Weekend

The library tossed up a couple gems this week in the rustle through the DVD bin. 

Andrew Haigh's "Weekend" was a surprisingly intelligent romance, and it moved along despite being a quiet, understated, somewhat moody character study.  A one night stand in a midlands English city leads to a very interesting set of discussions and confrontations between two guys.  Reviews such as this sum it up well, but it's more about interaction than plot.

"My Brother is an Only Child" (Mio Fratello e Figlio Unico) from 2006 won 4 Donatello awards, like the Italian Oscars, and was actually quite good.  1960s Italian politics splits two brothers, between communism and fascism, but life is complicated.  The language seems made for arguing, and everyone does, a lot.  Cool cars.

"By Hook or By Crook" (2006) is a classic butch film, made by the former owners of Red Dora's Bearded Lady cafe (in 90s San Francisco).  Silas Howard was in Tribe 8 and now makes films, and Harry Dodge does theater and art videos.  This film made Sundance, and is a really interesting mix of stuff that has/had not been put into a relatively well-distributed film before, class, gender, mental illness, sexuality, and the self-consciously freewheeling SF dyke/queer scene from a particular moment in time, before things got less fluid all over queerly gendered America...

"Cronos" is Guillermo del Toro's breakout debut feature film, and I have never seen it, only read and heard about it.  SF time travel horror fantasy gothic goodness, en espanol...  Should be interesting.  Hard, freezing rain is supposed to fall all day and night, so it's nice to have a break from shoveling planned...