Program Notes

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Program Notes

One Week: March 8 - 14

New Print! (1955, 93 minutes)

View the Internet Movie Database entry for "The Night Of The Hunter"

This is the film where rogue, faux preacher Robert Mitchum has "love" and "hate" tattooed on his knuckles. Now widely acknowledged to be one of the great American films, actor Charles Laughton's sole directorial achievement, based on a screenplay by critic James Agee and adapted from a novel by Davis Grubb, was a critical and commercial failure at the time of its release. Today Roger Ebert gushes at "what a compelling, frightening and beautiful film it is!," while Michael Atkinson of the Village Voice calls THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER "the movie freak's definitive love machine ... An arch, Kabuki-like morality play set in a Saturday Evening Post mid-country and populated by shrieking archetypes, THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER is a paroxysm of stylistic excess ... the most intensely expressionistic movie of its day, outside of Welles." The film is about a shady preacher (Mitchum) stalking a pair of children in possession of a loot-stuffed doll, and the film, which anticipated much of the look and feel of David Lynch's work, also stars Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish. Laughton's biographer Simon Callow writes, in his British Film Institute monograph on the film, that "the achievement of Laughton and his team is exceptional and enduring, the imagery original and haunting." This revival of an American masterpiece comes to us in the form of a gorgeous new print that highlights Stanley Cortez's magnificent cinematography.

One Week: March 8 - 14

WHAT TIME IS IT THERE?

Premiere (2000, 116 minutes)

View the Internet Movie Database entry for "What Time Is It There?"

A sort of Taiwanese The 400 Blows, WHAT TIME IS IT THERE? is Ming-liang Tsai's romantic drama in which lovers and even non-lovers pine away for each other across great distances, a film that Elvis Mitchell of the New York Times says "has managed to create an underplayed melodrama about family dynamics and dysfunction that harks back to the spare, unchecked heartache of Yasujiro Ozu." Written by Pi-ying Yang, the film tells of a young street vendor (Kang-Sheng Lee) with a grim home life who meets an aggressive girl (Chen Shiang-Chyi) on her way to Paris. They forge an instant connection when she insists he sell her his best dual time zone watch. Or at least, he forms a connection. Under her long distance spell, he changes all the clocks in Taipei to French time, and later as he watches Francois Truffaut's 400 Blows, she herself has a strange encounter with the film's now-aging star (Jean-Pierre Leaud). Charles Taylor of Salon.com writes that "There are moments in WHAT TIME IS IT THERE?— precise and surprising bits of deadpan comedy, unexpected and poignant wellsprings of melancholy —in which Tsai might be reinventing the delicate, poetic shadow play of silent movies." And J. Hoberman of the Village Voice, after announcing that "Tsai Ming-liang's witty, wistful new film, WHAT TIME IS IT THERE?, is a temporal inquiry that shoulders its philosophical burden lightly," goes on to add that the film is "filled with purposeful, if absurd, activity rendered gravely hilarious through Tsai's deadpan, distanced representation of extreme behavior." Mitchell of the Times concluded that WHAT TIME IS IT THERE?"stands alone among cinematic achievements this year."

One Week: March 15 - 21

METROPOLIS

Premiere (2001, 107 minutes)

View the Internet Movie Database entry for "Metropolis"

Not to be confused with Fritz Lang's silent distopian film, this Japanese anime was directed by Taro Rin and written by the anime legend Katsuhiro Otomo, who directed Akira and wrote Roujin-Z. But METROPOLIS does use Lang's film as a springboard into a surprisingly thoughtful, ceaselessly exciting sci-fi story about a plot to use humanoids to take over a city. Based on the comic by Osamu Tezuka, the film concerns the romance between the half-human Tima and Kenichi, a detective's nephew. J. Hoberman in the Village Voice rates the film highly: "METROPOLIS is A.I. without tears. In a juxtaposition worthy of Kubrick, Rin scores a world-ending explosion to Ray Charles's plaintive ode to psychological programming, 'I Can't Stop Loving You.'" Roger Ebert, in the Chicago Sun-Times calls METROPOLIS simply, "one of the best animated films I have ever seen," adding that "the city in this movie is not simply a backdrop or a location, but one of those movie places that colonize our memory."

