Color Book (2024 | USA | 98 minutes | David Fortune)

There’s very little I can add—at least until full reviews can be posted—to my unabashed Round Table mash note to David Fortune’s wonderful debut feature, except that a) it’s brilliant, and b), it’s streaming via SIFF through June 1. If you don’t take advantage of the latter, it’s resolutely your loss. 

Color Book played during SIFF 2025, and can be streamed through SIFF until June 1.

New Jack Fury (2024 | USA | 89 minutes | Lanfia Wal)

No, it’s not operating at the level of that Citizen Kane of film spoofs (and 2009 Golden Space Needle Best Picture Award winner), Black Dynamite. But Lanfia Wal’s lampoon of ‘80s and ‘90s urban action flicks possesses a one-man-band charm all its own. Wal wrote, directed, edited, and crafted visuals here, staging elaborate fight and chase scenes that revel in their zero-fucks lo-fi green-screened enthusiasm. The polyglot filmmaker throws a lot of shit against the proverbial wall, and if not all of it sticks, the belly laughs (and the absurdity) come fast and furious. Mad props to the principals, all of whom sink their teeth into their neon-hued stock characters with glee.

New Jack Fury played in SIFF’s WTF program, and it can be streamed through SIFF until June 1.

Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (2024 | United Kingdom | 76 minutes | Quay Brothers)

Few filmmakers capture the dark beauty—and the literal dusty cobwebbed corners—of the subconscious the way animators extraordinaire the Quay Brothers do. With their third feature, they synthesize Polish surrealist writer/illustrator Bruno Schulz’s short stories with customary psychological density, stunning detail, and vividly expressionist flourish. Seeing this in the environs of SIFF Cinema Downtown made for one immersive trek down the rabbit hole. 

Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass played as part of SIFF’s Alternative Cinema programming.

Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers (1972 | USA | 82 minutes | Robert J. Kaplan)

Leave it to SIFF (in tandem with the mighty American Genre Film Archive) to unearth a true rarity among the 2025 Fest’s revival screenings. This long-thought-lost star vehicle for trans icon/Warhol Factory denizen Holly Woodlawn sees her playing Eve Harrington, a naif fresh from Kansas. Eve’s looking to break into showbiz in New York City, and she stumbles into a series of adventures that ring true to the Big Apple’s reputation for anything-goes eccentricity.

Director Robert J. Kaplan never hits the crude hilarity of vintage John Waters, or the absurdist urban grittiness of Woodlawn’s finest hour as a screen presence, Andy Warhol’s Trash. But Woodlawn’s a charmingly gawky comic presence, there’s a choice turn by fellow Warhol Factory alum Tally Brown, and the movie celebrates queerness with the kind of sweetness and abandon that this repressive atmosphere could sorely use about now.  

Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers playfed as part of SIFF’s WTF programming. It will also screen June 13 and 16 at The Beacon Cinema.