THE WEEKEND WARRIOR April 5, 2024
The First Omen, Monkey Man, New Directors/New Films, The Old Oak, Housekeeping for Beginners, Coup de Chance, and More!
It’s April, which is probably gonna be another slower month, ala January and February, but hey, we always had March and the summer is just around the corner, so maybe we’ll be able to get through this… together. Anyway, this will be a longer column than usual, because I’ve actually seen a bunch of movies that I can review.
There are a lot of great film festivals and series around New York City year-round. While the annual New Directors/New Films series, put on by Film at Lincoln Center and MOMA, has changed quite a bit since I first started covering it, it always offers a wide variety of exactly what it says in the title… new films by (mostly) new directors.
This year’s series runs from April 3 through April 15, launching on Wednesday night (last night) with Aaron Schimberg’s A Different Man, starring Adam Pearson as an actor named Edward, who is not happy about his drastically deformed looks, so he undergoes a process that essentially turns him into Sebastian Stan. I mean, that is literally what happens, as Edward finds himself getting more gigs as an actor, including being cast in a play by his cute neighbor (Renate Reinsve from The Worst Person in the World). Things are going well until the British Oswald (who looks a lot like Edward did before the procedure) happens to show up and wins everyone over with his charm. (*You may be familiar with Pearson from being cast as “the deformed man” in Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, but Schimberg previously made the movie Chained for Life with Pearson – which I haven’t seen – and this was clearly inspired by the two of them working together, for Schimberg to write something specifically for Pearson.)
This is a movie that has elements of Charlie Kaufman’s work, which makes it a perfect release for A24, and I kind of want to see it again, since there were moments in the movie that, in hindsight, I wasn’t sure if we were watching Pearson or Stan in a mask. I’ll also be curious to see whether A24 decides to hold this for a fall release to maybe get Pearson into the awards conversation, since he’s quite impressive in what is essentially a dual role…. I think? (Note: Thanks to Rachel S for clarifying that it actually was Stan in the role of Edward right up until Pearson shows up as Oswald.)
A Different Man was one of the movies that premiered at Sundance before playing New Directors, and there are a few others, one which I quite liked, another which I hated, and one that falls in between. I actually did end up reviewing Titus Kaphar’s Exhibiting Forgiveness for Above the Line, which I quite enjoyed and hope to see again, particularly for its great performances by André Holland (Moonlight), Andra Day, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. Holland plays a Black artist who is visited by his estranged alcoholic father – an astounding performance by John Earl Jelks – and the two of them try to reconcile their past.
I wish I could say that felt similarly towards Theda Hammel’s Stress Positions, but I thought that was absolutely awful, and I was mystified that NEON picked it up for release (before I saw it), because it doesn’t seem like something that could possibly make any money i.e. your typical Sundance movie. Somehow, Hammel’s DIY film got into New Directors as well, and I’m mystified by how many good reviews this movie has. It was nearly unwatchable.
Falling somewhere in between those two, also from Sundance, is India Donaldson’s Good One, which just follows a 17-year-old on a camping trip with her dad and his best friends, and that’s really about it. Nothing really happens. I guess the main young actress is okay.
Those might be the three highest-profile movies playing New Directors, but there are a lot of international filmmakers represented as well. I’ve only seen a few other movies playing at ND/NF, including Belgium’s Oscar selection, Baloji’s Omen, which like many of last year’s International Feature entries does not take place in the native country or language. This one mostly takes place in Africa, following a young Congolese man (Marc Zinga) with a pregnant fiancée (Lucie Debay) who returns to his homeland to reconnect with his family. I wanted to like this more, since it does give us a look into a very different culture, but ultimately, it fell a bit flat. I think this will actually be getting a limited release sometime later this month.
I wasn’t quite as crazy about Nelson Yeo’s Dreaming & Dying and Francisco Rodriguez Teare’s Otro Sol, two other movies I got to see in ahead of the festival. Dreaming & Dying reminds me very much of Hong Sang-soo or Apichatpong Weerasethakul, two Asian filmmakers who cinephile film critics absolutely adore, but I’ve never quite understood the appeal. Otro Sol is a Chilean film that involves a heist that may or may not be real, but Teare’s use of documentary-style filmmaking makes it slightly unclear what we’re watching. Not sure I can fully recommend either.
