A very impressive transposition of William Faulkner’s story Barn Burning to rural Malaysia, this centres on an embittered worker-for-hire who uses arson as his weapon to attack those who exploit or cheat him, but doesn’t hesitate to bully his own family into submission. As the spare drama unfolds, attention focuses on the man’s youngest son, whose instinct is to rebel against his tyrannical father but who has been more influenced by him than he realises.
Year: 2021
Jimmy Wing is a Florida journalist and long-time friend of Elmo Bliss, a local businessman and politician involved in real-estate development. Bliss reveals his ruthless side, threatening Wing when the reporter becomes close to the beautiful wildlife conservationist Kat Hubble, one of a group of ecologists that stands in the way of a new landfill. While Wing clashes with Bliss, his life gets even more complicated as his romance with Hubble progresses.
Popular idols of the rock music scene – The Rolling Stones, The Stampeders, Whiskey Howl, Alice Cooper, Muddy Waters – are seen and heard in this film. It is a penetrating look at the whole pop music sub-culture and what keeps it alive, filmed in Canada, on and off-stage, and behind the scenes at record companies, radio broadcasting studios, and board rooms where hucksters plan the sales campaigns. The film includes personal interviews in which some of the stars explain what it’s all about and features Alice Cooper hacking a doll to pieces on stage.
——UPGRADED——
A disillusioned filmmaker has an encounter with a young girl who has a ritual of repeating “Tomorrow is my birthday” everyday. He tries to communicate with her through his video camera.
Successful advertising executive Julius Armburstdiscovers his wife, Paula, is cheating on him with a hunky blond named Stefan. Believing that the best way to earn back Paula’s affection is to be more like unorthodox Stefan, Julius endeavors to transform himself into a nonconformist artist. Comic mishaps ensue when Julius, in his zeal to adopt a Bohemian lifestyle, moves in with the guileless Stefan.
A rich city woman and murder witness on the run from her psychotic husband takes refuge in the barn of a Texas dirt farmer. The farmer is also on the run from the law and has been for years and finally must confront the police when they come for the woman.
♦♦ Amos Vogel’s “Film as a Subversive Art“♦♦
Loosely based on William A. Seiter’s 1948 film One Touch of Venus, Steven Arnold’s first film is a macabre, decadent work presenting mannequins and models that travel through strange universes.
As part of a television series devoted to Europe’s major cities, Angelopoulos was commissioned to make this film about Athens. Although much of Angelopoulos’ cinema is set among the villages of the northern countryside, he was born and raised in the city, so this film finds the director musing on an Athenian past that is variously ancient, national and personal, as well as clips from the “history” films The Travelling Players, The Hunters and Alexander the Great.