Filmmaker Alvin Case picks Top 3 Favorite Films
We asked The Whirlpool director Alvin Case to name three of his favorite films on Indiepix Unlimited and tell us why. Sign up for a free trial to get in on the story.
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One of my favorite films released in the last three years. I had wanted to see this film for some time—since reading a review of it in a Canadian cinema magazine. To my mind this film offers some of the very best of contemporary cinema: dramatic tension housed in the guise of an essay film with a strong foundation in what I would call science-fiction documentary. I’m sure a lot of people who say they love films that are challenging don’t actually like to be ‘poked’ intellectually by what they are watching. They are missing out. STREAM NOW.
The Stranger
Even when having to put out a commercially oriented picture to keep things going for himself, Orson Welles brought out the very best in his actors and film design. You’d hardly know that this film’s New England setting was shot in Southern California. Welles attention to visual details (like Hitchcock’s) is what makes so much of his work compelling and eerily re-watchable, even in a simple film-noir-esque political thriller like this one. Tense, quick-stepped, and without a wasted shot. STREAM NOW.
Akiko
Even though we quickly get an idea where everything is heading conclusively, this is a very skilled and beautifully rendered mini-drama that illustrates what you can do with a single page of dialogue and a forward thrust into a cinema of image and sound, where filmmaking’s power resides. Neither mopey nor sentimental, really, “Akiko” is what it is: a truly cinematic work that puts to shame most feature length films with similar themes. STREAM NOW.