Either way, ND/NF is a great discovery festival in terms of new filmmakers, and it also includes two short programs, so if you’re in New York and looking for some new cinema, then check out the line-up at FilmLinc and MOMA. (Also, if you’re around later today, there will be a live recording of one of my favorite podcasts, Indiewire’s “Awards Chatter” at 5pm this evening.)
THE FIRST OMEN (20th Century)
This is a pretty straight-ahead prequel to the 1976 movie The Omen, starring Nell Tiger Free from M. Night Shyamalan’s Servant as a young woman from America who travels to Rome to enlist at a convent, only to learn all the dark doings going on there that forces her to question her own faith.
Mini-Review: I feel like I should preface this review by mentioning how The Omen is one of my all-time favorite horror movies. I loved the two sequels, which I may even have the novelizations of somewhere. I also liked the 2006 remake of The Omen, because it was fairly faithful to a movie I loved, and I’m not one of those critics that immediately dismisses a movie because it’s a remake.
That brings us to this ill-timed and ill-conceived prequel that seems to exist for no particular reason except to entice super-fans of the original movies to want to know more about characters who have absolutely nothing to do with the original movie, which was one of the better early “evil kid” movies.
Before we meet Nell Tiger Free’s Sister Margaret on her trip to Rome in the early ‘70s, we watch a sequence between Ralph Ineson and Charles Dance, the former trying to learn more about a mysterious photograph, as a large pane of stained-glass hovers ominously above them. Anyone who spots that, expecting a gory kill on par with anything from the original The Omen movies, will likely be disappointed.
Director Arkasha Stevenson (whose work I wasn’t really familiar with) doesn’t do a bad job with the look of the movie, but the pacing is another story, and the film’s set-up drags, with the exception of a number of obvious and predictable jump scares. One of the most memorable things about earlier “Omen” movies were the gory kills, and that’s another area where The First Omen fully disappoints, to the point of blatantly ripping off one of the deaths from the original movie while throwing in some fire to try to make it more dramatic or effective. It doesn’t work, since it’s so obviously a reference to the original movie.
If that wasn’t bad enough, it then directly rips off the 1981 thriller Possession (which regularly plays at the Metrograph). While I do have to give kudos to Ms. Free for being able to pull off such an amazing performance – I am a fan of her work – anyone who has seen Possession will realize that’s what is going on. A bigger infraction may be how the movie wastes such talented actors as Ineson, Dance, and Bill Nighy. I mean, I didn’t even recognize the great Sofia Braga in the movie as I was watching the movie!
It doesn’t help for this to be coming out so soon after the far superior Immaculate – which I saw 12 hours earlier – and that it contains imagery that is flagrantly ripped off from the “Nun” movies on top of everything else. How could anyone involved with this movie not realize that would be the case?
To be fair, The First Omen does end essentially where the 1976 movie begins, but that becomes a similar problem as other recent prequels, since it essentially retcons away one of the most memorable moments.
By comparison, The First Omen is just a bland, boring, and actually quite lazy attempt at capitalizing on the love horror fans have for the original The Omen to tell quite a weak and far-too-traditional modern-day horror movie.
Rating: 5/10
MONKEY MAN (Universal)
Dev Patel wrote, directed and stars in this new action movie that reportedly was brought to Universal by Jordan Peele after being previously being planned for streaming via Netflix. In the film, Patel plays an unnamed young man from a small farming village that was destroyed by criminals, who also killed his mother, so decades later, he shows up in Mumbai with the sole purpose of getting revenge. The movie premiered at the SXSW Film and TV Festival last month and received mostly raves, so it probably should do decently this weekend based on those reviews and early word-of-mouth.
