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Animal Crackers (1930)
The maddest comics of them all!
Filmmaker(s): Victor Heerman

The well-known explorer and hunter Captain Spaulding has just returned from Africa, and is being welcomed home with a lavish party at the estate of influential society matron Mrs. Rittenhouse when a valuable painting goes missing. The intrepid Captain Spaulding attempts to solve the crime with the help of his silly secretary Horatio Jamison, while sparring with the anarchic Signor Emanuel Ravelli and his nutty sidekick The Professor.

Missed Marks I periodically revisit the Marx films to recharge my own desire for creative anarchy. This time around, I became more aware of how unclever this is as film, and how clever they got later in the medium as fast learners. Its not anarchy yet. This...


Published April 4, 2023
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An American in Paris (1951)
What a joy! It's M-G-M's Technicolor musical!
Filmmaker(s): Vincente Minnelli

Jerry Mulligan is an exuberant American expatriate in Paris trying to make a reputation as a painter. His friend Adam is a struggling concert pianist who's a long time associate of a famous French singer, Henri Baurel. A lonely society woman, Milo Roberts, takes Jerry under her wing and supports him, but is interested in more than his art.

<strong>Sienna Shoes 'The Red Shoes' changed the world of film. It was deeply self-referential (a performance about a performance with the two enfolded) and had the extra advance of sometimes making the camera a dancer. So Gene Kelly tried his own ‘Shoes’. MGM refused to...


Published April 2, 2023
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Amy’s Orgasm (2001)
Filmmaker(s): Julie Davis

Amy is a single 29 year old Jewish woman. She wrote a successful self-help book about how women can't truly be in love and experience "mental orgasm." Her parents and acquaintances always try to give her advice. Eventually, she breaks her celibacy and starts dating a radio shock jock, who is known for hitting on his bimbo guests. Of all men, will she find in him the true love she never believed in

Caught in the Marketplace How difficult it must be for a young writer/director/actor with energy, some skill and no ideas. So just write about one’s self and use the current “intelligent” template of self-reference. That template has our writer playing a writer. The writer on screen is...


Published April 2, 2023
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The Aminatrix (2003)
Free your mind.

Straight from the creators of the groundbreaking Matrix trilogy, this collection of short animated films from the world's leading anime directors fuses computer graphics and Japanese anime to provide the background of the Matrix universe and the conflict between man and machines. The shorts include Final Flight of the Osiris, The Second Renaissance, Kid's Story, Program, World Record, Beyond, A Detective Story and Matriculated.

Busy I’m not sure I understand why this is being made. Presumably, the goal is to advertise the upcoming matrix sequel in such a way that sets the stage for game and doll marketing. Industry studies show that the type of fantasy that drives the commerce...


Published March 27, 2023
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Italian for Beginners (2000)
Attendance optional. Passion required.
Filmmaker(s): Lone Scherfig

A group of strangers find friendship, family and love within an Italian beginners’ course.

Red Hair in Venice You know, intelligent filmmakers are faced with all sorts of philosophical dilemmas, not the least of which are controversies over storytelling styles. Let’s call them the North and South. The Northern style is a matter of creating a world whose fabric is a...


Published March 13, 2023
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Italian Job (2003)
Get in. Get out. Get even.
Filmmaker(s): F. Gary Gray

Charlie Croker pulled off the crime of a lifetime. The one thing that he didn't plan on was being double-crossed. Along with a drop-dead gorgeous safecracker, Croker and his team take off to re-steal the loot and end up in a pulse-pounding, pedal-to-the-metal chase that careens up, down, above and below the streets of Los Angeles.

The In, The Out This slick production lacks the cinematic acrobatics of “The Good Thief.” Except, except for one clever thing. The editing. The direction, acting and all that are pretty ordinary, as is the actual story and it tested very poorly. So — the story goes...


Published March 12, 2023
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Alphaville (1965)
Suddenly the word is Alphaville... and a secret agent is in a breathless race against the Masters of the Future.
Filmmaker(s): Jean-Luc Godard

An American private-eye arrives in Alphaville, a futuristic city on another planet which is ruled by an evil scientist named Von Braun, who has outlawed love and self-expression.

Reduced Time gives us great advantages. One of these is that we can see art in terms other than the artist used in creating it. The French New Wave was an interesting and timely set of cinematic ideas that were burdened at the time by clumsy...


Published March 12, 2023
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American Movie (1999)
Filmmaker(s): Chris Smith

American Movie is the story of filmmaker Mark Borchardt, his mission, and his dream. Spanning over two years of intense struggle with his film, his family, financial decline, and spiritual crisis, American Movie is a portrayal of ambition, obsession, excess, and one man's quest for the American Dream.

Inarticulate Speech of the Trailer Park I am the perfect candidate audience for this. I watch a couple theatrical projects a day. I love film and am hungry for new and/or intelligent experiences. Plus, I have a passion for “folded” films, films that about themselves in...


Published March 12, 2023
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Dark Command (1940)
A drama of undying love.
Filmmaker(s): Raoul Walsh

When transplanted Texan Bob Seton arrives in Lawrence, Kansas he finds much to like about the place, especially Mary McCloud, daughter of the local banker. Politics is in the air however. It's just prior to the civil war and there is already a sharp division in the Territory as to whether it will remain slave-free. When he gets the opportunity to run for marshal, Seton finds himself running against the respected local schoolteacher, William Cantrell. Not is what it seems however. While acting as the upstanding citizen in public, Cantrell is dangerously ambitious and is prepared to do anything to make his mark, and his fortune, on the Territory. When he loses the race for marshal, he forms a group of raiders who run guns into the territory and rob and terrorize settlers throughout the territory. Eventually donning Confederate uniforms, it is left to Seton and the good citizens of Lawrence to face Cantrell and his raiders in one final clash.

Before the Pattern John Wayne ruined the western for me. The whole idea of the western until Leone was in constant repetition, walking the same route every time so that subtleties could be emphasised. Since everything else was given, we could focus on the smallest things. Real...


Published March 7, 2023
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Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995)
Of All the Lives He Changed, the One That Changed the Most Was His Own.
Filmmaker(s): Stephen Herek

In 1965, passionate musician Glenn Holland takes a day job as a high school music teacher, convinced it's just a small obstacle on the road to his true calling: writing a historic opus. As the decades roll by with the composition unwritten but generations of students inspired through his teaching, Holland must redefine his life's purpose.

The Character Lab Ostensibly, this film is an emotional account of a place where strong characters are created. But what I find interesting is the story behind the characters in the film. Disney has the most advanced character lab in the world, a place which scientifically explores...


Published March 5, 2023
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