Capital Celluloid 2017 - Day 203: Mon Jul 24

Dune (Lynch, 1984): Prince Charles Cinema, 8.45pm

This 70mm presentation is also being screened at the Prince Charles on July 8th, 12th, 16th and 20th. Full details here.

Chicago Reader review:
If this 1984 film really cost $60 million, producer Dino De Laurentiis must be the greatest patron of avant-garde cinema since the Vicomte de Noailles financed Buñuel's L'Age d'Or. Director David Lynch thoroughly (and perhaps inadvertently) subverts the adolescent inanities of Frank Herbert's plot by letting the narrative strangle itself in unnecessary complications, leaving the field clear to imagery as disturbing as anything in Eraserhead. The problem is that the imagery—as Sadean as Pasolini's Salo—isn't rooted in any story impulse, and so its power dissipates quickly. The real venue for this film is either a grind house or the Whitney Museum; its passage through the shopping malls of America was a once-in-a-lifetime anomaly. Kyle MacLachlan is the pallid hero who becomes a messiah to an oppressed desert tribe.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2017 - Day 202: Sun Jul 23

Faces (Benning, 2011) + Faces (Cassavetes, 1968): Close-Up Cinema, 5 & 7.30pm

Close-Up Cinema's 35mm screening of Faces in the John Cassavetes seaason is presented in a double bill with James Benning’s "remake" – an unexpected venture into the world of found footage filmmaking for the master of minimalist filmmaking.

“Faces is, scene by scene, a remake of John Cassavetes' Faces. Each actor or actress is given the exact same film time as in the original. And each scene has exactly the length of the original. ... I reconstructed the entire film by using a face. So if people go home in the third setting, there are simply three faces. If a scene lasts half an hour and a person is seen in half the time, ie. Gena Rowlands for 15 minutes and then the other two characters. If you know Cassavetes' film well, you focus on the faces rather than on the dialogues. In this respect, the film is only now its title. ... I did Faces following my installation Two Faces but the work was also inspired by Sharon Lockhart and her interest in Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes. I dedicate this idea to Sharon Lockhart and perhaps Douglas Gordon.” – James Benning

Chicago Reader review of Cassavetes' Faces:
John Cassavetes's galvanic 1968 drama about one long night in the lives of an estranged well-to-do married couple (John Marley and Lynn Carlin) and their temporary lovers (Gena Rowlands and Seymour Cassel) was the first of his independent features to become a hit, and it's not hard to see why. It remains one of the only American films to take the middle class seriously, depicting the compulsive, embarrassed laughter of people facing their own sexual longing and some of the emotional devastation brought about by the so-called sexual revolution. (Interestingly, Cassavetes set out to make a trenchant critique of the middle class, but his characteristic empathy for all of his characters makes this a far cry from simple satire.) Shot in 16-millimeter black and white with a good many close-ups, this often takes an unsparing yet compassionate "documentary" look at emotions most movies prefer to gloss over or cover up. Adroitly written and directed, and superbly acted—the leads and Val Avery are all uncommonly good (and the astonishing Lynn Carlin was a nonprofessional discovered by Cassavetes, working at the time as Robert Altman's secretary)—this is one of the most powerful and influential American films of the 60s.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.
 

Capital Celluloid 2017 - Day 201: Sat Jul 22

Opening Night (Cassavetes, 1977): Close-Up Cinema, 7.30pm

This 35mm screening, also being shown on July 16th, is part of the Close-Up Cinema John Cassavetes season. Full details can be found here.

Chicago Reader review:
For all of John Cassavetes's concern with acting, this 1977 film is the only one of his features that takes it on as a subject; it also boasts his most impressive cast. During the New Haven tryouts for a new play, an aging star (Gena Rowlands), already distressed that she's playing a woman older than herself, is traumatized further by the accidental death of an adoring teenage fan (Laura Johnson). Fantasizing the continued existence of this girl as a younger version of herself, she repeatedly changes her lines onstage and addresses the audience directly, while the other members of the company—the director (Ben Gazzara), playwright (Joan Blondell), costar (Cassavetes), and producer (Paul Stewart)—try to help end her distress. Juggling onstage and offstage action, Cassavetes makes this a fascinating look at some of the internal mechanisms and conflicts that create theatrical fiction, and his wonderful cast—which also includes Zohra Lampert as the director's wife, assorted Cassavetes regulars, and cameos by Peter Falk and Peter Bogdanovich as themselves—never lets him down.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is a trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2017 - Day 200: Fri Jul 21

The Slumber Party Massacre (Jones, 1982): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 6.20pm

The Final Girls is a film collective exploring the intersections of horror film and feminism. Tonight's presentation will include a discussion with BFI 'Cult' stand programmer Michael Blyth and Olivia Howe and Anna Bogutskaya of The Final Girls.

