Capital Celluloid 2016 - Day 72: Sat Mar 12

No1: Wendy and Lucy (Reichardt, 2008): Close-Up Cinema, 8pm

This screening is part of short season of director Kelly Reichardt films at Close-Up Cinema over the weekend of 11th to 13th March. You can find all the details here.

Chicago Reader review:
Kelly Reichardt's masterful low-budget drama tells a story a child could understand even as it indicts, with stinging anger, the economic cruelty of George Bush's America. Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain) is impressively restrained as Wendy, a young homeless woman who's living in her car with her beloved mutt, Lucy. After the car breaks down in an Oregon hick town, she makes the mistake of tying Lucy up outside a grocery store before going in to shoplift, and when she gets busted and taken to the local police station, the dog disappears. Reichardt (Old Joy) and co-writer Jonathan Raymond began working on the story after hearing conservative commentators bash the poor in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and their movie is a stark reminder of how easily someone like Wendy can fall through our frayed safety net. The climax is a heartbreaker, and in its haunting finale the movie recalls no less than Mervyn LeRoy's Depression-era classic I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang.

JR Jones
Here (and above) is the trailer.

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No2: Big Hero 6 (Hall/Williams, 2014): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 1.30pm

Not the usual film for this slot but definitely my favourite US animation movie of recent years.

Time Out review:

For the past few years, Disney has been reinventing its style along two lines: the conscientious princess play of ‘Tangled’ and ‘Frozen’ alongside the more modern sensibility of movies like ‘Wreck-It Ralph’ and now this one. ‘Big Hero 6’ has been adapted from an obscure Marvel comic, telling the story of Hiro (Ryan Potter), a teen robotics genius who learns to use his brainpower for good by assembling a science-driven superhero team, including a pudgy, huggable nurse robot called Baymax (Scott Adsit), programmed only for gentle helping and healing. ‘Big Hero 6’ should delight kids, but for adults it feels a little less unique than ‘Ralph’ or ‘Frozen’. Still, the animation is fluid and inventive, balancing action and slapstick well, and it’s an enjoyable diversion from a studio that usually offers more.
Jesse Hassenger

Here (and above) is the trailer.