what's showing in nyc this week: dec 9 - 12
Jocelyne Saab at anthology, HARD TRUTHS gains momentum, Paul Schrader's OH, CANADA opens at IFC
TL;DR
Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is at Film Forum through Thursday, December 12.
It’s A Wonderful Life returns to IFC.
Catch Taxi Driver at Metrograph.
must reads:
“Moonlight in the Lion’s Den: Why Barry Jenkins gave up his improvisational shooting style to spend four years making Mufasa on a soundstage.”
“Meet Yura Borisov, the famous-in-Russia thug with a heart from Anora.”
new releases:
Anora (2024) - “Anora, a young sex worker from Brooklyn, gets her chance at a Cinderella story when she meets and impulsively marries the son of an oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, her fairytale is threatened as the parents set out for New York to get the marriage annulled.” - Letterboxd
Where to watch in NYC this week: Alamo Drafthouse, AMC, Angelika Film Center & BAM.
All We Imagine as Light (2024) - “In Mumbai, Nurse Prabha’s routine is troubled when she receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Her younger roommate, Anu, tries in vain to find a spot in the city to be intimate with her boyfriend. A trip to a beach town allows them to find a space for their desires to manifest.” - Letterboxd
Where to watch in NYC this week: Film Forum, BAM, Film at LINCOLN CENTER, & more.
Hard Truths (2024) - “Pansy is a woman tormented by anger and depression, hypersensitive to the slightest possible offence and ever ready to fly off the handle. She criticises her husband and their adult son so relentlessly that neither bothers to argue with her. She picks fights with strangers and sales clerks and enumerates the world’s countless flaws to anyone who will listen, especially her cheerful sister Chantelle, who, despite their clashing temperaments, might be the only person still capable of sympathising with her.”
Where to watch in NYC this week: Film at LINCOLN CENTER.
The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024) - “An investigating judge in the Revolutionary Court in Tehran grapples with mistrust and paranoia as nationwide political protests intensify and his gun mysteriously disappears. Suspecting the involvement of his wife and their two daughters, he imposes drastic measures at home, causing tensions to rise. Step by step, social norms and the rules of family life are being suspended.” - Letterboxd
Where to watch in NYC this week: Film Forum, BAM, Film at LINCOLN CENTER & more.
MONDAY: anthology film archives
This week, ArteEast continues its series of films by Jocelyne Saab, a prolific Lebanese filmmaker active from the mid-1970s through the early 2010s. PGM 1 (at 6:30 PM) includes Rejection Front (1975) and Lebanon in a Whirlwind (1975). Stick around for her feature, The Sahara is Not for Sale (1997) at 8:45 PM.
Also continuing this week — a retrospective on the video work of filmmaker and cinematographer Ed Bowes. His film Romance (1976), plays at 7 PM and will be introduced by author and film critic, Amy Taubin. Read more about Bowes and his experimental work, here.
MONDAY: FILM FORUM
A couple weeks ago, the trailer for Jacques Demy’s gorgeous romantic comedy The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) autoplayed on my Instagram explore page, and I was transfixed. Join me at this new restoration from Ciné-Tamaris by Éclair Classics and L.E. Diapason Labs at several daily screenings through Thursday, December 12. I cannot express to you how seated I am. My seasonal depression shall not prosper. Demy’s color game is too strong.
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Wages of Fear (1953) continues its run at Film Forum, showing at 3 PM and 8 PM on Friday. Read their description (far better than anything I could put together) below:
Stuck in a nameless, end-of-the-road South American oil town, down-and-out Frenchmen Yves Montand and Charles Vanel, Italian Folco Lulli, and German Peter van Eyck yearn for a ticket out in-between barroom brawls and dallying with echt-vulnerable Vera Clouzot (wife of the director) — Wait! There is a way out! Only trouble is, they have to transport two heavy trucks packed with nitroglycerin up switch-backed mountain roads to blow out an oil rig fire at a U.S.-owned drilling site — and then that guy wire snaps...
— Film Forum
Also showing at Film Forum: All We Imagine as Light (2024), The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024), & A Traveler’s Needs (2024).
