A Scanner Darkly (2006)

The war on drugs has been lost, and when a reluctant undercover cop is ordered to spy on those he is closest to, the toll that the mission takes on his sanity is too great to comprehend in director Richard Linklater's rotoscoped take on Philip K. Dick's classic novel. With stratospheric concern over national security prompting paranoid government officials to begin spying on citizens, trust is a luxury and everyone is a suspected criminal until proven otherwise. Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) is a narcotics officer who is issued an order to spy on his friends and report back to headquarters. In addition to being a cop, though, Arctor is also an addict. His drug of choice is a ubiquitous street drug called Substance D, a drug known well for producing split personalities in its users.

                           
Review By Perry Seibert

Richard Linklater's decision to film his adaptation of Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly in an animated style similar to his earlier film Waking Life exemplifies everything good about him as a filmmaker. By forcing viewers to constantly assess what and who they are looking at, Linklater is able to underscore the paranoid and Big Brother surveillance aspects of the story -- elements further enhanced when one recalls this film hit theaters around the time that surveillance tactics were a hotly contested political issue. Linklater does a fine job of opening up these topics for examination, and he even allows his audience to laugh at the same time. The drugged-out ramblings and misadventures of characters played by Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, and Rory Cochrane offer comic relief so humorous that it occasionally overwhelms the more serious aspects of the film. One gets the feeling that if Linklater ever wanted to have a giant box-office success he could make a great stoner comedy with the three of them. As funny and interesting as the entire film is, it falls short of entering the pantheon of great Linklater films mostly because the style of the film makes it hard to think of the characters in the film as real people. The audience will find it interesting when Keanu Reeves' undercover drug officer Bob Arctor slowly begins to lose himself in a haze of addiction, paranoia, and psychosis, but there is no sense of real human tragedy or loss. This lack of catharsis is underscored when, for the movie's end, Linklater appropriates Dick's personal note from the book where Dick dedicates it to a list of friends and acquaintances who have suffered from drug abuse. That simple list of names and afflictions carries more emotional weight than the film. Even if it is too cerebral by a hair, Linklater's film asks intelligent questions about the many ways drugs and drug policy affect society and individuals. By capturing the paranoia of that world, and presenting it in a style that creates a unique viewing experience, A Scanner Darkly stands as one of the very best Philip K. Dick adaptations.

The Fantastic Planet (1973)

   

A French/Czech co-production, the dream-like La Planete Sauvage concerns the degradation of the Oms, human-like creatures on the futuristic planet Yagam. The Oms are kept as pets and beasts of burden by the Draggs, 39-foot beings who comprise Yagam's ruling class. The status quo is upset when Terr, one of the Oms, accidentally receives an education, whereupon he organizes the other Oms to demand equality with the Draggs. Based on Stefen Wul's novel Ems En Serie, Fantastic Planet was the winner of a 1973 Cannes Film Festival grand prize.

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Review By Derek Armstrong

Rarely has a titular adjective so accurately captured the experience of watching a movie as in Fantastic Planet. The film's alternate universe is both totally an element of fantasy, and fantastic in its vernacular sense: an absolute marvel to behold. Rene Laloux's animated French-language allegory takes trippiness to new levels of pure imagination, conjuring a planet where humans are both domesticated pet and outlaw nuisance to the native rulers. These rulers, the skyscraper-sized Traags, are blue humanoids with red eyes and vaguely aquatic features -- but who otherwise are pretty genial, intellectual beings. It's no coincidence we're supposed to see ourselves in them, but Fantastic Planet is no mere plea for us to trade places with the Earth creatures we so callously enslave and kill. Masterfully, Laloux's film also invites us to identify with the humans, whose spirit of determination inspires them to an against-all-odds uprising. But however many ways Fantastic Planet invites reflection, it's at least as interested in wowing its audiences with otherworldly technology, flora and fauna. The film pauses to flesh these out through atmospheric vignettes, featuring tall plants that whip the air aimlessly, intricate groves of multi-colored trees, small bulbous-eyed creatures that make clothing by foaming bubbles from their mouths, or giant winged beasts that scream in frightening bursts. (The sound design is a discussion in and of itself, consisting of excellently 1970s computerized beeps and boops, plus a soundtrack that could accompany a porn movie from that era, without that being the least bit silly). The Traags are a fully realized entity both familiar and unsettlingly foreign -- when their meditations carry them skyward in enclose bubbles, it's breathtaking. The one complaint is that the spell is broken slightly by the dispassionate and largely unnecessary narration of the lead character, reflecting on events after the fact, which tends to distance us from the bizarre immediacy of the story. Fantastic Planet is showing us so much, it doesn't need to tell us anything.

Into the Woods (1990)

            

Stephen Sondheim's Tony Award-winning musical is preserved in this made-for-television film of the stage hit. Spun around several children's fairy tales, writer and director James Lapine takes Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Jack (from the beanstalk), the Wicked Witch and the Childless Baker and his wife, and intertwines their stories in the forest as they try to achieve their respective goals. In the first act, the characters are looking for things that they hope will make them happy, and in the second act, they see the consequences of setting these goals. Sondheim's music and lyrics won the Tony for "Best Musical Score."

