WEEKEND CLASSICS: YASUJIRO OZU
Eighteen-film festival honors master auteur Yasujiro Ozu at IFC Center
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at Third St.
Weekends at 11:00 am, July 9 – November 7
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
No one understood the Japanese family like master filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu. The Tokyo-born writer, cameraman, and director made poignant dramas that penetrated deeply into the relationships among husbands and wives, children and parents, bosses and employees, presenting honest portraits with care and intelligence. Interestingly, Ozu never married and never had kids of his own. A sake lover who died on his sixtieth birthday in 1963, Ozu made magnificent, meditative films featuring long interior takes, little action, and few camera movements, letting the story unfold at its own pace. The IFC Center is honoring his career and its own fifth anniversary by screening eighteen of his films on consecutive weekend mornings at 11:00 from July 9 through November 7. Shown chronologically, the series begins with the silent film AN INN AT TOKYO and includes such influential gems as EARLY SUMMER (1951), LATE SPRING (1949), TOKYO TWILIGHT (1957), FLOATING WEEDS (1959), and LATE AUTUMN (1960). Keep watching twi-ny for specific reviews as the series continues.
THE KILLER INSIDE ME
Things are about to get mighty violent between Casey Affleck and Jessica Alba
THE KILLER INSIDE ME (Michael Winterbottom, 2010)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, June 18
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.killerinsideme.com
In a small Texas town, Deputy Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) has been charged with kicking out local prostitute Joyce Lakeland (Jessica Alba), but something happens to him when he meets her, leading to a violent sexual affair. The soft-spoken, easygoing cop suddenly goes bad, jeopardizing his relationship with girlfriend Amy Stanton (Kate Hudson), his job, and just about everything and everyone he comes into contact with. Based on Jim Thompson’s 1952 pulp noir classic that Stanley Kubrick called “probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered” (Thompson worked with Kubrick on the scripts for THE KILLING and PATHS OF GLORY), Michael Winterbottom’s adaptation of THE KILLER INSIDE is cold and heartless, a lurid, exploitative film that captures little of what made the book so special. Despite staying close to Thompson’s narrative and including voice-overs taken straight from the book, Winterbottom (24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE, WELCOME TO SARAJEVO) concentrates too much on making the characters realistic and believable, inserting his impressive documentary skills and taking the book far too literally. It’s one thing to have Ford describe a brutal beating in the novel; it’s quite another to show him pulverizing a woman’s face into a bloody pulp. Also, whereas in the book Ford talks about “the sickness” inside him developed from childhood abuse, the film tries to hide that, burying it in a handful of brief flashbacks that add nothing but confusion. This new version of THE KILLER INSIDE ME, which was previously filmed in 1976 by Burt Kennedy with Stacy Keach, Susan Tyrrell, Tisha Sterling, and Keenan Wynn, is a major disappointment.
CROPSEY
Urban legend comes to life in creepy documentary set on Staten Island
CROPSEY (Joshua Zeman & Barbara Brancaccio, 2008)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at Third St.
June 4-10
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com/films/cropsey
www.cropseylegend.com
When we were kids, one of our friends delighted in telling us over and over the story of Cropsey, a supposedly invented child-murdering creep who threatened all children everywhere. (We still think of the monster every time we pass by the Cropsey Ave. exit on the Belt Parkway.) Directors Joshua Zeman and Barbara Brancaccio go in search of the real Cropsey in a fascinating documentary that brings to frightening life the scary urban legend. In 1987, Jennifer Schweiger, a thirteen-year-old girl with Down syndrome, disappeared in Staten Island not far from the abandoned Willowbrook Mental Institution, a horrific place where unheard-of abuses had been detailed by a young reporter named Geraldo Rivera fifteen years earlier. The community, led by such activists as Donna Cutugno, came together to try to find Jennifer’s body while the police focused on Andre Rand as the possible perpetrator. Rand refused to say anything as the cops also sought to link him to other area disappearances, including that of Holly Ann Hughes in 1981. Through archival news footage, recent interviews with many of the primary figures involved in the case, and attempts at a face-to-face meeting with Rand, codirectors Zeman and Brancaccio reveal a dark side of humanity that still has devastating effects on a tight-knit Staten Island neighborhood in desperate need of closure.
THE FATHER OF MY CHILDREN
Grégoire Canvel makes a tragic decision in THE FATHER OF MY CHILDREN
THE FATHER OF MY CHILDREN (LE PÈRE DE MES ENFANTS) (Mia Hansen-Løve, 2009)
IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at Third St., 212-924-7771
Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, 1886 Broadway at 63rd St., 212-757-2280
May 28 – June 10
www.ifccenter.com
www.lincolnplazacinema.com
Winner of the Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, THE FATHER OF MY CHILDREN is a heart-wrenching drama from writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve (ALL IS FORGIVEN). Louis-Do de Lencquesaing stars as Grégoire Canvel, a movie producer and married father of three girls who is always on the go, trying anything he can to save his failing company, which prefers making art-house films that go over budget than popular garbage that might actually turn a profit. After Grégoire makes a tragic decision, his wife, Sylvia (Chiara Caselli), and three daughters, Clémence (Louis-Do’s real-life daughter, Alice de Lencquesaing), Valentine (Alice Gautier), and Billie (Manelle Driss), are left to pick up the pieces of what once was a very happy, thriving family. Partly inspired by the life of French film producer Humbert Balsan, THE FATHER OF MY CHILDREN is a powerful, emotional work centered on a close family searching for clarity through the despair. Hansen-Løve’s seamless direction allows the strong cast to avoid treacly melodrama as the characters try to put their life back together amid extremely difficult situations.
