The first US film to be made under the Dogme 95 vow of chastity, Harmony Korine’s follow up to the controversial ‘Gummo’ tells the story of schizophrenic Julien, his pregnant sister Pearl, and their pedantic, over-bearing father. Using handheld digital cameras, Korine gathers together a series of disparate incidents in the life of the family – Julien’s friendship with a young blind figure-skater, Pearl’s masquerade as her and Julien’s dead mother, their brother’s training as wrestler, a visit to a gospel meeting – while slowly and subtly building towards a tragic climax.
Tag: USA
Shot in black and white, with a jazzy soundtrack and no dialogue at all, The Lift tells the classic story of man versus machine. First short film by Robert Zemeckis, made while he was studying in California.
Nance Pelot is bravely trying to support herself and her father Joe, the town drunk, by playing piano in an unsavory roadside inn owned by Larry Shayne. Chet Todd, the son of a shop owner, is in love with Nance, but her reputation has been sullied by her profession, and so Chet’s mother disapproves of her. Nance inherits a small farm from her mother, and when Shayne discovers that the property is valuable, he plots to cheat Nance out of her inheritance.
Maya, a New York artist and model, meets Joe, a drifter. They begin a passionate affair. On an impromptu trip to visit Joe’s sister in the country, Joe’s inner demons begin to surface. Maya tries to help and eventually struggles to hold on as Joe becomes increasingly unstable.
FBI man Stafford is extraditing convicted killer Brett Murphy from Spain to the USA. At the last minute, Murphy’s fiancée, entertainer Jean Gurney, finds he’s been taken and slips on the plane. Unknown to them, a suicidal passenger has a fire and gas bomb in his luggage. As time ticks away, minor dramas are played out on board.
A housewife, increasingly disenchanted with her homemaker role, searches for new meaning in her life and organizes a discussion group, changing the lives of her six closest friends.
This experimental short by Bruce Conner uses Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say” as accompaniment to constantly shifting collage of female nude, cartoons, and newsreels of atomic bomb explosions.
A series of strange abstract images are projected in a movie theater. An old man from Russia in the audience watches this and can make neither head nor tail of them. He heckles the picture, wondering out loud, “Vhat da hell is dis?” while irritating the other patrons around him. He comments outrageously the entire time, saying, “It must be some symbolism! I think it’s symbolic of… junk.”