Our Friday MovieNight thriller sure scared everyone! Or was it something I said?
Seriously, though… I must say that I was rather surprised by the poor turnout for this excellent thriller. Every other Friday MovieNight has been packed. Was it Columbus Day weekend. Hmmm. Anyway, as usual, those of us who were here had a smashing time!
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Polish cinema has traditionally been a bit of a hard sell with our MovieNight audience, but if we were to start counting with just the last two, we would be 2 for 2! Pawel Pawlikowski’s achingly beautiful Ida had the look and feel of classic from the sixties, as of course did the last Polish feature shown here: Knife in the Water, by Roman Polanski. But, whereas Knife in the Water had stark, high-contrast compositions, cinematographers Ryszard Lenczewski and Lukasz Zal painted Ida in shades of beautiful grey. Stunning and thought-provoking.
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Lukas Moodysson made us laugh and cringe at teenage angst once again with the raucous We Are the Best. We also got to wince at out of tune music. Go girls! Thank you to all who came out on the first rainy day of the MovieNight season!
And… we now have two “official” homemade MovieNight snacks from ‘teen Acres! The Curried Apple Chutney is back (although, we’ve had to buy the apples this year… it seems the trees were exhausted from delivering such bounty last year, and didn’t make a single apple) along with the latest: Gadzukes! Pickled zucchini pieces with a bit of a bite. Yum! Not going to run out of them anytime soon… next batch waiting to be made.
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Creepy. Beautiful. Brilliant.
Were it not already claimed by one of the most seminal of science-fiction movies, Alien would be a very suitable alternate title for Under The Skin. Superficially speaking, Jonathan Glazer’s first film in almost a decade is an extraterrestrial invasion story, featuring an undercover succubus from beyond the stars. What’s truly alien about it, however, is the manner in which Glazer twists that stock premise into something radically, unnervingly new. He’s wrapped a singularly strange art film in the fleshy tissue of a genre picture. But the disguise runs no deeper than a logline, as the Kubrickian dread of the opening scene will make instantly clear. Walk in expecting Species and you’ll have your mind cleanly blown.
Excerpt of review by A.A. Dowd for the AV Club
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You know… I really wanted to start off the new season without subtitles. Why? Good question. I guess because I worry about being somehow too fancy, and making my patrons work too hard. If I had a shrink, I’m sure that would be a great subject to waste 45 minutes on, but since I don’t, let’s just say this: I’m not going to think like that any more (I hope). The Great Beauty was a great opener, and a visual feast, seasoned with laughs and Felini-esque moments of surrealism.
It was so good to see so many of you once again, and once I got back into the rhythm, the drinks started materializing more promptly. I do regret one thing, though… I had a new batch of ‘teen Acres Curried Chutney and blue cheese that I forgot to bring out until you were all gone. Opening night jitters? Remind me next time, would ya? Something like, “Psst. Richard… any chutney tonight?”
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Another season came to an end, musically and glamorously. Thanks to all who came out. Congratulations to Sophie for scooping the grand prize! She even had the audacity to be in the ladies room as her ticket was drawn. Some folks are just plain lucky!
Speaking of which… let’s hope we’re lucky enough to return in September for Season 12!
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