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Review By Craig Butler 

Since its Broadway debut, Into the Woods has become a staple of regional and community theatres around the country. The video translation captures much of the magic of the original production; however, because the stage show was essentially filmed as a stage show, rather than re-imagined for film, there is an inescapable static quality to the proceedings, as well as a "distancing" effect that keeps the viewer from really getting involved with the story. That said, there is still a great deal to recommend the video, especially for theatre enthusiasts. Stephen Sondheim's glorious score is presented in full, allowing one to enjoy the witty "Agony," the lovely "Children Will Listen," the amazing "Giants in the Sky," and the touching "No One Is Alone." James Lapine's witty dialogue and intricate plotting are also preserved, though they suffer significantly from the static filming. Bernadette Peters is a delicious Witch and Joanna Gleason a stand-out as the Baker's Wife. Gleason uses her wry delivery, guarded warmth, and underlying sense of restlessness to create a fairy tale character with considerable depth. Ben Wright is a lovably befuddled Jack and Danielle Ferland an amusingly tough Red Riding Hood. Into the Woods is a valuable record of an important musical, but it's a shame that such an imaginative musical did not receive a more imaginative video production.

Forbidden Zone (1982)

           

The bizarre and musical tale of a girl who travels to another dimension through the gateway found in her family's basement.

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The Mill and the Cross (2011)

Lech Majewski directed this visually striking examination of the nexus between art and politics in the 16th century. In 1564, the Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel created one of his best-known and most controversial works, "The Procession to Calvary," in which Christ, carrying his cross, makes his way to his own crucifixion though a crowded landscape that features representations of hundreds of historic and contemporary figures. The painting was a biting commentary on political matters of the day as well as a satiric view of religion, and in The Mill & the Cross, Majewski re-creates the making of Bruegel's masterpiece, as the artist (played by Rutger Hauer) stages the images and explains their meanings while we learn more about the individuals depicted and the people who posed for the work, many of whom have their own stories to tell. Using digital imaging technology, The Mill & the Cross allows viewers to enter into Bruegel's painting as the static figures come to life. Also starring Charlotte Rampling and Michael York, The Mill & the Cross received its American premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival.

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Eldorado (2012)

The Stranger, a tall striking creature dressed in white sets into motions a series of events whilst reciting the Edgar Allen Poe Poem "Eldorado", which will have an effect on those heading towards the mythical city. The evening was going to be a normal Blues Brothers tribute gig for Oliver and Stanley Rosenblum, The Jews Brothers at a local Bar Mitzvah, but things were not going to go to plan for Stan and Ollie. After being wrongly sent to entertain the annual conference of Neo Nazi's instead of the stripper, which was sent to the Bar Mitzvah by their inept Manager JJ. The Jews Brothers are chased out of town by the head of the Californian Chapter of Neo Nazi's General Zwick, and after contacting their agent JJ who makes amends for the mix up by sending the boys and the stripper Lesley Dean to do a show at the Eldorado Festival. This sets in motion a series of events...

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Wisconsin Death Trip (2000)

This film adaptation of Michael Lesy's 1973 book takes a look at the sordid and disturbing underside of life in a small Wisconsin community in the 1890s. In the early 1970s, Lesy discovered a large collection of curious photographs from Black River Falls, Wisconsin, taken near the end of the 19th century, and began doing research on the town in hopes of learning the story behind them. Lesy was startled by what he learned; over the course of a decade, Black River Falls fell victim to a severe diphtheria epidemic, the local economy collapsed following the shutdown of a mining business, a serial arsonist terrorized the community, a lunatic claiming to act under God's orders held 26 people hostage at the local church, two children murdered a farmer, a number of infants were abandoned or killed, and an undercurrent of violence and madness seemed to taint all aspects of the town's history. Using both the original photographs and silent recreations staged by director James Marsh (accompanied by narration from Ian Holm), Wisonsin Death Trip attempts to recreate the disturbing qualities of the photos and news clippings that formed the basis of Lesy's book.

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The Man From Earth (2007)

In the tradition of such psychologically-charged sci-fi outings as The Next One (1982) and K-PAX (2001) comes the cerebral science fiction opus The Man From Earth (2007). The story concerns Professor John Oldman, a scientist who summons a group of associates to a cabin one freezing night, and strikes them with a fantastic revelation: he is not a traditional human, but a 14,000 year-old immortal, who has survived centuries of evolution from the Cro-Magnon Era to the present. In the hours to follow, Professor Oldman's earth-shaking assertion about himself challenges the men on spiritual, scientific and historical levels. But the most incredible is yet to come - an even more astonishing truth in which the men's discussions culminate.

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Gerry (2002)

Gus Van Sant returned to his roots in experimental filmmaking with this offbeat feature, whose dialogue was entirely improvised by its two person cast. Two men named Gerry (played by Matt Damon and Casey Affleck) are driving through the desert regions of Death Valley, traveling towards an unknown destination. They pull over and set out on foot, presuming they're getting close to what they've come to find. Before long, Gerry and Gerry are both lost in an unforgiving desert without food, water, or other provisions, and the harder they try to find their way back to their car, they only dig themselves deeper and deeper into the desert. Gus Van Sant originally began shooting Gerry in Argentina, but was soon dissatisfied with the weather and the terrain, opting to start over in California and Utah; the film premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival.

