– You know what's really awful?

– No, tell me.

– Getting hooked. It's the end. But, if you only take one shot every once in awhile. Its no different than an occasional drink or cigarette.

Veronika Voss, once one of Ufa's greats and rumoured lover of Goebbels, has a chance meeting with #sports journalist Robert Krohn. Despite not recognising her at first glance, the faded star and her world turn out to be irresistible to him.

“What do you want from Voss? She's no good at soccer.”

– Grete

Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss [litt. The yearning of Veronika Voss] is #Fassbinder's tribute to both #BillyWilder's Sunset Blvd. (1950) and real-world actress Sybille Schmitz whose career, like Voss', suffered greatly due to her #morphine dependence after the Entnazifizierung.

A brawl over a woman. That's what breaks The Great Phroso. After recovery, a year later, he finds himself a #paraplegic and his stolen wife dead in a church with an infant next to her. To Africa he takes the child – it's the other man's, the ivory trader's – and carefully, vengefully raises her.

“How did God ever put a thing like you on this earth?”

– Maizie

Phroso, now known as Dead-Legs and White Voodoo to the tribe he resides over, uses his magician's skills to rule over his own little jungle empire. We see the gestation of Kurtz, oddly too an ivory trader in that other White Hell, Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad, 1899).

 

Despite attempts to tone it down on request of censors, West of Zanzibar is one of Tod Browning's meanest. Lon Chaney is fantastic, of course. His Phroso, torn by love and #revenge, one of the early and rare depictions of male frailty in western cinema.

All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl. Or a girl with a glue gun. Or skip the girl, get yourself a piece of cardboard, some foam latex, and a six pack of beer. Frank Grow's Red & Rosy is the embodiment of a special staple of #DIY culture that appears to be long-lost. Really kids, you don't need much of a budget. Or tomorrows latest equipment. The hottest Hollywood hotshot? Forget about it, ask your drunk uncle to yell at the camera for 10 minutes. You want authenticity? Tape some random medical footage straight from your teevee. Need a shot of adrenal juice?

 

Well, just watch this.