Mini-Review: Going into Dev Patel’s directorial debut knowing that his model was very clearly Keanu Reeves’ John Wick might give you some idea if it will be your cup of tea, but there are also quite a few things that differentiate it from the typical Hollywood revenge thriller (or corresponding VOD fodder) in that it is set in Mumbai with references to Hindu religions and spirituality.
We meet Patel’s unnamed character when he’s in the ring getting his ass kicked in a bare knuckle boxing match, while wearing his trademark monkey mask. He’s definitely a bit of a “jobber,” which if you’re familiar with professional wrestling, is someone who is basically there to get beat up by the favorite. Since that isn’t going well, he takes on a new profession as a dishwasher at a prominent gentleman’s club, but his ulterior motive is to get closer to the criminal element that was responsible for his mother’s death.
There’s probably little point getting too far into the plot, since that aspect of Monkey Man is fairly straight-forward, almost to the point of being formulaic at times, but much of the film’s first hour is so frenetic with a lot of crazy camerawork and editing, that it might not be that easy to figure out what is going on. In some ways, it does add more style to Patel’s directing, but sometimes, it distracts more from the storytelling than enhances it.
Patel gives another strong performance with more action than we’ve seen from him, yet there isn’t much dialogue, which I guess is also similar to John Wick, and that makes it harder to suss out exactly what is happening, especially since the murder of his character’s mother isn’t shown for an hour or more. The movie really picks up when he hits bottom and has to train himself and fight his way back to get the revenge he’s sought out – this is also where the film gets more heavily into the spirituality, which again, helps give the movie its own identity.
Patel has done a fine job with his directorial debut, especially with the amount of action he’s taken on. It might take some time to really get going, but ultimately, it’s a satisfying effort once you figure out what is happening.
Rating: 7/10
THE BOX OFFICE CHART
This will be an interesting weekend for the returning movies, since I’m writing this before knowing how many theaters movies like Late Night with the Devil will lose with more direct horror competition. The same goes for Dune: Part Two, which probably has another week of IMAX, and Kung Fu Panda 4, which is still the only PG family film in theaters.
1. Godzilla x Kong: A New Empire (Warner Bros.) - $30 million
2. The First Omen (20th Century) - $15.8 million N/A
3. Monkey Man (Universal) - $13 million N/A
4. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (Sony) - $8.1 million -48%
5. Dune: Part Two (Warner Bros.) - $7.4 million -35%
6. Kung Fu Panda 4 (Universal) - $6.5 million -35%
7. Immaculate (NEON) - $2 million -39%
8. Late Night with the Devil (IFC Films) - $1.3 million -40% (Note that I have no idea how many theaters this might lose, but it has even more direct competition now.)
9. Arthur the King (Lionsgate) - $1.3 million -45%
10. Wicked Little Letters (Sony Pictures Classics) - $1.1 million (Note that this is supposed to be released nationwide this Friday, but I have not been notified of a theater count, and that will likely determine whether it breaks into the top 10.)
This week’s “Chosen One” is…
THE OLD OAK (Zeitgeist/Kino Lorber)
Opening at the Film Forum on Friday is what is looking to be the final film from the great Ken Loach, a movie I got to see as a Metrograph member last year but decided to watch it a second time now that it’s being released, and I’m glad I did. I’ve been a pretty big Ken Loach fan for years, and this one is really special, starring Dave Turner as TJ Ballantyne, the proprietor of a local pub in a small mining village that has received a number of Syrian refugees, including a smart young photographer named Mara (Ebla Mari).
We meet the refugees as they arrive and immediately are derided by some of the locals. TJ is someone with a good heart, and he immediately takes a liking to Mara, offering to get her camera (smashed by a hoodlum) fixed. TJ’s friendship with Mara starts to rile up the locals at his pub, the Old Oak, putting him in a difficult situation, he also knows that the village’s new Syrian community arrived with next to nothing, and they’re desperately in need of help. At Mara’s request, he decides to reopen the pub’s unused backroom as a community meeting place where everyone in the village, Syrian or local, can convene for a meal each week.