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Review By Elbert Ventura

After a Hollywood detour that led to the career low that was Finding Forrester, Gus Van Sant turned to European cinema and his indie roots to make Gerry, a fascinating, if flawed, return to form for the maverick filmmaker. The premise is simple: two friends named Gerry go for a hike in the Western wilderness and lose their way. That existential setup becomes the springboard for a visually stunning meditation on American expansionism and the implacability of nature, among other themes. Van Sant announces his grand ambitions early in the picture, with a long, wordless sequence following the two Gerrys as they drive down a winding desert highway to a tinkling score by Arvo Part. The rest of the movie is no less audacious. Van Sant has made no secret of the influence of Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr on Gerry. His master stroke is to transpose Tarr's rigorous, long-take aesthetic to the American West. The result is a landscape symphony of unusual power, at once elemental and stylized. As the wandering Gerrys, Matt Damon and Casey Affleck are appropriately affectless. Though the sparse dialogue occasionally calls attention to its deliberate banality, the exchanges work for the most part, offering a stark counterpoint to the environment's grandeur. For all its formal brilliance, Gerry is not as profound as it thinks it is, suffering from a surfeit of underdeveloped ideas and an overdetermined ending. Considering its reach, however, the movie's flaws are forgivable. While it may not be a masterpiece, Gerry at least holds out hope that Van Sant may have found his way again.

Rubber (2010)

The old saying about "this is where the rubber meets the road" takes on a new and sinister meaning in this black comedy from filmmaker Quentin Dupieux. An old tire appears in a California desert, and under its own power it begins rolling down the road, stopping and starting as it pleases. The notion that the tire can operate under its own power isn't half as remarkable as its other talent -- the tire has telekinetic abilities and can make things explode at will, including human heads. The evil tire goes on a killing spree after its affections for a beautiful woman (Roxane Mesquida) are thwarted, and local lawman Lt. Chad (Stephen Spinella) steps forward to investigate. Meanwhile, a handful of people aware of the tire and its actions are watching it from a safe distance until they're poisoned by a mysterious villain; one of them (Wings Hauser) manages to survive, and is looking for some revenge of his own. Rubber was an official selection at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

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Review By Jeremy Wheeler

For a film about a telekinetic killer tire, Rubber has a lot more going for it than just a ridiculous concept. Wunderkind filmmaker and house DJ Quentin Dupieux (aka Mr. Oizo) takes a rather thin setup and injects it with an ingenuity that, for the most part, is unexpected, hilarious, and refreshing. The best parts feature just the tire, starting with it wriggling out of a junkyard and feeling out the world around it (think of the inspired Sandman introduction in Spider-Man 3). As soon as it begins to roll, the tire is empowered by the small objects it treads over -- and when bigger things are encountered (alive or otherwise), it develops a killer mind power that makes its targets explode. Then it moves on. At one point you could say that the tire falls in love. Yes, Rubber goes there.
Unfortunately, the movie also goes to a few other unnecessary places -- beginning with the postmodern monologue that opens the film. You see, Rubber goes really out of its way to explain itself. Adapting the "no reason" moniker, it makes jokes about things like E.T.'s skin color just to point out that sometimes things happen in movies for no reason at all. That's well enough, even though the monologue might be a bit long (especially considering it gets replayed in the end credits), but that speech epitomizes what doesn't really work in the film -- the human scenes. Hell, B-movie great Wings Hauser is in the movie, and his big moment requires him to object to, of all things, the narrative of the movie. So basically the film is broken up into segments where the director successfully toys with conceptualizing the absurdity of a killer tire in a rather novel and stylized way, yet he then piles on scenes of people postulating about the deconstruction of the said film. To put it bluntly, it's a bit too much. And, frankly, the human scenes just aren't that funny.
That said, the tire sequences are incredible. In fact, a few moments are near transcendent. When Rubber is cookin', it's making quite a meal for itself. Even if it's just a shot of the tire cruisin' down the freeway, the subtle effects are dazzling -- and the score (provided by Oizo and Justice's Gaspar Agué) throbs with cool beats that bring to mind quirky high-minded music videos. As a filmmaker, Dupieux busts conventions and actually makes the audience feel for the tire, as outrageous as that may sound. Inherently experimental, yet thoroughly watchable, Rubber will connect with cult audiences, who will no doubt be surprised at how hilarious a one-note movie idea can really be when put in the right artist's hands.

Mum & Dad (2008)

Stranded at work and with no hope of getting home, airport cleaning woman Lena accepts an invitation to spend the night with her perky colleague Birdie, only to find that her unusually close-knit family has some sinister secrets. Writer/director Steven Shiel makes his feature directorial debut with this distinctly British shocker.

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Slacker (1991)

One of the key American independent films of the 1990s, Richard Linklater's feature debut is an audacious look at the twentysomething culture in the college town of Austin, Texas. Set over the course of a 24-hour period, the film is a collection of short, unconnected glimpses into the dropout subculture, touching base with a variety of musicians, students, street people and general eccentrics. While there's no real plot to speak of, Linklater's eye for nuance and gift for dialogue are superb, and the portrait he paints is so uncannily accurate that the term "slacker" was almost immediately co-opted as a media buzzword, one interchangeable with the similarly-overused "Generation X." Regardless, the film is an evocative reflection of a community and its culture and remains a definitive artifact of its time and place.