MONDAY: FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER
Multiple opportunities to catch Mike Leigh’s new domestic drama about a middle-aged working class woman in crisis, Hard Truths (2024), this weekend at Lincoln Center (12:15 PM, 2:15 PM, 4:15 PM, 6:15 PM, & 8:45 PM).
Also showing at Film at Lincoln Center: All We Imagine as Light (2024) & Anora (2024).
MONDAY: firehouse - DCTV’s cinema for documentary film
Homegrown (2024) - 12:30 PM, 3 PM, 7:30 PM
“Three Trump supporters from different backgrounds unite to campaign across America in 2020, advocating for his re-election while laying foundations for what they hope will be a long-lasting political movement.” - Letterboxd
Q&A with director Michael Premo and producer Rachel Falcone to follow the 7:30 PM showing.
The Taste of Mango (2023) - 5:30 PM
“The Taste of Mango, the debut feature from filmmaker and video artist Chloe Abrahams, is an enveloping, hypnotic, urgently personal meditation on family, memory, identity, violence, and love. At its center are three extraordinary women: the director’s mother, Rozana; her grandmother, Jean; and the director herself.”
MONDAY: IFC CENTER
Missing Jacob Elordi’s perfect, patrician un-bearded jawline? IFC has you covered.
I saw Paul Schrader’s Oh Canada (2024) starring Richard Guerre (5’10”) and Jacob Elordi (6’5”) as an aging left-wing documentary filmmaker at NYFF, and I thought! It was! Quite good! Worth seeing if only to laugh at the hard rock rendition of the eponymous Canadian national anthem. Not to mention the actors’ extremely obvious/prominent/borderline distracting height difference! Beginning to think Elordi should not take roles where his obscene height is not part of the text.
New film, The Girl with the Needle (2024), from Swedish-Polish director Magnus von Horn, about a young factory worker in struggling to survive post-WWII Denmark is also showing this week. To escape her circumstances, the protagonist becomes involved in an underground adoption ring for unwanted children. Based on a true story. Looks very interesting (if extremely dark).
Also showing at IFC Cinema: Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point (2024), The Girl with the Needle (2024), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Emilia Pérez (2024) & Carrie (1976).
MONDAY: MoMA
At 6:30 PM, MoMA continues its retrospective on Robert Frank with “A Murder of Crows: Robert Frank’s True Story and other Self Reflections,” which includes Moving Pictures (1994), Flamingo (1996), Paper Route (2002), and True Story (2004). Later, at 6:30 PM, “Robert Frank on the Home Front: Three Films” includes Provincetown (1958), Keep Busy (1975), and Home Improvements (1985).
MONDAY: NITEHAWK
Little Women (1994) - 7:15 PM
“With their father away as a chaplain in the Civil War, Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy grow up with their mother in somewhat reduced circumstances. They are a close family who inevitably have their squabbles and tragedies. But the bond holds even when, later, male friends start to become a part of the household.” - Letterboxd
The FOFIF screening will include giveaways, holiday candy treats and a recorded intro by director Gillian Armstrong.
