Christopher Media

Our appreciation of 1969 continues with a look at Piero Schivazappa’s Femina Ridens / The Laughing Woman. Also sometimes known as The Frightened Woman, the film stars Phillipe Leroy as Sayer, the head of a charity foundation, and Dagmar Lassander as Maria, one of his employees. She she expresses an interest in writing an article about male sterilization, he takes that as his cue to invite her to his house and enslave her. What else can a good chauvinist do?<br /><br />Elric Kane and Kat Ellinger join Mike to discuss the film, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Men’s Rights, and more.

Our appreciation of 1969 continues with our second look at an adaptation of Edowaga Rampo’s work, Blind Beast. Directed by Yasuzo Masumura, the film stars Mako Midori as Aki Shima, a model, and Eiji Funakoshi as Michio, a blind sculptor who becomes obsessed with her. He and his mother kidnap Aki and keep her in his warehouse studio where the two become engaged in a game of cat and mouse as he tries to create a new form of art that only the blind can appreciate.

Our appreciation of 1969 continues with a look at Teruo Ishii’s Horrors of Malformed Men. Based on the writings of Edogawa Ranpo, the movie tells the tale of Hirosuke Hitomi played by Teruo Yoshida. When we first see him, he’s locked up in an insane asylum. And things only go downhill from there… Ben Buckingham and Jess Byard join Mike to delve into the ero-guro.

We’re kicking off our discussion of the films of 1969 with a look at Yoshishige Yoshida’s Eros + Massacre. The film tells two parallel stories – one in the early 1920s and the other in contemporary 1969. Samm Deighan and Chris Stachiw join Mike to smugly discuss the film. We’re joined by special guest Professor Dick Stegewerns author of Kiju Yoshida and ATG – The Reluctant Partner.

Our examination of 1969 continues with a look at Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Porcile. Based on a play Pasolini wrote, the film cross-cuts between an Italian enclave in Germany in 1967 and a rogue cannibal in an unknown time around Mt. Etna. Ken Stanley…

Taking its title from the notorious book by Leopold von Sacher-Mascoch, Jess Franco’s Venus in Furs (1969) stars James Darren as Jimmy Logan, a musician who can blow a cool horn. He finds the corpse of a woman he had seen at a party, the mysterious Wanda (Maria Rohm). When Wanda shows up — alive and seducing — shortly thereafter, Jimmy becomes obsessed with her, despite his loving relationship with chanteuse Rita (Barbara McNair). <br /><br />Brad Jones and Samm Deighan join Mike to discuss Franco’s film as well as an alternate cut of the movie along with a few other adaptations of the Sacher-Masoch story.

Based on a book by Vasilis Vasilikos, Costa-Gavras’s Z (1969) stars Yves Montand as a political activist who is killed after a rally. The film also stars Jean-Louis Trintignant as the investigator of the incident who manages to uncover a vast conspiracy. Keith Gordon and Eric Cohen join Mike to discuss this political thriller which is a thinly veiled re-telling of the events in Greece of 1963 and the assassination of Grigoris Lambrakis.