That's a Wrap

I saw a couple more movies at the Wisconsin Film Festival today. Urban Explorers: Into the Darkness is a new movie by Melody Gilbert, who directed Whole, which was one of my favorite movies at the festival a couple years ago. This one's also about strange and interesting people. Here, she focuses on people who explore abandoned buildings and subway tunnels and sewers and the like; I really liked everybody featured in the movie. You can find out more about the fascinating hobby/lifestyle of urban exploration here or here or here. The movie was good, by the way.

Flight of the Red Balloon was as lovely as I expected it would be. A lot of it was shot in reflections on store windows and reminded me vaguely of certain photorealist paintings I've seen, and there was a lot of playful fun going on in the backgrounds (a lamp that looks like a red balloon, shapes and patterns created by streetlights and signs, etc.).

I was supposed to see The Singing Revolution, too, but I screwed up and walked all the way to the wrong end of campus thinking it was at the Union Theater when it was actually at the Orpheum, so I ended up skipping it.

The End.

Wisconsin Film Festival

The Wisconsin Film Festival starts today. I'm going to a few movies. It's their 10th anniverary this year. To celebrate this momentous occasion, here are some of my favorites from years past.

Whole: an amazing documentary about people who want to have their limbs removed.

The Big Red One: the reconstruction of one of Sam Fuller's great movies and one of the best war movies ever made.

Young Frankenstein: the classic Mel Brooks comedy, shown at the beautiful Capitol Theatre last year. This was just a great movie-going experience. I wish they were using this theater as a venue again this year, but for some reason they're not.

Blackboards: a wonderful, sad film from Iran.

Slasher: John Landis's amusing documentary about used car salesmen.

Cure: a truly excellent Japanese horror film.

Wheel of Time: Werner Herzog's documentary about Tibetan Buddhists. Beautiful.

Story of the Weeping Camel: one of the sweetest, most poignant movies I've seen.

The Life of Reilly: a surprisingly (?) awesome movie about Charles Nelson Reilly.

The Milk Can: one of the funniest movies I've seen in recent years.

Martin & Orloff: a very funny comedy from the Upright Citizens Brigade.

Meet the Parents: the original that the Ben Stiller movie was based on. Much darker and weirder. With Emo Philips, who is weirder than this guy, but maybe not as good an actor.

Youtube Frenzy

Here are a bunch of mostly unconnected youtube videos I just like. They're good, in different ways.

Mike Gravel does "Helter Skelter." Cause that song isn't associated with crazy people at all.


This was his last little number. It's awesome.


Excellent April Fool's gag from Terry Jones and co.


The greatest ad ever made: Hungarian sausages!



And this is sublime and beautiful.