In a small train station's waiting room, people #sleep. #Trains in the distance rumble along. #Snow covers footprints crossing nearby tracks and the wooden shed where travellers, strangers, huddle together in their shared fate. Pavel Kostomarov's cinematography and Sergey Loznitsa's direction capture the silence.

Owen Land explores meaning, wit, and #WordPlay, and manages to unite the #marketing of #umeboshi #plums in a wide variety of vessels, the brokering of #brides, and pandas discussing #Freud in all of the above contexts.

“My film is going to be introduced by a fake panda and it’s going to be about Japanese salted plums among other things.”

– FIRST PANDA

Various characters lose their shoes in Fellini's hedonistic La dolce vita, most famously Anita Ekberg after entering a freezing Fontana di Trevi with paparazzo Marcello Mastroianni.

“I like lots of things. But there are three things I like most: love, love, and love.”

– Sylvia

A young woman jumps out of a window, leaving behind her husband, an #antiques dealer. Sitting in their bedroom with the body lying in state, the widower remembers her. In his memory, she is nameless, abstract, a state not a life..

 

Une femme douce is closely adapted from Fyodor #Dostoyevsky Кроткая [Krotkaya / A Gentle Creature] (1876).

A slice of teenage bravura is just enough for a couple of kids to #dare each other to a drag race. Hours after the car of one of them had plunged from a bridge into the murky waters below, Mary Henry resurfaces.

“It's funny… the world is so different in the daylight. In the dark, your fantasies get so out of hand. But in the daylight everything falls back into place again.”

– Mary Henry

Carnival of Souls was Herk Harvey's sole feature length film. He's much better known – albeit mostly uncredited – for his short PSAs including Halloween Safety, ruining your kids' favourite holiday since 1977, and Shake Hands With Danger (1980).

 

You don't have to tell Three Finger Joe about taking no risks.

Sunrise was bestowed the award for “Best Unique and Artistic Picture” on that first Oscar night. The first and last time that ever happened; in 1930, the price was scrapped and replaced by “Outstanding Picture” aka “Best Picture”. And that one went to the much more American-patriotic Wings (1927).

 

Also rightfully awarded in '29 were Janet Gaynor (Best Actress in a Leading Role), Charles Rosher and Karl Struss (Best #Cinematography), while Rochus Gliese was nominated for Best #ArtDirection.

“This song of the Man and his Wife is of no place and every place; you might hear it anywhere, at any time.”

– opening title card

Sunrise is a fantastic tour de force, and it winning that award should make you feel hopeful for the future of cinema. Instead, the current list of nominees and winners is, at least to me, a checklist of what to avoid for ever.

Frederick Wiseman is the fly-on-the-wall at Northeast High School, filming teenage angst and awkwardness. There's talk of #PromNight, and small dramas when it turns out that above-the-knee is not formal wear thankyouverymuchyounglady. The dance itself is never shown.

“I didn't mean to be individualistic.”

– student

This is High School. I'm glad I never have to set foot in one ever again.

Real-world female impersonator Leslie Marlowe plays Lt. Albert Rose, a military man forced into wearing lingerie and said wig and eventually embracing it as “Rose Albert”.

“IS HE? or ISN'T SHE?”

– tagline

Re-released by Something Weird you're forgiven to think that She-Man: A Story of Fixation will be a schlockfest. Instead it's a versatile as Bob Clark's filmography. She-Man – and do please forgive the wording – is part #fetish fest, part #mondo movie, part #queer liberation.

 

A lovely film that, reminiscent to Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda (1953), was made by people who lived the lifestyle and therefore forfeits the unnecessary, exploitative angle.

 

Read more about Marlowe and his/her peers in Avery Willard's wonderful Female Impersonation from 1971.

Eating is taboo, and relieving oneself is performed on a toilet at a communal table in Luis Buñuel's Le fantôme de la liberté. The farce strings together events from #Buñuel's life (who was 74 by the time he made this film), with dreams remembered by both Buñuel and co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière.

“Madrid was filled with the stench of – pardon my language – food. It was indecent.”

– le professeur des gendarmes

The title references the opening sentence from Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto (1848): “A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of communism.”. What follows is a wonderful, free-flowing pastiche performed by a sublime cast.

For authenticity reasons, The General was – for the most part – filmed on location in Oregon. Set during the #AmericanCivilWar, it's a comedic retelling of a popular war memoir about the #GreatLocomotiveChase.

“This girl was in the baggage car when we stole the train, so I thought it best to hold her.”

– Captain Anderson

Sadly it was a box office #flop, resulting in Keaton losing his independence and his movie entering the #PublicDomain as early as 1954. Luckily for us that means we too can enjoy Oregon beautiful 1920s vistas.