Guy Maddin's newest, THE GREEN FOG, gives film buffs a terrific entry into the new year

A consistent delight and amazement, as well as a kind of luscious puzzle -- every frame of which you'll probably want to watch again right after you've finished it the first time -- THE GREEN FOG, a 63-minute ode to San Francisco, as seen via cinema, is the creation of a certain Guy Maddin (yes, him!) along with his Forbidden-Room collaborator, Evan Johnson, and also this time, Galen Johnson.

Mr. Maddin (shown at right) and the Misters Johnson have contrived to make an "assembled" film all about San Francisco and how it has appeared in film and on television over the decades. Although I did not read the following information about the film prior to seeing it (and I am loathe to even mention it to you now because the movie might be more fun to view without knowing this), it is also a kind of homage to Hitchcock's Vertigo, made without using a single frame of that actual film and instead using just about every other San Francisco-set movie and TV show you can name or remember.

The Green Fog is just so much fun -- at least it will be, I suspect, for movie buffs, especially Maddin fans. But it may prove the ultimate head-scratcher for the rest of the world. Still, I would not have missed it for anything.

From the likes of Rock Hudson to Sidney Poitier to Joan Crawford (above) to (I think) Roddy Piper (and then what seems like a ton of Chuck Norris); from rooftops to streets and hills to bell towers and museums (and the viewing of, yes, portraits inside them); we get such a good dose of San Francisco, with Vertigo so often coming to mind, that -- for someone like me, who grew up in Los Angeles and considered trips to that northern California metropolis a kind of re-discovery of civilization -- we're soon steeped in the city that, outside of New York, movies maybe always loved best. (Well, there's Paris, too, of course.)

All that driving! And phone calls! And portrait viewing! Plus a terrific score composed by Jacob Garchik and performed by Kronos Quartet (below). Expect scene after scene of elided moments, the dialog of which has carefully been removed so that what remains is fraught with possibility and maybe danger. This is hilarious stuff, and when, after almost a quarter hour, we finally get a tad's worth of dialog, it, too, will have you chuckling and scratching your head. (There's one scene in particular, with John Saxon, Richard Basehart and Virginia Grey, that's a knockout.)

If you love to watch actors simply looking at each other, here's your big chance. And what an array of stars are on display here. The amount of movies and TV shows used (and the brevity of each) will astound you, too. At the end we get a listing of them all, but even this is shown so quickly that you will not be able to actually read all the titles. Too bad.

In all, The Green Fog lasts 63 minutes, but this is an hour-plus, the creation and use of which you will not have experienced anywhere else. Yes, this may be Maddin's oddest work (among an oeuvre of utter oddities) but for some of us, it will resonate and delight like little else.  The Green Fog was co-commissioned by SFFILM and Stanford Live and is opening un-rated (but don't worry, I can't recall seeing any dirty parts).

The movie opens this Friday, January 5, in New York City at the IFC Center, with select screenings presented as double feature with Vertigo. Consult the IFC schedule to make sure you're getting either the single show or double feature that you want.

Dreams, desires, naughty taboos: Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson's THE FORBIDDEN ROOM

Who else but Guy Maddin would hand us a Jesus quote to begin his film then follow this with enough degradation, deprivation and bizarre behavior to send a fundamentalist crazy. And crazy is the operative word for Mr. Maddin's latest lulu, THE FORBIDDEN ROOM, which, beginning with the opening credits -- that use the title backgrounds of several different, old-fashioned movie genres to introduce each new set of names -- proves as funny, fun, probing and as Maddining (to add a much-needed word to your movie lexicon) as his work always is.

Except that this time (the filmmaker is pictured at left), he's aglow with two-strip Technicolor, rather than his ususal black-and-white, and he seems to have abdicated altogether any hint of central theme or story and instead, Scheherazade-like, spun out tale after tale after tale until they seem to wrap around and turn in and on each other like wily, sometime deadly serpents.

This may be the movie-meister's funniest and most appealing work to date. It certainly boasts his starriest cast -- from

Canada's Roy Dupuis (below) to England's Charlotte Rampling to France's Mathieu Amalric and many more. Maddin has also, this time 'round, taken on a co-director, Evan Johnson (shown at right: the pair co-wrote, as well, along with a few others), who appears to have been responsible for the special effects, which are pretty much non-stop, though nothing like what Hollywood consistently gives us. There is not one car chase nor explosion to be seen, though a valcano -- the movie, in its use of silent-film titles and old-fashioned writen narration, uses intentional misspelling now and again -- does errupt a couple of times.

Subjects along the way include everything from bathing and bottoms to lobotomies and flapjacks, and we meet everyone from mad doctors (of course, just about everyone else is nutty, too) to doppelgangers and Janus-like Jekyll & Hydes.

There's the quest, 'natch, this time to save a beautiful young woman from... well, a number of differing fates worse than death, a mustache (worn first by Udo Kier, below) that manages to span three generations, and perhaps the most unusual kind of vampire you will have ever encountered.

There is a lot of fun to be had (my favorites include the aviatrix/lawyer and what particular objects are sacrificed to that valcano) and, as always with Maddin, there is the sensation that we are in the middle of this guy's own special and really bizarre dreams -- sexually, psychologically, emo-tionally and especially family-wise. The filmmaker, like Hitchcock but in such a different manner, is a voyeur who makes willing voyeurs of us all.

How inventive and imaginative can Maddin be? Very. However, can the guy keep all this up for a full two hours and eleven minutes? (The movie is now said to be be two hours flat, but the screener I viewed proved a tad longer.) I think this will depend on just how Maddin-crazy you are. I didn't flag, although I thought the movie occasionally did -- before quickly bouncing back with some new/old oddity and delight.

The Forbidden Room (every one of Maddin's movies is full of the forbidden) is one long fever dream of nostalgia, silliness, buried (as well as overt) sexuality and film references. If you've never seen a Maddin movie, this one should be a fine starting point -- and perhaps ending point if you're not impressed. That's Jacques Nolot, below, who has a ratther meaty role in the festivities.)

From Kino Lorber (and, I expect, unrated), the film opens this Wednesday, October 7, at New York City's Film Forum, and then in the weeks to come in a number of other cities. Click here then scroll way down to see all currently scheduled playdates.