sundance

Before TWILIGHT: the history of the vampire at BAM

While the vampires of today are cute enough for gaggles of teenage girls (and many full-grown women too, I’ve heard) to hang posters of on their bedroom walls, the original vampires were actually meant to instill fear. Hence the long, sharp nails, the carnivorous teeth, the goblin-like ears and the dead white face of Nosferatu, the guy who started it all in F.W. Murnau’s 1922 masterpiece of German expressionism, NOSFERATU, A SYMPHONY OF HORROR.

Timely release: A CHRISTMAS TALE

For better or for worse the holidays mean family – lots and lots of family. We make the trip back home, sleep on the fold-out couch and make strained conversation with the ornery aunt or cousin or brother no one really wanted to invite in the first place. Maybe this is why director Arnaud Desplechin titled his most recent effort about complicated and strained family relationships A CHRISTMAS TALE. Christmas and family, the two are synonymous. Desplechin’s tale follows the Vuillard’s, a family whose relationships are more strained than most, and what happens when they all come together to celebrate Christmas and wish their mother, Junon (Catherine Deneuve), well before her upcoming bone marrow transplant.

Criterion releases REPULSION

The first of Polanski’s “Apartment Trilogy” (ROSEMARY’S BABY, THE TENANT), REPULSION remains one of the scariest movies I have ever seen. The new Criterion release, out July 28th, includes a funny, candid, and refreshingly unpolished 1964 French TV on-set documentary along with the Polanski-approved hi-def digital transfer.

Catherine Deneuve – An Actress for all Seasons

Catherine Deneuve stars in APRÈS LUI – premiering on Sundance Channel July 2nd.

Arguably the most well known French actress in America, Catherine Deneuve continues to mesmerize her audiences on both shores with her deeply realistic portrayals of women in desperate circumstances. As Junon in 2008′s UN CONTE DE NOEL, Deneuve faced leukemia and a highly dysfunctional family with dignity and humor and was awarded a special prize at Cannes for her performance.