    

Review By Dan Jardine

History may be written by the winners, but in movies like Slacker we learn that life's lovable losers often have a far more engaging story to tell. The spiritual anomie afflicting the generation of the then-29-year-old director Richard Linklater provides the backdrop for this meandering and essentially plot-less tale. These college-aged people in Austin, Texas have the freedom and resources to do just about anything, but they choose instead to do nothing. There is a morbid attractiveness to their subversiveness. In most cases, their non-participation in life is a well thought-out stance: "Withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy," as one of the slackers informs us. Like others before them (beatniks, hippies, punks), this generation of twenty-somethings need time to sort things out. The movie's titular characters represent America's subconscious; these are the midnight neuroses that we keep bottled up in our waking hours. Comparisons to such filmmakers as Luis Bunuel and Max Ophuls are apt, as Linklater's stream of consciousness direction follows a winding road that leads to no particular place at all. Ironically, this studied attempt to appear unscripted and spontaneous succeeds mainly because it is so carefully plotted. Thankfully, Linklater clearly identifies with his subjects, and celebrates their wackiness without resorting to a bitterly ironic pose that would have distanced us from the characters. The film's 97 minutes -- made for $23,000 -- provided more filmmaking bang for the buck than just about any film of the early 1990s; Slacker's no-budget breakthrough success prefigured other Sundance discoveries such as Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi (1992) and Kevin Smith's Clerks (1994).

If.... (1968)

In an indictment of the British public school system, we follow Mick and his mostly younger friends through a series of indignities and occasionally abuse as any fond feelings toward these schools are destroyed. When Mick and his friends rebel, violently, the catch phrase, "which side would you be on" becomes quite stark.

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Funky Forest: The First Contact (2005)

Taste of Tea director Katsuhito Ishii collaborates with filmmakers Shinichiro Miki and Hajime Ishimine) for this outrageous collection of surreal, short attention span non-sequiturs largely revolving around Guitar Brother (Tadanobu Asano), his randy older sibling, and the pair's portly Caucasian brother. Dance numbers, pillow fights, animation, comedy, and science fiction all combine to create a unique and disorienting viewing experience featuring such highlights as an absurdist tribute to David Cronenberg, an ass-television, and a girl who fires lasers from her forehead in order to battle a floating space blob which emits spinning, spherical projectiles.

DAVID LYNCH: Eraserhead Stories

David Lynch talks about his seminal 70s bizarre fest, Eraserhead. A must see for any fan of the movie.
If you haven't seen Eraserhead you'll find in further down in the past posts of this blog.

Enjoy.

Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

The torturous production of the classic 1922 vampire film Nosferatu is recreated in this stylized account of director F.W. Murnau and his obsession with creating realistic horror by any means necessary -- even if those means include actual bloodletting. The film begins as Murnau (John Malkovich) is ready to take his unauthorized interpretation of the Bram Stoker tale on location in Czechoslovakia. There, the director has arranged for his cast and crew to live in the same castle in which they will shoot their parts, as they all wait for their co-star, Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe) -- Murnau's choice to play Count Orlok -- to arrive. Their leader has warned them that Schreck is a student of the Stanislovsky method of performance and will not respond to them out-of-character. Nothing, however, can prepare them for the real thing: when the actor arrives, he's already in full Gothic regalia, asserting that he is indeed a vampire. Schreck makes good on his claims by terrorizing the cast and crew, attacking Murnau's original cinematographer (Wolfgang Muller) and plucking bats out of the air for midnight snacks. Director E. Elias Merhige previously made his name with his experimental theater productions and with his horrific film school thesis, Begotten.

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Review By Jason Clark

A fanciful retelling of the making of the classic 1922 horror film Nosferatu, this second feature by independent director E. Elias Merhige boasts a healthy knowledge of cinema history, particularly in its recreations of director F.W. Murnau's work locales and star Max Schreck's freakish visual appearance, but suffers from characterizations that would seem over-the-top in a vaudeville show. Malkovich suggests all of the bluster of director Murnau, but little of what made him such a vital director. In fact, judging by Malkovich's arch, often unpleasant portrayal, F.W. Murnau may as well have been Ed Wood. Dafoe fares better as the pointy-eared, blood-starved Schreck, but his technically precise performance exists as more of a stunt than anything else, leaving human emotions at bay. Shadow of the Vampire attempts to create a revisionist rhetoric of the tumultuous behind-the-scenes aspects of Nosferatu, but never quite understands the logic behind it. This is partly the point, but often the film's befuddled, rigid structure makes it more of an ordeal than it should be, especially when the original 1922 film on which its events are based is far richer in its exploration of frightful behavior without drawing so much attention to itself. A film that succinctly defines "not for all tastes," Shadow of the Vampire premiered at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.

Keyhole (2011)

Visionary Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin takes viewers on a surreal journey into the psyche of a desperate gangster backed into a dangerous corner in this surreal, psycho-sexual take on Homer's Odyssey. Late one night, a group of gangsters shoot their way into the living room of a large house and wait anxiously for the arrival of their leader, Ulysses Pick (Jason Patric). Ulysses has a knack for getting out of tense situations, and with the cops all around his cohorts need him now more than ever. But when Ulysses arrives with a teenage girl and a bound young man in tow, some of his henchmen start to think it's time for a new boss to take over. An already tense situation turns downright surreal as Ulysses begins venturing through the labyrinthine house in search of his wife Hyacinth (Isabella Rossellini), who remains locked in her room somewhere on an upper floor. Meanwhile, Hyacinth's father offers cryptic commentary on the unfolding events, and the harder Ulysses searches for his wife the more secrets he begins to uncover about his eccentric family.

