Pulp Fiction (1994), Beware of a Holy Whore (1971), JCVD (2008), David Byrne's American Utopia (2020), No Maps for These Territories (2000), Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010), The Moderns (1988), Waking Life (2001) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Postmodern movies.
Storyline: This is the story of Spalding Gray and his attempt to write a novel. It is a first person account about writing and living, and dealing with success while trying to be successful.—Robbie Smith <robsmith@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: monologue, autobiographical, theater, performance art, minimalist, experimental, new york ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Having failed to break into professional opera in his native Germany (where, as an usher in West Berlin's Deutsche Oper, he would serenade the staff after the 'real' performances were over) the diminutive Klaus Nomi headed for NYC in 1972. The vibrant New Wave/avant-garde gestalt of the mid/late '70's East Village proved to be fertile ground for the development of his unique talents. Working by day as a high-end pastry chef, Nomi began to stage his outlandish performances, first launching himself upon an unsuspecting public at the New Wave Vaudeville in 1978. The hip and cynical young audience was stunned by this weird combination of falsetto arias, booming classical orchestration, Kraftwerk-style electronica, futuristic costumes and outer space imagery. An odd assortment of artists, choreographers, designers, songwriters and musicians jumped on to the Nomi bandwagon and the phenomenon began to take off - first attracting thousands to South Manhattan events (including performances at the legendary Max's Kansas City) and culminating in a recording contract with the French division of RCA. With the release 'Klaus Nomi' in 1981 and 'Simple Man' in 1982, it looked as if Nomi was on the verge of superstardom. Having established himself in Europe, he made a triumphant return to New York City. But Nomi's moment of glory proved to be his swansong. Within only a few months Nomi had succumbed to the ravages of AIDS. One of the first celebrities to be killed by this mysterious new disease, Nomi died a lonely death, largely abandoned by those who had seen him as a passport to their own success. Today, the otherworldliness of 'The Cold Song' and 'Dido's Lament' is like an ethereal voice calling from beyond the grave.—George Darley
Plot Keywords: music, biography, documentary, opera, counterculture, 1980s, experimental music ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Max Renn is the President of Channel 83 Civic-TV, a small television station on the UHF dial. He defends his programming of largely X-rated shows - which depict graphic sex and extreme violence - as a pure matter of economic survival as a small station. Behind closed doors in specific company, he would admit that he enjoys such programming, but as President will stay away from associated activities that may be dangerous for him in its purchase. His current girlfriend, radio personality Nicki Brand, who he met on a television talk show, is sexually aroused by light mutilation on her person, that despite or because her radio show is like an open air crisis hotline. On that same talk show, the other guest via video feed was Professor Brian O'Blivion - solely his stage name - who believes that television and video broadcasts will one day overtake the world as reality, which may make Max's programming in combination more dangerous. In Max's search for the next big thing in like programming...
Plot Keywords: science fiction, horror, psychological thriller, surrealism, body horror, media critique, mind control ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: David Byrne of Talking Heads fame visits a typical (and fictional) Texas town, on the eve of the town's celebration of the state's sesquicentennial. He meets various colorful local characters, most notably Lewis Fyne, a big-hearted bachelor in search of matrimony.—Tim Horrigan <horrigan@aol.com>
Plot Keywords: musical, comedy, usa, 1980s, texas, small town life, surrealism ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Young nobleman Orlando is commanded by Queen Elizabeth I to stay forever young. Miraculously, he does just that. The film follows him as he moves through several centuries of British history, experiencing a variety of lives and relationships along the way, and even changing sex.
Plot Keywords: fantasy, historical, drama, literary adaptation, time travel, british, aristocracy ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: This movie is based on a novel of Tiziano Sclavi, and it always reflects the "sclavian philosophy" diffused by the most succesful comics in Italy: Dylan Dog, the detective of the nightmare. There is the duality between love and dead (in Italian "dellamore" means "of love" and "dellamorte" means "of death"), a duality that Dellamorte feels in a really hard way. He is the guardian of the cemetery of Buffalora, a little town in the north of Italy, in which, we don't know why, corpses rise from tombs and Dellamorte has to destroy them. Dellamorte seems not to ask to himself why this happen, he shoots and loves. But at the end he wants to leave Buffalora...
