The two sisters are great and it fixes some story issues from the original that had never occurred to me, probably because I was too busy being entertained. The energy seems to have been sucked out and there’s none of the wit or visual inventiveness that Dean Fleischer Camp brought to Marcel the Shell. My 2 1/2 year old was mostly engaged, but I don’t imagine her (or anyone) ever choosing to watch this over the original.

But it’s a…

Some very cinematographer turned director visual symbolism (I wonder what that bird in a gold cage that takes up about 1/2 of the frame is supposed to suggest?) and a second half that fails to build on the odd atmosphere created in the first half and a great gardener jump scare help elevate this beyond its script.

SPOILER - I knew going in this had what Caden Mark Gardner and Willow Maclay dubbed in a chapter of Corpses Fools and…

1. The Introduction
Around two-thirty on Sunday afternoon Chantel Akerman stepped out of a car with a grin as wide as one of Chris Marker’s cats. She looked at the long line of people waiting to enter the Light Industry for a rare showing of Michael Snow’s LA REGION CENTRALE. “Wonderful! Is so good to see so many people. You will all love it!” She walked down the line smiling and waving, excited to introduce a film she considers one…

About halfway through THE MYSTERY OF PICASSO Clouzot interrupts the film's format, a blank canvas being filled in by Picasso, to provide a behind the scenes look at the process of constructing the film itself. After an image is complete, we see a shot of Claude Renoir behind the camera, followed by the removal of the canvas and the reveal of a shirtless Picasso putting a lid on his marker.

Up to this point Picasso has been invisible during the…