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Review By Jason Buchanan

Perhaps there's actual meaning to be found in Keyhole, Canadian visionary Guy Maddin's haunting gangster melodrama, yet despite all of the stunning black-and-white cinematography, seductively surreal imagery, and occasionally hilarious abstract humor, odds are it's likely to be lost on all but the auteur's most ardent fans. But make no mistake, that's certainly not to say there isn't value in what Maddin has to offer, just that the audience willing and able to receive it is bound to be limited by definition.
Late one night, a group of gangsters shoot their way into the living room of a large house and wait anxiously for the arrival of their leader, Ulysses Pick (Jason Patric). Ulysses has a knack for getting out of tense situations, and with the cops surrounding them his cohorts need him now more than ever. But when Ulysses arrives with a teenage girl and a bound young man in tow, some of his henchmen start to think it's time for a new boss to take over. An already tense situation turns downright surreal as Ulysses begins venturing through the labyrinthine house in search of his wife Hyacinth (Isabella Rossellini), who remains locked in her room somewhere on an upper floor. Meanwhile, Hyacinth's father offers cryptic commentary on the unfolding events, and the harder Ulysses searches for his wife, the more secrets he begins to uncover about this eccentric family.

Few contemporary directors possess such a bold, singularly unique vision as Maddin, and since the mid-'80s he's built an impressive body of work distinguished by the juxtaposition of dazzling imagery with darkly comic themes and dialogue. He's drawn favorable comparisons to celebrated American director David Lynch for his ability to tell a compelling story within a dreamlike framework, but as with Lynch, this style can occasionally prove to be a hurdle that prevents the audience from connecting with the story on an emotional level. That's most certainly the case with Keyhole -- a film in which there seems to be an impenetrable, invisible wall made of stilted dialogue and uncomfortable imagery that purposefully keeps the viewer from connecting with the characters' inner turmoil -- but it's hard to fault Maddin since that's more likely because of audience expectations rather than his narrative intention.  


Yet for those willing and able to shed the perception that a film should always make sense or present situations that we can relate to (the result of traditional storytelling techniques coming to define the medium), Keyhole could be something of a transcendent experience. Odds are we've all felt haunted by the memories of our past on occasion, and watching Ulysses gradually work his way through a house crowded with the specters of regret, misfortune, and sorrow mirrors our own philosophical struggle to define ourselves within the context of our mortality. If all this sounds a bit too morose or intellectually challenging, perhaps it's worth noting that a recurring Yahtzee masturbation gag, the sight of Kevin McDonald as a horny ghost, and an inventive scene involving a bicycle-powered electric chair go a long way in keeping Keyhole from becoming oppressively somber. Even at a brisk 93 minutes, however, there are scenes and sequences in Keyhole that feel interminable given that we're never quite sure where the story is headed.
In the end, Maddin's films need to be experienced firsthand and then discussed with others who have witnessed the gloriously bizarre spectacle of it all. Keyhole has the feel of an intensely personal project, and the reaction each individual has to it is likely to be just as subjective as the director's intention while making it. So what are you waiting for? Stop reading about it and just watch it.

The Shout (1978)

An asylum director begins telling a visitor to a cricket game the story of one of his "better" patients, Crossley (Alan Bates) who is able to compete. Some time previously, Crossley accosted Anthony (John Hurt), a composer, just after church and was for some reason invited to dinner. Once at the composer's home, he tells the story of his unusual upbringing among Australian Aborigines, and of the awful and strange gifts this has left him with. Among them is the ability to bring about another's death by using a certain kind of shout. The next morning, he begins to weave an erotic spell on the composer's wife Rachel (Susannah York), and then proves his killing ability on a sheep in a field. His influence increasingly disrupts their peaceful lives, until in a confrontation, the composer finds a way to best Crossley - but which results in his being placed in a mental institution.

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Anguish (1987)

Zelda Rubinstein, the diminuitive "house exorciser" from Poltergeist, heads the cast of Anguish. The villain is a copycat loonie whose crimes are inspired by the movies. A series of murders occur, eerily similar to those committed by the heavy in a popular film. The gimmick: the killings take place in a crowded movie theatre, while the film in question is playing. It sounds ludicrous, but Anguish is very persuasively assembled by writer/director Bigas Luna.

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Review By Donald Guarisco

Anguish is the kind of film that manages to be exciting and frustrating all at once: exciting because it is packed to the brim with style and interesting ideas but frustrating because it never takes these elements far enough. The script's film-within-a-film conceit is an intriguing one but it takes too long for the plot within the theater to get going once this framing device is revealed and its elements are too hastily-drawn to be truly effective (no explanation is ever given for the origin or motivations of the copycat psycho in the theater). Quality of the characterizations varies wildly: the main characters in the theater's film are much more colorful and interesting than either of the teenage heroines or the copycat killer in the "real" story: Michael Lerner and Zelda Rubinstein both make larger-than-life impressions as the wild son-mother murderous duo but the other characters blend into the background. As a result, the second half of the film is much less interesting than the first half. Director Bigas Luna keeps the film's events rolling at a steady pace and shows great visual flair throughout (especially in the clever finale, where the events in the theater mimic those on the movie screen) but no amount of style or wit can make up for the story's inability to emotionally involve the viewer - which is the key to creating a truly scary horror film. Because of this, Anguish comes off as a little more than a visually ambitious slasher movie. The end result is clever and stylish enough to amuse veteran horror buffs but is likely to leave casual viewers cold.

