:: FRIDAY, JUNE 7 - THURSDAY, JUNE 13 :: — CINEFILE.info (2024)

📽️ Crucial Viewing

Godzilla vs. Music Box

Music Box Theatre – See showtimes below

Ishirô Honda's GODZILLA (Japan)
Begins "GODZILLA: The Complete Showa-Era Marathon" on Saturday at 12pm; screens again Tuesday, 7pm
Before he became a worldwide cultural symbol, before fighting off a cavalcade of adversaries from King Kong to Mothra to Mechagodzilla, before inexplicably becoming a father, before his horrific Americanization under the less-than-sturdy watch of Roland Emmerich, and before his franchise received its first-ever Academy Award nomination after a titanic run of seventy years and counting, there was simply a film released in late 1954 called GODZILLA. Ishiro Honda’s singular monster epic invaded Japanese movie theaters and brought the thrills and horrors of the monster movie genre to a country barely a decade out from their own monstrous nightmare of nuclear apocalypse. Amidst what would otherwise be an excitedly crafted work of sci-fi storytelling, there was still the innate belief that a Japanese audience—still reeling from the effects of the United States’ horrific bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—could find catharsis and resonance in the tale of an atomic-infused creature battling humanity’s innate hubris. Even with the thrill of unleashing this new creature on the silver screen, Honda’s GODZILLA is ultimately more focused on how Godzilla’s presence affects the human characters, most notably Dr. Yamane (Takashi Shimura), a zoologist working to find humanitarian means of studying Godzilla’s resistance to the hydrogen bomb; his daughter Emiko (Momoko Kōchi), trying to navigate a city crumbling before her feet; and her estranged love Dr. Serizawa (Akihiko Hirata), a scientist who may have found the means of defeating Godzilla, but who is rightfully concerned about this new weapon falling into political and military hands, creatures far more treacherous and villainous than any underwater sea monster. The image of Godzilla himself still inspires awe and terror to this day, a creature "baptized in the fire of the H-bomb" most often appearing here as a live actor inside a Godzilla suit trampling around a model city, with ingenious use of light and shadow to hide any and all technical limitations to convey the horror and grandeur of this atomic gargantuan force. Even seventy years on, Honda’s film remains as thrilling as any future entry in the Godzilla franchise, but perhaps even scarier than the monster himself is the notion that the anxiety, fear, and governmental hubris featured here carry as much weight now as they did back then. Just like Godzilla, some monsters just never go away. The Tuesday screening will feature an introduction and short musical performance of classic Godzilla Akira If*ckube themes by Reiko Yamada, the principal keyboardist for the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, and a post-screening discussion with film historian David Kalat, author of A Critical History and Filmography of Toho's Godzilla. (1954, 96 mins, 35mm) [Ben Kaye]
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Ishirô Honda's MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA (Japan)
Part of the "GODZILLA: The Complete Showa-Era Marathon" on Saturday at 5:02pm; screens again Wednesday, 7pm
My relationship to the Godzilla films had for the longest time been a passive one; the Blue Öyster Cult song named for the kaiju gets stuck in my head fairly regularly, for instance. It was never something I sought out, but I’ve grown to appreciate its consistent presence. After thoroughly enjoying a theatrical screening of MOTHRA a few years ago, however, my interest in the Showa era monster movies was set. Drawing on the popularity of both titular creatures, director Ishirô Honda pits them against each other in MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA—Godzilla the symbol of nuclear destruction and Mothra a benevolent representative of nature. It is notable that this is the last time in the series Godzilla is portrayed as a complete villain as the creature shifts from destroyer to protector in subsequent films. After the desolation of Mothra’s island by nuclear testing and the exploitation of her giant egg for profit, a group of sympathetic locals implore her aid when Godzilla returns to wreak havoc on their coastal city. Mothra, as usual, is accompanied by the Shobijin, two colorfully dressed fairies who speak in unison—played by pop singing twins The Peanuts (Emi Ito and Yumi Ito). The film moves along quickly, its zany plot balanced in part by its Cold War-era themes. The real delight of MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA, though, are the special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya. Effects-heavy sequences such as Godzilla’s entrance rising out of a wasteland and the Shobijin’s first appearance are truly impressive and epitomize these films’ expert use of scale—large and small—to create remarkable fight scenes and dazzling set pieces. For anyone new to these films, MOTHRA VS. GODZILLA is a fun and exemplary place to start. Field Museum Insects Collections Assistant Jim Louderman will introduce the Wednesday screening; he’ll also be in the Music Box Lounge from 6pm to 9:45pm with live insects and more! (1964, 89 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]
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Ishirô Honda's DESTROY ALL MONSTERS (Japan)
Part of the "GODZILLA: The Complete Showa-Era Marathon" on Sunday at 1:21am; screens again Monday, 7pm
The ninth feature in the extensive Godzilla filmography was originally slated to be the last in the series, so what better way to go out then with an all out, no holds barred, kaiju melee? DESTROY ALL MONSTERS reunites the Toho Showa Era Holy Trinity moviemaking team of director Ishiro Honda, special effects supervisor Eiji Tsuburaya, and composer Akira If*ckube, who are all working at the top of their game. The story itself is fairly straightforward. In the future year 20XX, mankind is working in near harmony, taking frequent trips to the moon and studying all of Earth's kaiju population, who have been corralled to the appropriately named Monster Island. A nefarious alien race, the Kilaaks, places the monsters under mind control and unleashes them across the globe to create destruction, effectively holding the Earth hostage. As with most Godzilla movies, the destruction sequences are the main draw, and DESTROY ALL MONSTERS features some of the most impressive miniatures work the series has to offer. The climactic battle is a glorious cacophony of rubber suits, pyrotechnics, and a driving score as well. Honda's movies frequently feature an optimistic outlook towards the future, envisioning a world where humanity sets aside its differences and global politics to make the Earth a better place for all. To Honda, the betterment for the collective good comes first and foremost. In an era where Godzilla movies had all but lost their initial messages about the horrors of nuclear war and shifted towards children's popcorn movies, DESTROY ALL MONSTERS strikes a balance with its ability to appeal to audiences of all ages and reigns as one of the classic era's very best entries. Svengoolie will introduce the Monday screening; he’ll also be in the Music Box Lounge from 5:30pm to 7:30pm signing autographs. (1968, 88 min, DCP Digital) [Kyle Cubr]
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More info on the full Godzilla vs. Music Box series starting Friday and going through Thursday and Godzilla: The Complete Showa Era Marathon on Saturday/Sunday here.

