Northampton Staff Picks - Jill

The Alpine village of Tolzbad is a hotbed of repressed desires, Oedipal angst, and sibling rivalry. When a young man's incestuous dream is added to the equation, a calamity of suicides, ghostly visions, forbidden romances and murder occurs.

"Is it a nightmare or an actual view of a post-apocalyptic world? Set in an industrial town in which giant machines are constantly working, spewing smoke, and making noise that is inescapable, Henry Spencer lives in a building that, like all the others, appears to be abandoned. The lights flicker on and off, he has bowls of water in his dresser drawers, and for his only diversion he watches and listens to the Lady in the Radiator sing about finding...

A never-before-seen woodsman mysteriously appears aboard a submarine that's been trapped deep under water for months with an unstable cargo. As the terrified crew make their way through the corridors of the doomed vessel, they find themselves on a voyage into the origins of their darkest fears.

After learning that she will be sharing the summer with her father's new girlfriend, a young girl invites some friends to join her at her aunt's house instead. With a sick aunt, a bloodthirsty cat, and evil spirits lurking around, the girls find that it might have been better to stay at home. Bonus features include an experimental film, interviews, and an essay by Chuck Stephens.

At The Kingdom, Denmark's most technologically advanced hospital, a number of strange and otherworldly events begin to occur, much to the dismay of its doctors and patients. At the urging of a spiritualist patient, the employees attempt to help the supernatural forces rest.

LOOKING AT PICTURES--a selection of Robert Walser's writings on art and artists--is a Christine Burgin/New Directions co-publication, and includes 45 full-color illustrations. A beautiful and elegant collection, with gorgeous full-color art reproductions, LOOKING AT PICTURES presents a little-known side of the eccentric Swiss genius: his great writings on art. His essays consider Van Gogh, Cezanne, Rembrandt, Cranach, Watteau, Fragonard, Brueghel...

A beautiful woman riding in a limosine along Los Angeles' Mulholland Drive is targeted by a would-be shooter, but before he can pull the trigger, she is injured when her limo is hit by another car. The woman stumbles away from the accident and meets up with a plucky ingenue new to L.A. But are things really as they seem?

On the eve of her wedding, the beautiful opera singer Malvina is mysteriously "killed" and abducted by the malevolent Dr. Droz. Felisberto, an innocent piano tuner, is summoned to Droz's secluded villa to service his strange musical automata. Little by little Felisberto learns of the doctor's plans to stage a "diabolic opera" and of Malvina's fate. He secretly conspires to rescue her, only to become trapped himself in the web of Droz's perverse universe....

Isabella Rossellini stars as a Depression-era beer baroness who sponsors a contest to find the world's saddest tune in this dark comedy.