(in alphabetical order; indicates we especially like it)

24 Hours on Craigslist (2005, 82m, NR):  Everybody's into craigslist.org these days, it's what the internet should be like, blah blah blah.  Just the world's biggest rummage sale/personals ads if you ask me.  Nonetheless, this documentary, which doesn't tell you much about how the site works, is still entertaining as it introduces you to the bizarre range of folks who hook up through it.

Baby Doll (1956, 117m, NR):  Tennessee Williams wrote and Elia Kazan directed, just like on "A Streetcar Named Desire."  Karl Malden is all bug-eyed and blue-balled as a cotton ginner whose 19-year-old bride (Carroll Baker) won't let him in her bed until her impending next birthday.  Plus she sleeps in a crib and sucks her thumb.  Pitch-dark comedy with great performances that you can't believe they got away with in the 50s.  (Well, the Legion of Decency condemned the movie, but other than that, they got away with it.)

Betty Blowtorch and Her Amazing True Life Adventures (2003, 98m, NR):  This documentary follows an all-girl punk band (one young lady goes by Bianca Butthole) on the road for two years, as they stage Great-White-style pyrotechnic shows and eventually face tragedy (but not the Great White kind).

Campfire (2004, 96m, NR, subtitled):  This one played at the Portland Int'l Film Festival last year, and mixes political and personal messages nicely.  Following her father's death, a teenaged Israeli girl struggles with the usual heartbreaks of youth while her mom dithers over moving the family to an Orthodox West Bank settlement.

Damnation (1988, 120m, NR, subtitled):  Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr ("The Werckmeister Harmonies") strikes again with another slow-paced, drab, profound, pretentious, enlightening, frustrating experience.  Here a lonely fellow finds his only happiness in a cabaret singer who, unfortunately, is married.

Delicatessen (1991, 100m, R, subtitled):  Finally on DVD!!  The fabulous debut feature collaboration between directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro ("The City of Lost Children") introduced the world to their unique visual style (aided by cinematographer Darius Khoondji) with a hilarious story set in a dreary post-apocalyptic world where food--especially meat--is scarce.  Enter Dominique Pinon as an unemployed clown who happens upon a broken-down hotel where the part-time workers seem to end up on the menu.  Toss in a band of subterranean vegetarian terrorists and you've got an unforgettable movie.

The Falls (1980, 185m, NR):  The first feature-length effort from director Peter Greenaway ("The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover," Prospero's Books," etc.) is an unclassifiable masterpiece.  In documentary form, complete with authoritative voice-over, it presents min-biographies of 92 different victims of an unexplained Violent Unknown Event, those whose last names began with "Fall."  Intellectual in-jokes and various clues to the nature of the Event (most of which involve birds) come and go at a dizzying pace, and this probably has to been seen three or four times to be fully appreciated.  Try to watch it all the way through without stopping—I couldn't, but I still think it's great.

The Family Stone (2005, 102m, PG-13):  A gaggle of decent actors (Luke Wilson, Claire Danes, Diane Keaton) do their best with the latest home-for-the-holidays comedy.  Dermot Mulroney brings his tightly-wound, self-centered girlfriend back to his bourgeois bohemian kin, and they all just hate her.  Her sister (Danes), though, is another matter.  One of Mulroney's brothers is deaf and gay, and the incessant half-assed sign language during every dinner conversation gets annoying.  Somewhere Sly is pissed.

The Guard from Underground (1992, 96m, NR, subtitled):  A lot of American filmmakers get their start working in low-budget horror films, so why shouldn't Japanese directors do the same?  This early effort from Kiyoshi Kurosawa ("Pulse," "Bright Future") combines a slasher-movie plot with an office satire.  A newly hired appraiser for a company that buys fine art becomes the obsession of a psychotic ex-sumo wrestler who works as a security guard in her building.

Heimat II (1992, 1416m in 7 volumes, NR, subtitled):  Picking up where the series "Heimat" ("Homeland") left off, 1960, this acclaimed series follows a family's journey though 20th century German history.  Holder of the Guinness world record for "longest commercially shown film."

Hoodwinked (2005, 80m, PG):  A computer-animated, updated take on the Little Red Riding Hood tale, with celebrity voice talents like Glenn Close, Andy Dick, and Jim Belushi along for the ride.

Jargo (2004, 90m, NR, subtitled):  In this German coming of age film, a teenager must adjust from a privileged life to one in a Berlin housing project, all while struggling with his attraction to his best friend's girl.  Udo Kier plays Jargo's father, who kills himself early on, then reappears "Six Feet Under"-style for the rest of the movie.

Lemonade Joe (1964, 99m, NR, subtitled):  The Communist government of Czechoslovakia funded this bizarre, musical satire of American Westerns.  The effeminate singing cowboy Lemonade Joe comes to the Trigger Whiskey Saloon in order to spread a message of temperance and promote the consumption of his favorite brand, Kolaloka Lemonade.  This one'll blow your mind.

Modern Romance (1981, 93m, R):  The great Albert Brooks' second film (and probably his second-best) is typical, but hilarious, stuff.  The writer-director also stars as a film editor whose various neuroses complicate his relationship with his tolerant girlfriend.

The Net: The Unabomber, LSD and the Internet (2004, 117m, NR, subtitled):  This German documentary presents some provocative connections between Ted Kaczynski and the birth of the internet, by exploring the Unabomber's participation in Harvard mind control experiments of the 1960s.  It's interesting stuff, but director Lutz Dammbeck's interviews with various digerati are needlessly combative and prevent some worthwhile discussions.  Anyone looking for a documentary subject could do worse than Stewart Brand, though.

The Night of the Iguana (1964, 114m, NR):  Richard Burton stars in Tennessee Williams' overheated story of a disgraced priest who strands a tour bus full of Baptist ladies at an isolated Mexican resort.  There he nearly loses his mind, thanks to a tempting nymphet (Sue Lyon, who knows nymphet, having played "Lolita"), an old friend's widow (Ava Gardner), and an eccentric artist (Deborah Kerr).

Pray (2005, 100m, NR, subtitled):  The latest J-Horror arrival is a low-budget affair about a pair of nihilistic teens kidnap a little girl for ransom and hide out in abandoned school.  When it turns out the girl's been dead for a year, you just know some supernatural revenge is in the offing.

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961, 103m, NR):  Based on Tennessee Williams' only novel, this story of a widowed actress (Vivien Leigh) and her relationship with an Italian hustler (Warren Beatty) isn't among the most sparkling of his adaptations.  Still fun to watch a young, toothy Beatty struggle with his Italian accent, though.

Sweet Bird of Youth (1962, 120m, NR):  Paul Newman plays Chance Wayne, a small-town big shot whose dreams of Hollywood stardom never came true.  Now he's back in his hometown, along with a drug-addled movie star (Geraldine Page), in order to prove to everyone he's a success.  Great performances and lots of Tennessee Williams-style transgression to be had.

Tennessee Williams' South (1973, 80m, NR):  This rarely-seen, fascinating documentary made for Canadian television features Williams himself leading a tour through the places and events that inspired his art.  Included are some staged readings, including Broadway's original Blanche DuBois, Jessica Tandy.

The Velvet Underground: Under Review (2006, 75m, NR):  This unauthorized video bandography features oodles of hard-to-find really performance footage and interviews, but no Lou Reed or John Cale.

Videograms of a Revolution (1992, 107m, NR, subtitled):  Edited from thousands of hours of video shot during the 1989 Romanian uprising which ousted Caucescu, this riveting documentary focuses on the struggle for the rebels to hold the TV station, and how this revolution was, in fact, televised (or at least taped for later broadcast).

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