The cast of characters: Big Chris, a debt collector who won't let his victims curse in front of his son; John the Baptist, a tough guy who earned his moniker by drowning those he didn't fancy; Hatchet Harry, a loan shark and smut peddler who flogs his enemies with a black dildo. The scenario: a shoot

Absurd, Funny, Playful, Quirky

In 1988, "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" asked all the right questions about secrecy, technology, and female orgasm. The elite clan at Cannes awarded the maverick production the Palm d'Or, and mainstream theaters opened their doors to Andie McDowell asking the camera -- and the mainstream audiences behind

Absurd, Melancholy, Repetition, Whimsical

Sex, melodrama, and a raunchy, dark comedy -- audiences can expect to find excesses of all these types in the works of Pedro Almodovar, a Spanish filmmaker whose homegrown popularity rivals that of Luis Bunuel. Born poor and unable to afford tuition to film school (all of which were, at any rate, clo

Absurd, Candy, Cartoonish, Ebullient, Grotesque, Kinetic, Overflowing, Playful, Polychromatic, Pop, Queer, Sexy, Spanish film

Jim Jarmusch could be called the father of American Independent Film -- if it didn't seem uncouth to bestow such a grandiose title on a man still so relatively young, and to declare the paternity of such a squirming and bastard art form. Jarmusch moved to New York from his hometown of Akron, Ohio, to

Absurd, Death, Dystopic, Fantastic, Melancholy, Witty