Barton Fink (1991)

The title character, played by John Turturro, is a Broadway playwright, based on Clifford Odets, lured to Hollywood with the promise of untold riches by a boorish studio chieftain (played by Michael Lerner as a combination of Louis B. Mayer and Harry Cohn). Despising the film capital and everything it stands for, Barton Fink comes down with an acute case of writer's block. He is looked after by a secretary (Judy Davis) who has been acting as a ghost writer for an alcoholic screenwriter (John Mahoney, playing a character based on William Faulkner). Also keeping tabs on Fink is a garrulous traveling salesman (John Goodman), the most likeable, stable character in the picture. And then comes the plot twist to end all plot twists, plunging Barton Fink into a surreal nightmare that would make Hieronymus Bosch look like a house painter. Once more, Ethan and Joel Coen serve up a smorgasbord of quirkiness and kinkiness, where nothing is what it seems and nothing turns out as planned.
 
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Review By Dan Friedman

Whether or not one likes the films of Joel and Ethan Coen, die-hard cinema aficionados have to appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into each one. From the script to the cinematography, the Coen films always have something that at least could be classified as interesting. While most of their films can be labeled as successes on these merits, the high point is clearly Barton Fink. The basic story elements and characterizations come together to produce a film that is greater than the sum of its individual parts. John Turturro is the title character, a 1940s socialist playwright brought to Hollywood to work inside the studio system. From the outset, it's obvious that this is going to be a fish-out-of-water story to the nth degree, and as Barton encounters others he reacts with the innocence of a schoolboy. John Goodman is a genial salesman who is Barton's neighbor in the seedy hotel he lives in, and his philosophy of life begins to take hold on Barton until his true colors come out. There is also a separate subplot with John Mahoney as a William Faulkner-inspired novelist and Judy Davis as his suffering secretary/mistress, which very nicely adds another layer to the assault that Hollywood is leveling on Barton's personality. The single best performance is by Michael Lerner as the studio boss who hires Barton to write a wrestling picture. The Coens juxtapose the beauty and sunshine of southern California with the darkness and despair of Barton's hotel room, which is more or less the world he is forced to inhabit when his talents desert him. Even that world is brought down through, let's say, unusual circumstances that serve to cement Barton's complete breakdown. Turturro is perfect in the role, his physical appearance perfectly complementing his personification of the blocked writer. The film overall makes the statement that one success doesn't necessarily translate into a career, which is a lesson that Barton learns the hard way.

Cruising (1980)

New York City detective Steve Burns Al Pacino receives orders from Captain Edelson Paul Sorvino to solve a series of brutal murders in the gay community. Steve scours the gay bars that caters to same-sex sadomasochism in a desperate attempt to solve the crime. As he infiltrates the scene, he slowly comes loose from the moorings of his own reality, and an innocent victim is tortured by the cops in an effort to exact a confession. The story is based on actual murders that took place between 1962 and 1979. The film gained considerable publicity because of the controversial subject matter while censor argued between an X and R rating for the feature.

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Review by Brian J. Dillard 

Although it was greeted with scorn by gay-rights groups and other critics upon its 1980 release, this Al Pacino thriller isn't coherent enough on any front to be viewed as a deliberately anti-gay screed. Less a police procedural than a queasy psychodrama set against the backdrop of New York City's leather scene, Cruising simply doesn't function very well as a mystery. Red herrings are one thing, but writer/director William Friedkin's script is so full of holes, ambiguity, and misdirection that it confounds any sort of literal interpretation. As a gritty fever dream about masculinity and sexual anxiety, however, this dank, dark, unpleasant picture is memorable indeed. His weary, hollowed face bathed in shadows, Pacino navigates the world of gay S & M like it's a perversely fascinating theme park -- one he's uncomfortable admitting that he's grown to love. No greased-up arm, no bobbing head, no desperate tongue kiss is too hyperbolically sleazy to escape the notice of his character -- or the camera. One infamous scene, involving an oversized African-American man in thong underwear and a cowboy hat inexplicably conducting an interrogation, provides only the most obviously over-the-top example of masculinity magnified until it's a parody of itself. Cruising may not be much of a thriller, but it's still a fascinating piece of cinematic voyeurism with an enduringly hard-to-pin-down subtext.

Rumble Fish (1983)

Rusty James is the leader of a small, dying gang in an industrial town. He lives in the shadow of the memory of his absent, older brother -- The Motorcycle Boy. His mother has left, his father drinks, school has no meaning for him and his relationships are shallow. He is drawn into one more gang fight and the events that follow begin to change his life.

