A note on: exergue – on documenta 14 (2024)

Having waded into EXERGUE- ON DOCUMENTA 14 the 14-part, 14-hour observational look at the creation of the 2017 edition of documenta, the art exhibition held every five years in Kassel that is playing at this year's New York Film Festival, I wanted to say something in case you are interested:

I saw two parts and part of a third before I stepped away. It's not that it is bad, rather this really is everything you want to know but were afraid to ask and then some more - a lot more. I got to a certain point and found that I was overwhelmed. This was more than I was capable of taking in. I should have done it in pieces. 

I'll have to go back to it after the festival. 

Because this is a lot to take in, I wanted to say that if you are interested in wading into this film at the festival be sure that you want to immerse yourself in the creation of the exhibition.

UNTOLD: SIGN STEALER (2024)

Latest entry in the Netflix UNTOLD series. This time it focuses on Conner Stallions who was the focus point of the Michigan sign stealing scandal. It seems that the ever top of the heap THE Ohio University gave the NCAA all the information to get Stallions pitched....

...but as the film makes clear while there are some questions as to what exactly happened, Stallions was so obsessive that he had worked out a lot of the signs on his own. Additional Coach Harbaugh revitalized the team and even when both Stallions and Harbaugh were gone, the Michigan team still won.

One of the really good UNTOLD films, it wonderfully brings us into a story and shows us a bunch of things we didn't realize we didn't know. Yea some of what Stallions did was hinky, but it wasn't as bad as the NCAA made out.

I had a good time.

Recommended.

Brief thoughts on Tim Burton Docuseries (2024) Tribeca 2024

This is going to be a brief piece on the TIM BURTON DOCUSERIES which World Premiered at the Tribeca Film Fest earlier tonight. It is going to be brief because they only screened the first of four parts and I dislike writing on series unless I can see the whole thing.

The series started with the intention of being a 90 minute film, but there is too much stuff regarding Burton and his friends and collaborators were more than willing to talk so an hour and a half went to over four hours.

When the episode started I kind of groaned and winced thinking it was going to be a conventional retelling of Burton's life. However almost instantly the film changed and morphed into something spectacular and moving. 

This is not a conventional bio of Burton- yes it tells the story of his life, but the series is structured so that people like Danny Elfman, Winona Ryder, Johnny Depp, Michael Keaton and everyone else talk about Burton in relation to their lives. They don't tell what HE did but what THEY did together. How did working on the various projects change their lives. By allowing the everyone to talk about themselves and their connections to Burton the film becomes something bigger and greater than just a guy who makes movies and instead becomes a portrait of a force of nature who has changed the world.

More simply put it's an explanation of why following your dream and voice is a good thing, especially when you can find people who need to follow your example.

I loved this episode- and I am praying the rest of the series follows suit. If it does I'm guessing it will be hailed as one of the best films on film and creation ever.

See this film.

ADDENDUM- I loved it so much I went to the press screening two days after the premiere just because it was so good I had  to see it again

Deji Meet Girl (2022) Fantasia 2022

When a cute guy appears at a hotel on Okinawa, a young girl's life is turned upside down as amagic things begin happening around him.

This 20 minute movie is the result of Ushio Taizawa putting the film together as if it was a series of 90 minute episodes.  This film is an often magical little distraction that feel like its a compressed, if perfectly paced feature film. Thats not a knock more a statement that this film that has as much going on as most similar features.

This is a sweet little film that is worth seeing where ever you can see it.

Finding the Asshole (2019) Slamdance 2019

Finding the Asshole is a series of short films premiering at Slamdance and on line at the same time. The films are unconnected other than they riff on bad behavior.

In the three episodes made available for the press one was set in a fancy gallery, another concerned people walking down the street and the third riffed on party bad behavior in the style of a horror film.

How you react to the films is going to be determined by how you react to the tones of each segment. I say this because my reaction shifted according to the presentation. I liked each for differing reasons and to differing degrees. I will say I liked the first and third ones more than the second.

You will forgive me for not going into deep discussions of the film, but they are the sort of films that you need to see before you read a discussion. What I have to say may influence how you take the films, which isn't fair since the films should stand on their own, they are good enough to do so and don't really need me inflating them. The films are also short enough that there is no reason for you not to see them for yourself.

If you are looking for something unique and one of a kind, which I assume you are since you are reading Unseen Films, then Finding the Asshole is for you.

Episode One is screening at Slamdance. All three episodes are available today here.