Correspondence Cartographies: Short Films by Jean-Jacques Martinod & Matthew Wolkow (Experimental)

Chicago Filmmakers – Friday, 7pm

I was unfamiliar with Canadian filmmaker Matthew Wolkow and Ecuadoran filmmaker Jean-Jacques Martinod before I previewed this program, but judging by the pieces included here, it’s clear they’re both talented artists who balance a classic sense of lyricism with a firm sense of place. The program alternates between their work, and this strategy showcases the filmmakers’ similarities more than their differences. A certain universality of poetic expression is conveyed by presenting their films in tandem, suggesting that one can find comfort anywhere, provided they approach the location with the appropriate reverence and curiosity. Wolkow’s LINES TO COLOR WITHIN (2019, 7 min), which begins the program, finds wonder on “the outskirts of the metropolitan highway” of Montreal, where an Argentine emigré tends to a Mediterranean fig tree he planted about 40 years ago. This short work considers the man, his tree, and his neighborhood through quick shots taken throughout the year; Wolkow evokes a soothing sense of constancy amidst urban cacophony. The piece climaxes with a close-up of hands slicing one of the Argentine’s figs, that constancy honed to the point of a brief still life. Next up is SANDOVAL’S BULLET (2019, 17 min), in which a man named Enrique Vargas tells Martinod about the time he found his brother with a gunshot in a bar in the Ecuadorian rainforest. The story Vargas relates is harrowing, though his speaking voice is calm, and the natural imagery is lush and inviting—the film asks us to confront death with dignity and wonder. (“Since this land is beautiful, I don’t know how the other will be,” is a key line of narration.) Thanks to the film’s vivid sense of place, there’s a geographic quality to Sandoval’s experience of hovering between life and death; the feeling of being torn between two places carries over to PEAco*ck’S MONOLOGUES (2020, 30 min), the next work on the program. In this piece, Wolkow considers an aging neighbor in Montreal who emigrated from Lisbon decades before. The film combines footage shot in both cities, resulting in a collagelike portrait; it settles on the neighbor’s longtime hobby of training carrier pigeons. Wolkow notes that the birds’ instinct to return home after being away makes them comparable to people, for whom home is the center of the world. PEAco*ck’S MONOLOGUES makes compelling use of split screens and shifts between black-and-white and color cinematography; the work is always texturally rich. The program concludes with DATURA’S AUBADE (2021, 17 min), which Martinod co-directed with Bretta C. Walker. This work features gorgeous impressions of the Chihuahuan desert, where a farmer describes discovering a meteorite. Like the other selections, this work generates fascination through its environment—Martinod and Walker play up the eeriness of the desert, making it seem like a magnet for extraordinary encounters like the one the farmer relates. The filmmakers return throughout the work to shots of clouds, some of them sped up, some of them manipulated in other ways. These effects emphasize what already feels alien in the settings, reminding us once again of what a mysterious and varied planet we live on. [Ben Sachs]

