USA

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A psychiatrist with intense acrophobia (fear of heights) goes to work for a mental institution run by doctors who appear to be crazier than their patients, and have secrets that they are willing to commit murder to keep.Read More »

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I’ve been brooding a lot lately about the way in which many of the best movies around have been ravaged by “narrative correctness.” This is the notion fostered by producers, distributors, and critics — often collaborating as script doctors and always deeply invested in hackwork — that there are “correct” and “incorrect” ways of telling stories in movies. And woe to the filmmaker who steps out of line. Much as “political correctness” can point to a displaced political impotence — a desire to control language and representation that sets in after one despairs of changing the political conditions of power — “narrative correctness” has more to do with what supposedly makes a movie commercial than with what makes it interesting, artful, or innovative. Invariably narrative correctness means identifying with the people who pay for the pictures rather than with the people who make them.Read More »

Liz and Merry Noel become friends as college roommates and their friendship endures over the years. Liz becomes a respected “serious” novelist. Merry Noel marries, has a daughter and writes, too: “trash” fiction which becomes enormously successful. Their story begins in college and jumps ahead some years at a time to show their relationship with each other and those in their orbits as they grow and mature.Read More »

AMG: When a blind date arranged by mutual friends results in a whirlwind courtship for an enchanted young couple, the pair soon discover that fate may not ultimately be so kind in director Jeff Lipsky’s affecting romance. As the rain poured down on the night that they first met, Stuart and Nicole sat mesmerized in a small diner, wondering if life could truly get any better than it was in those early, magical moments. In the coming weeks they found that indeed life could get better, but as the young couple embarks on a dizzying romance their initial enchantment soon gives way to a painful reversal of fortunes. With human flaws eclipsing the perceived initial perfection and the disparities of their backgrounds prying open an ever deepening chasm filled with selfishness and religious conflict, Stuart and Nicole soon find that the heartbreak of their failing romance is as emotionally devastating as their early moments together were intoxicating.Read More »

If you watched TV, went to the movies, or listened to the radio in the 80s and 90s, you heard Suzanne Ciani’s work. A five-time Grammy nominated composer, recording artist, and electronic music pioneer, whose sounds have been featured in countless commercials, video games, and feature films. A LIFE IN WAVES is the story of a woman who changed the sound of music and film.Read More »

“Countless books have been written about Greta Garbo since her self-imposed exile in the 1940s, yet this comprehensive biography may be the final word. Gottlieb’s research is so complete and his style so engaging that this book almost reads like an oral biography told through a singular voice… This is a brilliantly written and constructed portrait of a true icon of the cinema…” (Library Journal)

“Searching and sensitive … A lengthy “Garbo reader” full of excerpts and articles about her rounds out Gottlieb’s perfectly paced account and the wealth of photos is a plus. The result is a masterful look at an elusive Hollywood giant….” (Publishers’ Weekly)Read More »

A short video documentary on Larry Janiak’s time as an instructor at the Institute of Design in Chicago, where he taught undergraduate and graduate students for 12 years. Aaron Siskind hired Larry in 1968 to start an experimental live action and animated film area at the school. A narrator introduces Larry’s career and achievements at the school and guides viewers through the animation filmmaking area. The film primarily features footage of a beginning animation course taught by Larry.Read More »

THE SKY ON LOCATION, 1982, 16mm 78 min. Color

On location in the American West,
Co-produced with Zweites Deutches Fernsehen, West Germany.

“Is it possible to confront nature with a real purity of vision? The Sky on Location is a personal meditation on the landscape of the American west that tracks the ruling conception in nature in the 19th and 20th centuries from the pioneers through the instamatic tourists, at the same time that it obsessively follows the four seasons. The elemental vicissitudes of the weather, the exact moment of the day, the color of the light and the soil and the trees form an acute visual record of the constantly changing mood of the landscape. The film successfully attempts, with quiet, passionate, almost single-minded firmness, to confront us as nakedly as possible with our cultural inability to see nature whole, without preconceptions.” – Ernest LarsenRead More »

A Bavarian mother loses three sons in World War I and goes to America to join the fourth.Read More »