis (1968), El Topo (1970), The Holy Mountain (1973), Santa Sangre (1989) and The Rainbow Thief (1990). We also have news on upcoming work from Richard Linklater and David Fincher and we point to a lengthy conversation with David Lynch. » - David Hudson...

Some pretty significant viewing has appeared this week. Jonathan Rosenbaum and Kevin B. Lee have collaborated on an audiovisual essay about Jacques Rivette's Out 1: Noli Me Tangere (1971); Nicole Brenez talks with Eric Hurtado and Marc Hurtado about the work that desistfilm has made available online; and Milena Kans examines Alejandro Jodorowsky's view of humans and animals in Fando and Lis (1968), El Topo (1970), The Holy Mountain (1973), Santa Sangre (1989) and The Rainbow Thief (1990). We also have news on upcoming work from Richard Linklater and David Fincher and we point to a lengthy conversation with David Lynch. » - David Hudson...

The casual movie fan has likely never heard of Alejandro Jodorowsky. The Chilean-French director is well known to students of film for his surreal and bizarre films Fando Y Lis, El Topo, Santa Sangre, and Holy Mountain. With fans like John Lennon, Jodorowsky's unique style has been a favorite of cult cinema for the last forty years. But, it could be the film he never made that is his most famous project. Back in 1974, Jodorowsky began an adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune that was to...

Every year, we here at Sound On Sight celebrate the month of October with 31 Days of Horror; and every year, I update the list of my favourite horror films ever made. Last year, I released a list that included 150 picks. This year, I’ll be upgrading the list, making minor alterations, changing the rankings, adding new entries, and possibly removing a few titles. I’ve also decided to publish each post backwards this time for one reason: the new additions appear lower on my list, whereas my top 50 haven’t changed much, except for maybe in ranking. Enjoy!

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Special Mention:

Shock Corridor

Written and directed by Samuel Fuller

USA, 1963

Shock Corridor stars Peter Breck as Johnny Barrett, an ambitious reporter who wants to expose the killer at the local insane asylum. To solve the case, he must pretend to be insane so they have him committed. Once in the asylum,...

Scarcely remembered now Diana Mariscal seems a sort of proof of the saying that those whose light burns brightest burns shortest. The Mexican performer is best known today as the star of Alejandro Jodorowsky's Fando Y Lis - that being one of only six films the actress and singer appeared in - but she dropped out of the limelight shortly thereafter, a victim of severe depression that at the time was far more likely to be swept under the rug than dealt with.Struck by a car and killed earlier this month at the age of 62, Mariscal comes back into the spotlight now as the subject of El Silencio De La Princesa (The Silence Of The Princess), a documentary feature looking into her life, career...

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

The 17th Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan) has announced its line-up, opening with the Asian premiere of Ari Folman’s The Congress.

The fest will screen a total of 230 films from 44 countries. The selection includes 53 world premieres, 19 international premieres and 47 Asian premieres.

The fest will close with the world premiere of The Terror Live, starring Ha Jung-woo. Directed by Kim Byeong U, the film in its script stage was an award-winner at PiFan’s Network of Fantastic Films (Naff) It Project market in 2009.

The Puchon Choice feature competition includes current local box office hit Secretly Greatly, directed by Jang Cheol-soo, Lee Daniel’s recent Cannes competitor The Paperboy and Erik Matti’s Filipino film On The Job from Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.

Click here for the full list

PiFan’s Ani Fanta section will screen animated films such as A Liar’s Autobiography: The Untrue Story Of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman and Shinkai Makoto’s The Garden...

Playing as part of The Director’s Fortnight at Cannes, Jodorowsky’s Dune has been pitched by many as a documentary about the greatest film never made and it’s easy to get on board with this assessment.

An adaptation of Frank Herbert’s revered science fiction novel, directed by visionary film-maker Alejandro Jodorowsky and with input from H. R. Giger, Moebius, Dan O’Bannon and many more, Dune looks on paper very much like it could have been something truly extraordinary.

Speaking to many of those involved and also to directors, producers and critics director Frank Pavich weaves a very compelling tale of this fascinating project. Whilst in Cannes I was lucky enough to speak to Mr. Pavich who, like me, was also high on having just seen Jodorowsky’s return to cinema, La Danza de la Realidad.

What do you think of Jodorowsky’s latest film?

I think it’s astounding.

