Phase IV was the celebrated graphic designer Saul Bass’ lone film as a director, a cerebral and visually assured science fiction exercise depicting an ordinary ant colony unnervingly transformed into a genuinely alien intelligence.
Confirmed cynic Orson Welles reportedly said of Make Way for Tomorrow, “It could make a stone cry”—and this bittersweet, sharply observed, utterly heartbreaking 1937 picture will almost certainly move you as well.
David Mazzucchelli's outstanding graphic novel Asterios Polyp isn't notable just for its satisfying story - about an arrogant architect who learns to see the world in a new way - but for the way that story is told: elegant visual devices abound in this thematically rich work.
Featured in the Films of Michael Powell collection, A Matter of Life and Death stars David Niven as an aviator placed on trial for his life in Heaven after accidentally surviving a parachute-less jump. Graceful storytelling and visual sumptuousness are on display in this charming 1946 film.
What happens when blue-eyed soul collides with progressive rock? The result is Sacred Songs, Daryl Hall's underappreciated avant-pop collaboration with ex-King Crimson leader Robert Fripp, in which Hall's catchy pop hooks are punctuated by Fripp's fascinating sonic experiments.
Before director Edgar Wright and writer-star Simon Pegg turned to the film world with Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, they perfected a combination of frantic pop-cultural allusions, whiplash editing and surprisingly sweet characterization with Spaced: The Complete Series, a Britcom about disaffected twentysomethings sharing a London flat.