Buster Keaton backed into feature filmmaking with this 1923 effort, which essentially consists of three two-reelers (Keaton’s accustomed format) edited together. The structure is a vague parody of D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, with Buster fighting to win his woman from a stronger rival in the Stone Age, the Roman Empire, and modern times. It’s good but not great Keaton: the gags are chiefly basic slapstick, with little of the surrealistic refinement and visual sophistication he brought to his later features.Read More »

Extraterrestrial terror is keeping an eye out for human flesh in this horrifying tale of invasion! After a strange craft crash lands near a rancher’s home in the California desert, the rancher’s family believes the danger has passed. But when they are attacked by animals driven into a rage by the alien, they realize that something did survive the crash….and it’s hoping to take in its first meal on Earth….ranch style!Read More »

Set in a dreary urban landscape of Edmonton, LOVE AND HUMAN REMAINS is a dark comedy about a group of twentysomethings looking for love and meaning in the ’90s. The film focuses on roommates David, a gay waiter who has has given up on his acting career, and Candy, a book reviewer who is also David’s ex-lover. David and Candy’s lives are entangled with those of David’s friends (a busboy, a psychic dominatrix, and a misogynistic civil-servant) and Candy’s dates (a male bartender and a lesbian schoolteacher). Meanwhile, a serial killer menaces the concrete and asphalt neighbourhood in which David and Candy live.Read More »

A handful of teenagers, boys and girls, escape from a reform school and go round town. They go to a ball, the owner asks them to pay the bill.This man is very unpleasant, he hates the youth of today and he is a racist.The incident turns into free -for-all, then into a massacre.The runaways become chased criminals. One of the boys want to take his mates to a deserted village where they would find a refuge. Policemen and farmers are hot on their heels .Read More »

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Another amazing circus film gets an Alloy Orchestra score. Until its recent restoration by Lobster Films in France, Gallery of Monsters was virtually unknown and unseen. Despite the film’s title, it’s not a horror film. It’s an exciting and sometimes tender love story that follows the lives of circus folk, and particularly the loving relationship of Riquet and his wife, Ralda. The “monsters,” as the intertitles explain, are the evil circus owner and the lion tamer, whose unwanted advances are refused by the beautiful dancer, Ralda. The cast of characters are the staples of a circus side show – a giant, a little person, a bearded lady, a woman with only half a body, and others – who are sympathetically depicted as a supportive family, and come to the aid of the couple. Excellent cinematography, surreal costumes, and a terrifying lion attack bring this intriguing story to life.Read More »

Dramatic Effects Never Before Equalled – Or Even Imagined!

From a space wheel 500 miles above the Earth, commander Samuel Merritt (Walter Brooke) and his men (including Eric Fleming and Benson Fong) construct a sleek robot, then receive orders providing their new craft’s destination: Mars!

Five-time Oscar Winner George Pal (The War of the Worlds) produced this adventure rooted in the ’50s understanding of space exploration… and heightened by the awareness that no matter how advanced science becomes, human weaknesses remain.Read More »

A fictionalized biography of the world’s most celebrated sexual and physical pervert, who was infamous for his erotic behavior – going from woman to woman, seeking a love that eluded him.Read More »

Just prior to the French Revolution, Henriette takes step-sister Louise to Paris in hopes of curing her blindness. Lustful aristocrat de Praille has virginal Henriette abducted and brought to his estate, leaving Louise helpless in the big city. An honorable aristocrat (Schildkraut) helps Henriette escape from de Praille. Scoundrel Mother Frochard forces Louise to beg in the streets. Unable to find Louise, Henriette gives shelter to admirable politician Danton after he’s attacked, and she also runs afoul of radical revolutionary Robespierre.Read More »

In old Shanghai, two sisters, a prostitute and a singer, tried to escape from the local scoundrels with the help of a trumpet player and a newspaper seller.Read More »