The Magic Sword (U.S., 1962)
D: Bert I. Gordon
When I was a kid, The Magic Sword was on TV every Saturday afternoon, it seemed.  I tolerated it, but I really wanted to see stop-motion monsters – and the grotesque monster makeup on some of the characters gave me nightmares.  In adolescence I discovered the film again [...]

Waking Sleeping Beauty (U.S., 2009)
D: Don Hahn
In the mid-1980’s, Disney hit a new low: their latest animated film, The Black Cauldron, was beaten in its opening weekend box office by The Care Bears Movie.  The days of Walt were clearly gone.  Waking Sleeping Beauty, directed by Don Hahn (who produced The Lion King), tells the story of [...]

500 Millibars to Ecstasy (U.S., 1989)
D: George Kuchar
It Came from Kuchar (U.S., 2009)
D: Jennifer M. Kroot
I’d first heard the name Kuchar I don’t know where, probably the Psychotronic Encyclopedia, the connossieur’s film guide to exploitation pictures; all I know is that at some point, somewhere, my eyes scanned the words Sins of the Fleshapoids whereupon I [...]

The Thorn in the Heart (France, 2009)
D: Michel Gondry
Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep) takes his Aunt Suzette on a trip through her past, from the death of her husband to the emotional conflicts with her gay son Jean-Yves, with Gondry’s characteristic playfulness and tenderness.  Suzette has been a [...]

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (U.S., 2009)
D: Judith Ehrich and Rick Goldsmith 
Strange times in Madison.  At about 10pm on Wednesday night, the sky turned green and a great almighty fireball blazed across the sky – a meteor, the national news later reported.  Thursday a throng of Tea Partiers [...]