There can be fewer people in the film world who embody the moniker ‘flawed genius’ better than Peter Sellers. Adored throughout the world for his hilarious comic creations – not least Inspector Clouseau – the ‘real’ Sellers was wracked with private torment and a chronic lack of confidence. It’s a curious balance which director Stephen Hopkins exploits to lift The Life and Death of Peter Sellers above the usual biopic fare.Read More »
Quote: “A former pilot suffering from blackouts discovers that a fellow flyer is suspected of being mixed up with a web of smugglers. While searching for his missing buddy, he unwittingly becomes entangled in a morass of suspicion!”Read More »
Plot (from AMG): The Ballad of Little Jo is based on a true story — several true stories, in fact. Suzy Amis plays demure young Josephine Monagan, who in 1866 is run out of her home town after bearing an illegitimate child. Fleeing westward, Josephine is terrified by stories of how treacherous the frontier can be for a woman alone. As a result, upon arriving in the muddy burg of Ruby City, she disguises herself as a man, going so far as to scar her face to suggest that she’s been in a few scrapes. In this guise, “Little Jo” does just fine by herself for nearly 30 years! Almost as good as Suzy Amis is Bo Hopkins as gunslinger Frank Badger, Little Jo’s best buddy (if only he knew….) Written and directed by Maggie Greenwald, The Ballad of Little Jo does a marvelous job conveying the people and places of its period; and, unlike Bad Girls (which was released around the same time), we aren’t bludgeoned to death by feminist revisionism. Unfortunately ignored when it went out to theatres in the fall of 1993, The Ballad of Little Jo has fared rather better on video.Read More »
Plot: After the Civil War, Union Major Clanton captures survivors of Quantrill’s Raiders, and gets them clemency at the cost of shooting a mob member. Convicted of murder by a kangaroo court, Clanton escapes and joins the former raiders in a gang devoted to robbing everything protected by the corrupt detective agency of his enemy Fowler; culminating in a personal showdown. Written by Rod CrawfordRead More »
Official website says: An immersive and enthralling journey through the Sonoran Desert on the U.S.-Mexico border, El mar la mar weaves together harrowing oral histories from the area with hand-processed 16mm images of flora, fauna and items left behind by travelers. Subjects speak of intense, mythic experiences in the desert: A man tells of a fifteen-foot-tall monster said to haunt the region, while a border patrolman spins a similarly bizarre tale of man versus beast. A sonically rich soundtrack adds to the eerie atmosphere as the call of birds and other nocturnal noises invisibly populate the austere landscape. Emerging from the ethos of Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab, J.P. Sniadecki’s attentive documentary approach mixes perfectly with Joshua Bonnetta’s meditations on the materiality of film. Together, they’ve created an experience of the border region like nothing you’ve seen, heard or felt before.Read More »
Quote: Over six years on and off in the making, Jennifer Reeves’ debut feature “The Time We Killed” is a beautiful, impressionistic and deeply personal cinematic poem that, even though it takes the point of view of a so-called mentally disturbed woman, captures a clear view of the world that we live in now. Somewhat of a companion piece to Reeves’ earlier half-hour short “Chronic”, “The Time We Killed” combines elements of experimental film, narrative cinema, documentary to create a stellar example of personal filmmaking that operates on multiple levels — psychological, sociological, political, and even technological.Read More »
Plot Synopsis by Paul Brenner Sidney Pollack marked his feature film directing debut with this taut suspense drama, based upon an actual incident reported in Time Magazine. Sidney Poitier stars as Alan Nuell, a student volunteer at a medical clinic in Seattle who answers the phone to find Inge Dyson (Anne Bancroft) on the other end. Inge, depressed about her life, has just taken an overdose of sleeping pills. With Inge slowly dying, Alan tries to keep her talking on the phone while the police try to trace the call and save her life. Inge tells Alan that she has decided to end it all because her husband has discovered that he is not the father of her son.Read More »
Quote: Damon Packard’s four-year in the making epic follows the exploits of husband/wife moguls trapped with a deadbeat couch potato brother in a hallucinogenic 1-900 world of 1991. Everyone is plotting to kill everyone else including themselves and ultimately do. Inspired by the corporate take-over era of the late 80s/early 90s and all the dark, atmospheric neo-noir thrillers that came along with it.Read More »