May Screening Picks (LA)
Orlando in 35mm, dueling candlelit epics, & more...
In the time since writing my NY screening picks for May (36 hrs), I’ve returned to the warm embrace of the AMC A-List. As soon as I redownloaded the app I felt a profound sense of calm. No more preemptive worrying about buying a pricey IMAX ticket for the new Mission: Impossible. No more choosing between new releases I’ve heard are kinda mediocre but still want to see — I can have it all.
Also, I’m very proud of sweet friend of Never Cursed Geraldine being in Thunderbolts* *The New Avengers, but especially so given the movie has its very own drink at AMC’s MacGuffins Bar. Can’t wait to see my first Marvel movie in 7 years and have no idea what’s going on while I sip the “dangerously smooth” SHOCKWAVE cocktail including Bacardi, Kraken, Aperol and “bold tropical flavors.”
PS A lot of the American Cinematheque Kore-eda retrospective screenings/Q&As have sold out so I haven’t included them here, but pleeease tell me if you go. Also PSA that American Cinematheque is doing a Claire Denis retrospective in June and tickets will go fast…
New releases (& limited re-releases) to catch in theaters this month: Magic Farm, Vulcanizadora, Friendship, Blue Sun Palace, Bonjour Tristesse (2025), The Surfer, Caught by the Tides, Jane Austen Wrecked My Life, The Phoenician Scheme, Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning (!!!)
5/12, 1PM & 4PM - Grey Gardens @ The Egyptian - I love Grey Gardens more than words can say. I haven’t seen the Maysles doc in theaters since college, but I think about Big and Little Edie often, as well as the amazing Documentary Now episode inspired by the movie.
5/13 & 14, 7:30PM - Orlando / Female Perversions (35mm) @ The New Beverly - Tilda night at the New Beverly. Extremely like the New Bev to program Orlando with something titled “Female Perversions” to get their usual demographic in the door. HOWEVER the movie in this case isn’t a 70s sexploitation B movie from Tarantino’s archives — it’s Tilda’s US debut, an extremely intriguing movie about a “bi-sexual lawyer on the edge of professional breakthrough, personal breakdown, and sexual awakening.” & I never tire of recommending Orlando, simply the best.
5/14, 7PM - Barry Lyndon @ The Egyptian - I saw Barry Lyndon last month and had the time of my life. An all time favorite movie, no matter what mood I’m in. I’ve been lucky to watch it in theaters every spring for the last 3 or so years, & it always delivers. Iconic himbo performance. Really intriguing shapeshifting use of music. & of course some of the most beautiful cinematography from the 70s. The Egyptian is programming a ton of movies from 1975 this month worth checking out, but Barry Lyndon is my pick. (Also screening 5/21)
5/15, 7PM - Fanny and Alexander @ Vidiots - Uh oh, dueling 3+ hr movies with astonishingly beautiful candlelit sequences! I’m in the middle of a love affair with Bergman’s prose writing and am trying to rewatch as many of his films as I can in theaters. I famously had a movie club with some friends during Covid and one of us picked Cries & Whispers and then we never met again. We should have watched Fanny and Alexander instead. Hindsight is 20/20 etc etc.
5/18, 7PM - Abre Los Ojos @ Vidiots - Wish I was in town to catch this — Amenábar’s The Others was one of the biggest revelations for me in theaters last year. Famously remade as Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise (with Penélope Cruz reprising her role from the Spanish original), but by all accounts a much better film.
5/21, 7PM - Malcolm X @ Vidiots - With Spike Lee’s new film Highest 2 Lowest (a “reinterpretation” of Kurosawa’s seminal High and Low, starring Denzel Washington — their first collab since Inside Man) premiering at Cannes this month, it feels like a great time to revisit one of my favorite Lee movies + Denzel performances. Introduced “by Santi Elijah Holley, the author of An Amerikan Family: The Shakurs and the Nation They Created, and a forthcoming book on Melvin Van Peebles and independent Black cinema.” Screening as part of TeenTix LA, offering discounted tickets to teenagers.
5/27, 7:30PM - Manila in the Claws of Light @ Vidiots - A movie I’ve been wanting to see for years, one of the most famous pieces of Filipino cinema and an iconic neo-noir. From José B. Capino’s essay on Criterion (which offers a lot of helpful context for contemporary viewers): “Suspending itself between social exposé and parable, Manila functions both as stylized reportage on the state of the city during the Marcos era and as a universal tale of life and death in a metropolis.” Also, can’t think of a better title than this.
5/31, 12PM - Microcosmos @ Vidiots - If y’all have kids who are at all zoologically inclined, they will absolutely love this movie. I saw it when I was little and became obsessed. If you don’t have kids, it’s also a great movie to settle into during a hungover/slightly stoned Saturday afternoon.
5/31, 4PM - Perfect Days @ Braindead Studios - This movie tangibly changed my life in so many small but important ways, inspiring me to take weekly photographs of the trees in my new neighborhood and to keep the cassette tapes from my old Volvo in LA. Beautiful, soul-filling movie with a great soundtrack.
xoH