Locke (Jack Nicholson) reevaluates his life in Michelangelo Antonioni’s existential suspense thriller THE PASSENGER
ONE NITE ONLY: THE PASSENGER (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1975)
Nitehawk Cinema
136 Metropolitan Ave. between Berry St. & Wythe Ave.
Tuesday, August 26, 9:30
718-384-3980
www.nitehawkcinema.com
Nominated for the Palme d’Or in Cannes in 1975, Michelangelo Antonioni’s existential suspense thriller is a fascinating character study of a lost, lonely man. Jack Nicholson stars as Locke, a successful, well-respected journalist who is researching a story on the guerrilla movement in Chad. Life isn’t as fun and exciting as it used to be for him, as witnessed by his utter helplessness after his car gets stuck in the sand. Upon returning to his hotel room, he discovers that his neighbor, Robertson (Chuck Mulvehill), is dead — and he decides to switch places with him, to stop being Locke and instead live a completely different existence. Even when he finds out that Robertson was involved in international espionage and gun running, Locke continues the deception, traveling dangerously through England, Germany, and Spain with a free-spirited young architecture student (Maria Schneider) while his wife (Jenny Runacre) and business associate (Ian Hendry) — and the police — try to find him. The Passenger is marvelously slow-paced, never in a hurry to make no point about just what the point of it all is. Nicholson glides through the film with an unease that is as unnerving as it is intoxicating as he struggles to find his way in life, a cinematic representative of something that is within each of us. The Passenger is screening in 35mm August 26 at 9:30 (followed by complementary Prym Rum drinks) as part of Nitehawk Cinema’s “One Nite Only” series and “Journalists in Film,” a collaboration with Vice News that continues September 30 with Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole and October 28 with Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men.
In Kink, cinematographer and documentarian Christine Voros takes viewers behind the scenes of Kink.com, a hugely successful subscription website that specializes in fetish and BDSM (Bondage & Disclipline / Dominance & Submission / Sadism & Masochism) videos. Started in 1997 by bondage enthusiast Peter Acworth, the company, located in the two hundred thousand square foot, one-hundred-year-old San Francisco Armory, Kink.com attempts to offer a different kind of pornography for people with more discerning tastes, making videos that are as truthful and authentic as possible even when they appear to be what some would consider dangerous, depraved, and, most important, abusive to women. What makes Kink.com unique is that the stars of the videos — who are always referred to as models, not actors — can help guide the action, doing only those things that they want to do, with express instructions that all their reactions be real and to improvise as necessary. Whether pleasure or pain, there is no faking going on, and the shoot can be stopped at any time by anyone on the set if things appear to be getting out of hand, with aftercare being an important part of the process. And there are rarely ever silly plot lines and embarrassing dialogue; these videos go straight to what Kink.com’s customers — as well as the models and directors — want to see, and Voros shows it all, rather graphically. (Get ready for spanking, flogging, chaining, slapping, punching, tying up, choking, clamping, tweaking — and just wait till you get a load of the sex machines that are used on these more-than-willing and ultimately extremely satisfied subjects.)
In 1909, Prince Luigi Amedeo, the Duke of the Abruzzi, sought to climb to the summit of K2, the second highest mountain in the world after Everest, bringing with him writer Filippo de Filippi and photographer Vittorio Sella to document their journey. To celebrate the centennial of that seminal event, alpinist and mountain guide Fabrizio Zangrilli gathered a team of climbers to attempt to reach the top of K2 in 2009, bringing along first-time director Dave Ohlson to capture their daring adventure. Situated in the Karakoram mountain range along the Pakistan-China border, K2 — one of the fourteen legendary “eight-thousanders” (mountains of more than eight thousand meters) — stands 8,611 meters tall, challenging climbers with a death rate much higher than that of Everest. “The will to just try something big, something dangerous, something extraordinary — it’s part of who we are,” says one member of the team, which includes Zangrilli, Canadian mountain guide Chris Szymiec, Austrian alpinist Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner, British mountaineer Jake Meyer, and German cameraman David Göttler. As they make their way across the treacherous Karakoram Highway and through Skardu, the Baltoro Glacier, and Concordia, Ohlson cuts between thrilling still photos and film footage from the 1909 trip and the 2009 attempt, delving into the history of the spectacularly beautiful area and emphasizing how difficult it is to reach K2’s summit. “Everest and K2 aren’t even the same sport,” Szymiec says. Joined by a group of porters, they find obstacles every step of the way — and it gets even more threatening the closer they get. The film reveals the depth of the human spirit and the fierce power of nature, especially when the team has to stop when a friend dies while skiing down the mountain. Watching the seventy-five-minute documentary, you just might consider taking on K2 yourself someday — and then you’ll quickly change your mind and settle back comfortably into your chair. K2: Siren of the Himalayas opens August 22 at the Quad, with Ohlson and Jason Reid, one of the producers and editors, participating in Q&As following the 4:30 and 8:05 shows on Friday and Saturday.
Adam Sandler and Emily Watson are outstanding in Paul Thomas Anderson’s stream-of-consciousness acid trip of a movie about a childlike man with an inner demon. Barry Egan is a marvelous character, filled with complexity and lots of surprises, and Sandler embodies the role with a surprising maturity and grace. Barry is an obsessive man who watches the world pass him by as he turns inward, collecting Healthy Choice pudding (for the airline miles) and wearing a bright blue suit. When he meets Lena Leonard (Watson), his life veers off its nowhere course. Anderson’s offbeat narrative style and his own obsession with Technicolor (especially bright blues and reds, all splendidly photographed by Robert Elswit) combine for a fresh, fabulously told story that will make you as uncomfortable as it makes you thrilled and fulfilled; the rather unique film earned Anderson (There Will Be Blood, The Master) the Best Director award at Cannes. The cast also features Mary Lynn Rajskub, the great Luis Guzmán, and Philip Seymour Hoffman as a crazy supervisor. Punch-Drunk Love is screening August 23 & 24 at 12 noon as part of Nitehawk Cinema’s brunch series “A Reasonable Length,” a quartet of expertly made films that each clock in at ninety minutes or less (Punch-Drunk Love is exactly an hour and a half); the series concludes August 30-31 with Edgar G. Ulmer’s sixty-seven-minute gem, Detour.