Yes­ter­day, Film at Lin­coln Cen­ter unveiled the poster for the 58th New York Film Fes­ti­val (Sep­tem­ber 17-Octo­ber 11, 2020). And it’s cre­at­ed by none oth­er than film­mak­er, artist, and “Pope of Trash,” John Waters.

The New York Film Fes­ti­val writes: The “poster is both a fond trib­ute and wit­ty par­o­dy of the his­toric fes­ti­val, pok­ing fun at the long-held stereo­types, valid cri­tiques, and pre­sumed pomp and cir­cum­stance of the annu­al Lin­coln Cen­ter event. The con­cept was devel­oped before the cur­rent health cri­sis, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with and inspired by Globe Poster, the leg­endary press of Waters’s home­town. Found­ed in 1929 in Bal­ti­more, Mary­land, Globe Poster deliv­ered eye-catch­ing posters to pro­mote con­certs, drag races, cir­cus­es, car­ni­vals, and more. Flu­o­res­cent col­ors, bold wood type, and let­ter­ing that shook and shim­mied defined Globe’s icon­ic style, attract­ing clients from James Brown and Mar­vin Gaye to Tina Turn­er and the Beach Boys.”

For a lit­tle laugh, study the poster close­ly above. And then head to the Relat­eds below for more.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Waters’ RISD Grad­u­a­tion Speech: Real Wealth is Nev­er Hav­ing to Spend Time with A‑Holes

John Waters Nar­rates Off­beat Doc­u­men­tary on an Envi­ron­men­tal Cat­a­stro­phe, the Salton Sea

John Waters Makes Hand­made Christ­mas Cards, Says the “Whole Pur­pose of Life is Christ­mas”

An Anti, Anti-Smok­ing Announce­ment from John Waters

When John Waters Appeared on The Simp­sons and Changed America’s LGBTQ Views (1997)

Hear Moby Dick Read in Its Entire­ty by Til­da Swin­ton, Stephen Fry, John Waters & Oth­ers

Mad­man or vision­ary? A lit­tle of both? A genius? A brand? A men­sch? David Lynch is all these things and more, and this fan-made video above is a quick reminder of the career and the con­sis­ten­cy of the film director/artist/transcendental med­i­ta­tor who turned 74 this year.

Ear­ly in the video we see one of the director’s pub­lic­i­ty stunts, when he sat in a chair on the cor­ner of La Brea and Hol­ly­wood, next to a cow and large poster of Lau­ra Dern. No, the cow had noth­ing to do with the film he was promoting—2006’s Inland Empire—but it did stop traf­fic and draw atten­tion. Lynch didn’t have an adver­tis­ing bud­get to pro­mote Lau­ra Dern’s lead role in the film, so the cow had to do.

Lau­ra Dern has been in a major­i­ty of Lynch’s films since 1986’s Blue Vel­vet, and the video hon­ors their friend­ship (he calls her “Tid­bit”) as well as with Kyle MacLach­lan (who Lynch calls “Kale”) and Nao­mi Watts. All three obvi­ous­ly adore this man.

There’s also a com­pi­la­tion of Lynch swear­ing like a champ. Prod­uct place­ment in film is “bull­shit,” prob­lems on set are “fuck­ing nuts,” and for those who sat through the “peanut sweep­ing” scene in Twin Peaks The Return, you’ll under­stand his out­burst on set: “Who gives a fuc&ing $hit how long a scene is?”

We’ve linked pre­vi­ous­ly to Lynch’s video where he makes quinoa, and this short edit sums up that video nice­ly. It’s also nice to see atten­tion giv­en to The Straight Sto­ry, which usu­al­ly gets passed over in his fil­mog­ra­phy, despite (or maybe because of) being his sweet­est movie.

There’s also a reminder that Lynch is cur­rent­ly releas­ing videos from quar­an­tine in his Los Ange­les home. Not only is he deliv­er­ing the dai­ly weath­er reports like he used to, but is also cur­rent­ly announc­ing Today’s Num­ber, which is caus­ing quite a lot of anx­i­ety in the YouTube com­ments. (Why no sev­en? WHY NO NUMBER 7?)

The video ends with Lynch’s the­o­ry about catch­ing ideas like fish—we’ve also high­light­ed this before—and then a love­ly mon­tage of title cards, remind­ing us all that “Direct­ed by David Lynch” is a guar­an­teed sign of qual­i­ty.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch Explains How Med­i­ta­tion Boosts Our Cre­ativ­i­ty (Plus Free Resources to Help You Start Med­i­tat­ing)

David Lynch Made a Dis­turb­ing Web Sit­com Called “Rab­bits”: It’s Now Used by Psy­chol­o­gists to Induce a Sense of Exis­ten­tial Cri­sis in Research Sub­jects

Pat­ti Smith and David Lynch Talk About the Source of Their Ideas & Cre­ative Inspi­ra­tion

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the Notes from the Shed pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, and/or watch his films here.

Ask an Amer­i­can film stu­dent to name the mas­ter­pieces of Russ­ian cin­e­ma, and you will get a selec­tion of Tarkovsky (Solaris, Stalk­er, The Mir­ror) and a soup­con of Eisen­stein. And no doubt those are true, rev­er­en­tial clas­sics. But what do Rus­sians con­sid­er their best-loved films? That’s a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent mat­ter.

This list from the Russ­ian Film Hub presents 20 films rat­ed by Kinopoisk, the country’s ver­sion of imdb.com–movies that hold a spe­cial place in their hearts, ones that have affect­ed the cul­ture, the ones that peo­ple can quote by heart. There’s not one Tarkovsky here at all.

Bet­ter yet, all these films are avail­able to watch on the Russ­ian Film Hub site, and with Eng­lish sub­ti­tles. (Most are YouTube embeds from the Mos­Film chan­nel, but not all).

1. Ivan Vasi­lye­vich Changes His Pro­fes­sion
2. Oper­a­tion Y and Shurik’s Oth­er Adven­tures
3. The Dia­mond Arm
4. Only Old Men Are Going to Bat­tle
5. Gen­tle­men of For­tune
6. The Dawns Here Are Qui­et
7. Kid­nap­ping, Cau­casian Style
8. The Adven­tures of Sher­lock Holmes and Dr. Wat­son
9. Heart of a Dog
10. Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears
11. The Cranes Are Fly­ing
12. Offi­cers
13. White Bim Black Ear
14. Fate of a Man
15. Office Romance
16. They Fought for Their Coun­try
17. Broth­er
18. Bal­lad of a Sol­dier
19. The Girls
20. Wel­come, or No Tres­pass­ing

Now, there are a few films on the list that art house fans will rec­og­nize. The Cranes Are Fly­ing won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1958, one of the high­est acco­lades a Russ­ian film had received in the post-war peri­od. Mikhail Kalatozov’s film is set before and after World War II, and lead actress Tatyana Samoylova’s Veroni­ka is as icon­ic a role as Ingrid Bergman in Casablan­ca, guar­an­tee to make an audi­ence weep at the end. (The film is avail­able to screen to Amer­i­can view­ers, as you can watch in on Cri­te­ri­on Chan­nel and HBO Max.)

Sim­i­lar­ly Grig­o­ry Chukhrai’s Bal­lad of a Sol­dier is a well-loved war dra­ma, direct­ed by a man who had fought in World War II him­self. Despite a series of prob­lems dur­ing pro­duc­tion, it has gone on to be inter­na­tion­al­ly rec­og­nized. (It too is only avail­able to Amer­i­can view­ers through Cri­te­ri­on.)

How­ev­er, the rest of these titles will be new to a vast major­i­ty of non-Rus­sians. The top three on the list and num­ber sev­en are by Leonid Gaidai, Russia’s best known com­e­dy direc­tor, sim­i­lar to a Blake Edwards or a Harold Ramis. Gaidai’s plots usu­al­ly cen­ter around con­men and mis­tak­en iden­ti­ty, and the num­ber one film in the list–Ivan Vasi­lye­vich Changes His Pro­fes­sion, from 1973, is a time trav­el caper where an apart­ment man­ag­er and a bungling bur­glar are trans­port­ed back to the 16th cen­tu­ry, while Tsar Ivan the Ter­ri­ble is brought into 1973. It gets com­pared to Mon­ty Python, Napoleon Dyna­mite, and Han­na-Bar­bera car­toons on Let­ter­boxd, and while the word play might not make it through the trans­la­tion, it is con­sid­ered hilar­i­ous regard­less. (All four of Gaidai’s films were huge box office hits.)

Also of note is Wel­come, or No Tres­pass­ing, a wacky kids’ camp com­e­dy (think Wes Anderson’s Moon­light King­dom) in which the young’uns get one over on their adult cap­tors. Direc­tor Elem Klimov would go on, 20 yeas lat­er, to direct Come and See, one of the most har­row­ing and bru­tal anti-war films out there.

Not every film is from the height of the Cold War, either. Broth­er, from 1997, is a gang­ster film set in the mean streets of St. Peters­burg, and is con­sid­ered one of the most pop­u­lar post-Sovi­et Russ­ian films.

And final­ly, the list has room for an adap­ta­tion of Sher­lock Holmes that, accord­ing to review­ers on Let­ter­boxd, rivals that of Jere­my Brett and Basil Rath­bone.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Film Posters of the Russ­ian Avant-Garde

Watch Hun­dreds of Free Films from Around the World: Explore Film Archives from Japan, France, and the U.S

The Simp­sons Reimag­ined as a Russ­ian Art Film

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the Notes from the Shed pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, and/or watch his films here.

