Dáblova Past (The Devil’s Trap)

A classic Bud Dry commercial from the 80's rhetorically asks "Why are foreign movies so... foreign?" while it throws as many tropes as possible on screen: poorly dubbed Italian, grainy black and white film, odd angles, melodramatic acting, and, of course... clowns. And while that particular reference is clearly Fellini, its point- and the point …

Až Přijde Kocour (The Cassandra Cat AKA When the Cat Comes AKA The Cat Who Wore Sunglasses)

Once upon a time, this really happened. That's how Až Přijde Kocour, directed by the Czech filmmaker Vojtech Jasný (who was later banned from filmmaking due to his anti-Communist messages) begins: a man in a clock named Oliva spies on the goings-on of his fellow townmates for a while, until Charlie, the school's headmaster, shoots …

Cinévardaphoto

Agnes Varda's films are so simple, so deceivingly effortless flights of thought, that you could be forgiven for thinking she just sort of dashed them out of thin air over the course of an afternoon. Though she deals mostly in documentary, her documents are fiction, myth, and dreamlike, taking us on personal journeys that go …

Le Pont du Nord

Every movie is its own miniature universe, complete with its own set of internal logic. When you sit down to watch one, your brain instantly tries to make sense of the world you've been thrust into- who the characters are, what their motivation is, and what kind of a world do they inhabit? What makes …

La Guerre des Boutons (War of the Buttons)

Yves Robert's La Guerre des Boutons was a huge success when it came out in 1962, yet this classic French kids' film is pretty much unknown today- if anything, you may have heard of (or seen) the 90's British remake, unaware this gem even existed. That's too bad, because, like the best films meant for …

Brimstone & Treacle

It's very difficult to tell what, exactly, director Richard Loncraine was going for when he decided to make a feature film adaptation of Dennis Potter's television play, Brimstone & Treacle- it's gothic, but not quite a horror film; it can be quite silly and goofy, but it's not really a comedy; it's dramatic for sure, …

Urgh! A Music War

There are boring concert films, there are fun concert films, and there are concert films that only fans of that particular band could ever enjoy. Urgh! A Music War is none of the above. It's a fascinating, unique, and thank-god-somebody-captured-this piece of cultural history- specifically, the history of New Wave music- which you might not …