Synopsis
Angela (Gaynor), a poor Neapolitan girl desperate to acquire medication for her sick mother, comes into conflict with the police and finds refuge with a traveling circus. Under the big top, she meets Gino (Farrell), a painter who falls in love with her while the law closes in.Read More »
From Amos Vogel’s Film as a Subversive Art:
One of the very few Brakhage films to have a plot and be acted, this bitter and wise polemic pits an actor who constantly confesses his role against an unseen audience. He sarcastically mocks our belief in filmic truth, disclaiming the omnipotence we ascribe to him and the director and insists on the falsehood and artificiality of the art work. This is a very modern film of ambiguity, mixed tenses, skepticism, and ultimately, anguish at the realization that the artist is both con-man and magician, impotently straining for unattainable perfection yet inevitably being taken seriously by an audience panting to be duped.Read More »
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LUMINOUS MOTION is a dreamlike and erotically charged thriller from critically acclaimed director Bette Gordon (Variety). Deborah Kara Unger (The Game) stars as an unnamed hustler who seduces and robs gullible men while criss-crossing the country with her ten-year-old son Phillip (Eric Lloyd, The Santa Clause). Phillip grows accustomed to this outlaw life on the road, but his world is turned upside-down when his mother settles in the suburbs with a carpenter named Pedro (Terry Kinney). Desperate to reclaim his mom’s attentions, Phillip plots Pedro’s violent end, hoping for a return to the road. But this Oedipal dream turns into a nightmare as they are pursued by ghosts from their past, including Phillip’s menacing father (Jamey Sheridan, Spotlight), who seems to be intent on reclaiming his place at the head of this deteriorating family.Read More »
One of the Best Films of 2008 –Entertainment Weekly, Time Out NY, NY Post
modestly scaled movie with a heart the size of the Ritz – New York Times
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Birdy is a 1984 American drama film based on William Wharton’s 1978 novel of the same name. Directed by Alan Parker, it stars Matthew Modine and Nicolas Cage. Set in 1960s Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the film focuses on the friendship between two teenage boys, Birdy (Modine) and Al Columbato (Cage). The story is presented in flashbacks, with a frame narrative depicting their traumatic experiences upon serving in the Vietnam War.Read More »
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Beeswax is Bujalski’s third feature and the first to be conceived and shot since Funny Ha Ha (2002) and Mutual Appreciation (2003) turned him into a rising indie star. For the most part, it’s just as insular and homogeneous as any of the films Taubin rapped in Film Comment. It takes place in Austin, Texas, the little countercultural cocoon that launched Bujalski’s career, and most of the action centers on a funky little vintage clothing boutique favored by college students and the like. Its primary characters are all young, straight, white, middle-class, and college educated. And like so many other mumblecore movies, Beeswax is largely preoccupied with sexual and romantic maneuvering, as a young couple who’ve broken up circle each other tentatively and get back together.Read More »
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A rich but unscrupulous old woman plots with a scientist to have her brain implanted in the skull of a sexy young woman.Read More »
Inspired in form by American police TV shows and soap operas, The Golden Boat is a madcap, surreal dash through the streets of New York city, telling the mysterious and often hilarious story of an aged street-person named Austin, a comically compulsive assassin, as he joins up with a young rock critic and philosophy student named Israel Williams. In the course of their adventures, Austin pursues his object of desire – a Mexican soap opera star – and along the way engages a host of TV characters and bit players, whose repartee range from gangsterish insults to the question of God’s existence.Read More »
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A hit-man tries to seduce the mother of a child who witnessed his most recent kill.Read More »