Beauty Break: Ten Sexiest Witches in Movies

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 👻🎃

Julian Sands in Warlock (1989) though, alas, we haven't seen it.

In the absence of writing time today, how about a visual list. Have you ever wondered why there are so few male witches (or warlocks if you will) in cinema? They're far more common on television. And when warlocks or sorcerers are portrayed in cinema they're usually asexual (sorry but Doctor Strange is the least sexy Avenger!) or old men and are just as likely to be good as evil.

Witches on the other hand are often sexual and usually beautiful... though the beauty is often an illusion. Many of those most glamorous witches are hiding a hideous side -- like they're secretly an old decrepit crone or something less than human (think of Anjelica Huston in The Witches... which we often do). Or maybe they are beautiful but their favourite disguise is something hideous (think Snow White's Queen). This frightening dichotomy and their dangerous sexuality surely has got heaps to do with cinema's male gaze. (This is a way of saying that we hoped for some gender parity in this holiday list of "Sexy Witches!" but it's almost all women.)

AFTER THE JUMP - TEN SEXIEST MOVIE WITCHES...

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Sir Sean Connery (1930-2020)

by Nathaniel R

Sean Connery at the 76th Oscars. Courtesy of HO/AMPAS

The Oscar winning superstar Sir Thomas Sean Connery has died two months after his 90th birthday. Connery's acting career began in 1953 as part of the chorus of a production of the stage musical South Pacific. Four years later his movie career began in earnest with several small roles the debut being a crime drama No Road Back.  Global fame would take another five years to arrive. It happened as the original 007 in Dr. No (1962), making Connery the figurehead of an colossally successful movie franchise. It's still running to this day 37 years after Connery let his license-to-kill expire.

He's the only James Bond to win an Oscar via 1987's mobsters vs cops drama The Untouchables. He retired from the screen after 2003's would-be franchise launch League of Extraordinarily Gentlemen but he remains beloved to multiple generations. After the jump, 12 essential Connery films to track his career (if we've written about them the link will take you there).

We lumped all Bond films into one because his career was so much larger than just the super spy...

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"Eat your candy"

Happy Halloween from Betty Draper. (This message brought to you by "Mad Men Quotes" and our own recent nostalgia for the greatest show television ever produced (2007-2015) 

20:20 (Pt 2) Power chords, romantic comedies, and unseen gems?

Due to our ongoing fetish for freezeframing movies at random and for the practical reasons of looking for which 2020 releases are streaming --we are rapidly approaching "year in review" list-season so we gotta catch up --we're freezing 2020 pictures at the 20:20 mark. If you missed part one, that's here. The movies were chosen entirely at random ....so long as they were easily accessible for viewing.

How many of these 15 movies have you seen? Any you've been meaning to catch up with?

Are the people ready to make opening arguments?

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Himbos in Peril: The Boxer-Briefs Horror of David DeCoteau

by Patrick Gratton

Marcus Hobson’s body trembled as he felt an external power take control. “Is this what enlightenment feels like?” Nothing’s been the same since the night he met Jaspen Frasier, the president of Omega Alpha Psy. Marcus never saw himself pledging. But that all changed with a single touch, as Jaspen confided in Marcus the secrets of his success. This holy ointment, was god’s, or the devil’s, gift to man to reclaim eternal power. The veil that set him back had been lifted, everything was within his grasp. Exhilarated, he wanted to be free to possess whatever his will desired. He basked in his beauty. His modesty had withered away, he felt free, free of the confines of his mind and soul. What mind? What soul? Little did Marcus know that those were withering away as well.

This is an excerpt from a synopsis of the David DeCoteau film The Brotherhood VII: The Ascension. Or is it? Does the film actually exist? I might have made it up but does it matter? With a filmography whose imagery and plots are so indistinguishably alike, as to make the audience's mind as foggy as the hunky protagonists, who is there really to say?

As a self-described “Gay Roger Corman”, the prolific DeCoteau has 160+ directorial credits to his name. It’s rare to find a filmmaker with such a large output, delving into so many various genres, with such limited social imprint. Despite his success working with B-Movie Mogul Charles Band, DeCoteau’s name is barely mentioned, even within the halls of the queer horror canon...

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