Curtain Raiser: BAMcinématek presents The Vertigo Effect

This week: BAMcinématek (in lovely Brooklyn, New York) kicks off The Vertigo Effect, a two-week full slate mini-festival devoted to Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 classic Vertigo, plus the many films inspired or influenced by it. And that's a lot of movies, ranging from Brian De Palma's Obsession (scored by Vertigo composer Bernard Herrmann), David Lynch's cult favorite modern noir Mulholland Dr.. Paul Verhoeven plays peekaboo (Basic Instinct), Terry Gilliam sends us time-traveling with Twelve Monkeys, and Tony Scott Déjà Vu is well worth re-seeing. Of course no salute to Vertigo would be complete without Mel Brook's loony, loony parody High Anxiety! The original classic kicks off the series: catch Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in a rare IB Technicolor print of Vertigo on April 16.

Among the several other films on show for The Vertigo Effect: Mississippi Mermaid, Perversion Story, Sugar Cookies, Last Embrace, Special Effects, and the proverbial many, many more. You can also view films that inspired Vertigo like Laura and Unfaithfully Yours, plus other movies starring Kim Novak (Bell, Book and Candle, Pal Joey). Also screening are a series of related shorts, and the festival will conclude on April 30 with a sneak preview of Christian Petzold’s 2014 Phoenix.

In the words of the great Jimmy Stewart: "Well, I think that explains it. Anyone could become obsessed with the past with a background like that!" Don't get dizzy, get busy and head on down to BAMcinématek's The Vertigo Effect!

The Vertigo Effect runs April 16-30 at BAMcinématek in Brooklyn; see the full schedule and details at the BAM website.

Curtain Raiser: BAMcinématek presents Space Is the Place: Afrofuturism on Film

This week: Brooklyn's BAMcinématek blasts off with the cool-concepted Space Is the Place: Afrofuturism on Film, a series of films running April 3 through April 15 — absolutely best described by BAM itself as "a kaleidoscopic, horizon-expanding exploration of alternate and imagined Black futures and pasts in science-fiction, genre-bending global cinema, unorthodox documentary, and innovative music videos."

What can you see at Space Is the Place: Afrofuturism on Film? Perhaps the question is what can't you see? (And rest assured, it's gonna be funky! Among the offerings:

• Dick Fontaine’s Beat This!: A Hip Hop History (1984) kicks off the series, an early definitive survey of the hip-hop movement, including major starts and groundbreaking performances,
• Sun Ra stars in Space Is the Place (1974) as a space pharaoh who travels to Earth and is challenged to a card game against the evil Overseer to decide the fate of the Black race. Let me just repeat that. Sun Ra stars as a space pharaoh travels to Earth and is challenged to a card game against the evil Overseer to decide the fate of his race. (And don't miss Robert Mugge’s Sun Ra documentary A Joyful Noise (1980).)
• Welcome II the Terrordome, Ngozi Onwurah’s 1995 dystopian evocation of a near-future Black history,
• John Sayles’s 1984 The Brother from Another Planet and Wesley Snipes as the titular Marvel Comics super-vampire hunter in Stephen Norrington’s Blade (1998),
• Cosmic Slop (1994), a controversial, three-part HBO special that has drawn comparisons to The Twilight Zone and features George Clinton’s floating head as narrator.
• ...and the proverbial corncuopia much, much more of unique and incisive films on the Black experience crossed with high-concept science fiction!

I'm hopin' you won't miss the funkadelic Space Is the Place: Afrofuturism on Film. The Floating Cosmic Head of George Clinton compels you!

Space Is the Place: Afrofuturism on Film runs April 3-16 at BAMcinématek in Brooklyn; see the full schedule and details at the BAM website.

Curtain Raiser: The Film Society of Lincoln Center presents Obscure Pleasures: The Films of Walerian Borowczyk

This week: a chance to see a stellar line-up of films directed by Polish/French surrealist Walerian Borowczyk, at The Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York City. Obscure Pleasures screens a dozen Borowczyk films, including his cult classic The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne (1981), 1979's Immoral Women, his animated Theatre of Mr. and Mrs. Kabal (1967), 1976's rock-scored The Streetwalker. 1977's Behind Convent Walls is chock-full o' sexually-frustrated nuns, and The Story of Sin (1975) mixes passionate eroticism and a scathing attack on the Roman Catholic church.

That's not all: more Borowczyk films (several in new digital restorations), a compilation of Borowczyk's shorts, and series co-curator David Bird presents his documentaries on Borowczyk in A Dazzling Imagination. On display in the Film Society's Furman Gallery is Walerian Borowczyk: Posters and Lithography, a collection of rare and dazzling movie posters and art.

A master of blending Dadaism and sexuality, Borowczyk both built upon and challenged the mores of the Sexual Revolution, resulting in his much-discussed, often-banned body of work. (Step aside, kids, this one's a little too hot for you!)

I still don't know how to pronounce "Borowczyk," but I'm sure I'll discover how at the series. Find out too, won't you?



Obscure Pleasures: The Films of Walerian Borowczyk runs April 2-9 at The Film Society of Lincoln Center in Manhattan; see the full schedule and details at the Film Society website.