Sidney Lumet’s THE PAWNBROKER (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Saturday, 3pm and Wednesday, 6pm

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Sidney Lumet was a director who never shied from challenging topics. He honed in on corruption (SERPICO, 1973), guilt and innocence (12 ANGRY MEN, 1957), and even broached the then-radical subject of gender-affirming surgery (DOG DAY AFTERNOON, 1975). It was almost a foregone conclusion that he would create the first indelible feature film about the Holocaust to reach American audiences. Based on a novel by Jewish writer Edward Lewis Wallant and adapted by the all-Jewish team of Lumet and writing partners David Friedkin and Morton Fine, THE PAWNBROKERS broke through the cultural silence surrounding this genocide. That silence hadn’t been breached since 1956, the year Max Nosseck and Moyshe Oysher released the purported first U.S. film to deal with the Holocaust, SINGING IN THE DARK, a musical comedy starring Oysher playing a Holocaust survivor that the New York Times’ unnamed reviewer (probably Managing Editor Turner Catledge) called “light socko.” The same cannot be said for THE PAWNBROKER, an unrelentingly bleak look at a broken man. Sol Nazerman (Rod Steiger), a survivor of Auschwitz who lost his beautiful wife (Linda Geiser) and two children, lives in a new housing development with his sister-in-law (Nancy R. Pollock) and her bedridden, haranguing father (Baruch Lumet, the director’s father). He runs a pawn shop in Harlem for one of the neighborhood’s crime kingpins (Brock Peters), and reluctantly teaches his eager assistant (Jaime Sanchez) the business. Of late, he has been having flashbacks to his life in Germany, the transport to Auschwitz, and the rigors of life in the extermination camp. His long-ignored trauma starts to affect his relationship with the people and world around him, with tragic consequences. Early in his directorial career, Lumet’s familial roots in New York City’s Yiddish theatre scene led him to adapt works by some of America’s greatest 20th-century playwrights—Tennessee Williams (THE FUGITIVE KIND, 1960), Eugene O’Neill (LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, 1962), and Arthur Miller (A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE, 1962). That experience is reflected in the stagy nature of THE PAWNBROKER, which helps to create the claustrophobic atmosphere of a man who is closed off from humanity and himself, but also misses the opportunity to use the dynamism of Harlem in his location shooting. This shortcoming is somewhat mitigated by the black-and-white filming of the great cinematographer Boris Kaufman, who paints a brilliant portrait of mid-century New York, from the bald landscape of a new subdivision to the empty, soulless streets of Midtown. The script is weak as it lurches from explosive moment to explosive moment and indulges in some cheap symbolism with the name “Nazerman,” which suggest Jesus of Nazareth, a portentous appearance of a document spike in the open scene in the pawn shop, and the first name of his Latino assistant, Jesus. Nonetheless, its purchase on realism includes then-rare scenes of bare-breasted women, untranslated Spanish dialogue, and the inclusion of many Black actors, some in dominating roles, in the cast. Most of all, THE PAWNBROKER begs to be seen for Rod Steiger’s performance. His Method acting was made for the part of Nazerman as, almost unrecognizable, he inhabits a man who crumbles before our eyes. THE PAWNBROKER was a daring film in its time and remains a potent Holocaust drama. Screening as part of the Sidney Lumet Centennial series. (1964, 116 min, 16mm) [Marilyn Ferdinand]

Tsai Ming-liang’s ABIDING NOWHERE (Taiwan/US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Monday, 9am