Chicago Reader review:
One of the better Halloween carbons (1982), thanks to an unusually appealing cast and generally good pacing by director Amy Jones. The screenplay, by novelist Rita Mae Brown (Rubyfruit Jungle), contains some funny asides on teenage sibling rivalry and peer group cohesion, and there is a surprising stab at black humor during a scene involving a dead pizza boy (Aaron Lipstadt). This was a New World picture, although it was released under another name, and it features that studio's ineffable way of subverting reactionary genres by introducing trace amounts of progressive ideology. With Michele Michaels, Robin Stille, Michael Villela, and Andre Honore.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the (great) trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2017 - Day 199: Thu Jul 20

Krisha (Shults, 2015): Picturehouse Central, 6.30pm

Misc. Films is a London-based programming collective dedicated to showcasing unreleased, under-screened or under-appreciated films. This is their latest presentation.

Chicago Reader review:
This startling debut feature by writer-director Trey Edward Shults finds horror in the mundane and despair in the bosom of a loving family. The title character (Krisha Fairchild), an older woman whose lapdog is her only friend, arrives at her sister's house to celebrate Thanksgiving with their extended clan, and the supremely awkward embrace she shares with her estranged college-age son (Shults) communicates a history of savage resentments. Shults permits an avant-garde score of blips and bleeps to dominate the soundtrack during the routine family activities—cooking, chatting, word games, horseplay—and his bold foregrounding of the music at certain points in the action may strike you as either expressive or excessive. I'm inclined toward the latter, but only because the story is so surely unfolded, and its denouement so brutally heartbreaking, that the movie would have connected with no music at all.
JR Jones

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2017 - Day 198: Wed Jul 19

Ryan's Daughter (Lean, 1970): BFI Southbank, 7pm

This 70mm screening (also being shown on July 16th) is part of the Christopher Nolan Presents ... season at BFI Southbank, dedicated to showing movies from prints. You can find all the details about the season here.

Chicago Reader review:
David Lean finally got some madness going in his images with this 1970 production. In 1916 Ireland, Sarah Miles marries tweedy schoolteacher Robert Mitchum (his charisma hidden behind steel-rimmed spectacles), but soon begins an affair with Christopher Jones, a soldier of the occupying British army. It's insanely overproduced in Lean's standard epic style, yet somehow the crazy mismatches in scale contribute to the film's sense of romantic delirium. With John Mills, Trevor Howard, and Leo McKern; photographed by Freddie Young.
Dave Kehr

Here (and above) is the trailer.

Capital Celluloid 2017 - Day 197: Tue Jul 18

Jungle Fever (Lee, 1991): Prince Charles Cinema, 8.45pm

This 35mm presentation is part of the Prince Charles Cinema's Cinematic Jukebox season. You can find full details here.

Chicago Reader review:Spike Lee's high-powered, all-over-the-place 1991 movie about interracial romance (Wesley Snipes and Annabella Sciorra), crack addiction (a remarkable turn by Samuel L. Jackson), breaking away from one's family (a theme that crops up in at least five households, with Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Anthony Quinn, and Frank Vincent among the parents), and corporate advancement for blacks (Snipes again), chiefly set in two New York neighborhoods (Harlem and Bensonhurst). The disparate themes never quite come together, but with many fine performances—John Turturro and Lonette McKee are especially good—you won't be bored for a minute. Overall the film suggests a kind of living newspaper, with stories and subplots crowding one another for front-page space. There are so many voices you may think you're swimming through a maelstrom, but thanks to Lee it's all superbly orchestrated.
Jonathan Rosenbaum

Here (and above) is the trailer.