Capital Celluloid 2018 - Day 254: Fri Sep 21

A New Leaf (May, 1971): ICA Cinema, 6.30pm


This film opens the Elaine May weekend at the ICA Cinema. All the films are being screened on 35mm and you can find the full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
Writer-director-star Elaine May's first feature (1971). Not all of it works, and the studio nixed her original black ending, but it's an often brilliant and frequently hilarious comedy. Walter Matthau, cast wildly against type, plays a spoiled playboy suddenly deprived of his wealth who plots to marry and murder a wealthy, klutzy, and dysfunctional botanist (May, playing sort of a female Jerry Lewis). May's savage take on her characters irresistibly recalls Stroheim; she's at once tender and corrosive (as well as narcissistic and self-hating). This is painful comedy, to be sure, but there's a lot of soul and spirit behind it. With George Rose and William Redfield.
Jonathan Rosenabum


Here (and above) is the trailer.

No comments:

Post a Comment