To-do: Week starting 15/4: Good Hair, High School Musical 3, Pret-a-Porter, Jacques Demy
Click the links for trailers. The rest of the week and venue information after the jump.
THURSDAY 15th
Coco and Igor, detailing the relationship between Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky following the landmark performance of Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring”, opens. Will this film shock the audience’s bourgeois sensibilities and cause a riot like Stravinsky’s work did? (Hint: It’s a rhetorical question.)
The Book of Eli, a post-apocalyptic action film The Hughes Brothers (From Hell) and starring Denzel Washington, Mila Kunis and Gary Oldman, opens. It basically looks like The Road but more overtly bad.
Good Hair, the comic documentary from Chris Rock on the African American obsession with hair-straightening, plays at ACMI until April 21st. Maggie and Jessie gave it a positive review here.
Beneath Hill 60, a World War I film about Australian soldiers working on a labyrinthine tunnel beneath German lines, opens. Bring along your closest cobber and enjoy the clichés!
The Eclipse, a horror-romance-drama about a widower who develops a relationship with a writer of supernatural novels, opens.
Come September, the 1961 romantic comedy from Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird) and starring Rock Hudson, Gina Lollobrigida, Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee at ACMI. Rock Hudson plays a millionnaire who’s Italian villa is overrun by oversexed teenagers. Plays today (Thu) and Sunday.
Titanic (1998)at Astor.
FRIDAY 16th
The VIPs, a 1963 melodrama about a group of First Class passengers stranded in the VIP lounge of Heathrow Airport, at ACMI. Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter. Plays at ACMI today (Fri) and Saturday.
The Blues Brothers (1980) at Astor.
Freaky Fridays at ACMI presents What’s New Pussycat?, a comedy from 1965 about a womanizer’s troubles with staying faithful to his fiancée, written by Woody Allen and starring Peter O’Toole, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen.
SATURDAY 17th
Apparently Geena Davis is still alive and will be at Nova to field questions about how they managed to make her look so old at the end of A League of Their Own after a screening of Accidents Happen. Seriously though, the trailer for this movie is wacky stuff.
Sister Smile, a biopic about Jeannine Deckers a.k.a. The Singing Nun who became an international star in 1963 with her pop song “Dominique”. At ACMI. Playing from today (Sat) until Monday.
Shutter Island at Astor. James praised the film for being all “bombast and trickery and playfulness … at the service of what is essentially a weak story.” Read the review here.
SUNDAY 18th
High School Musical 3, the “sing-a-long” version plays at ACMI. This is a no-brainer right?
Prêt-à-Porter, a typically Altman-esque comedy/drama/murder-mystery from 1994 set in the world of high fashion. Starring Julia Roberts, Tim Robbins, Kim Basinger and Tracey Ullman and a whole raft of star cameos.
WEDNESDAY 21st
Cinematheque kicks off a retrospective of works from legendary French director Jacques Demy with 1964’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, the Palme d’Or-winning colourful musical about the travails of a women who discovers she is pregant after her boyfriend is shipped to Algeria, and 1963’s Bay of Angels starring Jeanne Moreau as an aging Parisian gambler.
