It was great to be able to show this ancient gem to people who hadn’t seen it. Apparently Sunrise flopped at the time of its release, due to the rising popularity of “talkies”. I wonder if any of those could possibly be as memorable. Another interesting fact: the studio insisted on a happy ending, which Murnau was against, but eventually caved.
I like a happy ending!
Did we just watch Sean Baker’s magnum opus tonight? I believe this is the case, although I hope the definition might be only temporary (I admit that I don’t know whether that works). Dressed up at times as a laugh-a-minute rom-com, Anora is at heart a study of a young woman whose life is bereft of love, friendship, and tenderness. When a Prince Charming appears on the scene, she dives in, hoping for the best.
I’m guessing that you probably know this doesn’t work out but it’s a heck of a journey, all the way to the devastating last scene. Speechless.
And… Mikey Madison. Fantastic.
Actually… really enjoyable. More on this coming.
Another plot with a surprising twist, Iris Kaltenback’s The Rapture (Le ravissement) demonstrates just how difficult it can become to maintain a spur-of-the-moment deception. That’s kind of enough said… no spoilers here.
Our short tonight was one of our all time favorites, Over Time, directed by Oury Atlan, Thibaut Berland, and Damien Ferrie.
Jonathan Glazer’s Birth has lived on vividly in my memory since first seeing it and then screening it at MovieNight, in the old place, in the old days. Our Black Friday screening pulled in a great group of folks, and Nicole Kidman’s performance was mesmerizing.
Our short tonight was the ever-frantic “Tanto”, by Cassie Marin, directed by King She.
Thanks to Greg for bringing this relatively unknown 2023 slasher flick from J.T. Mollner to my attention. I say “relatively unknown”, but it seems that it is gaining recognition and expanding its fan base daily. Strange Darling is a smart, extraordinarily well constructed puzzle piece, doled out in six tight, non-sequential chapters. It totally blindsided me.
Our recycling of shorts continued this tonight with Paul Trillo’s surreal AI-generated animation, Thank You For Not Answering.
After last week’s roller coaster ride of The Substance it was good to lighten up tonight. My Old Ass is, after all, a rom-com-dram, coming-of-age, and in some ways even a tad Hallmarkian, but packs a surprising gut punch. Tears were shed. And laughs were laughed.
Taking advantage of the main feature’s relatively short run-time, we showed one of our longer shorts: Little Red Riding Hood, directed by David Kaplan, and featuring a very young Christina Ricci. Wonderful, as always.
It seemed to me that it would be fun to watch this movie after all the talk talk talk of the election, and the terror of waking up to gruesome election results on Wednesday. The concept was to fight scary with scary. The Substance served up a heaping portion of gore and tremendous entertainment. I’m sorry it was a bit much for some of you. Watch the trailer next time!
Our short this week was Be a Lady They Said featuring Cynthia Nixon.
Next week, I’ll try to lighten up. A bit.
OMG. Ellen did it again. Our bespoke finale curator came up with another great musical to end our season, and even though it was, unusually for us, a Tuesday night, the turnout was heartwarming. See you in the fall!
The reason I give props to YouTube? I was recording a trailer for the movie I had planned to show tonight, and the algorithm queued up the trailer for this. I had never heard of it, nor was I familiar with the work of director, Alice Rohrwacher. So… it turns out that I don’t know a lot about a lot of things… but the trailer grabbed me, and I set to “work” watching it. I was blown away, as were our guests tonight.
When I say set to work, I mean that I feel it’s my duty to know a film before I show it to a group of trusting people who make the effort to schlep to Alphabet City for NewScreen. I made an exception recently for Hundreds of Beavers, which I just KNEW would be fantastic, and wanted to be on the discovering side, along with my guests. Good call. What a crazy ride!
In case you’re interested, the film that got “bumped” tonight was All Your Faces (Je verrai toujours vos visages). That would have been a great screening as well…
Hundreds of Beavers was not the first unseen feature I’ve ever shown. Many many years ago, I found myself in a Blockbuster (remember them?) and managed to get my hands on their last copy of the recently released The Hurt Locker, which I showed unseen at MovieNight. As it turned out, my instincts were good ))