The Weekend Warrior Repertory Round-Up for 11/15/24
As mentioned, I’ve been trying to figure out how to make doing this Substack feasible, and I’m still working things out, although I will say that next week’s early box office analysis and predictions will be going under a paywall for paid subscribers, but I’ll try to keep that at a reasonable rate (probably $5 a month), and that will continue to arrive in your inbox on Tuesdays which is before most of the trades give their own predictions and analysis.
There aren’t too many changes for the box office stuff, although the Telugu-language film, Kanguva, opened on Wednesday in roughly 628 theaters, and it should continue to do well through the weekend, probably getting into the top 10.
THE UPDATED BOX OFFICE CHART
1. Red One (Amazon MGM) - $28.8 million N/A
2. Venom: The Last Dance (Sony) - $10 million -37%
3. The Wild Robot (DreamWorks Animation/Universal) - $5.5 million -20%
4. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (Lionsgate) - $5.2 million -53%
5. Heretic (A24) - $5 million -55%
6. Smile 2 (Paramount) - $3.3 million -35%
7. Conclave (Focus Features) - $3.1 million -25%
8. A Real Pain (Searchlight) - $3 million
9. Kanguva (Prathyangira Cinemas) - $2.5 million N/A
10. Anora (Neon) - $1.8 million -28%
In the meantime, I’ll continue going through the rep stuff happening over the weekend for free, and reviews will also be coming out over the course of the week, although this week, there will be none. I’m also not sure about next week since I plan on reviewing the three major wide releases separately. Maybe I’ll write more about DOC-NYC after I have time to watch a few movies.
But onto the repertory stuff… you might notice a certain Brooklyn theater missing this week, and I don’t want to talk about it.
REPERTORY
With the release of Alice Diop’s Dahomey, the Metrograph is showing some of the Senagalese filmmakers’ other films in “Alice Diop: Traces of the Margin,” including Danton’s Death, Hold Back, On Call, and Dry Ground Burning. The first two on Saturday will be preceded by shorts, and Ms. Diop will be on hand for QnAs and intros, so click on that link to find out where and when she’ll be on hand to talk about her films.
Also to coincide with the release of Dream Team, there’s the new series “Retro-Futurism: The Films of Lev Kalman and Whitney Horn, showing some of their previous collaborations, but I just don’t have any interest in any of it. Sorry if you’re a fan.
“The World is a Stage” will screen Annette, Leos Carax’s 2021 musical collaboration with Sparks, as well as Kurosawa’s excellent Throne of Blood (1957).
“Nicolas Uncaged” will screen Spike Jonze’s Adaptation on Thursday afternoon (today) anda gain on Tuesday, as well as one more screening of Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009) tonight (Thursday) pretty late, and then David Lynch’s Wild at Heart (1990) all weekend.
The fun Asian cinema series “Crush the Strong, Help the Weak” screens Edward Yang’s 1991 film, A Brighter Summer Day, on Friday and Sunday, as well as Park Chanwook’s Lady Vengeance (2005) over the weekend.
“Insomnia” shows Paul Schrader’s Light Sleeper (1992) one last time this evening as well as the Schrader-penned Martin Scorsese-Robert De Niro classic, Taxi Driver (1976), all weekend.
This weekend, “My Crazy Uncle (or Aunt)” shows the 1950 comedy classic, Harvey, and the more recent Jared Hess comedy, Napoleon Dynamite (2004).
If you still haven’t seen Olivier Assayas’ Irma Vep starring the amazing Maggie Cheung, that will play as part of “Do It Again” on Thursday and Monday, while Michael Mann’s Heat plays again on Tuesday and Wednesday.
British film studio Ealing Studios is getting the spotlight in “Once More with Ealing,” a series that includes The Lavender Hill Mob, The Ladykillers, The Man in the White Suit, and many more vintage British film classics.
Antonioni’s Il Grido continues through the weekend while Andrei Tartokvski’s The Sacrifice continues for another week, while some of the other rep stuff will end on Thursday (today!). The Monday installment of the Clara Bow series is Kick In, while this Sunday’s Film Forum Jr is a stone-cold classic and a beloved film from my childhood, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), starring Gene Wilder, which will screen in two theaters no less!
The IFC Center is pretty packed with DOC-NYC premieres, but on Friday and Saturday night late you can see Wes Craven’s The People Under the Stairs (1991) as well as Takashi Miike’s classic, Ichi the Killer, from 2001. One of my all-time favorite movies, Jeunet and Caro’s The City of Lost Children (1995), starring Ron Perlman, will also screen Friday and Saturday late, while the new 4k restoration of Tarsem Singh’s The Fall will at least screen through the weekend.
This week’s “Time Capsule 1974” is Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence, starring the late Gena Rowlands, and there are still a few tickets left for the Saturday and Sunday screenings at Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan respectively, but it will also play on Monday and Wednesday.
The 2002 thriller, Unfaithful, starring Diane Lane and Richard Gere, will screen in 35mm on Thursday and Friday, while Claire Denis’ 1990 film, No Fear No Die, starring Isaach De Bankolé, will screen on Thursday and Sunday, but Mssr. De Bankolé will also be on-hand to introduce 35mm screenings of Jim Jarmusch’s The Limits of Control on Friday and Saturday nights. (He’s also excellent in Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, which opens in December.)
BAM (BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC)
Another cool rep series called “OUTRAGE: Movies and Culture Wars, 1987 - 1996” which will include Martin Scorsese’s controversial 1988 film, The Last Temptation of Christ, on Sunday. Tonight, you can catch the tail end of the “Big Apple’s Little Bites” series with showings of Noah Baumbach’s 2005 film, The Squid and the Whale, an early breakout film for Jesse Eisenberg which coincides with the opening of Eisenberg’s new film, A Real Pain, at BAM, as well as the Alan Parker musical, Fame from 1980.
Some great stuff out at Lincoln’s premiere arthouse including screenings of Robocop on Friday night, and the classic Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979), featuring the Ramones, on Saturday night. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie will also screen on Friday night and Sunday afternoon for the kiddies. The “Sunday Schmooze” is the original 1930 adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front, and on Monday, you can see Douglas Fairbanks in The Black Pirate from 1926. On Wednesday, you can see one of the best disaster film of the ‘70s, Earthquake (1974), which I’m not sure has been shown anywhere in New York in many decades.
Out in Astoria, you can see Marielle Heller’s Diary of a Teenage Girl from 2015 ahead of a free preview screening of her new movie, Nightbitch, starring Amy Adams (which I’ll be seeing this very afternoon!). On Sunday afternoon, author Robert M. Rubin will be doing an event around his book, Vanishing Point Forever. I assume they’ll be showing Richard F. Sarafian’s 1971 film. “The Magic of Oz: A Frank Oz Retrospective” continues with Housesitter, In & Out, and The Score this weekend.They’re also showing “The Best of Frank Oz: Frank’s Favorites,” which I’m not quite sure what that is.
On Saturday, you can see Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life on the big screen in 355mm for the first time in a while, as part of the “Malcolm Washington Presents” series, films selected by the director of The Piano Lesson (reviewed last week). It’s also showing Charles Burnett’s 1990 film To Sleep with Anger, starring Danny Glover, on Sunday, but that will be on DCP.
“The Ongoing Revolution of Portugese Cinema” continues through November 19.
On Monday, you can see the 1962 crime-thriller classic, To Kill a Mockingbird (two screenings!)
That’s it for this week, but next week is a biggie with three wide releases, and I’ll be running a few separate reviews, but if you want early box office analysis/predictions, now would be a good time to subscribe.