Floraine Connors

As with much of his other work -- and 1960s New York underground film in general -- Mike Kuchar's The Craven Sluck relies on the juxtaposition of disparate pop-cultural modes to question convention, provoke laughs and restore personal vision to the filmmaking process. Part kitchen-sink melodrama, part sci-fi farce and completely tongue-in-cheek, the film packs a lot of ideas and images into 20 minutes. (Surreal Moviez)

A forlorn New Yorker seeks to extricate himself from his girlfriend and find fulfillment with another man in this impressionistic underground film from director Mike Kuchar. The eponymous Wendel (multimedia artist Red Grooms) can't seem to articulate it, but he's completely uninterested in paramour Margaret (Mimi Gross). Although he dutifully spends time with her in a dingy apartment, he's much happier wandering the city streets and checking out the beauty of the male form. (Surreal Moviez)

The film might seethe with violence and sex, the two most attractive things you can put on the screen, but beneath them a twisted outlook pervades. (mubi.com)

Wintry animals explain a neurosis.