John Lennon & Yoko Ono: Imagine/Gimme Some Truth
The idea of a “video album” isn’t new. One of the earliest, made to accompany John Lennon’s LP Imagine (1971), is out on Blu-ray along with its companion film, Gimme Some Truth. Most of Imagine was shot at his English country estate and owes its character to his wife, Yoko Ono’s, playful surrealism. In one scene, the couple play chess with all white pieces. Gimme Some Truth is the “making of” documentary on the Imagine album.
Exorcist II: The Heretic
The always unpredictable director John Boorman invested this otherwise doubtful franchise project with great visual interest and spooky audio effects. Exorcist II (1977) revisits Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair), now a teenager in therapy. Father Lamont (a troubled looking Richard Burton) arrives to tie up loose ends. Religion converges with science in a debate over evil or mental illness, mind or soul as psychological researcher Dr. Tuskin (Louise Fletcher) resists the mounting evidence of the unexplained.
Joaquim Pedro de Andrade: The Complete Films
In his documentary The Language of Persuasion (1970), Brazilian auteur Joaquim Pedro de Andrade critiques the web of invisible persuaders that has only grown denser in the years since. “The diversity of similar choices,” the algorithms of “look and obey” that colonize our consciousness with clichés— it’s all around us. A leading figure in Brazil’s avant-garde Cinema Novo, Andrade was always subversive in intent, including the meta-movie Jean-Luc Godard-like features included in The Complete Films.
Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town
Via Instagram, Izzy’s ex-boyfriend informs her of his engagement party—tonight!—with her ex-best friend. She’s determined to break it up but the party is across town, her car isn’t running and it’s L.A. Spiky and set to a punk rock beat, Izzy Gets the F*ck Across Town is a funny Sisyphean journey as Izzy (Mackenzie Davis), a once breaking indie rocker, negotiates the strange twists of destiny in a world of frustrated dreams.
