UPCOMING FILMS

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE

Drama – Family – Fantasy

Frank Capra

US, 1946, 130′, English

The movie which gained mixed notices on release, became wildly popular on US television in the mid-70s when the copyright lapsed and it could be broadcast for nothing – the networks took to showing it every year, to a wave of love and an illusory sense that it had always been this popular. It’s an object lesson in how the small screen isn’t always the enemy of cinephilia.

A crisis in housing, a racist ruling class and a struggle against a hideous ego-plutocrat who names everything after himself – this 1946 classic still resonates.
George Bailey, unforgettably played by James Stewart, is progressively forced to abandon his dreams of world travel and college education to stay home and look after the Bailey family’s saving and loan business. His dad tells him: “I feel that in a small way we are doing something important. Satisfying a fundamental urge. It’s deep in the race for a man to want his own roof and walls and fireplace.” Young audiences in 1946, or 1976, could hear those lines and nod. Not now.
There being no place like home is commonplace enough in the movies, but it’s traditional to allow the traveller his or her experience of Oz, before they realise this. George Bailey stays in Kansas. His freaky “Oz” experience is to see his happy, sociable, public-spirited community turned into a harsher place without him being there.
(Peter Bradshaw, “The Guardian”)

THE DAY OF THE BEAST

Action – Comedy – Crime

Álex de la Iglesia

Spain, 1995, 104′, Spanish w. English subs

A devilishly dark comedy!
Bent on committing as many sins as possible to avert the birth of the beast on Christmas day, a Catholic priest teams up with a Black Metal aficionado and an Italian connoisseur of the occult. Now, he must become an unrelenting sinner. Is there still hope?

“Let it never be said that Alex de la Iglesia is a man lacking an artistic vision. His previous film, the outrageous Accion Mutante, was a bizarre melding of superheroes and freak show gore, and this subsequent comic horror film is nothing short of a hangman’s slapstick masterpiece. Day of the Beast (1995) garnered rave reviews in its native Spain and took home no less than six Goya Awards (the equivalent of our own Academy Awards), even though this film is a far cry from your typical awards fodder. To paraphrase James Ellroy, it’s a film for the whole family, if the name of your family is the Charles Manson family.

While the film is rife with ultra-violence and crimson goo, make no mistake, this is also a howlingly outrageous comedy and frankly as original a horror film as I’ve seen in some time. It’s certainly not for everyone — the shot of a hellish ram standing erect on its hind legs and grinning out at you, a real ram, mind you, is almost too creepy — but there is no mistaking de la Iglesia’s wildly unique vision. This is a director with a fresh and startling (if somewhat disturbing) voice, and for fans of the genre a welcome addition to the international pantheon.”
Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle

ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS

Drama – Romance

Douglas Sirk

USA, 1955, 89′, English w. Eng subtitles

Cary Scott (Jane Wyman) is a well-to-do widow living in a pristine suburban town somewhere in New England. When she begins a romance with the much younger (and working class) Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson) it sends a wave of shock and gossip through the quiet little community and causes quite a stir with her young adult children. Torn between the pressures of her peers and community and the desire she feels for the loving and affectionate gardener, she must chose her own destiny.

Douglas Sirk is a master of the melodrama and ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS is considered by many to be one of his best works. With many scenes set around the christmas holiday, the film is lavishly shot in technicolor and impeccable set-design. Sirk peels back the veneer of middle-class 1950s conformity to show the classist and judgmental roots of those who prefer to maintain their position and the status-quo. Filmmakers Todd Haynes and Rainer Werner Fassbinder were so inspired by Sirk’s work that they each made their own homage ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS with FAR FROM HEAVEN (2002) and ALI: FEAR ITS THE SOUL (1974) respectively.

TANGERINE

Comedy – Crime – Drama

Sean Baker

US, 2015, 88′, English/Armenian/Spanish with English subtitles

Tangerine is a comedy about a transgender prostitute looking for her pimp’s girlfriend on Christmas Eve, shot with an iPhone camera. That description sounds like it could have been written as part of a parody of a film festival schedule. But the movie is the real deal. As written by Sean Baker and Chris Bergoch and directed by Baker, it’s assured and immensely likable, and truly independent in story and style.
If it were possible to time-warp Tangerine back a few decades, it could be part of that wave of indies that redefined American cinema in the eighties and nineties, with features like Go Fish, The Living End, Clerks,  The Brother from Another Planet and She’s Gotta Have It — works that, acting- and storytelling-wise, were rough around the edges, but compensated by depicting worlds rarely seen onscreen, with warmth and confidence. Tangerine has that kind of vitality. It turns murals and signage, palm trees and Spanish tiled strip-mall roofs into “production value,” and has the guts to let key scenes play out as silent montages scored to dreamy synthesized music cues, like something out a Michael Mann film. Sin-Dee and Alexandra and Dinah and Chester and Razmik are great characters, played by actors with tremendous energy. They seem to have existed before the opening credits rolled. After the closing credits have faded you’ll think about them, and wonder how they’re doing.
(Roger Ebert)

THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL

Comedy – Drama – Family

Brian Henson

US/UK, 1992, 85′, English

Charles Dickens’ classic about the cold-hearted Ebenezer Scrooge’s (played here by Michael Caine) ghostly visits gets the Muppet treatment.
Something that works wonders for this originally rather dark Christmas story.
Adding puppets, great musical numbers, and comedy to contrast the Dickensian darkness makes this a tremendously fun watch for all ages.
Might this be both the best film version of A Christmas Carol and the best Muppet movie? Many people seems to think so. Come and judge for yourselves!

TOKYO GODFATHERS

Animation – Adventure – Comedy

Satoshi Kon

Japan, 2003, 92′, Japanese w. Eng subtitles

On Christmas Eve, three homeless people living on the streets of Tokyo discover a newborn baby among the trash and set out to find its parents.

“In Japan animation is not seen as the exclusive realm of children’s and family films, but is often used for adult, science fiction and action stories, where it allows a kind of freedom impossible in real life.

Now here is “Tokyo Godfathers,” an animated film both harrowing and heartwarming, about a story that will never, ever, be remade by Disney.

The movie’s story is melodrama crossed with pathos, sometimes startling hard-boiled action, and enormous coincidence. The streets of Tokyo seem empty and grim as the three godparents protect the child and eventually begin a search for its true parents. And the story involving those parents is more complicated than we imagine.

There are scenes in an abandoned house, in an alley of homeless dwellings, in a drugstore, that seem forlorn and hopeless, and then other scenes of surprising warmth, leading up to a sensational ending and a quite remarkable development in which two lives are saved in a way possible only in animation.”
Roger Ebert