June Screening Picks (NY)
Rohmer at Metrograph, National Theatre at IFC, Brad Pitt drives a fast car...
New releases (& limited re-releases) to catch in theaters this month: The Phoenician Scheme, Materialists, 28 Years Later, F1, Hot Milk, 7 Walks With Mark Brown, Dogtooth (4K), Happiness1 (4K), Brokeback Mountain
JUNE SCREENINGS (NY)
6/4, 7PM - Double-Blind @ BAM (Presented by MUBI Notebook) - I’ve never seen this movie but it sounds fab and I’m excited for any pick from the team at Notebook: “For the first installment in a series programmed by the editors of Notebook, MUBI’s online film journal, BAM is thrilled to screen Sophie Calle and Greg Shephard’s deeply personal road movie turned romantic tragicomedy, Double-Blind. In the early days of 1992, two near-strangers join their fates in a wheezing Cadillac, each wielding a camcorder. As they cross the US by way of drab motels, greasy spoons, and the like, their temperamental engine and frustrated desires combine for a regular pattern of breakdowns—both human and mechanical.”
6/8, 6:35PM - Velvet Goldmine (35mm) @ Metrograph - Beautiful, funny, rock and roll…I love this movie. I really feel like a sadist recommending so many Metrograph screenings this month while my back is still absolutely killing me after seeing The Innocents in their brutal seats on Sunday, but since this is screening in 35 I think it will be in the significantly more comfortable theater 1….And I can’t resist a 35mm Todd Haynes print.
6/7-6/9 - National Theatre Live: A Streetcar Named Desire @ IFC - National Theatre at Home is famously my favorite streaming service, a lifeline when I lived in LA without much access to good theater. I love reading plays, but don’t have a strong background in having actually seen theater live, so it’s exciting for me to have somewhere where I can play catch up and watch new-to-me classics like The Crucible and Uncle Vanya. IFC is screening this Streetcar adaptation from 2014 as part of their National Theatre series this summer. I love stage-to-screen films like this for the same reason I love concert films — there’s something exciting about the filmmaking challenge of capturing the immediacy of a live performance in a way that still feels cinematic.
6/10, 4:40PM - The French Lieutenant’s Woman (35mm) @ Metrograph - I recently watched this movie for the first time and went in completely blind, and I recommend doing the same. Playing as part of Metrograph’s “Freddie Francis, Cameraman” series, along with the aforementioned The Innocents whose gorgeous cinematography mesmerized me on Sunday. Meryl Streep, Jeremy Irons, Pinter, and a film-within-a-film, what more do you need to know?
6/11, 4:50PM - The State I Am In @ Metrograph - Not to recommend the same movie two months in a row, but I missed last month’s screening of Christian Petzold’s debut feature and I am giddy at getting another chance to see it in theaters. I aspire to be a Petzold completionist and I think this is the last remaining feature of his that I have to see…
6/15, 7:50PM - What Have I Done To Deserve This? @ Metrograph - I just love this movie so much. Metrograph is doing a series on frequent Almodóvar collaborator Carmen Maura, one of my favorite actresses of all time. WHIDTDT? has maybe my favorite Maura performance, funny and knowing and so relatable. And it would absolutely be my entry in
‘s genius “Favorite Punctuation in Film Titles” Letterboxd list.6/17, 8:15PM - Fox And His Friends (35mm) @ Quad - I was just talking to a friend about how badly I wanted to rewatch this bitter, devastating Fassbinder movie. I first saw it in London years ago and spent the rest of the night wandering around in a delirious, depressed fog (in a good way). Another magnificently depressing Fassbinder classic The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant is also playing at Quad this month as a part of their Pride programming.
6/20, 4PM - Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle @ Metrograph - It’s officially SUMMER so of course it’s time for some Éric Rohmer. An ex got me this on DVD c. 2016 and it’s become one of my most-watched comfort movies. There are so many shots in this film that I see echoed (intentionally or not) in other summer favorites like Call Me By Your Name. Funny, light, full of feeling and spontaneous beauty. Really delighted that Metrograph Pictures has rereleased this!
6/21, 4:10PM - A Prince (w intro by Pierre Créton & Vincent Barré) @ BAM - “A young man named Pierre-Joseph becomes embroiled in a throuple with two of his superiors while training as a gardener at an apprenticeship college…” I’m so excited for BAM’s Pierre Créton retrospective this month, a filmmaker consistently name-checked by some of my favorite contemporary French directors whose films have eluded me for one reason or another. A Prince made waves when it premiered at Cannes a couple years ago for its frequent use of voice over, a tool that gets a lot of grief but can be transcendent in the right hands! Since being smitten by Misericordia earlier this year, I’ve been longing for a return to the “new pastoralism” as
calls it, & it looks like A Prince will be just the ticket.
HAPPINESS!
"What Have I Done To Deserve This?" supremacy!