Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1977)

Magnum Photos: The Changing of a Myth (1999)

Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001)

New Waterford Girl (Allan Moyle, 1999)

Reconstruction 0: The Reverse of Deja-Vu on Television With Slight Delay (David Blair, 1986)

The Reverse of Deja-Vu on Television, with Slight Delay [1985] from David Blair on Vimeo.

Are You the Favorite Person of Anybody? (Miguel Arteta, 2005)

Tater Tomater (Philip Morrison, 1990)

Parable (Jon Jost, 2008)

Homecoming (Jon Jost, 2004)

The Circus (Ian Pons Jewell, 2009)

An Arbuckle Christmas (2008)

(Garfield minus Garfield Christmas Special) Jon Arbuckle, an awkward young man dealing with the aftermath of his childhood schizophrenia, revisits the rural town he grew up in for the Holidays. While home, he learns the true meaning of Christmas when he spends some much needed time with his grandmother who is dealing with the early effects of Alzheimer’s.

Chain Letters (Mark Rappaport, 1985)

Tokyo Days (Chris Marker, 1988)

1988, 20:15 min, color, sound

This idiosyncratic view of Tokyo begins with a live mannequin in a store window and French actress Arielle Dombasle chatting with Marker as they wander around Tokyo. After Dombasle departs, the tape continues with footage from the Tokyo subway and an indoor market. Marker punctuates the tape throughout with playful visual and sound edits.

In Japanese and French.

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Vivre sa vie: Film en douze tableaux (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)

AKA My Life to Live

Två människor (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1945)

AKA Two People

Human Remains (Jay Rosenblatt, 1998)

Girlfriends (Claudia Weill, 1978)

Frownland (Ronald Bronstein, 2007)

No matter what their flaws, the main characters in mainstream movies are almost always appealing in some way. If they are nebbishes, their klutziness is endearing. (Look at the work of Woody Allen.) If they are lonely, their alienation is grand and alluring. (Look at the work of Orson Welles.) If they are evil, their villainy is sexy and rakish. (Look at the work of Christopher Walken.) Ronald Bronstein strips away the Hollywood idealizations and asks us to spend time with genuinely unromantic characters leading genuinely unromantic lives. He creates characters we don’t want to see ourselves as, characters we refuse to identify with. There is much lip service paid to the importance of depictions of “otherness” in film; Frownland reveals that the concept of otherness as redemptive and transformative is a romantic myth. He gives us otherness we want to cross the street to avoid; otherness without sentimentality. Or is he just giving us ourselves with our self–deluded idealizations removed? – Ray Carney

There’s a certain type of person out there…one that we’re all familiar with…who provokes a kind of instant instinctive repulsion in nearly everyone they cross paths with. You run into these ‘off’ people now and again and it’s the social equivalent of pushing two magnets towards one another. By way of example, it’s the kind of person who might stop you on the street and ask you for directions and before you know it you’re claiming that you don’t know the way…even though you do….just to end the exchange as quickly as possible. In life, it’s just so easy to dismiss people like this. They don’t occupy enough real estate in your brain to force you to confront and reasonably gauge whether this instinctive aversion is justified. You simply go about your business and push them out of your mind as quickly as they entered into it. I guess i figured a movie theatre, where people are willing to be held captive for a few hours, is a good environment to make audiences spend time with someone like this, chew em over, swallow em, regurgitate em, chew some more, etc…and hopefully arrive at a more layered response. – Ronald Bronstein

Fractionally better than spending the evening watching crappy French tele in a Nantes hotel-room… Yes – last night, I had the choice of “Frownland” at Nantes’ Katorza art cinema or an evening of the direness that is currently being dished up for the TV-audience of France… I think “Frownland” was just worth leaving the hotel for. But, really, it is a car-crash of a film… Every character repelled and bored me, nothing happened, there was far too much snot, it looked so dated [despite apparently only having been made last year], etc., etc… I think the acting was OK – as far as it went – and I’m more than happy to turn a blind eye to a slightly grainy picture and an obviously low budget if the film-maker has got something genuinely interesting to say. [In fact, I'd encourage such film-makers, as we really do need an alternative to Hollywood.] But, a film needs to engage me much better than “Frownland” managed to. – badgerking10, imdb comment

At 106 minutes, it is at least 95 minutes too long. You get to watch the main character’s failed and drawn out attempts to communicate, in extended real time. The same grimaces, hand over mouth motions, kinetic and frantically repeated words and syllables over and over and over again – WE GET THE POINT.
One site actually compares this work to early Mike Leigh. What drugs would you have to be on to make that statement? – NJtoTX, imdb comment

Dancing Outlaw (Jacob Young, 1991)

[see also]

2084 (Chris Marker, 1984)

2084: Video clip pour une réflexion syndicale et pour le plaisir
Fr. 10 min

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