MONDAY: ROXY CINEMA THEATER
Megalopolis (2024) - 7 PM
“Genius artist Cesar Catilina seeks to leap the City of New Rome into a utopian, idealistic future, while his opposition, Mayor Franklyn Cicero, remains committed to a regressive status quo, perpetuating greed, special interests, and partisan warfare. Torn between them is socialite Julia Cicero, the mayor’s daughter, whose love for Cesar has divided her loyalties, forcing her to discover what she truly believes humanity deserves.” - Letterboxd
Trash Humpers (2009) 35 MM - 9:45 PM
“Follow a small group of elderly “Peeping Toms” through the shadows and margins of an unfamiliar world. Crudely documented by the participants themselves, we follow the debased and shocking actions of a group of true sociopaths the likes of which have never been seen before. Inhabiting a world of broken dreams and beyond the limits of morality, they crash against a torn and frayed America.” - Letterboxd
TUESDAY: anthology film archives
Jocelyn Saab, PGM 5 - 7 PM
Beirut, My City (1982)
“In July 1982, the Israeli army besieged Beirut. Four days earlier, Jocelyne Saab sees her house burn and 150 years of family existence go up in smoke. She then takes refuge in questioning: when did this all begin? How did the Beirut people live the siege? Each place will then become a story and each name a memory.” - Letterboxd
Ship of Exile (1982)
“After living clandestinely in Beirut to escape the Israeli forces, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat, left Lebanon aboard the Atlantis for a new exile in Greece and then Tunis. He talks about his destiny and the future of the PLO. Saab was the only journalist with a camera admitted on the boat.” - Letterboxd
Jocelyne Saab, PG 1 - 9 PM
Rejection Front (1975)
Lebanon in a Whirlwind (1975)
“A few months after the incident of April 13, 1975, during which Palestinian civilians were machine-gunned by Phalangist militiamen, the toll is most tragic: six thousand dead, twenty thousand wounded, incessant kidnappings, a semi-destroyed capital. This film traces the origins of the Lebanese conflict, the perception of a society that goes to war while singing.” - Letterboxd
TUESDAY: BAM
Phantom of the Paradise (50th Anniversary Edition) - 7 PM
“Singer, songwriter, composer, and actor Paul Williams stars as Swan, an unscrupulous producer who steals the music of hapless songwriter Winslow Leach (Finley)—who retaliates as a masked menace haunting Swan’s glitzy new concert hall. Riffing on The Phantom of the Opera and more highbrow sources of melodrama, Brian De Palma’s 1974 comedy-horror rock musical was celebrated and castigated in its day, but has developed a healthy cult appreciation over the years.” - Letterboxd
Q&A with Paul Williams following the screening.
… real ones will recognize Paul Williams for his contributions to cinema as “Lord Harmony” in Princess Diaries I and II.
TUESDAY: FILM FORUM
How to Draw a Bunny (2002) - 6:45 PM
“Interviews with Christo, Chuck Close, Roy Lichtenstein, Judith Malin, James Rosenquist and others help to illuminate the life and work of Warhol contemporary Ray Johnson.” - Letterboxd
Followed by Q&A with Producer Andrew Moore, Film Subject Frances Beatty, and Ellen Levy, author of a Book About Ray — available for sale at our concession.
Continuing at Film Forum: All We Imagine as Light (2024), The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), Wages of Fear (1953), The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024), & A Traveler’s Needs (2024).
TUESDAY: METROGRAPH
Farewell My Concubine (1993) - 4 PM
“Two boys meet at an opera training school in Peking in 1924. Their resulting friendship will span nearly 70 years and endure some of the most troublesome times in China’s history.” - Letterboxd
Death by Hanging (1982) - 5:15 PM
“A Korean man is sentenced to death in Japan but survives his execution, sending the authorities into a panic about what to do next.” - Letterboxd
Taxi Driver (1976) - 9:40 PM
“A mentally unstable Vietnam War veteran works as a night-time taxi driver in New York City where the perceived decadence and sleaze feed his urge for violent action.” - Letterboxd
Also showing at Metrograph: Bona (1980), The State of Things (1982) & Once a Moth (1976).
TUESDAY: IFC CENTER
Also showing at IFC Cinema: Oh Canada (2024), Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point (2024), The Girl with the Needle (2024), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Emilia Pérez (2024) & Carrie (1976).
TUESDAY: NITEHAWK
Julie Darling (1982) 90 MM, 35 MM - 9 PM
“A nasty little Canadian production that grows increasingly twisted, Julie Darling features a solid performance from Isabelle Mejias as the psychopathic teen, meeting her match with Sybil Danning as her new step mom.” - Nitehawk
TUESDAY: ROXY CINEMA
Two (2024) - 9:15 PM
“With little time and even littler budget, a directing duo attempt to finish their indie movie - but at what cost? Two is a meta-fictitious film that was principally shot in two days, a dark comic satire of gender and power dynamics in the film industry created with an ensemble cast of some of the greatest up and coming comedic talent.” - Roxy Cinema
Q&A with cast and crew following the screening.
WEDNESDAY: ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE
Santa Claus (1959) 35 MM - 9:30 PM
“Pitch, the mean-spirited devil, is trying to ruin Christmas. Santa Claus teams up with Merlin the Magician and the children of the world in order to save the day!” - Letterboxd
Part of Weird Wednesday.
