— Jonas Mekas wrote:
“The film consists of three parts. The first part is made up of footage I shot with my first Bolex, during my first years in America, mostly from 1950-1953. It shows me and my brother Adolfas, how we looked in those days; miscellaneous footage of immigrants in Brooklyn, picnicking, dancing, singing; the streets of Williamsburg.

— Jonas Mekas wrote:
“The second part was shot in August 1971, in Lithuania. Almost all of the footage comes from Semeniškiai, the village I was born in. You see the old house, my mother (born 1887), all the brothers, goofing, celebrating our homecoming. You don’t really see how Lithuania is today: you see it only through the memories of a Displaced Person back home for the first time in twenty-five years.Read More »

Documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman goes behind the scenes at the National Gallery in a journey to the heart of a museum inhabited by masterpieces of Western art from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.
This three-hour epic has no voiceover, no score and no added sound effects. The nearest thing to music is the drone of the polishing machines at dawn. In a richly detailed, beautifully nuanced portrait of the gallery’s working life, we are guided gently from board meeting to retouching workshop, from gallery floor, to seminar room, from the difficult financial decisions facing the charity’s executives to visitors’ awed appreciation of the exhibitions.
Combining a vivid sense of how vast the gallery’s many activities are with an eye for droll observational detail, the film reveals how the gallery works and its relations with its staff, public and paintings.Read More »

Plot & Review:
A former auctioneer, Carlo Mezzetti (Eduardo De Filippo), homeless with his daughter Annuccia (Vanna Vanni), clings to favorable situations and legal technicalities in order to find temporary housing and to illegally occupy vacant houses.
The two are accompanied by the spouses Squeglia, Pasqualino (Peppino De Filippo), self-styled pharmacist, and his wife Olimpia (Titina De Filippo).
Through a fraudulent trick, he manages to convince the owner of one of the vacant houses illegally occupied by him, to sign a contract, all for the benefit of Carlo and his companions in misfortune.
The cheated owner, however, falls in love with Annuccia. Carlo accepts, thus, to give the hand of his daughter to the landlord, preventing further legal action by the latter.Read More »

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Featuring a legendary ensemble from the classic age of Egyptian Cinema, starring Naguib El-Rihani, who’s probably had the most influence on theatre and comedy in the Middle East even close to a century from his death, with only eight films in production before an untimely death during filming Ghazl al-banat. The beautiful Jewish singer, Layla Murad, Youssef Wahby, and the musical prodigy of Mohamed Abdel-Wahab, the most celebrated composer of the time. A heartwarming comedy from a bygone era.Read More »

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A compelling documentary that analyzes the origins and the events that characterized the phenomenon of fascism in Italy.

The film offers a record of historical, political and social events, from 1911 to 1945 in Italy and their connection to Europe and the rest of the world.Read More »

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The Wet Ones is like The Mr. Bill Show on crack, and that is entirely on purpose. Using the tagline “a movie made by maniacs, for maniacs,” this psychedelic, action figure starring, splatterfest more than lives up to it. It is written and directed by musician/filmmaker Wigwolf, who plays guitar while wearing a werewolf mask, long, flowing wig, and a tutu. It features homemade sets with hand-mutilated dolls having adventures and stabbing each other in the p***y.
One doll featured prominently has a red shock wig and an enormous hard-on and goes by Doctor AIDS (Wigwolf). It also has a Katy Perry doll that gets into all sorts of peril. Her adventures include being attacked by one of the sisters from Jack Hill’s Spider Baby (Rachel Alig) before fighting against the evil corporate influence of Titanic Sinclair. There is also Bunnula the vampire rabbit, Elvis at the disco (Morris Slater Diamond), Joan of Arc (Lauren Barrett), and J.R. Jickenjacker (Jamie Robert MacDougall).Read More »

Summary: In a future where a failed global-warming experiment kills off most life on the planet, a class system evolves aboard the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe via a perpetual-motion engine.Read More »

Eighteen-year-old Rémi goes to a casting where the director appears to be drawn to his acting as much as his physique. Confused by his first experience, Rémi wanders around Paris in search of himself.

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Open Bodies is an unusually sensitive portrait of late adolescence with its half-formed desires and the tug of war between sexual curiosity and reticence. – Stephen Holden in The New York Times.Read More »

A science-fiction writer creates a sexy robot-girl.

Letterboxd reviews
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★★★½ Watched by Marcy Webb 26 Dec 2020

If you ever wanted to see R2-D2 control sex scenes, and you like an early 80s score, then this is exactly the film for you.

No doubt, despite the amount of penis screentime and lesbian sex, this is a film explicitly made for the straight male gaze. It would be hard to argue against a misogynistic reading, and this film carries an unhealthy dose of of rape/sexual assault and predatory stalking into its sexual scenarios, that should require an upfront trigger warning. While it can carry an inherent eroticism for many, for me the eroticism goes away considering the narrative context. That said, hypnosis, servitude, fuck dolls, remote control ARE many people’s kinks. While the films are miles apart, a story about a man constructing a woman after he can no longer see the woman he loves (to fuck) not only explicitly references Frankenstein, but is part of a lineage that goes back to Metropolis, and continues into modern films too.Read More »