One thing I really enjoy about Loach’s recent works is that his films tend to be filled with a great deal of empathy about the world around him, those who need the most help, but without this ever feeling like a “white savior” type situation. TJ needs Mara, as much as she needs him. (TJ also has a dog as his own companion, but that’s one of the subplots that isn’t as well integrated as some of the others.)
Both Turner and Mari are terrific, and they’re surrounded by a mix of actors and non-actors, all so well integrated that one might have a hard time separating them, but Loach’s casting and direction do wonders to make scenes feel authentic. Maybe the movie goes a bit hard on the racism and xenophobia of the locals, but at least they eventually come around, and it leads to a wonderful final sequence.
If this is indeed Ken Loach’s final film, he is going out with a real banger, a movie that wraps up a spectacular career that makes you wish the Academy would give him some acknowledgement for his amazing work in film. The Old Oak is quite a crowning achievement if it is truly his finale.
Rating: 8.5/10
HOUSEKEEPING FOR BEGINNERS (Focus Features)
I was mixed on Goran Stolevski’s directorial debut, You Won’t Be Alone, but I really liked his follow-up, Of an Age, and his new movie, while it moves things to Macedonia, is an even more contemporary drama. This one stars Anamaria Marinca (4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days) as Dita, the matriarch of a house of outcasts, including her ex-husband Toni (Vladimir Tintor), who now has a young male lover in Ali (Samson Selim). Dita’s own girlfriend Suada (Alina Serban) has pancreatic cancer, and before she goes into surgery, she asks Dita to care for her two daughters, the troubled teen Vanesa (Mia Mustafi) and the adorable younger Mia (Djada Selim).
There’s a lot to absorb and digest in Stolevski’s latest, since so many characters are introduced in quick succession, and some characters have more impact on the story than others. It’s a great cast, and quite varied, as Stolevski uses his knowledge of Macedonia and its culture to deal with some of the relevant topics of the locale, for instance, the treatment of “The Roma” (aka gypsies) by the lighter-skinned locals. Despite the talent on screen, I have to admit that it was the youngest member of the cast who tend to steal many scenes with her commentary about everything going on.
For much of the film, there’s more drama than there is actual story, though it does improve as it goes along, and you begin to full comprehend the relationships at the heart of the story, as Stolevski throws in a few interesting character and plot developments.
Stolevski continues to prove he’s a filmmaker with a unique distinct and original voice and vision. Although I’m not sure Housekeeping quite stands up to Of An Age, it’s nice to see him explore different aspects of his personality and background with an original family drama like this one. (I had to double-check, but this actually was Macedonia’s Oscar entry, so no idea why its release was delayed until April.)
Rating: 7/10
COUP DE CHANCE (MPI Media Group)
Woody Allen returns with his 50th feature film – really? That’s it? – which will hit select theaters on Friday and then be on VOD on April 12. It stars Lou de Laâge as Fanny, a woman who meets a classmate (Niels Schneider) while strolling in Paris. They end up having casual lunches, which turn into a full-on affair, something suspected pretty quickly by her husband Jean (Melvil Poupaud), who decides to do something about it.
Coup de Chance isn’t that far removed from some of Allen’s other recent crime-driven dramas other than the fact that it takes place in France, it’s all in French, and features all French actors. Like much of Allen’s work, the decision to make an entire film in French doesn’t take away from his knack for writing great dialogue, but it also does little to camouflage some of the movie’s many problems… none of which have anything to do with Allen’s extracurricular personal issues that may have forced him to work in France in the first place.
For the umpteenth time, Allen makes a movie that deals with infidelity, but at least in this case, it’s about an affair between a similarly-aged young man and woman, rather than being about a pervy significantly older man hitting on a much younger pretty woman. If nothing else, Allen proves that he has a knack for discovering new and young talent, and Lou de Laâge is quite a find, an actor who has enough charisma to maintain the film as it shifts tones.
The movie’s biggest problem is that Allen’s choice in music starts out fine, but then gets increasingly lazy as the same bouncy jazz tune is repeatedly used, even in scenes where there should be more tension as it drifts into thriller territory. There’s a reason why Hitchcock worked with a composer like Bernard Hermann to score his films, and Allen’s attempt to save money by not using original score for his movies becomes a hindrance that ultimately hurts his storytelling, and Coup de Chance is no exception.
I wouldn’t classify Coup de Chance as one of Allen’s lesser movies – it’s definitely better than some of the absolutely atrocious recent ones like Wonder Wheel and Irrational Man. Even with the workable elements in play here, it just made me wish, more than anything, that Allen would return to writing more comedic works, since that really is his forté.
Rating: 6/10
THE PEOPLE’S JOKER (Altered Innocence)
I first heard about Vera Drew’s film – which she wrote, directed and stars in – when it was supposed to play at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022 but then was pulled due to rights issues. At the time, I hadn’t read much about the movie. They must have worked out those problems since it’s finally being released this Friday, though I went in really not knowing much about the movie, which might be part of its ultimate undoing.
I was kind of excited when I realized that Drew was using this comic book movie satire to tell about her own personal story about coming out as trans. I have enough trans friends to know their stories (for those who have shared them), and literally every story is different. That’s about where my praise for The People’s Joker begins and ends, because it’s a movie that keeps being dragged down by Drew’s desire to intertwine her story with characters from the Batman Universe – I mean flagrant use of these characters with the word “satire” thrown out as an excuse for what is a clear copyright violation. There are also quite a few barbs thrown the way of Lorne Michaels and Saturday Night Live, which may be deserved but also seems rather misguided since it detracts from Drew’s own story. I just never understand what the point was for her to play a “character” called “Joker the Harlequin,” rather than just being herself.
There is no question that this was meant as a very personal film, and in many ways, I wish it stayed on the side of being more autobiographical, rather than feeling the need to go for the low-hanging fruit of spoofing Batman and his rogues gallery. I honestly haven’t a clue how this is getting released, since there’s a chance that both Warner Bros. and NBCUniversal will sue, which was probably why it got pulled from TIFF in the first place.
The bigger problem is that the movie just isn’t very good. The writing is terrible and the cast just isn’t up to snuff, other than maybe Kane Distler as Joker’s love interest “Mr. J” – actually Jason Todd, though in an animation bit, clearly influenced by Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns,” we learn that Jason is also trans and formerly Batman’s sidekick from that book. Drew herself just does not have enough charisma or charm to pull off what’s meant to be satire, and for a comedy, I just never found anything particularly funny or amusing about any of it.
Although the filmmaker probably meant well in trying to make something truly personal, this is another case (like Stress Positions mentioned above) where I have no idea how someone was able to get a movie made (even barring the obvious copyright infringement) or who this movie was meant to be for. The People’s Joker is grueling almost to the point of being unwatchable, and I was glad once it was over.
Rating: 3/10
The People’s Joker will open at New York’s IFC Center this Friday and in L.A. at the Landmark Nuart Theater on April 12.
GIRLS STATE (Apple TV+)
I really enjoyed Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss’s 2020 doc Boys State, and I was curious to see how this follow-up would be different, as it followed the Missouri Girls State program in 2022, taking place shortly after the leak of the Supreme Court memo ending Roe v Wade, which ended up being repealed shortly after the film was shot. In this case, the Missouri Girls State is taking place at the same time and on the same campus as the Boys State, which leads to a few interactions between the two groups.
For those unaware, these programs bring together boys and girls from across 49 of the 50 states to run elections for governor, attorney general and supreme court justices, in order to create a mock government to discuss issues. As with Boys State, McBaine and Moss pick a handful of interesting girls, that are vying for various political roles, as it follows their campaigns. As one might expect, the way the girls go about campaigning and talking about issues is very different than the boys – there’s more bonding and camaraderie and feminist support in play here, even though there’s a fairly even mix of liberal and conservative girls taking part in the program.