WEDNESDAY: anthology film archives
The Sahara is Not for Sale (1997) - 6:30 PM
“This film from the heart of the desert shows the conflict between the Algerians and the Moroccans at El Aioun, and the Saharan resistance of the Polisario Front. A never ending story which is still one of the reasons for the conflict between Algeria and Morocco.” - Letterboxd
Part of the Jocelyne Saab program.
Jocelyne Saab, PGM 6 - 9 PM
Egypt, City of the Dead (1977)
“A portrait of the City of the Dead, an inhabited cemetery just outside of Cairo and on the fringes of the city’s public dumping ground, like a living reproach and a bad conscience. Starting from the City of the Dead, the film shows the populous neighborhoods of Cairo in the grip of hypertrophy and misery, every day more threatened by paralysis.” - Letterboxd
Ghosts of Alexandria (1986)
“A singular and poetic evocation of what Alexandria was, a multifaceted city, when it was at the heart of the Arab and European worlds. The men of letters Cavafy and Lawrence Durell are evoked by a few quotes describing the city, scattered throughout the film. The mixture of cultures and languages is the very essence of Alexandria, its inhabitants testify to the memory of a lush and harmonious cosmopolitan city, under the eye of the director’s camera…”
WEDNESDAY: LENFEST CENTER OF THE ARTS
Searching for Mr. Rugoff (2019) - 7 PM
“The film Searching for Mr. Rugoff tells the story of a forgotten film business legend who, in his own eccentric way, was the architect for what we now know as the independent film business. It also captures a time when the cinema was at the center of the New York cultural landscape, and movie theaters lined the East and West sides of uptown Manhattan.” - Lenfest Center of the Arts
A screening of Searching for Mr. Rugoff, followed by a discussion with the film's Producer, Director and Columbia Professor Emeritus Ira Deutchman. Moderated by Griffin Dunne.
WEDNESDAY: FIREHOUSE
Homegrown (2024) - 2 PM, 4:30 PM, 7 PM
“Three Trump supporters from different backgrounds unite to campaign across America in 2020, advocating for his re-election while laying foundations for what they hope will be a long-lasting political movement.” - Letterboxd
2 PM showing will be sensory and new parent friendly.
Q&A with Co-Producer Jim Urquhart and Director Michael Premo to follow the 7 PM showing.
WEDNESDAY: IFC CENTER
Also showing at IFC Cinema: Oh Canada (2024), Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point (2024), The Girl with the Needle (2024), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Emilia Pérez (2024) & Carrie (1976).
WEDNESDAY: METROGRAPH
Fight Club (1999) - 3:45 PM
“A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground “fight clubs” forming in every town, until an eccentric gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion.” - Letterboxd
La Doce Vida (1960) - 6:30 PM
“Episodic journey of journalist Marcello who struggles to find his place in the world, torn between the allure of Rome’s elite social scene and the stifling domesticity offered by his girlfriend, all the while searching for a way to become a serious writer.” - Letterboxd
Also screening at Metrograph: Bona (1980), Shinjuku Triad Society (1995), Pig (2021) & Permanent Vacation (1980)
WEDNESDAY: MoMA
The Complete Robert Frank - 4 PM
Don’t Blink (2015)
“Moving back and forth in time, Don’t Blink is a densely woven portrait of Robert Frank by one of the people who knew him best, his longtime editor Laura Israel.” - MoMA
Fearless Frank (2024)
“What was it like working with Robert Frank? Laura Israel and Alex Bingham, in partnership with the June Leaf and Robert Frank Foundation, asked a number of his collaborators in photography and filmmaking to reflect on this deceptively simple question.” - MoMA
Directed by Laura Israel
The Complete Robert Frank - 7:30 PM
Cocksucker Blues (1972)
“This fly-on-the-wall documentary follows the Rolling Stones on their 1972 North American Tour, their first return to the States since the tragedy at Altamont.” - Letterboxd
Stronger than Rotterdam (2021)
