Paul Auster will present special screening of an American classic at Crosby Street Hotel
Crosby Street Hotel
79 Crosby St. between Prince & Spring Sts.
Monday, January 24, $35, 6:30
212-226-6400
www.crosbystreethotel.com
Throughout his career, Brooklyn-based author Paul Auster has written highly visual, cinematic novels, including THE NEW YORK TRILOGY (1985-87), LEVIATHAN (1992), and THE BROOKLYN FOLLIES (2005). He has also written several screenplays, including 1995’s SMOKE and BLUE IN THE FACE, 1998’s LULU ON THE BRIDGE (which he also directed), and the 1993 adaptation of his 1990 novel THE MUSIC OF CHANCE. The cinema plays a major role in THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS (2002), about the missing films of silent comedian Hector Mann, which led to Auster’s screenplay for THE INNER LIFE OF MARTIN FROST (2007). In his latest novel, SUNSET PARK (Henry Holt, November 2010, $25), about a group of people squatting in a house across from Green-Wood Cemetery, one of the main characters, Alice Bergstrom, is writing her dissertation on William Wyler’s classic post-WWII drama THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, allowing Auster to explore the film in great detail over the course of several long passages. Winner of eight Oscars, including Best Motion Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Writing, and Best Supporting Actor, the film tells the story of three veterans returning home from the war and the difficulties they have readjusting to the American way of life, which they had just fought so valiantly for. On January 24, Auster will introduce a screening of THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES as part of the Crosby Hotel’s “Under the Influence: Writers on Film” series. Following the screening, Auster will be interviewed by journalist and screenwriter Michael Maren, the host of the series, followed by a cocktail reception. The series continues April 11 with Jim Shepard discussing Werner Herzog’s AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD (1972) and June 3 with Jennifer Egan presenting Quentin Tarantino’s PULP FICTION (1994).
After Yumiko’s husband mysteriously commits suicide, she gets remarried and moves to her new husband’s small seaside village home, where she begins to put her life back together. This stunning film is marvelously slow-paced, lingering on characters in the distance, down narrow alleys, across gorgeous horizons, with very little camera movement. The solid cast features Makiko Esumi, Akira Emoto, and the great Tadanobu Asano. MABOROSI is an amazing work from one of the leading members of Japan’s fifth generation, Hirokazu Kore-eda, who has gone on to make such treasures as NOBODY KNOWS and STILL WALKING. MABOROSI is screening at the IFC Center as part of the Weekend Classics series Milestone Films: 20 for 20, celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the distribution company that continues to release and restore beautiful and important works. Upcoming films in the series include E. A. Dupont’s PICCADILLY, John Huston’s LET THERE BE LIGHT, and Manoel de Oliveira’s I’M GOING HOME.
As Im Sang-soo’s updated, reworked version of Kim Ki-young’s classic 1960 erotic thriller THE HOUSEMAID opens, restaurant worker Eun-yi (Jeon Do-yeon) is intrigued by a young woman’s suicide jump on the street right outside. It’s a rather ominous sign for Eun-yi, who then gets a job as a nanny for a rich businessman, Hoon (Lee Jung-jae), his pregnant wife, Hae-ra (Seo Woo), and their daughter, Nami (Ahn Seo-hyeon). When Hoon finds his way into her bed, Eun-yi is at first resistant, then surrenders to her master, much to the dismay of Mrs. Cho (Yoon Yeo-jeong), who has been running the household for years. And once Mrs. Cho tells Hae-ra’s mother, Mi-hee (Park Ji-young), precisely what’s going on, the real trouble starts. Im (THE PRESIDENT’S LAST BANG) infuses his tale of wealth, power, and sex with elements of horror and suspense, at times evoking Richard Donner’s THE OMEN as Mi-hee seeks to protect the family at all costs. Jeon, who was named Best Actress at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival for her haunting work in SECRET SUNSHINE, is riveting as the conflicted young maid, caught in a web of shame, jealousy, betrayal, and ecstatic pleasure, going from childlike when playing with Nami to alluring when making passionate love with Hoon. Im’s fiftieth-anniversary reimagining of an influential Korean classic is a highly charged, potent melodrama with plenty of thrills, shocks, and surprises.
There’s something inherently creepy about THE WOODMANS, C. Scott Willis’s documentary about a family of artists that opens tonight at Film Forum for a two-week run. For the first half of his debut theatrical release, Willis, an eleven-time Emmy winner who has spent most of his career working for television news organizations, speaks with successful ceramic sculptor Betty Woodman, who had a 
