USA

  • Joseph Cornell – Angel (1957)

    1951-1960ExperimentalJoseph CornellShort FilmUSA
    Angel (1957)
    Angel (1957)

    Quote:
    The image of the fountain returns in Angel (1957; color; 3 min.), one of Cornell’s most poignant films. Dedicated, as Cornell said, to his friend, the painter Pavel Tchelichew, who had recently died, the film offers a rather moving meditation on mortality. Comprised of static shots of a statue of an angel and a fountain in a Flushing cemetery, the films elegant and quiet close-ups against an expanse of blue sky of the statues solid yet partly decaying marble brilliantly capture a sense both of the earthly and time-bound and the unworldly and eternal. The films stylistically innovative dissociation of moving image from moving subject (a technique Cornell also largely deploys in “Centuries of June” from the same year) anticipates by several years the daring cinematic experiments of Andy Warhol’s Sleep (1963) and Empire (1964), foregrounding duration, in contrast to movement, as cinemas true subject.Read More »

  • S.R. Bindler – Hands on a Hard Body: The Documentary (1997)

    1991-2000CultDocumentaryS.R. BindlerUSA
    Hands on a Hard Body The Documentary (1997)
    Hands on a Hard Body The Documentary (1997)

    Twenty-four contestants compete in an endurance/sleep deprivation contest in order to win a brand new Nissan Hardbody truck. The last person to remain standing with his or her hand on the truck wins. An absurd marketing gimmick at first glance, the contest proves to be much more…Read More »

  • Phil Karlson – Kansas City Confidential (1952) (HD)

    USA1951-1960CrimeFilm NoirPhil Karlson
    Kansas City Confidential (1952) (HD)
    Kansas City Confidential (1952) (HD)

    An ex-con trying to go straight is framed for a million dollar armored car robbery and must go to Mexico in order to unmask the real culprits.

    A down-on-his-luck ex-GI Joe Rolfe finds himself framed for an armored car robbery. When he’s finally released for lack of evidence–after having been beaten up and tortured by the police–he sets out to discover who set him up, and why. The trail leads him into Mexico and a web of hired killers and corrupt cop.Read More »

  • J. Lee Thompson – The White Buffalo (1977)

    J. Lee Thompson1971-1980USAWestern
    The White Buffalo (1977)
    The White Buffalo (1977)

    In this strange western version of JAWS, Wild Bill Hickok hunts a white buffalo he has seen in a dream. Hickok moves through a variety of uniquely authentic western locations – dim, filthy, makeshift taverns; freezing, slaughterhouse-like frontier towns and beautifully desolate high country – before improbably teaming up with a young Crazy Horse to pursue the creature.Read More »

  • Jim Sharman – The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

    Jim Sharman1971-1980HorrorMusicalQueer Cinema(s)USA
    The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

    Quote:
    The shining textbook example of a film so bad it’s good, writer/director Jim Sharman’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show owns an absolutely unique place in film history, loosely considered the longest-running film of all time. This bawdy and cut-rate Frankenstein story became the definition of “cult classic” when theaters worldwide began offering midnight screenings (a tradition that continues today), attracting legions of decked-out fans to shout lines and throw rice at the screen, often while live performers acted out the plot. The film was quickly enveloped in kitsch, and since has become a well-known phenomenon frequently re-created on-stage, partly on the strength of such gonzo (and overtly sexual) musical numbers as “The Time Warp” and “Sweet Transvestite.”Read More »

  • George Manupelli – Cry Dr. Chicago (1971)

    1971-1980CultExperimentalGeorge ManupelliUSA
    Cry Dr. Chicago (1971)
    Cry Dr. Chicago (1971)

    The Chicago films do not use actors. Instead, the main characters are played by major avant garde talents from other creative fields. Dr. Chicago is played by renowned composer Alvin Lucier whose stream-of-consciousness soliloquies in the films are punctuated by his ferocious stutter. Painter and performance artist Mary Ashley, a primary member of the legendary ONCE Group, smolders throughout as Chicago’s girlfriend, Sheila Marie.Read More »

  • Amei Wallach – Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: Enter Here (2013)

    2011-2020Amei WallachDocumentaryUSA
    Ilya and Emilia Kabakov Enter Here (2013)
    Ilya and Emilia Kabakov Enter Here (2013)

    IMDB:
    Like the Kabakovs’ evocative art, ‘Ilya and Emilia KABAKOV: ENTER HERE’ has the sweep of a Russian novel and the immediacy of a family drama. It probes art’s ability to transcend oppression and exile. With extraordinary access, the film follows the Soviet-born international art luminaries, now U.S. citizens, to Putin’s Moscow, as they come face to face with their catastrophic past in the dizzying present. For the first time, Ilya Kabakov has returned to the hometown where his art was once forbidden, to install seven magical walk-in installations with his wife and partner-in-art, Emilia. The action ranges from the high plains of Texas to a blighted neighborhood in the Ukraine and climaxes as a sea of flashbulbs illuminate the artists at an opening pronounced ‘historic’.Read More »

  • Joseph L. Mankiewicz – The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

    Joseph L. Mankiewicz1941-1950ClassicsFilm BlancRomanceUSA
    The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
    The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)

    Synopsis:
    ‘In 1900, strong-willed widow Lucy Muir goes to live in Gull Cottage by the British seaside, even though it appears to be haunted. Sure enough, that very night she meets the ghost of crusty former owner Captain Gregg…and refuses to be scared off. Indeed, they become friends and allies, after Lucy gets used to the idea of a man’s ghost haunting her bedroom. But when a charming live man comes courting, Lucy and the captain must deal with their feelings for each other.’
    – Rod Crawford (IMDb)Read More »

  • Ian Christie – Arrows of Desire: The Films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (1994)

    1991-2000BooksIan ChristieUSA
    The Films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (1985)
    The Films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (1985)

    Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger formed the greatest creative partnership in the history of British Cinema – The Archers.
    Their films were often controversial: Churchill tried to suppress the release of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Later, The Red Shoes and The Tales of Hoffman startled and enchanted cinema audiences with their use of colour, form and music. In the last ten years the magic, poetry and passion of their work has been acknowledged around the world and they are firmly in the pantheon of film masters.Read More »

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