Don Birnam, long-time alcoholic, has been “on the wagon” for ten days and seems to be over the worst; but his craving has just become more insidious. Evading a country weekend planned by his brother Wick and girlfriend Helen, he begins a four-day bender. In flashbacks we see past events, all gone wrong because of the bottle. But this bout looks like being his last…one way or the other.Read More »
A blend of reality and fiction, “Open Five” follows the story of Jake, a struggling musician and his sidekick, Kentucker, a maker of “poor” films and what happens when two girls (Lucy and Rose) venture down to Memphis for a long weekend. Written by K Audley
“a loamy, bittersweet ramble through the emotional and practical tangles of its young artists’ lives, as well as through the inner and outer life of Memphis itself, with its vigorous musical scene and its gospel churches and Graceland itself. Open Five should be distributed and made available on a big screen at a local movie theatre; in any case, its free online presence is a rare gift.”
Richard Brody, The New YorkerRead More »
College buddies Ben (Mark Duplass) and Andrew (Justin Leonard) are reunited in Seattle when the latter comes crashing into his pal’s marital bliss, in more ways than one. As a kind of bet – Andrew is involved in a porn-themed art project – they agree it would be pretty far out if two straight men were to have sex on camera. While drunk, they volunteer and set a date.
In the cold light of day, neither wants to be the one to back down: the funniest idea in Lynn Shelton’s bracing, superbly-acted low-budget comedy is how this now-or-never challenge becomes a clinching test of machismo. Ben knows his wife (Alycia Delmore) is never going to be cool with it, and bottles out of asking. To be fair, the film does a fair amount of squirming itself, but not before giving honest and hilarious thought to the carnal intricacies of the whole project.Read More »
Synopsis: “Mirage tells the story of an African football player in a small Hungarian town, who commits a crime and has to flee. He finds refuge on a farm deep in the Hungarian flatland. Soon he realizes that the farm is a modern slave camp where he is forced to fight for his freedom and ultimately his life.”
Quote:
The Hungarian plains might as well be Sergio Leone’s American West in Szabolcs Hajdu’s Mirage, an atmospheric fable whose setting feels like no place, any time. Isaach De Bankolé, as the loner who shows up here for reasons we never learn and contends with a gang of slave-driving farmers, carries a film that is philosophically related to but more satisfying than Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control. The picture should draw well at fests, but is willfully obscure enough that, sans an auteur whose name is known in the States, it may be a hard sell here. – John Defore, VarietyRead More »
Synopsis:
The tension between a lonely policemen and the journeymen of the counter culture provides the subtext, and the stunning martian look of the Arizona mesa the backdrop, of a brilliant and influential debut feature by musician James William Guercio; the film is the missing link between The Searchers and No Country for Old Men. John Wintergreen is a diminutive motorcycle cop working the lonely highways of Arizona in the mid seventies. He works alone, but occasionally hooks up with his pal “Zipper”. Wintergreen is conscientious and friendly, whereas Zipper is bored and argumentative, often holing up off the highway to read comic books rather than out on the road .Read More »
CHARLOTTE RAMPLING: THE LOOK is a biographical study of the luminous and emotionally liquid Rampling, told through a series of conversations between her and artist collaborators – including Peter Lindbergh, Paul Auster, and Juergen Teller.
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Synopsis: Brandy Burre had a recurring role on HBO’s The Wire when she gave up her career to start a family. When she decides to reclaim her life as an actor, the domestic world she’s carefully created crumbles around her. Using elements of melodrama and cinema verité, ACTRESS is both a present tense portrait of a dying relationship and an exploration of a complicated woman, performing the role of herself, in a complex-yet-familiar story.Read More »
SYNOPSIS: In this atomic adaptation of Mickey Spillane’s novel, directed by Robert Aldrich, the good manners of the 1950s are blown to smithereens. Ralph Meeker stars as snarling private dick Mike Hammer, whose decision one dark, lonely night to pick up a hitchhiking woman sends him down some terrifying byways. Brazen and bleak, Kiss Me Deadly is a film noir masterwork as well as an essential piece of cold war paranoia, and it features as nervy an ending as has ever been seen in American cinema.Read More »
A documentary shot at the end of pornographer Joe Sarnos’s life, which reveals his attempt to make one last film, as well as his relationship with his wife, Peggy.Read More »