Plot Keywords: horror, comedy, fantasy, romance, zombie, black comedy, supernatural ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: From the first time he performed Swimming to Cambodia - the one-man account of his experience of making the 1984 film The Killing Fields - Spalding Gray made the art of the monologue his own. Drawing unstintingly on the most intimate aspects of his own life, his shows were vibrant, hilarious and moving. His death came tragically early, in 2004; this compilation of interview and performance footage nails his idiosyncratic and irreplaceable brilliance.—Edinburgh International Film Festival
Plot Keywords: documentary, biography, monologue, actor's life, personal history, memoir, art ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A Japanese tourist takes refuge from a rainstorm inside a once-popular movie theater, a decrepit old barn of a cinema that is screening a martial arts classic, King Hu's 1966 "Dragon Inn." Even with the rain bucketing down outside, it doesn't pull much of an audience -- and some of those who have turned up are less interested in the movie than in the possibility of meeting a stranger in the dark.—Sujit R. Varma
Plot Keywords: slow cinema, nostalgia, loneliness, silence, farewell, passage of time, minimal dialogue ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A love story set in a dystopian near future where single people are arrested and transferred to a creepy hotel. There they are obliged to find a matching mate in 45 days. If they fail, they are transformed into an animal and released into the woods.
Plot Keywords: dystopian, black comedy, romance, science fiction, absurdist, social satire, existential ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In a dark movie theater filled with people watching a film. A man is sleeping on a bed with a sleeping dog next to another empty twin bed with the same sheets. He gets up and looks out the window and we see he is the man whose name is Mr. Oscar.
Plot Keywords: surrealism, absurd, existentialism, identity, performance art, postmodern, dreamlike ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Presents a day in the life in Austin, Texas among its social outcasts and misfits, predominantly the twenty-something set, using a series of linear vignettes. These characters, who in some manner just don't fit into the establishment norms, move seamlessly from one scene to the next, randomly coming and going into one another's lives. Highlights include a UFO buff who adamantly insists that the U.S. has been on the moon since the 1950s, a woman who produces a glass slide purportedly of Madonna's pap smear, and an old anarchist who sympathetically shares his philosophy of life with a robber.
Plot Keywords: independent film, low budget, texas, nonlinear narrative, realism, experimental, ensemble cast ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Awarded the Special Jury Prize at the 41st Venice International Film Festival, this absurdist comedy, with its sprawling cast of crooks, thieves, anarchists, prostitutes, chief inspectors, art dealers, and inventors, calls to mind the bustling tapestries of Robert Altman. The story revolves around two objects, a rare set of 18th-century Limoges china, and a 19th century aristocratic portrait. As these items are passed, sold, or stolen from one character to another, a giddy round dance of excess begins to take shape, one which suggests that if history doesn't repeat itself, it certainly rhymes. Together with co-writer Gérard Brach, whose other co-writing credits include Repulsion and Tess, Otar Iosseliani uses a feather-light touch to expose the futility of class and social order, making a bagatelle of the concerns of rich and poor alike.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: experimental, avant-garde, surreal, french cinema, 1980s, art film, satire ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A famous movie actor (Peter O'Toole) claims that he has written a book. As result, a real author, not a very well known writer, vengenfully kills him but then dies as a result of an accident. Next, they both find themselves in after-life, where souls of all famous people are gathered.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: drama, comedy, fantasy, netherlands, fame, death, afterlife ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A filmmaker's inquiry into transcendence becomes a three-hour trip across countries and cultures, interconnecting people, places and times. From Toronto, the scene of his childhood, Peter Mettler sets out on a journey that includes evangelism at the airport strip, demolition in Las Vegas, tracings in the Nevada desert, chemistry and street life in Switzerland, and the coexistence of technology and divinity in contemporary India. Everywhere along the way, the same themes are to be found: thrill-seeking, luck, destiny, belief, expanding perception, the craving for security in an uncertain world. Fact joins with fantasy; the search for meaning and the search for ecstasy begin to merge.—Anonymous
Plot Keywords: gambling, religion, documentary, experimental film, faith, addiction, surreal ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Marcello is in the compartment of an Italian train, facing forward when the mineral water of the woman seated across from him starts to fall toward him. He catches the bottle and makes eye contact and follows her when she leaves the compartment. For a few moments she finds him attractive too. Then suddenly she gets off the train and starts walking through a field. Marcello follows her, loses her, finds himself in a large hotel surrounded by women. A feminist conference is taking place and he tries to escape.—Dale O'Connor <daleoc@interaccess.com>
Plot Keywords: fantasy, comedy, surrealism, feminism, dream, absurd, satire ...
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