One Week: March 22 - 28

PEPE LE MOKO

New Print! (1937, 86 minutes)

View the Internet Movie Database entry for "Pepe Le Moco"

Dark rain-swept streets, smoky bars, a pervading aura of fatalism and a sultry woman who leads compromised men to their doom; these are the signature elements of film noir. But did anyone expect them to appear in French poetic realism films of the '30s? Widely regarded as one of the first true films noir, PEPE LE MOKO, directed by Julien Duvivier and written by him and Jacques Constant, is noir in extremis. The title character, played by Jean Gabin, is a Parisian gangster on the lam in Algiers's Casbah. In that cop-free zone, he is safe and is able to elude arrest. But after two years in the Casbah, Pepe misses his freedom. Then the romantic rogue meets Gaby (Mireille Balin) a gorgeous Parisian tourist, and they fall in love. Native Inspector Slimane (Lucas Gridoux) tries to use her to lure Pepe out of the Casbah where he will be vulnerable to arrest. Later re-made in the United States in 1938 as Algiers, with Charles Boyer and Hedy Lamar, PEPE LE MOKO won the National Board of Review for the best foreign film. One admirer was novelist Graham Greene, who said that the film raised the thriller to a new level of poetry. Alexander Walker in the Evening Standard notes that the "love affair in the film is really an expatriate love for France. Balin personifies the Paris that Gabin hankers for. It's his impulse to reclaim 'the city of light' as much as to possess the woman whose chicness recalls it, which leads to his tragic undoing." Don Druker of the Chicago Reader says that PEPE LE MOKO is "Julien Duvivier's poetic-realist imagination at its high point."

One Week: March 29 - April 4

UNDER THE SUN

Premiere (1998, 118 minutes)

View the Internet Movie Database entry for "Under The Sun"

Sweden-based English director Colin Nutley enjoyed a lot of attention for his Oscar-nominated 1992 comedy House of Angels, starring his wife Helena Bergstrom. In 1998, the pair re-teamed for another comedy, this one based on British novelist H. E. Bates's book The Little Farm (adapted previously in 1973 for television). For their troubles, the film was nominated for Best Foreign Film Oscar in 2000, Nutley's third Oscar nod. The story is set in 1950s Sweden. Olof (Rolf Lassgard) stays on alone at his family's farm after his mother dies, where he unashamedly loves the livestock and fields and big skies, but is unsophisticated about the ways of the city. Unable to read and write, he relies on a much younger friend, a former sailor named Erik (Johan Widerberg, son of Swedish director Bo Widerberg). Erik boasts of being quite a ladies' man in his sailing days, but the Elvis worshipping kid also exploits Olof for betting cash. Then unexpectedly, Olof runs a personals ad for a lady housekeeper, and who should arrive by Ellen (Bergstrom), a middle-class city woman who soon inspires Olof's love and Erik's lust. In a glowing review, Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times noted of Bergstrom that "Hers is a sly and masterful performance, creating a character we are commanded to mistrust, and then turning her into a figure of such fascination and intrigue that by the halfway point we're burning with curiosity about her." Desson Howe of the Washington Post notes that "makes a virtue of its own simplicity. But don't be fooled. That simplicity is mere cover. You're kept wondering about the outcome until the very end." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times says that the film "casts a lovely spell, as warm and seductive as its summertime setting ... Cinematographer Jens Fischer and composer Paddy Maloney help Nutley immeasurably in creating a warm and inviting world, and in telling a story with so much good humor and honest emotion."

One Week: March 29 - April 4

BURNT MONEY

Premiere (2000, 125 minutes)

View the Internet Movie Database entry for "Burnt Money"

Set in Argentina in 1965, BURNT MONEY is based on the true story of two men who were both lovers and notorious bank robbers and around whom something of a popular cult developed. A sort of gay Bonnie and Clyde, BURNT MONEY makes explicit the often implicit gay subtext in many crime spree films. On the run in Uruguay after engineering a bank job, Nene (Leonardo Sbaraglia) and Angel (Eduardo Noriega, who played the Tom Cruise role in Abre los Ojos,the Spanish film that inspired Vanilla Sky) eventually end up hiding out in the apartment of a prostitute named Giselle (Leticia Bredice), while waiting for their mob boss to get them out of the country. But sexual tension between Nene and Angel, who look so much alike they are called "The Twins," (Los Mellizos) causes Giselle to consider betraying them. The fourth film by director Marcelo Pineyro, BURNT MONEY has gone on to win three Latin American festival awards. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times praises Pineyro for bringing "such control and passion to his storytelling that he can sustain overheated melodrama verging on camp, evoke grand romantic tragedy and a journey of spiritual redemption and make it play like a classic gangster movie shot with dark humor." Writes Jeffrey M. Anderson of the San Francisco Examiner, "Finally comes a queer flick that I can proudly endorse." And Edward Guthmann of the San Francisco Chronicle says that "Pineyro interweaves the Angel and Nene story lines with finesse, underscoring the symbiotic, obsessive nature of their bond. ...Moody and stylized, BURNT MONEY unfolds at a hyperbolic, high-drama pitch ...Because of its time period, BURNT MONEY also has a cool, Rat Pack look with the dark glasses and too-narrow suits —along with a definite erotic edge."

