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1-13 of 13
- "Desert, culture, counterculture." Worlds collide in this unconventional essay film, when filmmaker, film historian, and archivist Daniel Kremer seamlessly edits Michelangelo Antonioni's legendary but controversial counterculture art film Zabriskie Point (1970) into the same narrative universe as Stanley Kramer's madcap epic comedy extravaganza It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963). In creating these new sequences, Kremer comes to recognize that the exercise effortlessly draws cultural and historical parallels in twentieth-century American life that echo in present-day America. The editorial mashups weave a tangled web of social and cinematic history that root our notions of Americana in the mythology of the desert. As Kremer expounds in his narration on these often astonishing and sometimes shocking associations, his very personal ties to the subject matter become manifest. Highlights: University radical Mark Frechette flies his stolen aircraft right past the one piloted by Mickey Rooney and Buddy Hackett as they spin out of control. Daria Halprin ignores a hitchhiking Jonathan Winters. Milton Berle leaps right into a cascade of amorous sand-covered bodies. Spencer Tracy and Daria Halprin in a torrid extramarital affair. Beatnik surfer Dick Shawn phone-pranks capitalist pig Rod Taylor. It's all here.
- Frictions develop when Yisroel "Izzy" Jonigkeyt, a Chassidic Jew from Crown Heights, travels to San Francisco to visit Polish-born Catholic friend Marek Wisniewski with the intent of discovering why a Bay Area art-world iconoclast named Harry Kierk seeks to destroy a lifetime's worth of his own work. As the visit progresses, Izzy and Marek discover for the first time that complex historical baggage impinges on their curious friendship and, soon, they begin to understand why Kierk is driven towards destruction. Continued encounters with Marek's vaguely anti-Semitic cousin Irek (who is their only gateway to contact Kierk) only compound these tensions.
- A husband-and-wife pair of retired cult deprogrammers experience marital strife when their past catches up with them.
- Traumatized by his recent divorce, lovelorn Stanley takes off cross country to San Francisco, landing at his enterprising sister Nancy's doorstep. Nancy, who makes counterculture cinema-themed t-shirts, lives in "Camille's Castle," a frozen-in-time legacy home for displaced artists and outcasts. Together, they search for the remaining scraps of San Francisco's Summer of Love, and wind up at odds with each other. Countercurrents is an aggressive tribute to the counterculture films of the late 60's, with "easter eggs" in no short supply.
- ODDS is a dark comedy reflecting on a woman's struggle with looking for work, meaning, and possibly love in this strange, difficult and modern world - while an odd cast of characters weave through her life. She tries to find her way by seeking the counsel of psychics, therapists, spiritual guides and good luck charms, and her superstitions lead her to finding omens in everyday events and creating her own fortune telling cards. While she often gives good advice to others, things never turn out to be as they appeared. Unfortunately, she isn't very good at predicting her own fate.
- Three strangers take a road trip into the northwest and redefine their American Dream.
- André Téchiné scored his biggest worldwide critical success with Les rouseaux sauvages (Wild Reeds) in 1994. This video essay examines the poetic currents and literary influences pulsing through Téchiné's films, notably the work of poet Arthur Rimbaud, whose "Chanson de la plus haute tour" ("Song of the Highest Tower") opens this short piece. The elements that unite Téchiné's canon are also considered.
- A video essay about fifties and early sixties social and sexual mores, in life and in cinema, and how these "codes" (in partnership with a production Code, capital C, which was almost antediluvian in terms of sexual politics) molded and then trapped the female performers who came up in the shadow of it all. Suzanne Pleshette is a perfect case in point.
- Canadian-born filmmaker Sidney J. Furie made his name with British hits like The Young Ones (1961), The Leather Boys (1964), and The Ipcress File (1965). When he arrived in Hollywood, Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra wreaked havoc on his first major studio productions. In 1968, the newly emigrated director joined a stable of cutting-edge filmmakers at Paramount Pictures, under the new leadership of Bob Evans. His films saw both a stylistic departure and a shift in thematic focus. What was behind the evolution, and which aspects unite all of Furie's films?
- In 1968, filmmaker Jules Dassin collaborated with Ruby Dee and civil rights activist Julian Mayfield on Uptight, a "politically radical" film noir about Black revolution, framed against the April 4 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Director, producer and co-writer Dassin, a blacklisted American exile, returns to his birth country after having gone into a second exile from his adopted country Greece, then makes a film that roiled the powers that be (or "powers that were") in the U.S. government. The material so upset the FBI that they closely monitored the production up until the eve of its premiere, recruiting crew members as moles. The irony is rich, as Uptight was a remake of John Ford's The Informer (1935) and dealt with a turncoat character who engineers the assassination of a revolutionary leader. How is Uptight both an outlier (or anomaly) as well as simultaneously integral to the career of Jules Dassin?
- Memory is a trip through a freaky funhouse. A young man visits an old fortune teller woman, who explains that his life has been a "crazy quilt fever dream." Her assertion spurs a real fever dream that digs deep back into his past and taps certain primal proclivities of his. A 16mm restoration.
- Above the Sunset is a short film that looks at the lives of a few 30-40-something individuals living in Brooklyn. The primary character Lorena-a young woman aspiring to finish her college education-is 8 months pregnant and about to give birth to her 3rd child. Her other children, a boy of 2 and a girl of 4 all have different dads. Lorena is effectively single and the fathers-including the father of the baby in the womb-are not particularly involved in the lives of the children, with one father actually accusing Lorena of "tricking" him into getting her pregnant. Lorena has recently been dating Marek, a Brooklyn native from a Polish family. He has captured her heart and she his, and he has all the attributes of being a good caretaker for this motley family that is not his own. There is one problem that does not sit well with Lorena-he is a drug dealer. Marek promises to keep his "work" out of sight of the children and to always prioritize the family before anything else. What Marek does not know is that Lorena's father was seduced by the same career and did not survive "the trade" past her 6th birthday. If she and Marek are to make a family together, he will have to abandon his illegal enterprise and find a way to care for the family by letting go and trusting that God will bring them to where they need to be.
- Between One Eyed Jacks (1961) and The Godfather (1972), Marlon Brando appeared in twelve feature films. The actor called this period his "F*** You Years" and it was during this time that his on-set behavior hit erratic and unpredictable new heights. The qualities of the roles and the films themselves vary, but this video essay examines the historical and aesthetic profiles of this cinematic so-called "dirty dozen." Were these projects really beneath him? And what led him to this decade of perceived ignominy?