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Denée Benton‘s Peggy Scott is one of the most necessary characters in The Gilded Age. Her presence brings the experiences of Black women in the 1800s to the screen in a way not often seen, giving viewers an important education, whether they realize it or not. In Season 1, Peggy pursued her writing career and applied her craft to political journalism — a move her father, Arthur Scott (John Douglas Thompson), thinks a waste and somehow harmful to continuing their family’s legacy among the Black elite of the time. The Gilded Age Season 2 will dive deeper into the rich world of Brooklyn’s growing wealthy Black community and show viewers Peggy’s next steps after learning her child lives. Alison Cohen Rosa/HBO For TV Insider, Benton breaks down the importance of Peggy’s presence in the HBO period drama and the part she played in bringing Black women onto...

Here’s another installment featuring Joe Dante’s reviews from his stint as a critic for Film Bulletin circa 1969-1974. Our thanks to Video Watchdog and Tim Lucas for his editorial embellishments!

Swedish “Mondo”‑type documentary loaded with incidents to titillate voyeuristic crowd. More sex than “I Am Curious.” Big for drive‑ins, sexploitation houses. Rating: X.

The publicity attendant to Sweden’s I Am Curious (Yellow) will doubtless boost the appeal of this Avco Embassy import among those craving voyeurism, Swedish style. This is not to say that Sweden, Heaven And Hell is as explicit as Curious, but it’s definitely “dirtier” in tone and intent, and boasts even more provocative angles. The most profitable market for this obviously artificial Italian-made “documentary” (a sort of Mondo Helga) will be the drive‑ins and sexploitation grinds, but with heavy promotion, it could wedge into wider playoff and perform quite well in general metropolitan situations.

In the world of horror cinema, the best way to fight a monster–be it supernatural, human, or natural one–is with a character that possesses special knowledge and skills. These experts, recruited into battle by other characters or colliding with the conflict intentionally, are the savants of the horror world.

Examples of savant characters include David Warner’s bat expert Phillip Payne in Nightwing, Zelda Rubinstein’s spiritual medium Tangina in Poltergeist, Matthew McConaughey’s dragon slayer Denton Van Zan in Reign of Fire, Lin Shaye’s paranormal investigator Elise Rainier in Insidious, and Otto Jespersen’s monster killer Hans in Trollhunter.

This article, divided into three sections based on what type of monstrous force is being fought, focuses on the greatest savant characters the horror genre has to offer.

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Vs. The Supernatural

Peter Cushing as Doctor Van Helsing in Horror of Dracula and The Brides of Dracula: In these two Hammer films,...

Rarely has half a year's wait been so richly rewarded. Early in August 2009 Jack Stevenson had promised a review copy of his forthcoming book "Scandinavian Blue," to be published by McFarland & Company, and dealing with a highly Ferronian subject: "The Erotic Cinema of Sweden and Denmark in the 1960s and 1970s." Still, I had nearly forgotten about it, when it finally arrived this March: But whatever the reasons for the delay, I'm sure they were good. Because as it turns out, Stevenson's book is not just an exhaustive and long-overdue study of a chapter in film history that by now mostly lives as a cliché of semi-trashy sixties liberation memorabilia, but doubles as one of the most timely political essays around.

Which is not to say it doesn't deliver as a connoisseur's chronicle of erotic esoterica, delving deeply into the more demented side of sexually charged filmmaking. Entire chapters are...