Luis Buñuel was the great Spanish film director who made ‘Un Chien Andalou’ and ‘L’Age d’Or,’ two of the original surrealist films. This documentary, directed by Robert Valey, was made in 1964. The director talks freely and with a certain charming guile about his influences, friends, paranoias, enjoyments and his impressions of various countries. He [...]

I did not know this filmmaker, Paolo Gioli, existed until yesterday. And that really bothers me because I feel a very strong kinship with this filmmaker just on the basis of having seen two of his pieces. What can a filmmaker do with his own backyard? That is the question that comes to my mind [...]

Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin made this short in 2009 with Isabella Rossellini in the lead role of a woman who finds ecstasy in an electric chair. The film moves beautifully with its music and entertains with its silent film mystery and accelerated movement. However, I will say that Maddin’s films seem to me overly concerned [...]

Between 1988 and 1998 filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard made a film called ‘Histoire(s) du cinéma.’ Though it purports to be a sort of cinema history, reflecting on how cinema intersects with the 20th century, I think it is more likely a vision of how cinema works in the mind of one filmmaker. The images drift in [...]

I have not had any interest in the work of Terrence Malick over the years. His films tend toward nature and beautifully composed shots that seem much too still for my tastes. I like things that move in sloppier fashion than Malick is willing to show. For instance, the clip shown here makes me want [...]

Rachel Tejada shot and edited this film about independent and underground film in China. It was produced by dGenerate Films.  It’s in six short parts and covers the basics of independent film festivals and efforts to make films that will somehow survive the oversight of the repressive government.  I post this out of a measured [...]

If you live in Los Angeles you’ve probably seen it many times: the caravan of white trucks parked along the block and around the corner, diesel generators roaring, cables strung along the gutters, piles of lights, rolls of cables, racks of costumes, makeup trailers, bored extras, bored crew members, bored motorcycle police, and fascinated passersby. [...]

Jeff Alu is a photographer making films who I met at the Downtown Film Festival Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago. Cool guy. He’s also made this perfectly dream-like dream sequence that’s a part of his in-production film, 12 Dreams. I look forward to seeing all twelve! We had a brief discussion at the [...]

Well I’m just very pleased about this.  The Downtown Film Festival Los Angeles has given my film, Yellow Plastic Raygun, the award for Best Experimental Film.  I was having quite a nice week attending various parties and screenings at the festival.  Its use of multiple locations in the heart of downtown Los Angeles gives one [...]

The Downtown Film Festival Los Angeles has made my latest short film, Yellow Plastic Raygun, part of their official selection!  So if you are in Los Angeles on Saturday, September 11, 2010 and you want to see an evening of short films, come by the Civic Center Theater at First and Main Street right across [...]