The Last Knit: dealing with a personal inner hell of addiction and compulsion
Laura Neuvonen, “The Last Knit” (2005) Technically this digital animated short is well done but the very simple plot of a woman addicted to knitting a…
Horror
French and French-language Films
The Mascot: a puppet dog’s mission of self-sacrifice results in an amazing masterpiece of stop-motion animation
Wladyslaw Starewicz, “The Mascot / Fétiche Mascotte ” (1933) An amazing and brilliant short work of stop-motion animation, “The Mascot” is one of several masterpieces made…
Feline Follies: the folly of falling hard in love with no regard for consequences in a dark suicidal cartoon
Otto Messmer, “Feline Follies” (1919) By no means a great cartoon or even a mildly interesting one, this animated short is notable mainly for the first…
The Little Pest: beaten up, walloped, drowned – what’s a pesky baby brother to do?
Dick Huemer, “The Little Pest” (1931) Chiefly remarkable for its depiction of sibling-on-sibling violence, this short cartoon stars the boy Scrappy, who would go on to…
Balloon Land: a fantasy fairy land where life is fragile, death is close by and a serial killer is on the rampage
Ub Iwerks, “Balloon Land” (1935) For sure this cartoon with the Hansel-and-Gretel morality fairy-tale plot is weird and dark, and its theme of the fragility of…
Swing You Sinners! – horror morality story goes to extremes in imaginative animation
Dave Fleischer, “Swing You Sinners!” (1930) A bizarre little cartoon short, filled with the most startling surreal imagery and mobile rubber-limbed characters typical of cartoons in…
The Curse of La Llorona: cursed by cheap thrills and Hollywood horror film cliches
Michael Chaves , “The Curse of La Llorona” (2019) As his full-length movie directorial debut, this horror flick perhaps shows all the faults as well as…
French and French-language Films
Last Year at Marienbad: a comic and often repetitive satire on the empty lives of the wealthy
Alain Resnais, “Last Year at Marienbad / L’Année dernière à Marienbad” (1961) At times hilarious, and at other times maddeningly boring and repetitive, this film is…
French and French-language Films
Climax: French society in microcosm with all its stresses, anxieties, hidden secrets and a dark puppet-master
Gaspar Noe, “Climax” (2018) In the hands of Argentine-French director Gaspar Noe, a story about a group of young dancers hired to be part of a…
The Invisible Man’s Revenge: a messy plot and flat uninteresting characters underline this cheap film
Ford Beebe, “The Invisible Man’s Revenge” (1944) It could have been an interesting character study about various individuals’ motivations and greed, and how far they’re prepared…