5/10 (Bad — but definitely watch if you’re a B-film sci-fi fan)
I think the most important lesson I learned from the hilariously (occasionally) bad 50s sci-fi alien monster caper It! The Terror from Beyond Space is that in future female scientists and doctors still serve coffee and lunch… Continue reading
8/10 (Very Good)
Guy Maddin’s first feature film is a spectacle to behold. A classic sort of frame story devolves (positively) into a dreamlike wandering in an alternative Iceland, with strange preachers, bark fish, a woman discovered on the shore wrapped in nets, young girls floating down rivers in coffins… Maddin manipulates silent black-and Continue reading
8/10 (Very Good)
Atomic Cafe (1982) is a scathing documentary on the atomic age created from archival film from the 40s-early 60s. The scope of the material is extensive: military training films (often the most morbidly hilarious and poorly acted of the bunch), television news, various other government-produced propaganda films Continue reading
8/10 (Very Good — heed the various caveats…)
2010, up for a best Foreign Film Oscar (Greece)
Giorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth (2009) is probably the strangest film ever nominated for an Oscar. The film treads a fine line between black comedy and excruciatingly/twisted dark drama. I found myself drawn into its bizarre otherworldly Continue reading
7/10 (Good)
Multiple works by the famous Japanese novelist Kôbô Abe were turned into successful movies by Hiroshi Teshigahara (the most well known is A Woman in the Dunes which was nominated for two oscars, including best director). So while browsing the internet looking for other films inspired by Kôbô Abe’s works Continue reading
6.75/10 (Average — worth watching for those interested in foreign silent films)
Bed and Sofa (1927) was directed by Abram Room and remains his most well-known film. It tells the story of a ménage à trois (a very daring plot for Soviet cinema in the 1920s) between one woman (Liuda) and two men (Volodia and Kolia). Continue reading
8/10 (Very Good)
Richard Loncraine’s Richard III is an inventive adaptation of Shakespeare’s famous play by the same name. Instead of a late medieval setting, we’re greeted with an industrial, Continue reading
The French director Georges Méliès (1861-1938) is rightly famous for his innovative use of special effects. He’s credited with inventing time-lapse photography, multiple exposures, stop-trick, and dissolves. I’ve selected two outrageously fun short films of his. He’s most famous for the sci-fi classic Voyage to the Moon, but any cinema lover will enjoy these two pieces of cinematic history.
Le Diable Noir (1905)
8.25/10 (Very Good)
If Jan Potocki’s fantastic 18th century novel A Manuscript Found in Saragossa — a frame story within a frame story within a frame story — was recited over the course of a wine filled evening by a drunken sailor the result might conjure something of the kaleidoscope of heavily tinted Continue reading
Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations 