Joe Coleman Movies

The seminal, early 20th century case that inspired Freud, Jung, and Lacan is fictionalized in director Julian P. Hobbs' fragmented account of one distinguished German judge's descent into schizophrenic madness and eventual incarceration in an insane asylum. Married at the turn of the century and subsequently appointed a high judge, Daniel Paul Schreber would later suffer through multiple failed pregnancies alongside his wife (Lara Milian), attempt to navigate a particularly rocky relationship with his uncaring father (Joe Coleman), and suffer through woefully misguided care at the hands of questionably competent Dr. Emil Flechsig (Robert Cucuzza). Later imagining that he had been chosen by God to create a new race of man, Schreber's mental health quickly deteriorated into a cosmic paranoia highlighted by frighteningly vivid and unusually ordered hallucinations. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Shot on digital video, this no-holds-barred, semi-autobiographical film from Italian actress/model Asia Argento presents the bleak decent of a popular actress into a haze of drugs and overindulgence. Anna Battista (Argento) has seemingly everything anyone could ever want, yet sometimes everything is never enough. Fed up with going through the motions as an actor, Battista aspires to seek a career as a director so that she may truly explore her currently latent artistic talent. The queen of excess, Battista's attempts to realize her true talent are time and again shattered as the she is used and abused by everyone she comes into contact with. After a one-night fling with an emotionally distant and uncaring Australian rock star (Jean Sheperd) leaves the self-confessed whore a lovelorn mother-to-be, Battista's desperation to bring her story to the screen finds her dealing with a shady American producer (Joe Coleman), an agent reluctant to assist her in branching out, and a heroin-addicted former filmmaker who is as close to ending his life as Battista is to beginning hers. Her career in disarray and her uncertain future growing increasingly grim, Battista embarks on a numbing binge of sex and drugs that takes her from Europe to America and back again. Attempting to seek-out the father of her unborn child and find some sense of stability, Battista finds the truth about her one-time lover. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Taking an avant-garde approach, experimental Russian painter turned director Ari Roussimoff creates an offbeat addition to the horror genre. Troubled, doomed Paul returns to his home in an oppressive and stylized Manhattan (filmed in black and white) after spending time with a traveling carnival. As he wanders the gloomy streets in search of love and acceptance, he muses about the correlation between the grim fates of his family and his own destiny. Both his brother and his mother killed themselves, and now Paul sees the Spirit of Death beckoning him to do the same. He does not realize that Death is really only offering him more of the same. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide