Monday, August 24 at 7pm
Blackhat
Directed by Michael Mann (U.S. 2015) 133 min. DCP. With Chris Hemsworth, Viola Davis, Wei Tang, Leehom Wang.
“Blackhat isn’t a failed action movie – it’s a big-budget avant-garde film” ran the headline of a Chicago Reader review last January. Don’t let either part of that statement (neither is true) keep you from your chance to catch Michael Mann (Manhunter 1986) transforming brick and mortar cities into circuitry, and glossy magazines into body armor, in this 21st century meditation on presence vs. remote access.
Monday, September 7 at 7pm
Magnificent Obsession
Directed by Douglas Sirk (U.S. 1954) 108 min. 35MM. With Rock Hudson, Jane Wyman.
A propulsive remake of John M. Stahl’s 1935 drama of the same name, Magnificent Obsession presents a singularly orchestral, modern-day twist on the Greek myth of self-sacrificing wife Alcestis. Excessive yet precise in its turns of plot, this rousingly scored screen adaptation of Lloyd C. Douglas’ 1929 novel tells the story of reckless playboy and former medical student Bob Merrick (Rock Hudson in his third film by Sirk), who, after a speedboat accident, becomes inadvertently responsible for the death of Dr. Phillips, leaving his grieving wife Helen (Wyman) a widow with little financial cushion. After Helen loses her eyesight, Sirk’s reformed samaritan hero falls for her, tracing a salvation arc while in disguise as “Robby.” In an array of tragic incidents, Sirk’s first truly Technicolor melodrama veers between scripture and soap opera, scanning the ironic limits of star-crossed romance to incredulous but ultimately satisfying ends. – TIFF notes
Monday, September 14 at 7pm
Phantom Thread
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (U.S. 2015) 133 min. DCP. With Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps, Lesley Manville.
“Less grandiose than the writer-director’s last three features, as well as more precision-controlled, this is a melodrama of love, desire and gamesmanship among three control freaks played out in a veritable hot-house in which the winner will be determined by who wilts last… More unconventional and downright weird on a moment-to-moment basis than it is in overall design and intent, it’s a singular work played out mostly in small rooms that harks back to psychological melodramas of the 1940s/50s but hits stylistic notes entirely its own.” – Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter
Monday, September 28 at 7pm
Point Break – 35th Anniversary!
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow (U.S. 1991) 122 min. DCP. With Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze.
Keanu Reeves stars as Johnny Utah, an FBI agent who goes undercover among the beach bums in order to investigate a hunch about surfers who are possibly moonlighting as bank robbers, in the film that cemented Reeves as a new, very California cool kind of action star. With Patrick Swayze as the group’s guru and kingpin, Bigelow’s Point Break is the kind of smart, fun, sexy, exciting action film desperately lacking in today’s Hollywood. – Metrograph Cinema
Monday, October 5 at 7pm
Four Nights of a Dreamer
Directed by Robert Bresson (France 1971) 82 min. DCP. With Guillaume des Forêts, Maurice Monnoyer). French with English subtitles.
The rarely screened Four Nights of a Dreamer is Robert Bresson’s great forgotten masterpiece, a stark yet haunting ode to romantic idealism and the capriciousness of love. Adapted from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “White Nights,” Four Nights follows Jacques (Guillaume des Forêts), a lonely artist who roams bohemian Paris in search of the girl of his dreams. One night he saves a beautiful young woman, Marthe, from plunging into the Seine in despair over her rejection by an avoidant lover (Monnoyer). Jacques compassionately attempts to reunite Marthe with her beau, but his feelings for his new friend soon become less than platonic and his investment in her personal drama far from selfless. Four Nights of a Dreamer has been called the French master’s “loveliest” work: with his signature minimalism, Bresson films the shimmering beauty of nocturnal Paris as it enfolds his characters in endless possibility—subtly capturing the wonder of unexpected connection and the mystery of fate. Presented in partnership with Bucknell’s French Studies Program, courtesy of a Cinémathèque Albertine grant.
Monday, October 19 at 7pm
Model – New 4K Restoration!
Directed by Frederick Wiseman (U.S. 1980) 129 min. DCP.
Frederick Wiseman followed up his 1979 documentary, Manoeuvre, about the movements of a US infantry tank company, with a film chronicling a top New York City modeling agency and the numerous models and wannabes who populate this social milieu. On its surface, Model is a stark departure from the director’s more outwardly political films of the previous decade, and yet its opening shot of the prominently framed World Trade Centre initiates a clear dialogue about American culture and materialism. By documenting glossy fashion shows, stressed out advertising directors, and thirsty models eager to break into the business, the film reveals the high-pressure advertising industry and its obsessive focus on image and facade. In this fantasy world where models are made to look like mannequins and vice versa, Wiseman deftly highlights the artificial construction of images, even his own. The models perhaps most of all know they’re part of a fabrication, with a chiselled male model musing to Andy Warhol (in a brief cameo) midway through the film, “there’s the dividing line between reality and illusion.” – Vivian Belik, TIFF Cinemathèque
Monday, October 26 at 7pm
TERRIFIER
Directed by Damien Leone (U.S. 2016) 82 min. DCP. With Jenna Kanell, Samantha Scaffidi, David Howard Thornton, Catherine Corcoran.
“Coulrophobics beware! It’s Halloween night and Art the Clown, the cold-blooded killer who also stalked Damien Leone’s previous short of the same name and his 2013 omnibus feature All Hallow’s Eve, is not wearing a creepy costume just for show. He’s as evil as he looks—seriously, the scariest clown to ever hit movie screens—and, after an evening of partying, two young women unluckily enter his sights. At first they’re mildly amused by his presence (the ditzier of the two even dares take a selfie with him), but soon they understand the true danger he presents, as he proceeds to terrorize them, as well as anyone else who crosses his path. Lean and oh so mean, Terrifier is grittier, and more jarringly depraved, than most horror movies these days, oozing ’80s slasher–style gore.” – Film at Lincoln Center