Always eager to present serious issues, Tyler Perry found a batch in Ntozake Shange’s play For colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf. Before entering filmmaking, Perry triumphed in the theater, where he has written, directed, and frequently starred in a number of popular melodramas, often musical and farcical. This blend of ... read more »

Has the octogenarian iconoclast finally gone commercial? [Via MUBI.]

The following short films, each less than one minute in length, were created for the compilation project, OneDreamRush. First, we have Asia Argento on the fluidity of SEXUAL IDENTITY. Next is Kenneth Anger looking - not for the first time - at DEATH. And finally, David Lynch looks - not for the first time - at DREAMING. I hadn’t ... read more »

Remember when Jean-Luc Godard made films that were avant-garde but still, somehow, comprehensible?  That was a long time ago, the 1960s to be precise.  Yet, like The Big Lebowski’s Dude, Godard abides. Check out the trailer, above, for his latest project, Socialisme, that just premiered at Cannes.  Beautiful, non?  Godard and the digital technology that ... read more »

Can a film’s designer be its effective auteur?  He can, if his name is William Cameron Menzies. Menzies is best known for directing and designing two classics of the science fiction/fantasy genre, his 1936 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ Things to Come (above) and his 1953 masterpiece of Childrens’ Expressionism,* Invaders From Mars (below right).  However, Menzies can also ... read more »

“Functionless art is simply tolerated vandalism.” – Peter Steele (1962-2010) From here comes a rich smell drawn from a load of bullshit.  And in no way am I demeaning the practice of street art by saying that.  I’m referring to the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop itself.  This story about street art, some of its top practitioners, and a man who ... read more »

Shed a tear for the creator of gentle Gumby. Art Clokey was a disciple of avant-garde film theorist, Slavko Vorkapich, under whose mentorship Clokey filmed Gumbasia (above) and other experimental works. Producer Samuel G. Engel saw and admired Gumbasia’s “claymation,” which led to Clokey’s creation of The Adventures of Gumby as an antidote to the ... read more »

Of all the real-life German film personalities referred to in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, the most notorious – apart from Goebbels himself – is Leni Riefenstahl. Most viewers know Riefenstahl, if they know her at all, as the director of the infamous Nazi propaganda film, Triumph of the Will, or the classic sports documentary, Olympia. ... read more »

Thank you, Spirit of Ed Wood Blogathon, for giving me an excuse to write about José Mojica Marins, the Brazilian screenwriter, director, and star of films every bit as quirky and original as those of the incomparable Wood. To be fair, Marins combines Wood with equal parts William Castle and Luis Buñuel, even – in ... read more »