One Week: April 5 - 11

Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN

Premiere: For Mature Audiences (2001, 105 minutes)

View the Internet Movie Database entry for "Y Tu Mama Tambien"

If WHAT TIME IS IT THERE?, finds inspiration in Truffaut's The 400 Blows, then his Jules and Jim influences Alfonso Cuaron's Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN (And Your Mother, Too, although it could be translated as So's Your Mother). The stories are similar, with one big difference. Best friends Julio (Gael Garca Bernal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna) are on the road. They take E and smoke some dope and then contrive a trip to the mythical beach Heaven's Mouth with a Spanish beauty Luisa (Maribel Verdu), whom they met at a heavily guarded family wedding attended by Mexico's president. Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN's "colorful celebration of unbridled teen lust set before a gorgeously pure Mexico is sure to set gringo hearts afire," notes Ed Gonzalez of Slant magazine, while David Walker ofWillamette Week asks, "Can a raunchy teen sex comedy actually be intelligent, funny and poignant? If it's Alfonso Cuaron's smash hit tale of two teenage friends on a road trip with a beautiful older woman, then yes, a teen sex comedy can be all that and more. Cuaron's film tackles issues of sexuality, class and friendship, mixing lowbrow and highbrow in an art-house cross between Losin' It and sex, lies and videotape."

One Week: April 12 - 18

FEMALE TROUBLE

New Print (1975, 92 minutes)

View the Internet Movie Database entry for "Female Trouble"

"I hate you and I hate Christmas!" With those words, Dawn Davenport defines herself and her relations to her parents and the rest of the world, which she seeks to dominate by becoming famous. A sort of ur-Madonna or early Courtney Love, Dawn ends up on a crime spree, and also, in this 1975 film, one of John Waters's greatest cinematic creations, in collaboration with his lead actor Divine, who died in 1988. Waters regulars Edith Massey, Mink Stole, and David Lochary, also star in this loving tribute to Hollywood tear-jerkers. Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader calls FEMALE TROUBLE "the best of John Waters's movies prior to Hairspray, and his ultimate concerto for the 300-pound transvestite Divine ... Divine's rage and energy make it vibrate like a sustained aria, with a few metaphors about the beauty of crime borrowed from Jean Genet." Jeffrey M. Anderson of the San Francisco Examiner notes that the film's humor "comes from a pure, raw filmmaking energy that we simply don't see these days." And Variety praised the film's lead player, noting that "Though Divine doesn't stoop to devouring dog excrement as at the Flamingos fade-out, he does everything else, from cavorting on a trampoline, to playing a rape scene opposite himself, and 'giving birth' on camera."

Sweet Smell of Success

One Week: April 12 - 18

View the Internet Movie Database entry for "Sweet Smell of Success"

Beautiful new print of this 1957 classic starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis.

Sorry, no program notes available for this film. Please see the link above.

One Week: April 19 - 25

SCRATCH

Premiere (2001, 90 minutes)

View the Internet Movie Database entry for "Scratch"

