‘Variety’
Film Twitter has been debating the worthiness of the Criterion Channel this week after this tweet went viral. You’re allowed to your own opinion, of course, but from where we sit, the Criterion Channel — and, by extension, the Criterion Collection — remains an integral voice when it comes to defining the canon of cinema. That’s where I recently discovered Variety, a 1983 feminist neo noir revolving around a young woman’s burgeoning obsession with pornography after she takes a job as a ticket seller at a dirty movie theater on the outskirts of Times Square. The movie is a veritable “who’s who” of early-’80s downtown scenester iconoclasts (Nan Goldin! Spalding Grey! Sandy McLeod!) and up-and-comers (Luis Guzman! Will Patton! Mark Boone Junior!), and what it lacks in polish it more than makes up for in its gritty authenticity.