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

Another talented chip off the German Expressionist block, F. W. Murnau had a penchant for horror. With "Nosferatu" (1922) he brought the first of countless Count Dracula stories to cinematic light. Murnau made his Dracula as hideous, doomed, and gloomy as later incarnations are suave, elegant, and ta

Classic hollywood, Dark, Death, Elegant, Erotic, German expressionist film, Grotesque, Primal

The son of a Golden-Age Hollywood agent, Independent filmmaker Kenneth Anger has an insider's jaded perspective on the film industry and all that goes with it. His scandalous 1958 expose of celebrity private lives, "Hollywood Babylon" (which discusses, among other things, the genital sizes of various

Avant-garde film, Catastrophe, Death, Homoerotic, Kaleidoscopic, Queer literature, Quirky

With so much ado about his urinals and wheels, it's easy to forget that Marcel Duchamp was also an exceptional painter. But Duchamp rejected painting. He rejected, that is, his talent. The fact that an exceptional painter rejected painting -- and ultimately may even have rejected art -- is precisely

Dada, Death, Erotic, Fantastic, Machinistic, Mathematical, Parody, Perverse, Quirky, Surrealist art, Wise assy