To-do: Week starting Thursday 18th August: PINA, COWBOYS & ALIENS, MY SON MY SON WHAT HAVE YE DONE?, Masahiro Shinoda
Week starting Thursday 18th August
New films opening this week:
PINA marks another renowned auteur’s foray into 3D. This time, WIm Wenders has made a film inspired by the choreographer Pina Bausch who died in 2009.
COWBOYS AND ALIENS sounds like a movie that would get made if the characters of Pineapple Express became Hollywood executives. But this is a real movie directed by Jon Favreau and starring Daniel Craig. Could potentially be quite fun.
THE WOMAN is an excellently-titled horror film. That is all.
FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS is another instalment in Justin TImberlake’s doomed quest to prove to the world that he is a great comic actor.
PAGE ONE: INSIDE THE NEW YORK TIMES is a documentary about America’s most famous newspaper. Brad Nguyen was not very impressed when he saw it at this year’s MIFF.
WIN WIN is a quirky American indie comedy from Fox Searchlight Pictures about oh my god I’m bored I’m so bored already.
CONAN THE BARBARIAN is a film about Conan the Barbarian.
Special seasons:
MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE? is a typically crazy drama from Werner Herzog about a man who returns to San Diego from a trip to Peru and the homicide that follows. Executive produced by David Lynch and starring Michael Shannon, Willem Dafoe, Grace Zabriskie(!) and Chloe Sevigny. At ACMI, August 19-22.
The Melbourne Cinematheque presents SAMURAIS, ASSASSINS, REBELS AND DOUBLE SUICIDES: MASAHIRO SHINODA IN THE 1960S, a retrospective of one of the key figures of the Japanese New Wave. This week’s films are A FLAME AT THE PIER (1962) about an aspiring singer slash and dockworker who acts as an intermediary lackey in a conflict between his company’s boss and the dockyard’s union movement; and SAMURAI SPY (1965) about a forlorn samurai from a minor samurai clan who is caught up in the political intrigues of a looming war for military dominance in Japan.
Astor presents an exclusive 8-day season of Martin Scorsese’s TAXI DRIVER (1976) which has had a recent digital restoration. At the Astor, August 14-21.
Festivals:
THE INDONESIAN FILM FESTIVAL returns for its sixth year. At ACMI, August 19-25.
Old films:
Monte Hellman’s true cult classic road movie TWO-LANE BLACKTOP screens at ACMI, August 19.
WITHNAIL AND I screens with Terry Gilliam’s Hunter S. Thompson adaptation FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS at the Astor, August 22.
Paul Verhoeven’s dystopian satire about the privatisation of the police force ROBOCOP screens at the Westgarth, August 19.
"My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done" at ACMI
