'This is the LAST screening from the people behind THE MACHINE THAT KILLS BAD PEOPLE!* After eight
years, the series is coming to a close with the launch of a book
containing all the essays specially commissioned for each screening. As
always, two towering films. But at this final event, the film club will
reveal the secret rule that has governed their programming all along.'
*(The Machine That Kills Bad People is held bi-monthly in the ICA Cinema
and is programmed by Erika Balsom, Beatrice Gibson, María Palacios Cruz,
and Ben Rivers.)
Time Out review: Flora Tristan was a 19th century utopian socialist feminist, notorious
in her day, now largely forgotten. A young historian (Rebecca Pauly) leaves
husband and child to seek traces of Tristan in contemporary Lyons.
Disillusioned with the records-and-monuments methods of historians, she
roams the streets recording sounds Tristan may have heard. A film about
the impossibility of knowing the past; the camera looks and looks but
only yields implacably closed images. Sound's the thing, and in the
final, long-held shot of the woman ecstatically playing her violin, the
film's complex and compelling themes come together. Jonathan Rosenbaum
Chicago Reader review: As
close to a classic as anything New Hollywood produced, Alan Pakula's
1971 film tells of a small-town detective who comes to New York in
search of a friend's killer. The trail leads to a tough-minded hooker
who can't understand the cop's determination. Donald Sutherland works
small and subtly, balancing Jane Fonda's flashy virtuoso technique. Dave Kehr
Time Out review: Bobby is a struggling black actor. The few roles offered by white movie
writers and producers reek of artifice: punks, pimps, sassy soul
brothers and Eddie Murphy clones. What's a man to do? Townsend's satire
may be gentle, but more often than not it's spot on. As Bobby (Townsend)
escapes the sad reality of racial stereotyping through daydreams that
expose the absurdity of whites telling blacks how to be Black, we're
treated to visions of a Black Acting School (learn how to play a
yodelling butler Stepin Fetchit-style), a truly noir TV-noir (Sam Ace in Death of a Breakdancer),
and best of all, a Bros' version of a Bazza Norman-type movie round-up.
Despite the film's conspicuously minuscule budget and shaky narrative
structure, it is funny. If you value enthusiasm and imagination more
than glossy sophistication, you'll laugh. Geoff Andrew
Robert Altman made a number of groundbreaking films in the 1970s (MASH,
The Long Goodbye, Nashville and McCabe and Mrs Miller). This one has
slipped through the net but is no less innovative and is a must-see for
anyone interested in the director's work.
Elliott Gould (slumbering through the decade in his inimitable style)
and George Segal are excellent in the lead roles. It's funny and
poignant and undoubtedly the best film I've seen on the subject of
gambling as the pair take the well-worn road from casino to racetrack to
card hall, ending up in Reno.
Chicago Reader review: Robert Altman's masterful 1974 study of the psychology of the
compulsive gambler. Elliott Gould, loose, jocular, and playful, and
George Segal, neurotic, driven, and desperate, are really two halves of
the same personality as they move from bet to bet, game to game, until
they arrive for the big showdown in Reno. As in all Altman films,
winning is losing; and the more Altman reveals, in his oblique,
seemingly casual yet brilliantly controlled way, the more we realize
that to love characters the way Altman loves his, you have to see them
turned completely inside out. Don Druker
This is part of the excellent Rio Forever season at the Rio Cinema.
Time Out review: Thirty-year-old New Yorker Desiree Akhavan writes, directs and stars in
this indie feature. She plays Shirin, an Iranian-American hipster trying
to recover from a break-up with her girlfriend. There are shades of
‘Girls’ here (Akhavan and Lena Dunham are buddies in real life, and the
rising star appears in the new season). But ‘Appropriate Behaviour’
isn’t all knowing LOLs; there’s a satisfying depth and heart here that’s
more in line with ‘Annie Hall’. In flashbacks we watch Shirin’s
relationship with her ex sputter into life and run a wobbly course to
its ignominious end (‘You’re ruining my birthday! You’re ruining my
twenties!’). Shirin’s awkwardness may be fashionable, but it’s not
affected – she’s genuinely scared to confess her bisexuality to her
conservative Iranian parents, and doesn’t remotely fit in at her family
circle’s Persian parties, any more than she suits the supposedly
confidence-boosting bustier she’s coaxed into wearing at a fancy
lingerie store. For all the brazen charms of this warm and funny
debut, though, its quieter moments signal a profundity that’s really
worth getting excited about. Sophie Harris
This is part of the Jewish Culture Month season at Curzon cinemas. Details here.
