To-do: Week starting Thursday 19th May: Snowtown, Pirates of the Caribbean 4, Tsui Hark, Hollywood dames, Kuchar brothers, French gangsters
Week starting Thursday 19th May
New releases opening this week:
Angèle and Tony is a French romance of some sort with a working class setting and lots of hand held cameras and passionate love-making. Could be good.
La Princesse de Montpensier is a historical epic directed by Betrand Tavernier which, according to Roger Ebert, has “awesome battle scenes”.
Snowtown is yet another gritty Australian crime film about violent working class yobs suffering with some sort of “masculinity crisis”. Yawn.
Main Street is a film about – you don’t need me to tell you. It’s called Main Street for Chrissakes. It’s obviously some shit populist nonsense about real blue collar working men versus horrible corporate types. Or it might not be. If someone sees this and it’s any good, let me know.
Pirates of the Caribbean 4 is the latest instalment in what has been until now one of my favourite overblown Hollywood franchises. This one has a new director – not Gore Verbinski but Rob Marshall who has directed exactly zero good films.
Short seasons:
The Melbourne Cinematheque continues its 3-week season, Phantoms and Fireworks: The Incredible Adventures of Tsui Hark, dedicated to the legendary action film director who breathed new genre-blending life into Hong Kong cinema. This week’s films are: Zu – Warriors from the Magic Mountain (1983) and The Blade (1995). At ACMI, May 25.
Magnificent Obsessions: Hollywood Dames from Screwball to Sirk is a season of films curated by Roberta Ciabarra that celebrates great female actors. The subtitle is necessarily there to remind you that only American actresses from Hollywood’s Golden Era will be featured. And, for some strange reason, Barbara Streisand. Check out the full program here. At ACMI, May 19-31.
Old films:
Freaky Fridays presents its third program of films by Mike and George Kuchar, American filmmakers who came to prominence in the late 50s/early 60s for their underground no-budget lo-fi cinema work. The films are The Devil’s Cleavage (1973) and short film Wild Night in El Reno (1977). At ACMI, May 20 & 27.
Lawrence of Arabia is David Lean’s blockbuster starring Peter O’Toole. The film depicts Lawrence’s experiences in Arabia during World War I, in particular his attacks on Aqaba and Damascus and his involvement in the Arab National Council. At the Astor, May 21.
Breathless (1960), Jean-Luc Godard’s seminal French New Wave film, screens with Le Samourai (1967), Jean-Pierre Melville’s super cool gangster film starring Alain Delon. At the Astor, May 23.
Festivals:
The Human Rights Arts and Film Festival runs from May 14-21. Program here.
Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson in "All That Heaven Allows" at ACMI
Marcus
20/05/11 - 9:01 PM
Your comment about Snowtown is absolutely incorrect.
The film is a retelling of the events surrounding the acts committed by four of Australias worst serial killers.
To call it a “masculinity crisis” is insulting.
So see the film before you make any form of judgement.
Brad Nguyen
21/05/11 - 2:11 PM
lol Sorry for insulting you.
I suppose the comments in the to-do list are always going to be a reaction to a trailer or whatever rather than the film itself so apologies if you feel we got the film “wrong” but that’s just the nature of what this thing is.
I reacted badly to the trailer because generally I’m quite bored with Australian filmmaker’s preoccupation with serial killers and crime, or rather, the way these phenomena are coded within a generic “realist” aesthetic.
But yeah, I realise this film has gotten quite a bit of buzz so I’ll probably check it out to see whether it breaks with my view of Australian crime films.