film
“Tokyo Fist” and the Gonzo Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto
Tsukamoto’s RAGING BULL more or less, TOKYO FIST’s often surreal and disorienting saga brings a fraught romantic triangle to the boxing ring, where passions, regrets and revenge are played out as ferocious bloodsport. The lyric “Love will tear us apart, again” has never rung truer…
Curator’s Pick: “Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno”
On the short list of movies made about movies that were never made, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno sits near the top. It’s a fascinating descent into the perilous rabbit hole of artistic madness, an object lesson in the dangers of an auteur gone wild. It’s not unique in this regard…
Curator’s Pick: “Fill ‘er Up with Super”
Not exactly the Four Musketeers, this goofy bunch reveals a surplus of issues, whether it’s the girlfriends they want to get back together with, a need to pull annoying pranks, or completely empty pockets. For the longest time, I simply marveled at the lip garnish flaunted by Mssrs. Crombey and Saint-Macary, and I wasn’t alone. The film, as one Letterboxd user enthused: “Beautifully captures what it was like to have a mustache in the 1970s.”
Six to Watch: “Cruel Summer”
Having a hard time keeping your cool this summer? The world is on fire, the air conditioner is sputtering, and the misery index is off the charts. Take heart, Fandor is here to show you how much worse it could be in their “Cruel Summer” 28-movie collection.
Curator’s Pick: “The Legend of the Holy Drinker”
A besotted dream of a very clean tramp, THE LEGEND OF THE HOLY DRINKER is also a throwback to a particular kind of half-logy, umber-infused, myth-laden European arthouse cinema layered thick with obscure portents and kept aloft with lyrical fantasy interludes. It’s so old-fashioned that it’s practically new again.
Curator’s Pick: “A Single Girl”
Walking nearly non-stop through the “real-time” 90 minutes of A SINGLE GIRL (1995), Virginie Ledoyen was 19 when the movie was released, a year after she appeared as a rebellious, lovestruck teenager in Olivier Assayas’ COLD WATER. Streaming this month as a Curator’s Pick on Fandor, the film no longer feels like a gimmick, as it did to some critics at the time.
INTERVIEW: David Weissman on “The Cockettes” and “We Were Here”
Essential documents of what now seems almost a fantastical time and place—San Francisco from the late 1960s into the early ’80s—THE COCKETTES (2002) and WE WERE HERE (2011) respectively tell the stories of the outrageous glitter-bombed, gender-bent performance troupe and a heroic response to the harrowing impact of the AIDS epidemic on a blindsided populace. Keyframe catches up with filmmaker David Weissman.
INTERVIEW: Theodore Schaefer on “Giving Birth to a Butterfly”
After a decade of working his way up through the indie film ranks, writer-director-producer Theodore Schaefer at last sees the debut of his highly distinctive …
Six to Watch: “Mother!”
Mother’s Day is Sunday, which on Fandor means it’s a fine time to call home (cinematically speaking) and check in on Mom. This month’s 25-film “Mother!” collection honors the tradition even as it explores maternity in a myriad of sometimes unexpected or surprising guises. Here are six highlights to help you celebrate in unconventional style.
INTERVIEW: Johannes Grenzfurthner on “Razzennest”
Rogue artist, raconteur and cocktail roboticist Johannes Grenzfurthner is a Viennese Renaissance man whose obsessively detailed and cleverly unhinged films infiltrated some of North America’s more fun-oriented film festivals during the pandemic. His latest, RAZZENNEST, is now streaming exclusively on Fandor.