I guess I do too, which is why I chose to review this program. But Micaela O’Herlihy’s 14-minute Thunder Perfect Mind, a choppy experimental film mixing found footage with elliptical glimpses of a cavorting New Age prostitute, is too arch and self-conscious for my taste. In her 58-minute video documentary Bad Girls, Marielle Nitoslawska interviews smart and articulate women on the subject of porn, including film theorist and former Chicagoan Linda Williams, French feminist Luce Irigaray, filmmaker Catherine Breillat, performance artist and porn star Annie Sprinkle, and several directors of erotic films, including some who work for Lars von Trier’s Danish porn studio. Much of this is fun and interesting, though only occasionally both at the same time. (JR) Read more
Two video documentaries. The shorter of the two, Tanaz Eshaghian and Sara Nodojoumi’s I Call Myself Persian: Iranians in America (2001, 27 min.), takes on a fascinating topic, but the execution is pedestrian talking-head stuff. Among the better heads on display are Edward Said and the artist and filmmaker Sharin Neshat. Lu Lippold’s The Unapologetic Life of Margaret Randall (2002, 59 min.) is an absorbing portrait of the bohemian writer and activist, an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy in Central and South America. After living in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Mexico for decades, Randall sued to have her American citizenshipwhich she had previously renouncedreinstated, incurring a lengthy deportation battle with the U.S. government. Randall, her mother, her daughters, and poet Adrienne Rich are better at telling Randall’s story than the awkward narration. (JR) Read more
Jerry Lewis’s fourth solo feature directed by his gifted mentor Frank Tashlin (1963) takes place in a department store that Lewis’s ditzy character winds up destroying. The backup cast is unusually good (Agnes Moorehead, Jill St. John, John McGiver, Ray Walston), and Tashlin exploits to the fullest his vision of appliances running amok. 90 min. (JR) Read more