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The Last Supper (1995)

Jude, Luke, Marc, Paulie and Pete are liberal-minded roommates and grad students at a Iowa post-secondary institution. Every Sunday for the past year, they have hosted a dinner party, inviting a friend over to have an open-minded discussion about whatever topics are of interest. On a dark and stormy night when Pete was supposed to bring a friend for one of those dinners, he instead comes home with Zachary Cody, who rescued a stranded Pete whose car broke down. They invite Zach to stay for dinner instead of Pete's missing friend. They soon find out that Zach is among other things a racist neo-Nazi, which brings up a potentially dangerous situation for Jewish Marc and black Luke. After some physical altercations and verbal threats, Marc ends up stabbing Zach dead out of what he considers self-defense. As the friends discuss what to do about Zach, they finally come to the conclusion that in killing Zach.

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Thinner (1996)

A fat Lawyer finds himself growing "Thinner" when an old gypsy man places a hex on him. Now the lawyer must call upon his friends in organized crime to help him persuade the gypsy to lift the curse. Time is running out for the desperate lawyer as he draws closer to his own death, and grows ever thinner.

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The Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell (2006)

A handful of America's least likely icons set out to reclaim the nation in the wake of a nuclear apocalypse in this ambitious independent satire from filmmakers Kevin Wheatley and Jonny Gillette. In the year 2075, America's major cities are wiped out by nuclear warfare, and the nation's survivors go underground to wait out the fallout. In 2097, the brave souls who are still around return to the surface to establish the New America, led by Tex Kennedy (Kevin Wheatley), the last survivor of the old nation's greatest political dynasty. Accompanied by his android bodyguards Yul (Chandler Parker) and Quincy (Paul Whitty), Tex sets out from what once was California to form an alliance with Benny Remington (Bill English), who was named king of America during America's two decades underground. Benny was crowned by his uncle, famous car salesman and radio commentator Clark Remington (Daniel Baldwin); however, Clark's deranged son, Vincent (Lea Coco), believes that America's throne is rightfully his, and won't let Benny have it without a fight. As Vincent and his right-hand man, Marcellus (Ted Schneider), search for Benny and Tex, the leaders head to Florida to take on Yorick (Alex Reznik), who has established a powerful fortress called "the Threshold of Hell," a violent domain populated by an army of brainwashed minions. Along the way, they encounter a number of strange and fascinating characters, including friendly cannibal girls, monstrous snakes, distant relatives of Fidel Castro, and perhaps the Devil himself. The Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell: The History of New America, Part One received its world premiere at the 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival.

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Vanilla Sky (2001)

A remake of the Spanish film Open Your Eyes (1997), this thriller from director Cameron Crowe bears one of several discarded titles for his previous, Oscar-winning film Almost Famous (2000). Tom Cruise stars as David Ames, a womanizing playboy who finds romantic redemption when he falls in love with his best friend's girlfriend Sofia (Penelope Cruz, reprising her role from the original film). Before that relationship can begin, however, David is coaxed into a car driven by an ex-lover, Julie (Cameron Diaz), who turns out to be suicidal. Driving her car off a bridge, Julie kills herself and horribly disfigures David. Reconstructive surgery and the loving support of Sofia seem to reverse David's luck, but eerie incidents are soon making him question the reality of his existence and his control over his life, even while he is suspected of complicity in Julie's death. Vanilla Sky (2001) bears the expected Crowe trademark of an obsession with recent pop culture and particularly rock music, a more important element of the remake than the original film. That project's writer/director, Alejandro Amenabar, crafted his own supernatural hit the same year with The Others (2001), starring Nicole Kidman, the soon-to-be-ex-wife of Cruise.

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Cecil B. Demented (2000)

Iconoclastic satirist John Waters bites the hand that (periodically) feeds him in this humorous look at the underside of the film industry. Self-styled guerrilla filmmaker Cecil (Stephen Dorff) leads a Baltimore movie-making collective/street gang called the Sprocket Holes, which includes Cecil's girlfriend and frequent leading lady, a low-rent porn actress named Cherish Oh Lordy (Alicia Witt). Desperate for attention, they kidnap famous Hollywood actress Honey Whitlock (Melanie Griffith) during a Baltimore publicity stop and force her at gunpoint to star in their latest production, Raving Beauty. Before long, Honey comes down with a severe case of Stockholm syndrome and joins the Sprocket Holes in their bid to destroy the mainstream film industry. Waters regulars Ricki Lake, Patty Hearst, and Mink Stole highlight the supporting cast, and techno star Moby contributes to the soundtrack.

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Schizopolis (1996)

After years of making movies in the fringes of the Hollywood system after his debut success sex, lies, and videotape, director Steven Soderbergh made Schizopolis as, in his own words, an artistic "wake-up call to himself." The result is a discombobulated, irreverent, comedic meta-movie, a cinematic hall of mirrors nearly impossible to describe. Soderbergh wrote, directed, photographed, edited, and even stars in the film as Fletcher Munson, a disillusioned paper-pusher assigned to write a deliberately meaningless speech for T. Azimuth Schwitters, an L. Ron Hubbard-esque self-help guru whose new book Eventualism is a bestseller. His heart isn't in it, however, so he spends most of his time either masturbating in the employee bathroom, avoiding calls from people who want to hire him as a company spy, or listening to the paranoid delusions of his office chum, Nameless Numberhead Man. Intertwined with Munson's attempt to write glib diatribes are numerous asides and subplots. Best of all is the story of Elmo Oxygen: an orange-jumpsuit wearing bug exterminator who appears to be sleeping with several of his customers, including T. Azimuth Schwitters' wife. At one point, Elmo is coerced into leaving Schizopolis, mid-scene, to join another movie. Convoluted and playful as the movie is, there is some method to Soderbergh's madness. The various plot threads, though loosely wound to the core, do in fact lead to some understanding of the disorders, communication problems, and frustrations at the heart of contemporary life.

