SUBWAY CINEMA NEWS: May 15 – 22, 2008
NOW PLAYING
AMC Loews Village Seven (3rd Ave and 11th Street)
BHOOTHNATH (India, 2008, 137 minutes)
Screens daily
Kooky Bollywood kiddie movie that turns into a tear-jerker melodrama somewhere around the 2 hour mark. The two biggest stars in Bollywood, Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, star. The Big B plays a ghost living in an abandoned mansion, and SRK plays the father of a family that moves in whose 9 year old kid can see the ghost but thinks he’s an angel. Hilarity ensues. Or does it? You be the judge.
Read reviews
Angelica Film Center
MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS (2008, Hong Kong/USA)
Daily
Wong Kar-wai’s latest movie stars Norah Jones, Jude Law, Natalie Portman and a bunch of other folks and, frankly, you should save your money. Interminable and screechy it’s one of WKW’s only true misfires. It looks good, though, but you’ve seen all these visual tics and tricks in his other movies, and done better, too. Hey, look: reviews!
Chelsea Cinema (260 W.23rd Street)
DEATH NOTE 1 & DEATH NOTE 2
Tuesday and Wednesday, May 20 & 21 @ 7:30pm
The two live action DEATH NOTE movies are coming to NYC for two screenings only: DEATH NOTE 1 will be on May 20 and DEATH NOTE 2 will screen on May 21. If you don’t know the DEATH NOTE series, then forget about it – this ain’t for you. But if you’re familiar with the mega-hit franchise then you’re probably already trembling with an unhealthy level of excitement. These twisty, goth thrillers were massive hits in Japan in 2006 and they feature some serious, pedal-to-the-metal narrative gusto.
IFC Center
UP THE YANGTZE (China/Canada, 2008)
Daily – with director at screenings 4/26 and 4/27
A Canadian/Chinese documentary charting the part of the country that Jia Zhangke’s STILL LIFE took place in: the Yangtze River where the Three Gorges Dam will soon flood the recently evacuated cities. The doc focuses on a tour boat that sails through these deserted, soon-to-be-submerged towns, and lots of time is given to the bizarrely trained Chinese staff (who are told never to mention Quebec Independence to Western tourists).
There’s more reviews!
THE FILMS OF KENJI MIZOGUCHI
Friday, Saturday and Sunday @ 11AM
Japan’s master director has been largely relegated to lurk in the shadow of Akira Kurosawa, but over the past five years a number of retrospectives have hauled him back into the light. He’s one of Japan’s best, most subtle and most heart-breaking directors, like the Lubitsch of tragedy: making gorgeous women’s pictures that are delicate, understated and poignantly softspoken.
UTAMARO AND HIS FIVE WOMEN (Japan, 1946)
May 16-18
A feminist manifesto by Mizoguchi that was made under the American occupation and is generally considered one of his lesser films. But still, essential if you’ve fallen under his spell.
UGETSU (Japan, 1953)
May 23-26:
Mizoguchi’s ghost story is about as far away from THE RING as you can get. Richard Corliss says it contains one of cinema’s great tracking shots. You can bet that it’s a quiet scream of desperation.
THE LIFE OF OHARU (Japan, 1952)
May 30-Jun 1
This is the Mizoguchi movie most fans see one time only. Oharu is a lady of the court and this film is a greased pole that sends her sliding on the fast road to hell, winding up a broken-down beggar. Every inch she falls hurts, hurts, hurts. Cinematic suffering at its most acute.
SANSHO THE BAILIFF (Japan, 1954)
Jun 13-15
This is Mizoguchi’s masterpiece, and if you haven’t seen it I don’t have anything to say but, “Go!” And maybe I’ll add, “Now!” Lots of critics cite it as the movie that opened their eyes to what film is capable of, this is one of the great Japanese classic movies, based on a great Japanese classic story. Action, romance, slavery, mothers, sons, mistaken identities…if Kurosawa whispered instead of shouted he’d have made it.
The ImaginAsian
BHOOTHNATH (India, 2008, 137 minutes)
Screens daily
Kooky Bollywood kiddie movie that turns into a tear-jerker melodrama somewhere around the 2 hour mark. The two biggest stars in Bollywood, Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan, star. The Big B plays a ghost living in an abandoned mansion, and SRK plays the father of a family that moves in whose 9 year old kid can see the ghost but thinks he’s an angel. Hilarity ensues. Or does it? You be the judge.
Read reviews
PLANET B-BOY (US, 2008, 101 minutes)
Screens daily
Benson Lee’s documentary about b-boy dancers and breakdancing, popping and locking, crunking and a million other things we’ve all seen on “So You Think You Can Dance?” is one of the – if I may – freshest, illest and sickest docs I’ve ever seen. If you want to freebase pure dancing joy and see b-boys and b-girls from all over the US, Europe and Asia bring it, then you need to see this movie. Plus, the critics like it and it’s nice to see movies they like from time to time. It makes them feel good.
See the trailer (which pretty much rocks)
Breaking battle between North and South Korean color guards at the DMZ
MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
MUKSHIN (Malaysia, 2006, 94 minutes)
Wednesday, May 28 @ 6pm
Thursday, May 29 @ 8:30pm
Friday, May 30 @ 8pm
Saturday, May 31 @ 7:30pm
Sunday, June 1 @ 2pm
Monday, June 2 @ 6pm
Yasmin Ahmad is Malaysia’s most exciting filmmaker and one of that country’s most popular, although she drives the government nuts by making their censors work overtime even though her movies are mostly romances, romantic comedies, and gently observed dramas about how people get along (or don’t) in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society like Malaysia. MUKSHIN is the story of first love, and it’s a flick people absolutely love.
Union Square Stadium (corner of 14th Street and Broadway)
DEATH NOTE 1 & DEATH NOTE 2
Tuesday and Wednesday, May 20 & 21 @ 7:30pm
The two live action DEATH NOTE movies are coming to NYC for two screenings only: DEATH NOTE 1 will be on May 20 and DEATH NOTE 2 will screen on May 21. If you don’t know the DEATH NOTE series, then forget about it – this ain’t for you. But if you’re familiar with the mega-hit franchise then you’re probably already trembling with an unhealthy level of excitement. These twisty, goth thrillers were massive hits in Japan in 2006 and they feature some serious, pedal-to-the-metal narrative gusto.
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