The Spirit of the Beehive was shown for the second time here this week, and once again it delivered its quiet punch of eerie beauty. Nothing has been lost in the intervening period of almost 10 years… in fact, as far as MovieNight is concerned, quite the opposite. We have a better projector, better screen, better sound system, and a better transfer of the movie. Better audience? What can I say? You are lovely now, and they were lovely then.
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This week, we took a delightful trip back in time with this gentle comic drama. The Loves of a Blonde was director Milos Forman’s second narrative feature. His better known later films include The Fireman’s Ball, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Amadeus, and The Man on the Moon.
I was surprised by the size of the audience this week, and happy to hear so much laughter in the house once again.
🙂
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I won’t say anything further about American Honey, since I have already said quite enough in the previous posting. Suffice it to say that it was a damn good call to show it again, this time to a full house.
🙂
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Toni Erdmann is one of the most perfect movies I have ever seen. It starts gently, and gathers momentum fluidly and surprisingly during its near three-hour length (thanks to Flavia for bringing this to my attention many months ago after having seen it in Paris). Director Maren Ade has cemented her status as a director acutely attuned to the nuances of interpersonal relationships, translating them to the screen with tenderness and humor. A lot of people simply don’t “get” this film, but none of them were here tonight! We had the fullest (probably) house ever, and our first-time guests were blown away. A hard act to follow… yet follow it we must.
Ade’s (second) feature, Everyone Else, delighted our MovieNight audience in May 2011, and her first, The Forest for the Trees is pulling me toward my Roku box and Amazon prime as I write this.
On another note, in an email conversation with one of our native German MovieNight guests, I noted that we have shown “a couple” of German films. Upon further reflection it seems that die deutsche filmwirtschaft has been rather well-represented around here. The most recent was Christian Petzold’s remarkable Phoenix, and the list includes Yella, Barbara, The State I Am In (all Petzold), Lore (Cate Shortlands), Head-On, The Edge of Heaven, In July (all Fatih Akin), and The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke. Sehr gut.
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Writer/director Andrea Arnold has long been a favorite at MovieNight. Of her previous works, Red Road (2006) and Fish Tank (2009)* have lit up our screen and thrilled our audiences. This time, she immersed us in a world of drifting American kids – on the road, selling magazines, partying and getting wasted. Although there’s not so much of a story to American Honey, it matters little. The action is enthralling, the casting is amazing (Sasha Lane and Shia LaBeouf rock), and each shot is absolutely gorgeous to look at, and feel part of… all 163 minutes.
Many of you were already away when we screened this, and I was briefly tempted to re-screen it, but there are just too many great movies to show you right now. At least there’s that to look forward to in 2017!
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*Wuthering Heights (2011) is the only one of her films that I missed, somehow, but it’s just been added to my to-see list. I can only imagine how Ms. Arnold does Emily Bronte!
OK… for those of you who didn’t know this, tonight’s was the third MovieNight screening of Jacques Audiard’s edge-of-your-seat Read My Lips. I wanted to keep the French thing (la chose Francaise?) going, but simply hadn’t had the time to pick a new one. Turns out it was an excellent choice, and it was fun to see the young Vincent Cassell doing his thing. Do you remember the last time you saw him on our screen? Ahhh… just remembering the old days of the MovieNight contest 🙂
I wasn’t expecting such a crowd on this super-cold evening, but as one of my guests put it, so nicely. “Whaddaya mean? This is perfect MovieNight weather!”
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