What sort of art will emerge from this unprece­dent­ed moment in his­to­ry, when the glob­al coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic and the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment grew expo­nen­tial­ly, and syn­chro­nous­ly.

And not to pre­sume, but to hope, what will humans think of that lit­er­a­ture in 50 or 100 years’ time?

Over the course of a not quite hour-long Amer­i­can Mas­ters episode devot­ed to author Ursu­la LeGuin, flux emerges as a major theme of the sci­ence fic­tion pioneer’s life and work.

The youngest child of A.L. Kroe­ber, the founder of aca­d­e­m­ic anthro­pol­o­gy, LeGuin, who died in 2018, crit­i­cized her­self for hav­ing been slow to open her eyes to the injus­tice around her.

It became a pre­oc­cu­pa­tion in sto­ries like The Ones Who Walk Away from Ome­las, a thought exper­i­ment in which the read­er must con­sid­er the ethics of a pros­per­ous hap­py soci­ety, whose good for­tune depends on the suf­fer­ing of a cap­tive child.

The Dis­pos­sessed arose from her curios­i­ty as to what “a gen­uine, work­ing anar­chist soci­ety (would) be like.”

(Answer: flawed, like every oth­er human soci­ety.)

One of her best known books, The Left Hand of Dark­ness, pub­lished in 1969, pre­fig­ured the com­ing bat­tle for gen­der equal­i­ty, and so much more, by cre­at­ing a tru­ly gen­der flu­id world in which the androg­y­nous inhab­i­tants’ month­ly peri­ods of sex­u­al activ­i­ty con­ferred tem­porar­i­ly male or female bio­log­i­cal sta­tus at ran­dom.

It was hailed as a fem­i­nist ground­break­er, but as time went on, LeGuin found her­self in hot water for hav­ing gone with the mas­cu­line pro­noun as a default way of refer­ring to her androg­y­nous char­ac­ters:

At first, I felt a lit­tle bit defen­sive, but, as I thought about it, I began to see my crit­ics were right. I was com­ing up against how I write about gen­der equal­i­ty.

My job is not to arrive at a final answer and just deliv­er it.

I see my job as hold­ing doors open or open­ing win­dows, but who comes in and out the doors? What do you see out the win­dow? How do I know?

The book is still in print, should new gen­er­a­tion of read­ers feel com­pelled to plumb the text for prob­lem­at­ic pas­sages. Why should the many reflec­tions, essays, and think pieces that marked the 50th anniver­sary of its pub­li­ca­tion be the last word?

Worlds of Ursu­la K. Le Guin is avail­able to stream for free on PBS through Mon­day August 31, along with four oth­er Amer­i­can Mas­ters episodes fea­tur­ing artists who, like Le Guin, broke the exist­ing molds:

Ter­rence McNal­ly: Every Act of Life

Over a six-decade career, four-time Tony-win­ner and out­spo­ken LGBTQ activist Ter­rence McNal­ly wrote dozens of trail­blaz­ing plays, musi­cals, operas and screen­plays about sex­u­al­i­ty, homo­pho­bia, faith, and the pow­er of art.

Raúl Juliá: The World’s a Stage

The charis­mat­ic actor from Puer­to Rico was cel­e­brat­ed for the range and ver­sa­til­i­ty he brought to roles on stage and screen, from Shake­speare­an plays to the “The Addams Fam­i­ly.” Though his career was cut short by his death at age 54, he paved the way for gen­er­a­tions of Lat­inx actors.

Rothko: Pic­tures Must be Mirac­u­lous

One of the most influ­en­tial artists of the 20th cen­tu­ry, Mark Rothko’s sig­na­ture style helped define Abstract Expres­sion­ism. The cel­e­brat­ed painter’s lumi­nous paint­ings now set records at auc­tion, and are seen by mil­lions in Lon­don, Wash­ing­ton, D.C. and at the famous Rothko Chapel in Hous­ton.

Scott Moma­day: Words from a Bear

A for­ma­tive voice of the Native Amer­i­can Renais­sance in art and lit­er­a­ture, author and poet N. Scott Moma­day was the first Native Amer­i­can to win the Pulitzer Prize.

Here’s to ever-evolv­ing worlds, and acknowl­edg­ing the con­tri­bu­tions of those who helped make this change pos­si­ble.

Stream the five PBS Amer­i­can Mas­ters episodes men­tioned above for free through the end of August here.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Ursu­la K. Le Guin’s Dai­ly Rou­tine: The Dis­ci­pline That Fueled Her Imag­i­na­tion

Ursu­la K. Le Guin Names the Books She Likes and Wants You to Read

Hear Neil Gaiman Read a Beau­ti­ful, Pro­found Poem by Ursu­la K. Le Guin to His Cousin on Her 100th Birth­day

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.