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The Holy Mountain (1973)

A film that screams "product of its time," The Holy Mountain was Alejandro Jodorowsky's dizzying elegy to the sex, drugs and spiritual awakening of the late 1960s and early 1970s -- a suitably bizarre follow-up to his El Topo (1971). Fascinating although it only fitfully makes sense, The Holy Mountain is beautifully shot and designed, and it suggests what might have resulted if Luis Buñuel, Michelangelo Antonioni, and George Romero had all dropped acid and made a movie together. A Christ-like vagrant and thief wanders through a perverse and unfriendly land until he encounters an enlightened one, who gathers the thief and six of the world's most powerful individuals for a spiritual pilgrimage. If that description sounds a bit sketchy, well, narrative isn't this film's strongest suit. But if you want to see the conquest of Mexico re-enacted by reptiles, soldiers shoot innocent people as birds fly from their wounds, and a wizard turn feces into gold, this is the movie for you.

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Freaked (1993)

The manic writing-directing comedy team of Tom Stern and Alex Winter (the latter of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey) followed up their deranged short-film collaborations and the short-lived MTV series The Idiot Box with this comic fantasy, which amounts to a virtual car crash of anarchic, mind-blowing weirdness. The brain-damaged plot follows self-centered sitcom actor Ricky Coogin (Winter), official spokesman for the E.E.S. (Everything Except Shoes) corporation, into the jungle-bound South American nation of Santa Flan. Coogin has been sent as an emissary on behalf of E.E.S. to placate the media uproar over a substance called Zygrot-27, a chief ingredient in many E.E.S. products which has been decried as a fatal environmental toxin. Accompanied by his friend Ernie (Michael Stoyanov) and environmental activist Julie (Megan Ward), Ricky takes a detour into the jungle to a bizarre amusement park overseen by bombastic barker/inventor Elijah C. Skuggs (Randy Quaid), who specializes in the display of "Hideous Mutant Freekz" (the film's original title). The trio soon discover that Skuggs manufactures his oddities himself, and they find themselves at the mercy of his hideous freakmaking factory -- which coincidentally uses Zygrot-27 as a catalyst. Once he has the hapless heroes strapped down, Skuggs reveals his intention to transform Coogin into an evil mega-freak who will destroy all the others in a slam-bang, standing-room-only closing event. Miffed at the notion of sustaining an acting career as a spine-covered, pus-gushing monster, Coogin joins a rebellion within Skuggs' captive stable of other man-made freaks -- whose ranks include such monstrosities as effete human worm; a bearded lady (Mr. T in a frilly dress); a man with a sock-puppet for a head (voiced by Bob Goldthwait); and Ortiz the Dog-Boy (an uncredited Keanu Reeves). Their plans to turn Ricky into a zygrot-powered superhero go astray, however, leading to a hilariously apocalyptic finale. Doomed to home-video status by lethargic distribution from Twentieth-Century Fox, this unappreciated gem deserves a second look; packed with hilarious visual gags, ultra-gross setpieces and body-function jokes, Freaked is a hallucinogenic funhouse of a movie.

Akira Kurosawa's Dreams (1990)

Following up on his critically acclaimed, blood-splattered epic Ran, master director Akira Kurosawa looks inward with this collection of eight brightly colored dreams. The first section centers on a young boy (Mitsunori Izaki), who witnesses a forest wedding procession of fox spirits in spite of his mother's (Mitsuko Baisho) warning. The second section concerns the same lad who converses with peach-tree spirits after the trees have been cruelly cut down. This is followed by a party of mountain climbers struggling to make it back to base camp in the midst of a terrible blizzard. The fourth dream deals with a man (Akira Terao) -- a Kurosawa stand-in complete with the director's trademark floppy white hat -- who encounters ghosts of Japan's militaristic past in a forlorn tunnel. In the following dream, the same man ventures into a Van Gogh painting called The Crows and meets the artist himself (Martin Scorsese). The sixth and seventh dreams venture into nightmare territory -- one deals with a nuclear meltdown that threatens Japan while the other concerns post-nuclear mutants. In the final dream, Kurosawa meets a 103-year-old man (played by Ozu regular Chishu Ryu) in a utopian rural village.

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Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008)

A worldwide epidemic encourages a biotech company to launch an organ-financing program similar in nature to a standard car loan. The repossession clause is a killer, however.

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Pleasantville (1998)

Two 1990's teenagers find themselves in a 1950's sitcom where their influence begins to profoundly change that complacent world.

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Being Michael Madsen (2007)

                

Actor Michael Madsen turns the tables on notorious paparazzo, Billy Dant, by hiring a trio of documentary filmmakers to chronicle Dant's life, loves, and troubles. 

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Being Michael Madsen (2007)