DARK DAYS (2000) Documentary; DVD Documentary/DJ Shadow/USA/Controversial DVD, Used Near Penn Station, next to the Amtrak tracks, squatters have been living for years. Marc Singer goes underground to live with them, and films this "family." A dozen or so men and one woman talk about their lives: horrors of childhood, jail time, losing children, being coke-heads. They scavenge, they've built themselves sturdy one-room shacks; they have pets, cook, chat, argue, give each other haircuts. A bucket is their toilet. Leaky overhead pipes are a source of water for showers. They live in virtual darkness. During the filming, Amtrak gives a 30-day eviction notice.

SNUFF PUPPETS Nyet Nyet's Picnic; DVD Theatre/Art/Indigenous DVD, Used Bunyips are creatures from Australian Indigenous mythology seen as servers of important warning from the land. They live in creeks, riverbeds, waterholes and swamps, emerging to terrify and sometimes devour animals and humans. In the 1880's bunyip sightings were reported in the Australian press and lonely, isolated white settlers/invaders wondered and worried about the existence of these native Australian monsters.  The Snuff Puppets are honoured to co-present Nyet Nyet’s Picnic with a team of Indigenous artists. The show features over a dozen huge puppets and original live music with the world of bunyips comes to life through humour, terror and fun. The show premiered on the banks of the Yarra River as the cultural highlight of the City of Melbourne’s Reconciliation Week in 2005. This DVD is as rare as shit, and here is an example of the Snuff Puppets if you are not already a fan: https://youtu.be/CnbxO7P7Xnk  

OTHER PEOPLES MIRRORS (Nick Zedd) 2004; DVD Erotic/Art/Transgressive/XXX/Nick Zedd/Underground/Rare DVD, New Other People's Mirrors is a pseudo sci-fi trip of pornographic proportions. The camera seems to be an extension of the character that it follows. The movie centers around the journey of Echo Transgression. Echo is a schizophrenic sex addict, who believes that if she follows the instructions being transmitted directly into her spine she will escape to her own version of nirvana.  Underground legend Nick Zedd plays the alien phantom of Narcissus, a secret agent who makes sure she stays on course.  Written and Directed by: KRISTIE ALSHAIBI Stars: ECHO TRANSGRESSION, NICK ZEDD

MYSTERIOUS OBJECT AT NOON (2003); DVD Art/Surreal/Thailand/Experimental/Improvised/Documentary DVD, Used Based around the surrealists' 'Exquisite Corpse' game, the film was assembled over 3 years from mostly improvised footage, with everyone involved a simultaneous actor/collaborator/creator of this grand experiment. The footage was then edited down to the final 85 minute running time. The inspiration for MYSTERIOUS OBJECT AT NOON was the Surrealist storytelling technique known as Exquisite Corpse, wherein a variety of writers would contribute to an ongoing story one sentence at a time, largely oblivious to what came before. Thai independent filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul used this technique to interview people throughout Thailand, asking them to contribute to the film's evolving story, and, in the process, learning a little bit about their vivid, largely unexamined lives. What emerges is at once a portrait of Thailand's disenfranchised lower classes -- farmers, fruit vendors, village performers -- and their collective story about a handicapped boy and his tutor, a mysterious woman named Dogfahr.  A bit of patience is required to tap into the subtle pleasures of this lo-fi but lovely Thai film, and those willing to ride out its fragmented structure will be rewarded with a quirky meta-documentary about the nature of storytelling. Director and Thai native Apichatpong Weerasethakul took a volunteer crew into the southern and northern villages of Thailand over a three-year period, and asked the residents to contribute to a story about a wheelchair-bound boy and his tutor. The result is a sort of organic version of the Surrealist writing exercise known as Exquisite Corpse, shot through with the melodrama of Thai popular media. Weersethakul's 16mm footage is often overexposed, but the experiment itself, and the opportunities it affords to witness everyday life in rural Thailand, makes up for any technical quibbles. Plexifilm's DVD includes an eight-minute interview with the director, in which he discusses his motivations for the film.