Lost in Criterion

Guy Madden describes Brand Upon the Brain! as one of his most biographical films and I hope that's not true even in a weird metaphorical sense. There's a lot going on here, and all of it is good. Too bad its 6 years before we get to watch another Madden movie.

We revisit the world of Jaques Tati and his Mr. Hulot for one last time with Trafic, in which Mr. Hulot invents a very good car and has an adventure trying to get it to the autoshow. Along the way we talk about car culture, the proper collective name for a group of hippies, and whether or not Tati is a reactionary.

We reach a boiling point today as the Collection serves us another coming of age story about a white boy. Claude Jutra’s Mon Oncle Antoine isn’t a bad movie! It’s extremely well regarded in it’s native Canada, and for good reason. But there are more stories to tell, and we’re kinda tired of this same old one.

We finally return to the work of Carl Th. Dreyer with a dreamy horror film on the edge of the silent/sound divide. Stephen G. brings some research on vampire film history as we talk the beautiful, surprising Vampyr (1932).

Milcho Manchevski's 1994 Before the Rain is a circular look at ethnic violence in Macedonia and a reminder to other countries that may view themselves as more "civilized" that violence is their daily life as well. Nationalism: it's bad!