Time Out review: Josh and Benny Safdie, the indie filmmaking brothers whose New York
City movies shudder with attitude, tell fast and grubby stories that
harken back to the 1970s, when Sidney Lumet ruled sets. Their vigor is
an instant rush: why creep a camera down a hallway when you can fling it
behind equally unhinged characters? In ‘Heaven Knows What’, the Safdies turned uptown heroin junkies into wild, unkempt angels. Then, in ‘Good
Time’, they gave Robert Pattinson all the confusion he could handle as a
Pacino-like Queens hustler out of his depth. There’s no nostalgia to
these films, no cuteness, only the mania of urban survival, improvised
on the fly with a side of trash talk. ‘Uncut Gems’, the Safdies’ electrifying and abrasive latest
drama, flirts with becoming a headache. (For some, it will feel like
more than flirting.) But the film gets closer than the brothers ever
have to developing a genuine affection for their various schemers, and
that makes all the difference. Tenaciously, it follows a week in the
2012 life of a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants Diamond District dealer,
Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler, channeling his obnoxiousness into something
magically right, even moving). You may be overwhelmed by the Safdies’s
spiky sound design – filled with yelling, sports betting, the jewelry
shop’s constantly buzzing security door and an overcaffeinated,
Tangerine Dream–like synth score – but Howard thrives in this chaos.
It’s his normal. Beyond his bling salesmanship, Howard dreams of a big score, which
arrives by messenger from Ethiopia: a gleaming chunk of opal-encrusted
rock which he hopes to auction off for a fortune. (It’s ‘real old-school
Middle-earth shit’, he tells the hypnotized NBA star Kevin Garnett,
playing himself with self-deprecating charm.) The various whereabouts of
this stone will become a plot spine for ‘Uncut Gems’, but
that’s just an excuse to ping-pong Howard between a kaleidoscopic
cross-section of sharply etched neurotics: pawnshop kibitzers, menacing
debt collectors (led by a spookily intense Eric Bogosian), a
semi-estranged wife (Idina Menzel, seeping fury from every pore) and a
brassy mistress, also his shop’s counter clerk, who may be falling in
love with him (Julia Fox, making a stellar debut). Gamblers at heart, the Safdies have a palpable love of gamesmanship,
of arguments pushed to the brink, verbal beatdowns and courtside
chatter. (Gifted cinematographer Darius Khondji, a master of
reflections, gives ‘Uncut Gems’a sheen that
visually counterbalances.) Something else is going on here, too: a
lovably pronounced American Jewishness in terms of tone and touchstones,
from Billy Joel’s showbizzy ‘The Stranger’, heard during a car ride
back to Long Island, to a family’s Passover seder rife with marital
tensions and kids running around searching for theafikomen.
This was the environment in which the Safdies grew up; their film isn’t
merely an outstanding portrait of a charming fate-tempter who goes a
bit too far, but a kind of autobiography (as was their 2009
breakthrough, ‘Daddy Longlegs’). It’s made with so much
love, care and enthusiasm – plus no small amount of risk – you thrill to
think that they’re just getting started. Joshua Rothkopf
This 35mm screening, introduced by Professor Melanie Williams, is part of the excellent British Post-War Cinema season at BFI. Details here. The film is also being shown on May 14th.
BFI introduction: This neorealist-influenced story of three women, who are released from
jail and into the cold indifference of London, is vividly captured by
Geoffrey Unsworth’s stunning cinematography. This film alone attests to
Lee’s underrated place in cinema, showcasing his sensitive, occasionally
sensual approach, continental flair and remarkably assured pacing.