The history of night club DJing, or the creation of dance music through the rhythmic scratching and spontaneous mixing of sounds played on multiple turntables, is traced in Doug Pray's documentary. Of this alternative music world, Chris Gore of Filmthreat.com says, "Ken Burns can talk all he wants about Jazz, but I prefer the smooth hip-hop sounds of the modern DJ." Using archival footage, interviews with DJs, and live performances, cut to a non-stop hip-hop soundtrack, Pray, whose earlier film Hype tracked the Seattle grunge scene, goes back to DJings roots with pioneer Grand Wizard Theodore. He was succeeded by another innovator, GrandMixer DXT, shown in a Herbie Hancock music video for "Rock-it" from 1983. DJ Q-Bert offers the viewer lessons in scratching by demonstrating various techniques, adding "It's like you're the instrument," he smiles, "and the universe is playing you." Others featured in performances and interviews include interviews by DJ Q-bert, Rob Swift and the X-ecutioners, Steve Dee, Cut Chemist and NuMark, DJ Craze, The Bullet Proof Scratch Hamsters, and The Beat Junkies and Afrika Bambaataa. Observes Stephen Holden in the New York Times, "Most D.J.'s are fanatical sound scavengers who sort through thousands of old recordings to discover and resurrect their favorite beats, grooves and textures in new, electronically altered combinations." The world of turntable jockeys is highly competitive, and the film doesn't whitewash that. Some of the best sequences of the documentary concern legendary feuds, rivalries and epical performances designed to vanquish foes. Ed Morales of the Village Voice says that "SCRATCH's tale of the resurgent mixmaster is not only an exuberant portrayal of hip-hop's self-healing, it's a compelling meditation on the future of making music in America."

One Week: April 26 - May 2

THE PIANO TEACHER

For Mature Audiences (2001, 130 minutes)

View the Internet Movie Database entry for "The Piano Teacher"

Taking several top honors at last year's Cannes film festival, including Best Actor for Benot Magimel, Best Actress for Isabelle Huppert and Grand Prize, German director Michael Haneke's THE PIANO TEACHER, filmed in Germany but spoken in French, is another hard look at human sexuality, like such recent films as Intimacy, Baise-Moi, and Romance, all of which made their Portland debut at the Cinema 21. The plot concerns an esteemed professor at the Vienna Conservatory named Erika Kohut (Huppert), who lives in an unhealthy state of co-dependency with her obsessively controlling mother (Annie Girardot). A tough and demanding teacher, she lets off steam with unorthodox sexual practices, including vaginal self-mutilation. One student not intimidated by her is the precocious Walter (Magimel). Soon they slip into a bizarre relationship of temptation and denial, dictated by Erika's extensive written demands, and which include a box of bondage accouterments Eventually the teacher becomes just as dependent on the student as she is on her mother. David Rooney in Variety cites Haneke's "customarily elegant direction" and Huppert's "remarkably brave performance" noting that in "the beautifully edited piano lessons themselves, she cuts a commanding figure as a cold perfectionist not averse to spitefulness." Alexander Walker, in the Evening Standard, notes that THE PIANO TEACHER "is the latest and most audacious invasion of material that will genuinely shock people who wouldn't dream of entering a sex shop. Its saving grace is that it shocks more than it titillates." And Tony Rayns in Sight and Sound says that Haneke "scores in the pairing of Huppert with Annie Girardot as her monstrous mother," while Iofilm.co.uk seconds that by saying "Huppert and Girardot give performances of exceptional honesty." Sandi Chaitram of the BBC News proclaims the film a "dark, intelligent, and thought-provoking examination of female repression."

One Week; May 3 - 9

BIG BAD LOVE

Premiere (2001, 111 minutes)

View the Internet Movie Database entry for "Big Bad Love"

Based on some short stories by Mississippi Larry Brown, and written by James Howard and Arliss Howard, who also directed and starred, BIG BAD LOVE also just happens to be Debra Winger's first on-screen performance in more than five years. BIG BAD LOVE follows Vietnam veteran Leon Barlow (Howard) through various trials and tribulations: getting out of rehab, dealing with his neurotic ex-wife Marilyn (Winger), coming up with some way to comfort a daughter with an incurable disease, trying to become a published author, and coping with a mother (Angie Dickinson) who harps on him about how irresponsible he is. In the meantime he works as a house painter with his partner Monroe (Paul Le Mat), where they spend most of the day gossiping about neighbors. Barlow's heavy drinking leads to magic realism fantasias —bleeding typewriters, a cow in his living room—that tilt the movie toward a more in-depth examination of Barlow's inner world. David Rooney in Variety calls the film an "affecting account of one man's struggle to regain control of his life." Meanwhile, "From the performances and the cinematography to the outstanding soundtrack and unconventional narrative, the film is blazingly alive and admirable on many levels," wrote David Hunter in the Hollywood Reporter. And E Online noted that BIG BAD LOVE is "grounded by honest, expressive performances from Howard and Winger, who achieve a tempestuous chemistry."

