USA

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As Wolcott Gibbs once said to Shakespeare: Kafka, here’s your hat.

That’s just one of the deliciously eccentric messages being sent out by Woody Allen in his rich, not easily categorized new black-and-white comedy, “Shadows and Fog.” Among other things, “Shadows and Fog” contemplates life, death, love, literature, movies, American humor in general, the gags of Bob Hope in particular, the music of Kurt Weill and the changing fashions in B.V.D.’s.

Kleinman (Mr. Allen) is a timid clerk in the kind of unidentified Middle European city once so beloved by Kafka, Kafka’s imitators, the masters of the German Expressionist cinema of the 1920’s and their imitators. It is always night in this closed world of miasmic fog, cobbled alleys and street lamps that shed too little light but cast photogenically deep shadows.Read More »

Sequel to 1931’s Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein was directed by James Whale and stars Boris Karloff as The Monster, Elsa Lanchester in the dual role of his mate and Mary Shelley, Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein and Ernest Thesiger as Doctor Septimus Pretorius.

The film follows on immediately from the events of the earlier film, and is rooted in a subplot of the original Mary Shelley novel, Frankenstein (1818). In the film, a chastened Henry Frankenstein abandons his plans to create life, only to be tempted and finally coerced by the Monster, encouraged by Henry’s old mentor Dr. Pretorius, into constructing a mate for him.Read More »

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A 12 year old boy and his single mother live parallel lives. The boy spends his days alone while his mother works and goes out with her friends. The boy’s solitude is both a source of freedom and a cause for grief. His explorations slowly bring to light the dark contrast between the rules of society and the laws of nature. And before long, the delicate balance of his inner world becomes shattered by unforeseen events.Read More »

Synopsis
At the end of what she hopes to be her last day at work, a young gas station attendant attempts to leave town permanently. We slowly learn fragmented details about her life as she treks across the decaying wasteland called home.Read More »

NED RIFLE is the third and final chapter of Hal Hartley’s tragicomic epic begun with HENRY FOOL (1997, TIFF) and continued with FAY GRIM (2007). At once a saga concerning the Grim family of Queens and how their lives are turned upside down by the arrival of the self-proclaimed genius Henry Fool, the trilogy is also an illustration of America’s grappling with ideas, art, politics, and religion over the course of 20 years. In this swiftly paced and expansive conclusion, Henry and Fay’s son Ned sets out to find and kill his father for destroying his mother’s life. But his aims are frustrated by the troublesome, sexy and hilarious Susan, whose connection to Henry predates even his arrival in the lives of the Grim family.Read More »

Plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, a young husband and father questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself.

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From IMDB:

I’m going to try to be restrained in my praise of this film, but it’s going to be hard, because I think it’s about as close to perfect film-making as I’ve ever seen. I generally only write reviews for movies I’ve really loved, or really hated, and this movie I really loved.Read More »

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If you’re at all familiar with underground cinema, than you’ve probably heard tales about this flick for years. But actually seeing the damned thing is a different matter entirely. Crass, sick and hilarious, this no-budget b&w feature is filled with the essence of pure, undiluted cinematic derangement. Like the earliest works of John Waters, it revels in taboo-shattering shocks and an undying love for Hollywood kitsch. Glorious overwritten by George Kuchar, and directed by the late Curt McDowell (who was one of Kuchar’s first students), it’s a torrent of comically-lit cliches, heated to the point of lurid parody. The time: A dark and stormy night. The setting: An old, secluded mansion–the home of the terrifically obscene Mrs. Gert Hammond (Marion Eaton), who staggers about the place with heavy, mismatched eyebrows and a vomit-caked wig.Read More »

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When a man meets a young girl in a parking lot he attempts to help her avoid a bleak destiny by initiating her into the beauty of the outside world. The journey shakes them in ways neither expects.Read More »

A teenager’s routine visit to her father’s vacation home turns steamy when she finds herself unexpectedly attracted to her father’s fiancée.Read More »