Beyond the Valley of the Dolls follows three women through their ups and downs of fame and fortune, directed by “king of the nudies” Russ Meyer and written by prolific film critic Roger Ebert. The film was intended to be a direct sequel to the film Valley of the Dolls, but when 20th Century Fox got Meyer to direct, and the film took a very different path, they made what must be one of the most bizarre, entertaining and truly psychedelic movies ever.

Although nowadays, what comes to mind when the spoof genre is discussed is the Scary, Epic, and Superhero Movie franchise, at one time it would be Airplane and Blazing Saddles, Naked Gun and Hot Shots. Black Dynamite taps into this vein of comedy. Like all of the above, it is played totally straight, yet is over the top in its silliness from beginning to end, and it works like a charm.

By many accounts, 2009 was a rather weak year in mainstream American cinema. James Cameron’s epic spectacle Avatar and Kathryn Bigelow’s humanist war drama The Hurt Locker both hogged most of the attention and glory from both audiences and critics alike. Additionally, there was 500 Days of Summer, a film beloved by audiences and hailed as the best romantic-comedy of the year.

WARNING: Contains spoilers throughout

The Graduate often appears near the top of many ‘all-time’ lists, especially among US cinephiles. On the other hand, it also attracts the odd backlash from those who claim it’s tonally incoherent and over-rated as a portrait of disillusioned rebellious American Youth.

WARNING: Contains Spoilers

How did anyone take it seriously?

There are certain scenes where you can see a twinkle in Al Pacino’s eyes, it’s like he knows he’s in trash but someone’s already whispered in his ear that he’s bagged the Oscar. It was a compromise. Not a Paul Newman style one, but because this is such Oscar bait I bet the jury were itching to award it best film, but alas, this was the year of Unforgiven and that would have been unforgivable.

Paul Thomas Anderson is one of those big SNL fans, he probably thought of Adam Sandler in a feature he would be before Sandler’s own film-vehicles that have ranged from the goods ones like Billy Madison, Wedding Singer to the dreadful Waterboy and 50 First Dates.

If you don’t know a reel of Hungarian cinema, frankly my dead readers it’s nothing to be damned about. With eight foreign-film Oscar nominations, Hungary has had minor success, the one major success being Istvan Szabo who after being Hungary’s fourth nom in 1980 for Confidence, did a Ingmar Bergman, being nominated a second year in row, producing the 1981 winner and his crowing achievement, Mephisto.

Jacques Tati like many comedic auteur offers few great stories, released in 1949 it marks another great physical-comics debut as writer, director, star, Tati’s effort is as classic as The Kid or Steamboat Bill Jr.

Whatever its title or version, Emir Kusturica’s commonly called 1993 feature Arizona Dream is in fitting with its many titles and Kusturica’s many motifs, arguably his funniest and best acted film, Arizona Dream will be his only American film and maybe the last great work of Jerry Lewis and the only of Vincent Gallo.

Mystery Train is a Memphis-based anthology-comedy caper about American foreigners’ and outsiders stuck in melancholy, facing the sins and situations ones feeling can lead too.