LOOKING FOR ERIC
Eric Bishop (Steve Evets) gets some advice from his hero, football star Eric Cantona (Eric Cantona)
LOOKING FOR ERIC (Ken Loach, 2010)
Opens Friday, May 14
IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave. at Third St., 212-924-7771
Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, 1886 Broadway at 63rd St., 212-757-2280
www.iconmovies.co.uk
www.ifccenter.com
www.lincolnplazacinema.com
With his life in freefall, postal employee Eric Bishop (Steve Evets) gazes up at his poster of soccer legend Eric Cantona and wonders what the Manchester United star would do – and then, like magic, Cantona (played by Cantona himself) appears in his room, to lend advice and help him through his myriad problems. Reminiscent of how Bogie (Jerry Lacy) guides Allan (Woody Allen) in PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM, Cantona hangs out with Bishop, talking about how he dealt with adversity on the field and off and sharing joints while discussing life. Bishop’s stepsons don’t listen to him, his second wife has left him, and he ends up in the hospital after driving the wrong way through a traffic circle. But his close group of motley friends – Spleen (Justin Moorhouse), Jack (Des Sharples), Monk (Greg Cook), Judge (Mick Ferry), Smug (Smug Roberts), Travis (Johnny Travis), and leader Meatballs (John Henshaw) – stick by him through thick and thin, especially when his son Ryan (Gerard Kearns) gets into serious trouble with a local gangster (Steve Marsh). A light-hearted, tender comedy that turns somewhat goofy at the end, LOOKING FOR ERIC was directed by, remarkably enough, British iconoclast Ken Loach, who has previously offered up such dour, serious tales as KES, RIFF-RAFF, CARLA’S SONG, and THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY. Loach and screenwriting partner Paul Laverty were looking for a sweet, innocent film to make when Cantona actually approached them with an idea that they turned into LOOKING FOR ERIC, a nod to such charmers as WAKING NED DEVINE and THE FULL MONTY that includes clips of many of Cantona’s most spectacular goals as well as his infamous farewell press conference.
NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT PERSIAN CATS
Iranian film follows the attempts of two musicians to put together an indie rock band
NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT PERSIAN CATS (KASI AZ GORBEHAYE IRANI KHABAR NADAREH) (Bahman Ghobadi, 2010)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
Opens Friday, April 16
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
Iranian writer-director Bahman Ghobadi (A TIME FOR DRUNKEN HORSES) goes underground in NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT PERSIAN CATS, following the plight of Negar (Negar Shaghaghi) and Ashkan (Ashkan Koshanejad) as they attempt to put together an indie band for a gig in London. Inspired by their dedication—and always out to make a buck himself—fast-talking wheeler-dealer Nadar (Hamed Behdad) takes them to get illegal passports, then introduces them to a series of bands who play in secretive underground spaces where the government and the police don’t bother them, even though it is against the law to play Western-style music. Their quest for musicians leads them to such real groups as Take It Easy Hospital and the Yellow Dogs, who regularly risk their freedom and safety by playing to excited young fans desperate to hear live, modern music. Ghobadi throws in just about every genre imaginable, from heavy metal and punk to classic rock and jazz in a stirring musical journey, turning each song into a video depicting everyday life in Tehran. The film does lapse into overheated and unnecessary heavy-handed melodrama in its final scenes, but it’s still a compelling story of the intrinsic power of music and the desperate need to make connections.
NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT PERSIAN CATS opens today and will be celebrated at a public after-party at 92YTribeca beginning at 9:00, featuring live performances by the Yellow Dogs and New York City-based Iranian band Hypernova, along with DJ Loveletters. Ghobadi, who just had a two-day retrospective at Lincoln Center, will be on hand to discuss the film at the 7:35 and 9:55 screenings Friday and Saturday night at the IFC Center.
UNDER GREAT NORTHERN LIGHTS
THE WHITE STRIPES UNDER GREAT NORTHERN LIGHTS (Emmett Malloy, 2009)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at Third St.
Wednesday, March 10, 8:00, and Thursday, March 11, 7:00 & 9:00
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.whitestripes.bside.com
In the summer of 2007, Jack White and Meg White, better known as the White Stripes, celebrated their tenth anniversary as a band by touring Canada for the first time, intent on playing every province. Their cross-country journey was documented by video director Emmett Malloy, with guitarist Jack and drummer Meg often setting up their instruments in offbeat, surprising venues, including their infamous one-note show. Although the film is having its official U.S. premiere this week at the SXSW festival in Austin, there will be sneak peeks at theaters across America, including three screenings at the IFC Center, in advance of its March 16 release on Blu-ray and DVD and as a live CD. One of the best bands in the world, the White Stripes recently saw several of their records (ELEPHANT, GET BEHIND ME SATAN, ICKY THUMP) named to numerous best-of-the-decade lists; now you can see them before everyone else does in what promises to be one damn cool concert film.
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