Best of the 1970s

  Watermelon Man  (1970) White salesman Jeff Gerber (Godfrey Cambridge) wakes up to discover he’s become a black man overnight. His transformation causes problems at work, with the police, and with his neighbors. His seemingly liberal wife (Estelle Parsons) who once chastised him for not caring about the problems faced by black people in America, leaves… Continue reading Best of the 1970s

Best of the 1960s

  Testament of Orpheus (1960) In the final film installment of Jean Cocteau’s Orphic trilogy, he encounters characters from his previous films and appears before a tribunal to defend his life and art. Though not as well-known as later French filmmakers, Jean Luc Godard or Francois Truffaut, Cocteau’s films introduced avant-garde sensibilities and philosophical underpinnings into cinemas.… Continue reading Best of the 1960s

Best of the 2000s

  The Gleaners and I (2000) Agnes Varda’s beautiful film follows gleaners at work, from people who depend on the practice for survival to hobbyists. She exposes how connected we are and shines a light on our coldness to the needs of others as she pointedly interviews jurists about the seemingly arbitrary French laws which prohibit some forms of… Continue reading Best of the 2000s