There’s a certain point where one of the girls, who misses out on becoming governor decides to write a news story about how much more money and perks are put into the Boy State program, including an appearance by the actual Missouri governor, but even that seems to miss its mark, making it clear that women still have a long way to go in terms of making it in politics even with the support of something like Girl State. Still, this was quite an enjoyable political doc that does try to play things fair and down the aisle, and McBaine and Moss should be commended for that.
KIM’S VIDEO (Drafthouse Films)
I saw this doc at Sundance 2023, and I was pretty disappointed by it for reasons that would be hard to remember if I didn’t still have my notes. I can’t say that I spent a ton of time at Kim’s Video, even though for a couple years, there was one literally at the end of my block. I remember a few very specific times that I went there, the first time when I was looking for a copy of Takashi Miike’s Goju, because I was interviewing the filmmaker (my very first movie-related 1:1 no less!), and I remember another time when I was just in there checking out music, and on my way out I walked by someone who looked a lot like Mark E. Smith of The Fall. It was indeed Mark E. Smith of the Fall. This documentary directed by David Redmon and Ashley Sabin mostly deals with the attempts to get the full Kim’s Video library back from a warehouse where it was stored in Italy, so it involves the filmmakers chasing around various Italian politicos to try to get them to release the library.
Redmon is such a bland narrator, and he keeps coming back to how something that’s happening in real life reminds him of a movie. It’s just so pretentious, the way he cites other movies and compares the situation to them, while namechecking lots of obscure cinephile fodder. I honestly have no idea who this movie might be for, other than film critics. I was convinced that this would play at the Alamo Downtown where the Kim’s Video collection now exists, and I was right, but it’s also playing at the Quad Cinema. Unfortunately, it’s just not a very good documentary, as much as I hoped to like it.
THE BEAST (Sideshow/Janus Films)
Nocturama director Bertrand Bonello returns with this sci-fi drama starring George MacKay (1917) and Léa Seydoux as a couple who meet at a party… and I’m not even going to try to explain what happens after that, because I was completely effin’ lost, and just didn’t find enough to enjoy in watching this to stick it out for 2 ½ hours. I’m just gonna plop the tagline/summary here in case it might be something for you:
“The year is 2044: artificial intelligence controls all facets of a stoic society as humans routinely “erase” their feelings. Hoping to eliminate pain caused by their past-life romances, Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) continually falls in love with different incarnations of Louis (George MacKay). Set first in Belle Époque-era Paris Louis is a British man who woos her away from a cold husband, then in early 21st Century Los Angeles, he is a disturbed American bent on delivering violent “retribution.” Will the process allow Gabrielle to fully connect with Louis in the present, or are the two doomed to repeat their previous fates?”
I guess I’ll never know ‘cause I could barely get through the period stuff. Anyway, it’s opening at Film at Lincoln Center and the IFC Center in New York this Friday. By the way, Bonello’s terrific Nocturama is available to watch on Metrograph’s digital at home program for members, just $5 a month!
THE GREATEST HITS (Searchlight/Hulu) - select cities, streaming on 4/12
Ned Benson, who directed the multiple versioned The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, returns with this similarly enigmatic feature starring Lucy Boynton, David Corenswet from James Gunn’s Superman, Retta, and Justin H. Min. Since I haven’t seen it, I’ll just have to use the tagline from IMDB: “A love story centering on the connection between music and memory and how they transport us, sometimes literally.” It will hit select cities this weekend and then stream on Hulu starting April 12.
FAMILY STAR (Sarigama Cinemas)
This latest offering from Bollywood is actually a Telugu-language movie that will be on Prime Video in India but is somehow getting a theatrical release here in the States. Directed by Parasuram, the movie revolves around a middle-class Indian family and the life of Govardhan, who has to navigate the ups and downs of said family.
RIPLEY (Netflix series)
I’m also curious about this new series based on Patricia Highsmith’s popular grifter anti-hero, which stars Andrew Scott from One of Us Strangers as Tom Ripley, as well as Johnny Flynn and Dakota Fanning.
