Reviewer: James van Maanen
Ratings (out of five): ** (round up 1/2 if you're keen on the subject)

Watching the extremely retro documentary The Sons of Tennessee Williams, directed, edited, written and produced by Tim Wolff, it's hard not to wonder at the rather shockingly old-fashioned attitudes, interests, and behavior of the gay denizens of New Orleans and its environs, as they reminisce and ready themselves for a relatively recent Mardi Gras ball.

Granted, this is all about Mardi Gras, a time when letting loose and having fun is evidently paramount. (I have never been to Mardi Gras or to carnival in Rio, so I can't claim to understand what all the fuss is about.) Still, Mr. Wolff's concentration on dressing up in drag as the be-all and end-all of gay liberation seems a bit much. While the press materials hails this as a history of the earliest civil right movement for gays in the U.S.A. -- and time-wise this indeed appears to be true -- the interests of the men shown here seem to begin and end with dressing up in drag and getting away with it. This is certainly a part of gay liberation, for some, but making a whole movie around it is a tad circumscribed, no?

Reviewer: Jeffrey M. Anderson 
Ratings (out of five): *** 1/2

Sometimes movies are called "painterly," but it's not often that a movie is based on an actual painting. The Quince Tree Sun (1993) and Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) come to mind. Also Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark (2002), which is about a museum rather than a specific painting, but uses a "painterly" quality of its own.

Now we can add Lech Majewski's The Mill and the Cross to that short list. Based on Pieter Bruegel's painting "The Way to Calvary," from 1564, the movie patiently and delicately outlines many of the themes in the painting, even though the film itself can be somewhat drifting and opaque. It's quite unlike the anchored, physical quality of a painting; it's something rather different.

Reviewer: Philip Tatler IV
Rating (out of five): * 1/2

Anyone familiar with Werner Herzog’s 1999 docuhomage My Best Fiend knows that Klaus Kinski – whatever his merits as a performer – was a prone to deranged lunacy. Herzog’s film posited Kinski as a demon-possessed megalomaniac nearly incapable of taking direction. His (allegedly fabricated) autobiography is full of abuses hurled at the “idiot” directors who Kinski felt mismanaged their films and, above all, his performances.

Kinski’s single directorial effort – 1989’s Paganini – was his chance for him to vindicate himself from all the meddling hacks he’d endured throughout his career. Kinski finally had control of everything – from pre- to post-production – and could deliver the Klaus Kinski performance that he’d longed for audiences to see.

Reviewer: Jeffrey M Anderson
Rating (out of five): ** 1/2

Lamberto Bava is the son of the legendary Italian horror director Mario Bava. Lamberto entered the business young and assisted his father on many films, and recently even helped to assemble the amazing "lost" film Rabid Dogs (1974). When Mario died in 1980, Lamberto embarked upon his own filmmaking career. Two high points were Demons (1986) and Demons 2 (1987), both of which were co-scripted by Dario Argento, another Italian horror legend, and were both playfully post-modern chillers well before Scream came along.