We all have the Disney movies that belong to us, that are our own Disney movies that were new when we were kids. Of course, before video and streaming there were re-releases, but the ones that truly belonged to us were the brand new ones. Not to mention the fact that there usually were record albums that contained the story as well as the songs. Disney always knew how to catch us young.
Read MoreIn the four-year span from 1937 to 1941, Irene Dunne & Cary Grant co-starred in three different films, from two different studios, and three different directors. Two comedies (The Awful Truth and My Favorite Wife) and one difficult to classify melodrama/tragedy/romance (Penny Serenade). Though they’d already had, and would continue to have, widely-acclaimed and popular success on their own – Dunne with Love Affair and I Remember Mama, Cary Grant with, well, being Cary Grant – there is a particular kind of crackle between them in these three films that is as exciting as exists in any of the more often heralded movie partnerships of Hollywood’s Golden Age: Hepburn & Tracy, Powell & Loy, Hope & Crosby, etc.
Read MoreEmily the Criminal is the story of Emily, no surprise there, played by Aubrey Plaza. She doesn’t start out the movie as a criminal, she is just an underemployed young woman with a massive amount of student loan debt, unable to get a better job due to a felony conviction in her past.
Read MoreIt's remarkable then that 1998’s Next Stop Wonderland somehow manages to be both genuinely romantic and comedic with multi-dimensional lead characters in an original story that surprises while remaining firmly ensconced within a traditional Romantic Comedy architecture. Incredible? Impossible? Unrealistic? Indubitably! But as is true in any film of the genre those obstacles disintegrate in the face of true love and, I have to admit, I truly love this movie…
Read MoreWhile the summer season is coming to an end, it’s often known as a time of big loud blockbusters, but it’s also a time of sleepers that surprise you, and you share with friends. Since I normally write about one movie, I’ve decided to write about two that I recently saw, and would love to turn people on to.
Read MoreBodies Bodies Bodies is a reasonably fun little horror film with a good amount of laughs. It’s not bad at all, but neither is it entirely great. It’s a base hit…
Read MoreFurther digressing from the professed theme, this week’s film centers on a person so far into the margins of rock music that he’s a classical pianist. However, it earns inclusion due to its merit as an extremely successful example of a thankfully untraditional musical biography. Because a person’s history can’t be contained in their high highs and low lows, an accurate life story has to include countless digressions into the ordinary, off-topic, and non-narratively dependent. Happily, all of these are included among the eponymous thirty-two short films.
Read MoreUnlike some of these movies, where you see the trailers one million times until you get sick of them, I saw the trailer for Vengeance one single solitary time, but that was all I needed, because it definitely looked like my kind of movie. It looked great, but ended up being way better than I expected! The best of all possible outcomes…
Read MoreYes, this is a story about a (punk) rock band, based on an autobiographical graphic novel by the writer/director’s wife, Coco Moodysson, but by all accounts, it is a loose adaption and probably more fiction than not. As a story of people on the margins of mainstream music, though, it couldn’t be more appropriate. We Are the Best! covers about a year in the lives of three early-1980s Stockholm thirteen-year-old girls who form a band despite only one of them knowing how to play an instrument. This is my favorite movie.
Read MoreOne of the things we’re focusing on is actually returning to our three month seasons. So we’re in the process of confirming most of the titles we’ll show from October to December. I always liked programming a season. There’s a different feeling when you can see a lineup for three months. Like the ebb and flow of the ocean tide. You can see series come and go and how they comment, interact, dialogue with each other.
Read MoreI was listening to a movie review podcast and they were mentioning some recent independent films that they hadn’t had time to see yet, one being Neptune Frost, described as a sci-fi musical. I was immediately intrigued. Later that day I was looking to see if anything interesting was playing at the American Cinematheque, and there it was, Neptune Frost, that very night at 10p! Clearly, it was kismet.
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