Category Archives: Movies

Shoplifters. Hearts were stolen.

April 4, 2019Movies, NewScreen Stuffnewscreen_mt6x3h

Tonight marked the first screening of a Japanese movie in the seventeen year history of MovieNight/NewScreen, and it surely won’t be the last. Director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Palme D’or winning Shoplifters is an intimate portrait of a “family” who share no blood lines, but are very much a functional unit.

It was a busy night at the bar and consequently the movie started a bit late. Sorry kids! I’ll be more disciplined in future. I know some of you have a long way to go home on a school night.

Our animated short feature this week was La Pista, directed by Juanluigi Toccafondo.

Girl. NewScreen is on pointe once again.

March 28, 2019Movies, NewScreen Stuffnewscreen_mt6x3h

There has been a lot of criticism from the LGBTQ (not sure if those are all the letters currently in use, to be honest) community of cisgender director Lukas Dhont’s directorial debut, Girl, based on a real life account of a 15-year-old girl, born in the body of a boy, who has aspirations of one day becoming a ballet dancer. I guess I’m not qualified to appreciate or refute that criticism, but let me say this: I felt a lot of her pain through the artistry of this beautiful movie, and so did our audience. Once again this week, a ripple of applause spread through the room.

And then there was banana bread 🙂

Our short tonight was a venerable favorite from MovieNight, and it remains timeless: Over Time, directed by Oury Atlan, Thibaut Berland, and Damien Ferrié. Sadly, it is titled “Overtime” on Vimeo, rather than “Over Time”, which is kind of the whole point.

First Reformed. NewScreen “Rev”s up. Geddit?

March 21, 2019Movies, NewScreen Stuffnewscreen_mt6x3h

Minister levitates with pregnant woman on top. Don’t try this at home, kids.

Paul Schrader’s First Reformed brought in a nice-sized audience this week. As you may know, Schrader wrote the screenplay for Taxi Driver, directed by Martin Scorsese in 1976. In First Reformed, the protagonist, Reverend Toller (portrayed remarkably by Ethan Hawk), reprises the roll of Travis Bickle.

In the words of Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, writing for the A.V. Club, “The subject matter is an outrageous update of the alienation of Schrader’s classic Taxi Driver script for a world of LiveLeak videos and climate change; Travis Bickle’s eerily fizzing Alka-Seltzer becomes pink Pepto-Bismol sludging in [Toller’s] whiskey glass like a toxic spill.”

This week’s short garnered a round of applause! The Chemical Brothers – We’ve got to try, directed by Ninian Doff, featuring “Girl the Dog”. Thanks for sending the link, Igor 🙂

It was one of those nights when people wanted to hang out, so we watched a few amusing shorts, and devoured a loaf of homemade banana bread, still warm from the oven. Nice.

The Favourite. Not for Tick.

March 14, 2019Doggy Style, Movies, NewScreen Stuffnewscreen_mt6x3h

Sometimes a lady likes to have some fun.

For the first time in his movie-making career, Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos is not credited as a writer. It’s not like you’d notice though… with The Favourite, Lanthimos once again demonstrates his prowess for quirky, dark humor. Beautifully shot by Robbie Ryan (American Honey, I, Daniel Blake), and wonderfully acted by Coleman, Weiss and Stone, The Favourite delighted our audience. Except for one…

For some reason, this movie drives my puppy, Tick, absolutely crazy. He’s always been sensitive to animals and loud noises on the screen, but not on this scale. Even the opening credits cause him to start growling, and any act of violence, gunshot, or animal provokes outbusts of barking. I hope he wasn’t too much of a distraction.

Tonight’s short feature was the rather naughty 1980YEN – Takoyaki Story, directed by Sawako Kabuki.

Border. Troll-y F**k!

March 7, 2019Love and Life, Movies, Strange Stuffnewscreen_mt6x3h

Border came as a complete surprise to many of our guests this week! Ali Abbasi’s fantasy drama centers around a romance between two trolls. One is unaware of her origin, thinking that she is a human with a genetic flaw, and has assimilated into society, working as a customs agent and able to “smell fear” on would-be bad actors. The other lives rough, eats larvae, and has sworn vengeance upon the wicked human race for the horrible treatment of his parents, and other trolls in the past.