One Week; May 3 - 9

CODE UNKNOWN

Premiere (2000, 117 minutes)

View the Internet Movie Database entry for "Code Unknown"

The film starts simply enough. A farm lad (Alexandre Hamidi) fleeing his father, ends up in Paris only to find that his brother (Thierry Neuvic), a photo-journalist, is away covering the war in Kosovo. Upset, he throws a bag of half-eaten pastry into the lap of a beggar (Luminita Gheorghiu). A young Arab man (Ona Lu Yenke) and teacher of deaf students berates him. The police arrive, arrest the Arab and deport the beggar. The youth's sister-in-law (Juliette Binoche) is upset; it colors her relationship with her husband when he returns from the war. The film then proceeds to follow all these characters around the world. From a simple act, director Michael Haneke gives us a snap shot of the world right now. The director of Funny Games and THE PIANO TEACHER, Haneke is emerging as one of the most important of contemporary European directors. "European cinema at its very best," noted David Wood of the BBC News, while Joe McGovern of Matinee magazine called it "Near-revolutionary in its juxtaposition of technique and emotion, CODE UNKNOWN possesses an awesome power that caused me to simultaneously reflect on the unknowable and swoon." Richard Falcon of Sight and Sound called CODE UNKNOWN "The most intellectually stimulating and emotionally provocative piece of European cinema of recent times," while Jeffrey M. Anderson of the San Francisco Examiner wrote that "It's a film that will constantly offer new twists and will live for years to come while most other films die away." Jessica Winter of the Village Voice deemed it "Haneke's most expansive and, oddly, hopeful work."

One Week: May 10 - 16

DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS

Premiere (2001, 89 minutes)

View the Internet Movie Database entry for "Dogtown and Z-Boys"

In Stacy Peralta's documentary about the pioneering 1970s Zephyr skate boarding team, the director provides a rip-turning portrait of eight unruly, proud kids who took on a status quo and pushed it into new directions and, in the most glorious of ironies, ultimately had the sporting establishment come lapping after them with big dollars. Winner of the Sundance Film Festival's Audience Award and other prizes, the film's brainy narration is delivered by Sean Penn, swaggeringly delivered in the style of a demented cultural anthropologist. The film tracks this gang of outsiders from the destitution of Venice Beach, California, and other locales, through their exploitation of the mid-'70s water drought, which allowed them to sneak onto vast Beverly Hills estates and practice their craft in the empty swimming pools of the rich. Duane Byrge of the Hollywood Reporter notes that "Screenwriters Peralta and Craig Stecyk have distilled the boarders' bravado and, most gloriously, have shown how these unlikely eight, who had everything going against them, took advantage of things and by having their most unrelenting and unapologetic good time, capsized their surrounding world." "DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS evokes the blithe rebel fantasy with the kind of insouciance embedded in the sexy demise of James Dean," says Walter Chaw of Film Freak Central.com, and the reviewer "El Topo" of IOFilm.co.uk says that "its sheer dynamism is infectious." And Greg Dean Schmitz of Upcomingmovies.com says that "The rebellion, the rock music, and the frenetic introduction to skating culture all combine to make [this] one of the most entertaining and fun movies of the year."

One Week: May 17 - 23

TIME OUT

Premiere (2001, 132 minutes)

View the Internet Movie Database entry for "Time Out"

In TIME OUT (L'Emploi du temps) Vincent (Aurelien Recoing) loses his job and, rather than admit this to his friends and relatives, instead invents a new job for himself. After studying a company's media kit, he manages to convince everyone he knows to invest in his fantasy corporation. In fact, so entranced is he by his mythical firm that he starts turning down real jobs. He has gone mad, and lives in a world of his own. But also fascinating is that Vincent's wife, Muriel (Karin Viard), becomes an unwitting participant in his lie, all the while skeptical of Vincent's new "career." The fact that Vincent sets his imagined job before a rather entrepreneurial, humanitarian backdrop only lends credence to the notion that he is noble at heart. Director Laurent Cantet (Human Resources) here takes another dire look at the workaday world, in a manner more suspenseful and grim than American Beauty. "An intelligent and sobering look at a person's self worth, and the measures he or she will take to restore it," says Pete Croatto of Filmcritic.com, and Ed Gonzalez of Slant magazine notes that it is "A hard look at one man's occupational angst and its subsequent reinvention, a terrifying study of bourgeois desperation worthy of Claude Chabrol." "A forceful drama of an alienated executive who re-invents himself," adds Harvey S. Karten of Compuserve.