As chronicled by Simon Braund in a back issue of Empire, Alejandro Jodorowsky's attempt to film Frank Herbert's sci-fi novel Dune is one of the most legendary unmade movies of all time. Last night saw the world premiere of Frank Pavich's documentary Jodorowsky's Dune, which details the madness and brilliance of the director's somewhat unorthodox journey. And while it doesn't add much to the story as it is generally known, it does paint a vivid picture of a movie that wasn't just meant to change the world of cinema but to change the world itself.Teed up by Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn, who recalls a night at Jodorowsky's house when the Chilean-born director talked him through the illustrated shooting script, Pavich's film recaps the director's career to that point. Beginning as a performance artist and theatre director, Jodorowsky moved into film with 1968's surreal Fando Y Lis...

Ever since the release of the Academy Award nominated The Exorcist, back in 1973, Hollywood has benefited quite a bit from movies about exorcism, and the box office numbers show no signs of recession. With the release of The Last Exorcism 2, I decided to spotlight three films that are criminally overlooked, and that I think fans would definitely enjoy.

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Here Comes the Devil

Directed Adrián García Bogliano

Screenplay by Adrián García Bogliano

2012, Mexico

From Argentinian filmmaker Adrián García Bogliano, Here Comes the Devil, is a coming of age tale of demonic possession, sexual awakening and suspected child abuse. Staying clear of the typical traps of exploitation, Bogliano takes a low-key, less graphic approach to the unearthly proceedings. This isn’t your standard possession film. That’s not to say there aren’t displays of the supernatural, but those hoping for frightening exorcisms may be disappointed (although you will get scenes of levitation,...

Throughout the month of October, Editor-in-Chief and resident Horror expert Ricky D, will be posting a list of his favorite Horror films of all time. The list will be posted in six parts. Click here to see every entry.

As with all lists, this is personal and nobody will agree with every choice – and if you do, that would be incredibly disturbing. It was almost impossible for me to rank them in order, but I tried and eventually gave up.

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Special Mention: Gremlins

Directed by Joe Dante

Written by Chris Columbus

1984, USA

Gremlins gets a special mention because I’ve always considered it more of a comedy and a wholesome Christmas flick than an actual horror film. This tribute the 1950s matinee genre stands the test of time from a time when parents would take their children to family films that pushed the boundaries of the MPAA. Joe Dante is...

Choosing my favourite horror films of all time is like choosing between my children – not that I have children, but if I did, I am sure I would categorize them quite like my DVD collection. As with all lists, this is personal and nobody will agree with every choice – and if you do, that would be incredibly disturbing. Also, it was almost impossible for me to rank them in order, but I tried. I based my list taking into consideration three points:

1- Technical accomplishments / artistry and their influence on the genre.

2- How many times I’ve revisited the films and how easily it makes for a repeated viewings.

3- Its story, atmosphere and how much it affected me when I first watched them.

Finally, there are many great films such as The Witchfinder General, The Wickerman and even Hour Of The Wolf that won’t appear here. I...

In just about two weeks Severin Films will be unleashing the cult favorite Santa Sangre on to Blu-ray high definition, and we've nabbed three stills from the flick that celebrate its over the top weirdness! Dig it!

To commemorate the long awaited re-release of Alejandro Jodorowsky's masterpiece Santa Sangre on DVD and Blu-Ray, Severin Films and The American Cinematheque will be presenting a 35mm screening of the film, preceded by a reception, at the Egyptian Theater, Hollywood Blvd. There will be a special Q&A after the film with soundtrack composer Simon Boswell, whose other credits include work for Danny Boyle, Clive Barker and Dario Argento.

Additional screenings are set to take place across the country to celebrate this long awaited release. Details below:

January 15, 2011

Egyptian Theater, 6712 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

6:30 Reception

7:30 Santa Sangre followed by Q&A with composer Simon Boswell

(double feature with Jodorowsky's...

Chilean auteur Alejandro Jodorowsky has had a great Cannes, leaving the festival with funding almost complete on his next project King Shot.The art-house director has been away from our screens for almost 20 years and King Shot sees him return with what's intriguingly billed as a metaphysical spaghetti Western. To our ears that sounds like shades of cult classic El Topo and Jarmusch's Dead Man. With a cast that includes Nick Nolte and Marilyn Manson - not to mention David Lynch as co-producer - it should be at least as mind-twisting.Jodorowsky's reputation for stirring audiences into a bit of a frenzy is was established from the moment his 1967 debut Fando Y Lis caused a full-scale riot at its premiere. The 80 year-old's return should be eagerly anticipated, not least for his ready line in Cantona-esque pronouncements ("I don't live in France, I live in myself," "Most directors make films with...