There are subplots and twists aplenty in this fascinating film, but one takeaway: trolls don’t hold back during orgasm!

This week’s short was the delightful Stems, a stop motion film by Ainslie Henderson.

Capernaum. Tears were shed.

February 28, 2019Love and Life, Movies, NewScreen Stuffnewscreen_mt6x3h

NewScreen was on fine form this week with Nadine Labaki’s Capernaum – one of this year’s foreign-language Oscar nominees, and the Jury Prize-winner at Cannes last year. In the words of Robbie Collin from the Telegraph, ” It’s the story of a child surviving on the streets of Beirut, infused with the richness of great fiction and the heart-in-mouth power of frontline news footage. The peril feels so truthful and specific, and the young cast’s reactions to it so astonishingly natural, that my heart couldn’t work out whether it should break or pop.”

I couldn’t put it better. We cried, and then we applauded.

Incidentally, this is the third foreign-language Oscar nominee to appear at NewScreen (Cold War and Roma preceded), and we’re not done yet. Watch this space!

Tonight’s short feature was Brain Wave directed by Jake Fried.

Casablanca. Play it (again), Richard!

February 14, 2019Love and Life, Movies, NewScreen Stuffnewscreen_mt6x3h

As much as I feel that Valentine’s Day is bull*hit, I am an unabashed romantic. I thought it would be great to show a classic love story tonight. Marie suggested Casablanca, since it was also showing at the wonderful Metrograph, just down the road. Great suggestion. This film ticks all the right boxes. As I expected, there were a few guests seeing this for the first time, and I was proud to present a crisp remaster, on the big screen.

Also… we have another hit cocktail on our hands! The (Barely) Pink Lady went “viral” at the bar. Sooooo delicious!

Tonight’s short feature was Splitscreen: A Love Story, directed by James W. Griffiths. So sweet!

A Star is Born. I’m gaga for Gaga.

January 30, 2019Movies, NewScreen Stuffnewscreen_mt6x3h

Issues persist with the email list, but it got through to a few, and it really felt like old times to host a few folks that I hadn’t seen for years, and even a couple of new faces.

As some of you may know, I have only recently started paying attention to Gaga. It was all just way too glamorous for me before, but I watched the Netflix doc (Gaga: Five Foot Two) a few weeks ago, and I kinda fell in love. She is amazing in this moving love story… even on my third watching, tears were never far away. I kinda wish I had saved this for Valentine’s Day, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

Tonight’s short feature (yes, the full program is back! I heard you!) was Enough, by Anna Mantzaris. It was her first-year film project at the Royal College of Art

Roma. Yes. It’s that good.

January 10, 2019Moviesnewscreen_mt6x3h

Alfonso Cuarón has created a modern masterpiece with Roma. I can’t really say enough about this film… so I won’t. I’m not a reviewer. The day after my first viewing though, I announced to some colleagues that it was the best film I’d ever seen. “Better than Casablanca?” one of them demanded. OK… I get it. Still…

Roma is held in such esteem that most movie buffs I know refuse to watch it anywhere other than the big screen, even though it’s been available on Netflix for a while now. I was happy to give some of them the opportunity to see it that way.

Cold War. Opposites attract.

December 20, 2018Moviesnewscreen_mt6x3h

Pavel Pawlikowski’s Cold War is a passionate love story between a man and a woman who meet in the ruins of post-war Poland. With vastly different backgrounds and temperaments, they are fatefully mismatched and yet condemned to each other.

Set against the background of the Cold War in 50s and 60s Poland, Berlin, Yugoslavia and Paris, Cold Waris shot in rich tones of black and white, and in “Academy format” (3:4), as was Pawlikowski’s previous film, Ida. It’s a tragic tale of a couple separated by politics, character flaws and unfortunate twists of fate – an impossible love story in impossible times.

A NewScreen coup: We screened Cold War, the day before it was released 🙂