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The Pill Pounder, one of the key titles in the CV of the iconic flapper, has enjoyed a belated revival at the San Francisco Silent film festival

A century after she first began to turn heads, Clara Bow is “It” once more. The iconic flapper of the silent film era inspired Margot Robbie’s character Nellie in Damien Chazelle’s Hollywood epic Babylon, is namechecked on Taylor Swift’s forthcoming album The Tortured Poets Department, and yesterday at the San Francisco Silent film festival, one of her earliest films was shown for the first time since the days of bathtub gin.

The story of the film’s discovery has already caused excitement online. Film-maker Gary Huggins inadvertently snapped up a slice of lost silent film history at an auction in a car park in Omaha, Nebraska, that was selling old stock from a distribution company called Modern Sound Pictures. Hoping...

Every time a presumed-lost silent film is rediscovered, it’s cause for celebration. When elements were found to restore complete versions of “The Passion of Joan of Arc” and “Metropolis,” the resulting restoration premiere was a major cinematic event. For his part, the silent film historian Kevin Brownlow told me he thinks a treasure trove of lost silents is just awaiting rediscovery in the archives of the Cinemateca de Cuba.

One major new find occurred right in the United States, however. Filmmaker Gary Huggins was hoping to buy a celluloid reel for a cartoon as part of the auction of films an Omaha-based distributor had held, after the distributor folded. He had to purchase a number of other films as well in order to get the one he wanted, and among those other titles? A presumed-lost 1923 movie with silent film megastar Clara Bow called “The Pill Pounder.”

A fun broadcast...

A self-described “knock-knock joke ten years in the making,” Gary Huggins’ debut feature Kick Me has to be seen to be believed. The film ostensibly tells the story of a high school guidance counselor who goes into Kansas City, Kansas one night to buy a pet bunny and meet with a delinquent student before attending his daughter’s choral concert. But nothing — and I mean nothing — goes as planned. What unfolds instead is an (often funny) nightmare freakshow featuring three-legged dogs, maniacal Winnebago-driving swingers, geriatric drug dealers, abandoned shopping malls and jenkem huffers that makes Scorsese’s After Hours seem […]

The post “The ‘Micro-Budget Apocalypse Now“: Gary Huggins On His “Cursed” Debut, Kick Me first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

A self-described “knock-knock joke ten years in the making,” Gary Huggins’ debut feature Kick Me has to be seen to be believed. The film ostensibly tells the story of a high school guidance counselor who goes into Kansas City, Kansas one night to buy a pet bunny and meet with a delinquent student before attending his daughter’s choral concert. But nothing — and I mean nothing — goes as planned. What unfolds instead is an (often funny) nightmare freakshow featuring three-legged dogs, maniacal Winnebago-driving swingers, geriatric drug dealers, abandoned shopping malls and jenkem huffers that makes Scorsese’s After Hours seem […]

The post “The ‘Micro-Budget Apocalypse Now“: Gary Huggins On His “Cursed” Debut, Kick Me first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

MidWest WeirdFest has announced its first programming wave for 2023 today. The cinematic celebration of all things fantastic, frightening, paranormal, and just plain weird, is now in its 7th year. The festival takes place March 3-5, 2023 at the Micon Downtown Cinema in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Says MidWest WeirdFest founder and programming director Dean Bertram:

The weirdest festival of the season is less than two months away, and I’m delighted to announce some of the genre, underground and esoteric gems we’re offering audiences this year. From brand new UFO and Bigfoot documentaries, through offbeat and ultra-violent comedies, to nightmare inducing films featuring an assortment of witches, cyber terrors, and gore-splattered serial killers… and that’s just in the fest’s first programming wave!

Discounted festival passes are now on sale here: https://filmfreeway.com/MidWestWeirdFest/tickets

Individual tickets to each film will go on sale closer to the festival...

Among the familiar monuments, those attempts to capture entire cities and eras within single movies, there's a host of fascinating curios to be relished at Moma's six-week celebration of the films of Robert Altman, the crankiest great director America has produced. You can catch American Football, for example, one of three work-for-hire Altman shorts discovered by the talented filmmaker Gary Huggins in Kansas City junkpiles. Or Corn's A-Poppin', a satirical 1956 musical about a harried popcorn bigwig. There's Altman's TV westerns of the '60s and some woozy feature-length '70s bafflements like Buffalo Bill and the Indians or Quintet, both cockeyed and frustrating and rewarding — both daring films that, if just a couple things that went wrong had ...

Gary Huggins made our 25 New Faces list in 2006 on the basis of his excellent Sundance short, First Date. After a successful Kickstarter raise, he’s back now with his first feature, Kick Me. Here’s the synopsis, and the video is above. A fancy high school guidance counselor (Santiago Vasquez) ventures into unknown territory – Kansas City, Kansas – and learns crucial lessons about community, prejudice and brotherhood the hard way.

Slow day at the office? We’ve got some really cool videos that should help pass the time. Even the greatest directors had to start somewhere – and thanks to an alert flea-market shopper named Gary Huggins, cinephiles now have a chance to see one of Robert Altman’s earliest works. Huggins, himself a filmmaker, was perusing a Kansas City flea-market when he grabbed a few old film reels for $10. One of the titles was a piece called Modern Football – which turned out to be one of Altman’s first directorial efforts. Huggins explains how he discovered that Modern Football was a piece of cinematic history in a recent interview. “Modern Football sounded really dull. But when I recently [watched it], I glimpsed Altman, who cameos as a sports reporter...

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We live in an age where it seems almost every movie is just a mouse click or Netflix queue away, but there are still corners and pockets of the cinema world that are hiding in boxes or have been neglected by time waiting to be rediscovered. And even someone like the legendary Robert Altman still has a few things yet to see to the light of day. However, one of them has now been discovered thanks to director Gary Huggins.

All it took was $10 and a stop at a Kansas City flea market for Huggins to walk away with "Modern Football," the first film shot by Altman way back in 1951. Although, at first he didn't realize what he had as it was among a stack of old films he picked up at the same time. As he explains to Sf Weekly, " 'Modern Football' sounded really dull. But when I recently [watched it], I glimpsed Altman,...

A look at what's new on DVD today:

"Cronos" (1993)

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro

Released by Criterion Collection

After years of being out of print, Guillermo del Toro's feature debut is getting the Criterion treatment and del Toro has gone all out to make it one of the best discs ever with new interviews, his 1987 short "Geometria," two audio commentaries, a video tour of his home office, and more.

"300 Killers" (2010)

Directed by Matt Jaissle

Released by Midnight Releasing

A police chief (Johnny Andrews) who sees his city falling under the thumb of a ruthless drug dealer and sends out his best detective (Anthony Tomei) to put a stop to it in Matt Jaissle's action film.

"Across the Line: The Exodus of Charlie Wright" (2010)

Directed by R. Ellis Frazier

Released by Maya Home Entertainment

Aidan Quinn stars as a billionaire who flees to Tijuana after he's on the run...