They Caught the Ferry (1948) is a short highway safety film – much like the ones we used to watch in Drivers Ed. – produced by the Danish Film Commission, and directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, the legendary auteur of The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), Vampyr (1932), Day of Wrath (1943), Ordet (The ... read more »

This is my all-time favorite SCTV sketch – a pastiche of Ingmar Bergman and Jerry Lewis, with Andrea Martin as Harriet Andersson and Martin Short (brilliant) as Lewis. Clearly, whoever wrote and directed this sketch studied both Bergman and Lewis in great detail. Bergman aficionados will note the barren landscape accompanied by mournful cello music ... read more »

Every one of Henry Selick’s four feature films to date has dealt with alternate realities. In the Tim Burton-produced The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), the ghoulish Jack Skellington finds a hole in a tree that leads him, Alice-style, from his own reality, Halloween Town, to the very different alt-reality of Christmas Town. In James and ... read more »

With a tip of the hat and, perhaps, apologies to Nathaniel R, here is my version of his 20 Actress meme – not just 20 favorite actresses, but 20 outstanding 20th Century co-stars. Here are 10 pairs of actresses (with two bonus pairs for the 2000s) who were not just wonderful individually, but who, co-starring ... read more »

Man, it was really disturbing on a metatextual level to finish watching THE GIRLS (1968) a Swedish intellectual feminist sex farce about a touring company of Lysistrata, and look online for reviews only to find one or two reviews, and a few hostile male dismissals. And barely any pictures (hence my off-projector screenshot, above) Considering ... read more »

Cries and Whispers Ingmar Bergman (July 14, 1918 – July 30, 2007).