For the past decade, Malaysian-Taiwanese slow cinema master Tsai Ming-liang has devoted most of his cinematic output to his “Walker” series of exhibition films, which feature his longtime muse Lee Kang-sheng dressed as a Buddhist monk walking extremely slowly through the spaces of various world cities. Forgoing the already minimalist narratives of Tsai’s major theatrical works, these films invite viewers to become entrained to a body whose languor is explicitly counterposed against the speed and efficiency of globalized modern life. Commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Asian Art for the centennial of its Freer Gallery, ABIDING NOWHERE finds Tsai and Lee in Washington, D.C., where the latter, in his saffron-colored robes, is initially seen practicing his meditative walking around a stream and in some woods. The first signs of civilization emerge as the sounds of passing cars, and then Lee appears in a place we can actually locate: in front of the Washington Monument. He shows up in increasingly more populated spaces. In D.C.’s Union Station and on a city sidewalk, Lee’s sloth-like movements are contrasted, often humorously, with the bustle of passersby, many of whom pause in bemusem*nt at his sight. Tsai keeps his camera perpetually static and in wide shot, allowing the viewer’s eye to wander around the frame in curious scrutiny; at times, this method evokes Jacques Tati, or the patient people-watching of Frederick Wiseman. ABIDING NOWHERE features a parallel thread starring Anong Houngheuangsy, from Tsai’s 2020 film DAYS, and as in that film, he spends a good portion of time here preparing and eating a meal. His inclusion is not explained, but perhaps Tsai sees in his mundane, secular modern rhythms a meditative quality comparable to the timeless religious ritual of Lee’s dislocated monk, taking his time to be nowhere but here, wherever that may be. Screening as part of the Rise and Shine series. (2024, 79 min, DCP Digital) [Jonathan Leithold-Patt]

Jean Renoir's THE RIVER (France/India)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Wednesday, 9am

Often overshadowed by Powell and Pressburger's BLACK NARCISSUS, that other lush Technicolor adaptation of a Rumer Godden novel, THE RIVER was actually the film that earned the author's blessing, thanks in part to Jean Renoir and company taking production on location to India, far far away from the (admittedly capable) confines of Pinewood Studios. No surprise then, that while displaced Brits abroad offer our waypoint into both films, Renoir's masterpiece is the more inquisitive. THE RIVER is languid like a summer dream, yet obsessive in the details; from the operations of the jute mills captured documentary style, to the exploration of Hindu tradition offered by precocious young protagonist, Harriet. It is in many ways a film about people trying to interact with a world they can scarcely comprehend, a theme defined as much by the increasingly futile British hold on the subcontinent as it is by the achingly romantic aspirations of a group of children still staring across the threshold to adulthood. In the course of one endless season, Harriet and her family's lives are turned upside down, first by the arrival of dreamy amputee Captain John, then later by unspeakable personal tragedy, events which give resonance to Renoir's poetic gaze, and land THE RIVER among the ranks of the great coming-of-age movies. Boasting an evocative palate on par with any Technicolor film before it—including the aforementioned Archers' classic—the film offers a spellbinding look at mid-century India, and an equally compelling glimpse of artistically evolving, mid-career Renoir. Resplendent, intoxicating, and wholeheartedly recommended. Screening as part of the Rise and Shine series. (1951, 99 min, 35mm) [Tristan Johnson]

📽️ ALSO RECOMMENDED

Bertrand Bonello’s COMA (France)

Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

Within the burgeoning nano-genre of “COVID-19 Cinema,” Bertrand Bonello’s COMA stands proud and tall, nimbly and cheekily able to effortlessly capture that particular mode of anxiety and existential reckoning that began running rampant in 2020 and still continues for many to this day. Even within a film centered around isolation, Bonello’s world explodes into various layers of “truth” and fantasy that eventually become shuffled together so as to become indistinguishable from one another. Our nameless teenage protagonist has found herself homebound amidst what one can discern is the same global pandemic that afflicted our world, her bedroom becoming the only stable environment to reside in, with any connection with the outside work existing only in FaceTime calls and Zoom chats. To escape the mundanity of these new circ*mstances, she breaks away from it all through her imagination (in the form of ever-expanding soap-opera dramas with her dolls), through her dreams (various first-person scenes set within a nightmare forest), and through engagement with the hypnotizing online influencer Patricia Coma (Julia Faure, a deadpan delight). These levels of surreal escape eventually become interlocked, effortlessly capturing the feeling of losing oneself in self-invented scenarios, the fear of losing connection with the world swallowing itself up in cinematic form. Bonello bookends the film with direct addresses to his own daughter, declaring the film a personal ode to her and the world she is inheriting. Amidst the despair and doom that floats above it all, there is hope that, for her, and for all of us, we will no longer get lost in trying to discern dreams from reality. (2022, 82 min, DCP Digital) [Ben Kaye]

