1. Dream Work (For Man Ray). My friend Adam Abrams introduced me to Peter Tscherkassky's short film "Outer Space," available on Other Cinema's Experiments in Terror DVD, but I was thrilled to see a print of Tscherkassky's work. Both "Dream Work" and "Outer Space" take images from Sidney Furie's The Entity which are then contact-printed, multiply exposed, reassembled and reworked. Both are amazingly beautiful and psychologically charged pieces. "Dream Work" screened at Nine Films: 1996-2004, programmed by Greg Pierce and Geralyn Huxley at The Andy Warhol Museum.
2. Jefferson Presents ... Quality Films Release Show. Jefferson Presents ... is a local microcinema programmed and run by Adam Abrams, Gordon Nelson and Jim Mueller, with monthly screenings of both rented works and films by local artists. This show promoted the Quality Films compilation tape of local work, curated by Mueller and Scott Carney. The comp itself is awesome and you can still buy one! Pittsburgh rules!
3. Rivers and Tides (video). This documentary about artist Andy Goldsworthy is fantastic. He works with nature, creating sculptures out of icicles, stones, leaves, etc.
Impromptu (Jefferson Presents ...). For this piece, structuralist filmmaker Rose Lowder composed several different studies of trees, photographing one frame and leaving the next black. She then rewound the camera to the exact right point and re-photographed all the black frames.
5. Fahrenheit 9/11.
6. Capturing the Friedmans. A documentary about a family put into crisis by accusations of pedophilia and abuse. Family members documented their life before, after and during the trials. You really aren't sure what to believe. Very compelling and excellently done.
7. Not Too Much Remember (Ann Arbor Film Festival/Melwood Screening Room). A piece by Tony Gault utilizing stock footage. I was impressed with how Gault created a portrait of one very disturbed person by cutting obviously different films together.
8. School of Rock (video).
9. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
10. Far From Heaven (video). Rent this film by Todd Haynes immediately. It is such a great-looking movie and the acting is very good. I watched it three times in a row.
