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Francois Truffaut famously said, "There's no such thing as an anti-war film." But if there's a counter-argument, it's Stanley Kubrick's 1957 "Paths of Glory." Contrary to its title, the film depicts battle as anything but glorious.

Set in France during World War 1, the film stars Kirk Douglas as Colonel Dax. After infantrymen under Dax's command refuse to charge into a suicidal attack, three men, Paris, Ferol, and Arnaud, are chosen to be court-martialed for cowardice and made an example of via execution. The Colonel tries his best to get them acquitted but to no avail.

In another movie, the three men might be saved at the last minute by Dax's ingenuity, but in a Kubrick movie, they're slowly marched to the firing squad and executed. The movie underscores the meaninglessness of their deaths by ending with an acknowledgment that soon, their comrades will be thrown back into the meat grinder of combat.

Above: Manny Farber and Patricia Patterson in their Hudson Street apartment, New York City, 1967.“Manny Farber writes a visual, sensory account of his thoughts, not necessarily the polished and fully articulated ones, but those which cumulatively add up to the rich life of the mind.”—Josephine Halvorson“The inner machinations of my mind are an enigma.”—Patrick Star“You start anywhere and end up anywhere.”—Luc Sante2019 has turned out to be quite the year for film’s conquering hero, the writer and painter Manny Farber (1917–2008). The January-February 2019 issue of Film Comment featured a transcription of a never-published lecture delivered by Farber at the Museum of Modern Art in 1979. Helen Molesworth put on an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles called “One Day at a Time: Manny Farber and Termite Art,” in which his celebrated love of go-for-broke termiting-tapeworming-fungusing served as a “starting point for assembling...

Stars: Constance Towers, Antony Eisley, Michael Dante, Virginia Grey, Patsy Kelly | Written and Directed by Samuel Fuller

The Naked Kiss opens with a fight. And Kelly (Constance Towers) – an experienced escort reclaiming her money from a punter – will never stop fighting. Just for one night it looks like she’s left her worst times behind, as she arrives in Grantville, a small town where no one knows her name. But then she discovers her first customer, Griff (Antony Eisley), is a local policeman. He offers a deal: she can’t operate within the town itself, but he’ll set her up in a brothel outside the limits.

But Kelly is looking for a life more meaningful. So, she finds herself in a hospital for disabled children. She’s a natural. The kids love her. Her colleagues love her. But Griff still can’t trust her – especially when she falls for his enormously wealthy best bud,...

Starring: Peter Breck, Constance Towers, Larry Tucker, Gene Evans, Hari Rhodes, James Best | Written and Directed by Samuel Fuller

The prolific Samuel Fuller carved a niche – or perhaps a gutter – in making exploitation shockers just outside the Hollywood studio system. His had an ability to elevate trash material to something approaching art. Writer and producer on most of his movies, he undoubtedly wielded enough control to be regarded as an auteur.

He also had high-minded ideas. Shock Corridor opens and closes with a quote from the controversial Greek tragedian Euripides: “Whom God wishes to destroy He first makes mad.” Sandwiched between is an absurd thriller, nonsensical and enjoyable and almost certainly allegorical.

Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island saw a detective enter a mental asylum to solve a case. Here, the guy going deep is a Pulitzer-pursuing journalist named Johnny (Peter Breck), who’s there to solve the murder of a man named Sloan.

Stars: Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Edmund MacDonald, Claudia Drake | Written by Martin Goldsmith | Directed by Edward G. Ulmer

Thanks to its absurd plotting and an even more absurd running time (it’s not even seventy minutes long), Detour is a breeze of a watch. Essentially a noir road movie, it’s fast, funny, grimy and atmospheric, and it comes with an absolute belter of a last ten minutes.

We meet our protagonist Al (Tom Neal) as a dishevelled drifter, hitchhiking his way across Nevada. He remembers his glory days in New York. He was a pianist and she – Sue (Claudia Drake), the love of his life – was a singer. One day she decided to jet off to L.A. to chase her Hollywood dream. Al wanted to chase his dream of Sue. He was flat broke but determined to marry her, so off he went.

On the way he hitches...