One Week May 24 - May 30

SING-A-LONG SOUND OF MUSIC

Return Engagement (174 minutes)

A sort of Rocky Horror Picture Show you could take your grandmother to, SING-A-LONG SOUND OF MUSIC flashes the words to the songs and invites you to find the hills as alive as Julie Andrews, but only if "me" is a name you call yourself. SING-A-LONG SOUND OF MUSIC is an interactive movie event that started in London as a small community event and grew to mass popularity. The spectacle is perfect for anyone who has ever had an uncontrollable urge to sing while in the audience of a musical. The original film, starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, is screened with subtitles so the audience can follow along to old favorites like "My Favorite Things" and "Climb Every Mountain" as well as lesser known melodies. Each screening involves an elaborate costume contest where audience members compete for prizes dressed as nuns, curtain clad kinder and other film-inspired get ups. Audience members are rehearsed for the interactive event before the show starts by an enthusiastic emcee dressed as a nun. Sister encourages the audience to boo the Nazis and hiss at the Baroness. Each audience member is given an "Audience Participation Pack" that includes sprigs of flowers for Edelweiss, pieces of curtain for play clothes and other props for use during the movie. More info is available at the film's website, www.singalonga.com.

One Week: May 31 - June 6

UMBERTO D

New Print! (1952, 91 minutes)

View the Internet Movie Database entry for "Umberto D"

One of the masterpieces of Italian neo-realism, Vittorio de Sica's UMBERTO D is also one of the best films about old age and loneliness ever made. Now enjoying anniversary re-release in a brand new print, the film concerns Umberto Domenico Ferrari (Carlo Battisti). He's an elderly, retired civil servant desperately trying to maintain his life on a diminishing income. In his way are a mean landlady (Lina Gennari), the prostitutes she rents his room to during the day. His only solace is his little dog, Flick. "The moral punch of a postwar 'art film' classic like Vittorio De Sica's UMBERTO D can be bruising, if only for the movie's unblinking consideration of how society discards the unwanted elderly," noted Michael Atkinson in the Village Voice. Reviewer Harvey O'Brien says that UMBERTO D's "unromantic portrayal of poverty and fidelity to the principles of neorealism make it a uniquely affecting film... Simple on its surface but actually multi-layered and complex, this shattering portrait of an old man is an indictment of postwar Italy and its treatment of the aged."

One Week: May 31 - June 6

Held Over Until Jun 13!

LITTLE OTIK

Premiere (2000, 127 minutes)

View the Internet Movie Database entry for "Little Otik"

In LITTLE OTIK, Czech animator Jan Svankmajer blends live action to assault all our fears of parenthood and attack the commodification of everything, including babies. Elvis Mitchell in the New York Times said that the "combination of real actors and stop-action animation, Jan Svankmajer's LITTLE OTIK is a handmade dream, cobbled together from dirt, wood and more imagination than most of us can muster in our most fevered states .. Because this Czech master refuses to work in the scrubbed, antiseptic manner of most animators, this fable comes to life as hilarious and creepy." The tale concerns a desperate, childless couple, Karel (Jan Hartl) and his wife, Bozena (Veronika Zilkova) who are battling infertility. When Karel finds a tree stump that reminds him of a baby and brings it to Bozena, she hungrily lavishes it with maternal care and demands they treat it as a real child. Things gets worse when the stump, which they name Otik ("After my grandfather," Karel stammers), comes to life and begins eating everything put before it. This embodiment of the unchecked appetite is another of Mr. Svankmajer's spankings of the self-absorbed middle class. Laura Clifford of Reeling Reviews calls LITTLE OTIK "a Czech Eraserhead" featuring Twin Peaks's Log Lady," while Michael Phillips of Citysearch calls it "pure nightmare fuel and a blast to watch." Ken Fox of TV Guide's Movie Guide calls the film "Wickedly funny, deeply disturbing." While the Seattle Times's Moira MacDonald says that "Svankmajer sends us home haunted." V. A. Musetto of the New York Post says that LITTLE OTIK is "Subversively funny, it's a welcome alternative to the big-budget movies flooding into theaters at this time of year."