“In 1982, the completion of Jim Jarmusch’s sophomore film, Stranger Than Paradise, hinged on producer Sara Driver’s willingness and ability to smuggle one of the world’s rarest and most controversial films across the Atlantic Ocean.” - Letterboxd
WEDNESDAY: PARIS THEATER
The Six Triple Eight (2024) - 12:45 PM, 3:45 PM, 10:00 PM
“During World War II, the US Army’s only all-Black, all-women battalion takes on an impossible mission: sorting through a three-year backlog of 17 million pieces of mail that hadn’t been delivered to American soldiers and finish within six months.” - Letterboxd
Metropolitan (1990) - 7 PM
“A radical student is adopted by a group of young New Yorkers, serves as a catalyst to alter his and their lives. Gathering in a Manhattan apartment, the group of friends meet to discuss social mobility, Fourier’s socialism and play bridge in their cocoon of upper-class society - until they are joined by a man with a critical view of their way of life.” - Letterboxd
Q&A with writer-director Whit Stillman & actor Chris Eigeman, moderated by Filmmaker Magazine's Vadim Rizov
WEDNESDAY: ROXY CINEMA
The All Golden + Please Love Me - 7 PM
In this relentlessly experimental debut feature from Canadian filmmaker Nate Wilson, a laid-up bicycle courier (Lea Rose Sebastianis) discovers that her older polyamorous boyfriend has been keeping a sinister secret in his closet. The All Golden will screen with Lea Rose Sebastianis’ short film Please Love Me — an ecstatic 'one-reeler' following the last days of a tap-dancer before her final performance
A Post-Film Q & A with filmmakers Nate Wilson & Lea Rose Sebastianis will follow the program, moderated by Annabel Boardman & Cassidy Grady.
THURSDAY: anthology film archives
Fertilization in Video (1991)
The Lady of Saigon (1997)
My Name is Mei Shigenobu (2018)
Stranger Than Paradise (1984) - 7:30 PM
“A Hungarian immigrant, his friend, and his cousin go on an unpredictable adventure across America.” - Letterboxd
A Suspended Life (1985) - 9:00 PM
“Samar, a child of the war, finds relief from the chaos around her through Egyptian movies she watches on television. Karim, an artist in retreat from life, remains in his apartment in war-torn West Beirut, confident that he is safe in his familiar neighborhood. An unlikely bond is formed between the two as they face the devastating civil war.” - Letterboxd
THURSDAY: FILM FORUM
Showing at Film Forum: All We Imagine as Light (2024), The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024), A Traveler’s Needs (2024) & The Wages of Fear (1953).
THURSDAY: FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER
Showing at Lincoln Center: All We Imagine as Light (2024), Anora (2024), Hard Truths (2024), The Killers (1946) & The Suspect (1945).
THURSDAY: FIREHOUSE DCTV FOR DOCUMENTARY CINEMA
Homegrown continues its run at Firehouse, with a Q&A with Co-Producer, Jim Urquhart, and Director, Michael Premo, to follow the 7 PM showing.
THURSDAY: IFC CINEMA
Also showing at IFC Cinema: Oh Canada (2024), Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point (2024), The Girl with the Needle (2024), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Emilia Pérez (2024) & Carrie (1976).
THURSDAY: MAYSLES CINEMA
A documentary celebrating the “rich history and influence of the audiotape,” Cassette (2016), is showing at 7 PM at Maysles, co-presented by the Hip-Hop Education Center. A discussion with director Zack Taylor and NYC-based activist and curator Regan Sommer McCoy!
THURSDAY: MoMA
White Nights (1957) - 7 PM
“A middle-aged man meets a young woman who is waiting on a canal bridge for her lover’s return.” - Letterboxd
THURSDAY: NITEHAWK
Flash Gordon (1980) 35 MM - 9:30 PM
“A football player and his mates travel to the planet Mongo and find themselves fighting the tyranny of Ming the Merciless to save Earth.” - Letterboxd
THURSDAY: PARIS THEATER
The Six Triple Eight (2024) - 12:00 PM 10:00 PM
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024) is showing in 79 MM at 7 PM, with a Q&A with co-director Merlin Crossingham to follow.
THURSDAY: ROXY CINEMA
Minority Report (2002) - 9:30 PM
“In a future where a special police unit is able to arrest murderers before they commit their crimes, an officer from that unit is himself accused of a future murder.” - Roxy Cinema
