Sniffing Out ‘Polyester’

“Mineshaft: The Cruising Murders" peels back the layers of controversy surrounding the making of the 1980 thriller, "Cruising." Directed by William Friedkin, the film triggered fierce protests from the LGBTQ+ community for its portrayal of a serial killer targeting gay men in New York's leather bars. Friedkin drew inspiration from the brutal murder of Variety reporter Addison Verrill, blurring the boundaries between cinematic fiction and real-life tragedy.

Harris Glenn Milstead, aka Divine (1945-1988) was the ultimate outsider turned underground hero. Spitting in the face of the status quos of body image, gender identity, sexuality, and preconceived notions of beauty, Divine succeeded in becoming an internationally recognized icon, recording artist, and character actor of stage and screen. Glenn went from the often-mocked, schoolyard fat kid to underdog royalty, standing up for millions of gay men and women, drag queens and punk rockers, and countless other socially ostracized misfits and freaks. With a completely committed in-your-face style, he blurred the line between performer and personality, and revolutionized pop culture.

Throughout the 1950s, Tab Hunter reigned as Hollywood’s ultimate male heartthrob. But throughout his years of stardom, Tab had a secret. Tab Hunter was gay, and spent his Hollywood years in a precarious closet that repeatedly threatened to implode and destroy him. Tab Hunter himself shares first hand, for the first time, what it was like to be a studio manufactured movie star during the Golden Age of Hollywood and the consequences of being someone totally different from his studio manufactured image.

An all-star tribute to Natalie Wood by some of her friends and co-workers.

A tormented jazz musician finds himself lost in an enigmatic story involving murder, surveillance, gangsters, doppelgängers, and an impossible transformation inside a prison cell.

Notorious Baltimore criminal and underground figure Divine goes up against Connie & Raymond Marble, a sleazy married couple who make a passionate attempt to humiliate her and seize her tabloid-given title as "The Filthiest Person Alive".

Megan is an all-American girl. A cheerleader. She has a boyfriend. But Megan doesn't like kissing her boyfriend very much. And she's pretty touchy with her cheerleader friends. Her conservative parents worry that she must be a lesbian and send her off to "sexual redirection" school, where she must, with other lesbians and gays learn how to be straight.

'Pleasantly plump' teenager Tracy Turnblad achieves her dream of becoming a regular on the Corny Collins Dance Show. Now a teen hero, she starts using her fame to speak out for the causes she believes in, most of all integration. In doing so, she earns the wrath of the show's former star, Amber Von Tussle, as well as Amber's manipulative, pro-segregation parents. The rivalry comes to a head as Amber and Tracy vie for the title of Miss Auto Show 1963.

A Baltimore teenager who picks up a second-hand camera starts snapping his way to stardom, soon turning into a nationwide sensation, with a fateful choice between his life and his art.

Horror and suspense in the story of a psychotic maniac who literally "loves" women to death.

A prim and proper schoolgirl goes against her society grandmother's wishes when she dates a motorcycle-riding juvenile delinquent.

In this horror parody, a masked serial killer menaces the town of Bulimia Falls with various sharp objects. Attention-seeking television personality Hagitha Utslay is soon on the scene, reporting on the ever-growing body count. Former mall security guard Doughy shows up to protect the teenage population, but he's clearly not much help, allowing the murderer to pick off even more hapless kids as numerous scary movies are referenced.

Blessed with a keen sense of smell and cursed with a philandering pornographer husband, a parasitic mother, and a pair of delinquent children, the long-suffering Francine Fishpaw turns to the bottle as her life falls apart -- until deliverance appears in the form of a hunk named Todd Tomorrow. Originally screened with "Odorama" scratch and sniff cards so the audience could (at their own risk) smell along with the film.

It's 1961, two years after the original Grease gang graduated, and there's a new crop of seniors and new members of the coolest cliques on campus, the Pink Ladies and T-Birds. Michael Carrington is the new kid in school - but he's been branded a brainiac. Can he fix up an old motorcycle, don a leather jacket, avoid a rumble with the leader of the T-Birds, and win the heart of Pink Lady Stephanie?

Shot on 8mm, and featuring the introduction of Divine, John Waters' sophomore film is a plotless collage of random incidents involving sex, drugs, religion and The Wizard of Oz, it was shown with an equally random soundtrack mixing “obnoxious radio advertisements, rock 'n' roll and press conferences with Lee Harvey Oswald's mother”. It was shown three times publicly, but never released commercially.

Beverly is the perfect happy homemaker, along with her doting husband and two children, but this nuclear family just might explode when her fascination with serial killers collides with her ever-so-proper code of ethics.

Produced for The Criterion Collecton.

The dramatic story of US Marines in training, in combat, and in love, during World War II. The story centers on a major who guides the raw recruits from their training to combat.

Assaulted by outlaws, donkey-riding Rosie joins a silent drifter's search for gold in the Old West.

The making of Paul Bartel's "Lust in the Dust." Featuring interviews with star Tab Hunter and producer Allan Glaser.

Tab Hunter’s first-person account of his struggle to come to terms with his sexual orientation in 1950s Hollywood, an era in which being openly gay was taboo.

A wealthy Beverly Hills resident who has just become a widow, Clare Lipkin temporarily takes on her friend Lisabeth as a house guest. As the two women deal with their upper-class woes, Clare's driver, Frank, and Lisabeth's servant, Juan, make a wager to see who can be the first to seduce the other's boss.

14 year old Allison has to go to a horse farm. With all the horses and the help of the owner Susan Hadley she finds new sense in her life.

A shy high school senior (Paralta) finds a magic locket that will allow her to trade one physical feature with anyone she murders.