Rose Troche’s GO FISH (US)

Gene Siskel Film Center – See Venue website for showtimes

Films are usually made on low budgets out of necessity, with the concomitant aesthetic a result of that condition. Sometimes, however, that aesthetic becomes fashionable, allowing for the possibility that something which doesn’t cost a lot of money could potentially make a lot of money (at least commensurate to the budget; GO FISH was the first-ever film to be sold at Sundance, where it went to the Samuel Goldwyn Company for a reported $450,000 and eventually grossed many times that of its original cost). John Pierson, a producers’ representative who worked on the project, recognized that this economic aesthetic was popular at the time, and both he and Todd Haynes’ long-time producer Christine Vachon were aware of the dearth of films about lesbian characters; this emerging “trend” in the independent-film space had proven lucrative two years earlier when an admittedly not-very-good low-budget film called CLAIRE ON THE MOON managed to gross almost a million dollars. Thus, another entry into an even newer, more commercially friendly queer cinema—something B. Ruby Rich later cautioned against, warning that popular reception may serve only to water down a work's singularity; the filmmakers had been inspired by Rich'sSight & Soundarticle about the burgeoning movement just two years before—was born. GO FISH began as a collaboration between Chicago-born filmmaker Rose Troche and her then-girlfriend Guinevere Turner (later co-star of Cheryl Dunye’s THE WATERMELON WOMAN and writer of Mary Harron’s AMERICAN PSYCHO and THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE), with whom Troche co-wrote the film and who plays its lead. Set amidst Wicker Park's lesbian community, the film centers onMax (Turner), a college student who’s looking for love—or maybe just sex. Her partnered-up roommate, Kia (T. Wendy McMillan), points out a friend of hers, Ely (V.S. Brodie), a slightly older woman with a hippie-ish style… and a long-term, albeit long-distance, girlfriend. This “will they, won’t they?” aspect comprises the film’s central narrative, but there are sporadic interludes that consider different aspects of lesbian culture: in one, a character gets confronted for sleeping with a man despite still identifying as a lesbian; in another, Max imagines what it would be like to “come to her senses,” so to speak, and marry a man. The film’s grainy 16mm aesthetic—provided by cinematographer Ann T. Rossetti—intensifies the experimental elements of its structure, accounting for something formally substantial beyond its groundbreaking content. I was reminded at times of Charles Burnett’s KILLER OF SHEEP; while noticing an aesthetic likeness may seem perfunctory, I thought about how the texture of the film grain enhances not just the image but a sense of community, as in Burnett's seminal classic of the L.A. Rebellion. Necessity is not just the mother of invention but of the film's subversion as well. One could think it's low on budget and abundant only in its cultural trendiness, but it teems with the palpability of connection, something richer even than any box office return.(1994, 83 min, New 4K DCP Digital Restoration) [Kat Sachs]

Céline Sciamma's PETITE MAMAN (France)

Gene Siskel Film Center – Tuesday, 9am

An old woman fills out a crossword puzzle with the help of an 8-year-old girl. After they fill in the last word, the girl, Nelly (Joséphine Sanz), says good-bye. She moves to the next room down the hall and says good-bye to the elderly woman in that room and then does the same in a third room. When she reaches the fourth room, a 30ish woman is packing up some belongings. The woman is Nelly’s mother, Marion (Nina Meurisse), who gives her assent when Nelly asks if she can keep a walking stick. This brief, skillfully rendered sequence tells us all we need to know about the circ*mstances that will dominate the remainder of the film—Marion’s mother has died, and she, Nelly, and Nelly’s father (Stéphane Varupenne) will go to Marion’s childhood home to pack up the old woman’s belongings. French director Céline Sciamma expands her examination of women’s lives by turning to their generational connections and, specifically, the formative moments of girlhood. Marion encounters artifacts from her childhood—books, drawings, old wallpaper. She tries to answer Nelly’s questions about her youth, but overcome by grief, she leaves the house. Left to her own devices, Nelly searches for remnants of a treehouse Marion built in the woods and encounters her mother at the age of 8 (Gabrielle Sanz). It is sheer genius for Sciamma, who also wrote the screenplay, to level the playing field by bringing mother and daughter together as peers to talk about the things that really matter to them—young Marion’s fear of an operation she is to undergo in three days’ time and Nelly’s worry that she is the cause of her mother’s melancholy (young Marion reassures her as only the honesty of a child can that “you didn’t invent my sadness.”) Nelly, who confesses to her older mother that she wishes she had given her grandmother a proper good-bye, gets a chance at a do-over, albeit with a younger version (Margot Abascal). Sciamma brings her camera down to a child’s eye level and favors close-ups that match the curiosity the girls have for each other. Perhaps Nelly is simply tapping into the ghosts of Marion’s past, but whether actual time travel is involved is somewhat beside the point. The simple, but never childish dialogue, the rapport and generosity of spirit between the girls, and the willingness to believe each other in a way that is so true of girlhood is the real miracle in this film. Sciamma has given us a story we all would like to believe in and imagine for ourselves in our own way. Screening as part of the Rise and Shine series. (2021, 83 min, DCP Digital) [Marilyn Ferdinand]