Other movies out this week include:
MÚSICA (Prime Video)
YOU HAVE NO IDEA (Good Deed Entertainment)
PARACHUTE (Vertical)
A BIT OF LIGHT (Quiver Distribution)
NYC REPERTORY
A new month begins new series, and “On the Run in Paris” offers a number of great movies set in Paris including the 1988 James Bond movie, A View to a Kill, as well as Roman Polanski’s Frantic (1988), starring Harrison Ford – both of these movies have a Grace Jones connection, oddly. This weekend, it’s also showing the Godard classic, Breathless (1960).
“Novel Encounters: The Films of Lee Chang-Dong” is a pretty straight ahead retrospective of the Korean filmmaker behind the Oscar-nominated Burning (2018), which will screen this weekend, as well as a new 4k DCP of Lee’s debut 1997 film, Green Fish, which will screen for a week. I saw the latter fairly recently, and it’s a fantastic debut, a modern-day crime noir that goes in many directions. I’m not sure the movie has screened much in New York despite Director Lee’s acclaim, so definitely check it out, if you can.
“Filmcraft: American Cinema Editors” will be presenting a screening of the Coens’ Raising Arizona (1987) on Saturday night with a conversation following with the film’s ACE editor Michael R. Miller, which sadly, is already sold out!
“Bad Actress” continues this weekend with another screening of Bergman’s Persona, as well as screenings of Joseph Mankiewicz’s Oscar-winning All About Eve (1950) and Olivier Assayas’ Clouds of Sils Maria (2014). (All About Eve is very close to being sold out already, so maybe they’ll have a couple more screenings next week.)
“Forever Young” will screen James Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Johnny Depp’s Cry Baby (1990), directed by John Waters.
“Animal Farm: Pigs” only shows one movie this weekend, Guy Ritchie’s Snatch (2000), starring Brad Pitt, and “Divine Intervention” series will screen Buñuel’s The Milky Way (1969) in 35mm on Friday night and Sunday afternoon.
The Paris has really been killing it in recent months, and now, it’s teaming up with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for “Paris Branch Selects,” which runs through June. Last night, they screened Grey Gardens, picked by the Documentary Branch, but then on Sunday, they’ll screen What’s Love Got To Do With It, presented by the Actors Branch. The next one is on Wednesday, April 10 with the Music Branch presenting Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin, starring Adam Pearson, just to tie everything together.
Melville’s Le Samouraï and Med Hondo’s West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty continue to play, the latter just through Thursday, while Classe Tous Risques and Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia will continue through April 11. This Sunday’s “Film Forum Jr.” is It Came from Outer Space! (1953)... in 3D, no less!
This weekend’s late night favourites are Darren Lynn Bousman’s 2008 horror musical Repo! The Genetic Opera (with a taped intro by Bousman himself) as well as Satoshi Kon’s 2006 Anime, Paprika.
Some interesting selections this weekend including a Thursday night screening of Richard C. Safarian’s 1971 movie Vanishing Point with a book signing and Danny Boyle’s The Beach (2000), starring Leonardo DiCaprio. On Saturday, they’re screening a 35mm print of Mansfield Park (1999) and a DCP of When Night is Falling (1995). Oddly (though not repertory), the Roxy is also showing a 35mm print of The First Omen.
This column comes out on Thursday, which is too late to include this week’s “From the Vault,” which takes place on Wednesday, but I will mention next Wednesday’s offering, Godard’s A Married Woman from 1964.
Not exactly repertory, but MoMI is running the 11th Annual Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film this weekend from April 4 to 7, as well as running Classic Warner Bros. Cartoons on Friday evening and Sunday afternoon. Hal Hartley’s 1997 film, Henry Fool, will play on Sunday as part of its “Queens on Screen” series, as in Queens, the borough.
I’m not 100% sure there’ll be a column next week, since I won’t have a chance to see Alex Garland’s Civil War beforehand, and I’ll be out on Long Island in the studio working on a record, so… I might have to miss a week and hope to get back on track for April 19.
Just FYI, in A Different Man, Sebastian Stan plays both sides of Edward/Guy, in makeup modeled after Adam Pearson, created by designer Mike Marino. Pearson just has the role of Oswald.