Robert Zemeckis’ BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III (US)

Alamo Drafthouse – Wednesday, 3pm

Produced immediately after BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II, this third and final film of the series is Zemeckis’ foray into the Western. It’s a big leap from the second film, which largely mirrored the first. BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III also uses some of the cyclical history storytelling, but its themes make this film stand out in the series. Picking up, again, right after the events of the second movie, Marty (Michael J. Fox) must now figure out how to bring Doc (Christopher Lloyd) back from 1885. Marty makes his way back to the old west, but finds that getting home may be nearly impossible, especially now that a local schoolteacher (Mary Steenburgen) has captured the interest of Doc. Of course, a Biff counterpart, Griff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson) is there in 1885 to make things even more challenging for Marty. In PART II, it's somewhat oddly established that Marty’s biggest pet peeve is being perceived as cowardly, which follows through this film—though this subplot does include cameos by Flea in both films, so no complaints. If the second film is a showcase for Thomas F. Wilson’s Biff characters, it's Christopher Llyod’s turn here. The friendship between Doc and Marty is at the heart of this third installment, something that tracks throughout the trilogy, but feels the most emotionally examined here; it grounds a now spiraling premise with a sincerity that perhaps was waning in the second film. Why go back to the old west? It’s not hard to feel how much fun Zemeckis is having with the setting, playing more with Hollywood Western conventions than anything decidedly historical. Of course, no BACK TO THE FUTURE is complete without a chase sequence or two, and this final one featuring the DeLorean and a giant steam engine train is a standout amongst the whole series. (1990, 118 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]

Dorian Walker's TEEN WITCH (US)

Alamo Drafthouse – Wednesday, 7pm

Bolstered by annual appearances on cable television Halloween movie marathons, TEEN WITCH rebounded from box office failure to achieve cult status. The late ‘80s styles are impeccable—all bright colors, oversized tops, and layered skirts—highlighted by an archetypical unfashionable-to-trendy teen transformation. It’s also sort of a musical, or rather a film filled with unconnected musical moments. TEEN WITCH has a frothy and sometimes perplexing plot, but the oddities add to its charm as a pop culture time capsule. The film follows dowdy teenager Louise Miller (Robyn Lively), who dreams of dating the most popular boy in school, football player Brad (Dan Gauthier). As her sixteenth birthday approaches, she learns from a zany fortune teller, Madame Serena (Zelda Rubinstein), that she’s a witch. Louise begins to test her powers, taking revenge on those who made her miserable and helping her friends. It's essentially about how magic can get you the best of ‘80s fashion, popularity, and the hottest guy in school. It is also filled with memorable subplots and moments. Joshua Miller’s performance as Richie transcends the annoying little brother trope, becoming something almost avant-garde; his killer one-liners—my favorite, “You think you’re hot stuff ‘cause you went to a dance?”—are delivered with disdainful extravagance. The most well-known scene, however, is the musical number “Top That,” in which Louise’s best friend Polly (Molly Ingber), with a little helpful magic, rap battles the school’s resident music group in the middle of a suburban street; it’s a masterful demonstration of manufactured and misguided ideas of what defines “cool.” (1989, 90 min, DCP Digital) [Megan Fariello]

🎞️ ALSO SCREENING

🎞️ ONLINE SCREENINGS/EVENTS

⚫ VDB TV
Filmmaker-choreographer Sarah Friedland's feature-length trilogy Movement Exercises, presented in conjunction with Friedland's participation in the Visual Studies Workshop (VSW) Project Space Residency, screens for free on VDB TV. More info here.

CINE-LIST: June 7 - June 13,2024