Sofia Coppola’s film about two ten-year-old French twin sisters. The film depicts two days in their lives inter-cut back and forth. One day takes place in the Spring and one during the Fall. It is impossible to tell which day comes first in chronological order, but the days are exactly half a year apart from each other. In the Spring scenes the girls are dressed like the twins from The Shining. In the Fall they wear blue capes like Madeline. The plot is far more atmospheric than narrative driven, but the general theme addresses divorce and shared custody of the twins by their bohemian Parisian parents. LISTEN
Shia LaBeouf and Jesse Eisenberg play two Los Angeles native musician brothers who start a Beach Boys style pop rock group in 1962. Robert Downey Jr. plays their father and manager. The father was a struggling vaudevillian performer who never succeed in his attempted transition into the Hollywood film industry. He pushes his sons to succeed, but then resents them as the group’s popularity rises. He is further alienated from his family when his sons join the hippie revolution and reject the corporate studio structured system which their father has always longed to be a part of. Original screenplay written by Michael Chabon. LISTEN
A David Lynch film following a day in which a wife (Isabella Rossellini) prepares for a party in honor of the return of her husband (Kyle MacLachlan), an Astronaut who has been on a mission living on NASA’s International Space Station for the past 3 years.
The story borrows from from Virgina Woolf’s novel Mrs. Dalloway both thematically and in stream of conciseness styling of narrative story. During the day the wife preforms tasks as mundane as buying flowers to the complex final tryst with her lover (Crispin Glover). LISTEN
Jonathan Demme 1989 short film starring Daryl Hannah as a night-shift security guard at a pharmaceutical factory. It begins with Daryl silently making the rounds, checking locks and scanning empty rooms with her flashlight. The beam of light dances and reflects off of the test tubes, lab equipment, plastic containers and the rainbow assortments of pills.
After noting her initials on a clipboard and punching out her time card she sits down placing a lunchbox on the table in front of her. She takes out a sandwich, soup, juice and an apple. She reaches into her pockets and pulls out a heaping handful of the colorful pills. She buries half of the capsules into the tuna sandwich and the rest she mixes into her soup. She delicately eats her sandwich and sips her soup. When she is done she places her utensils back in the lunchbox. A close up on her face. An enigmatic smile. Cut to black. - for Lauren D. LISTEN
Wong Kar-Wai directs an atmospheric film using updated themes and plot points from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Bryce Dallas Howard stars as an up and coming American installation artist commisioned to complete a year long project in Tokyo. Her patron is a brutish and mysteriously alluring businessman played by Ken Watanabe. The pair grow closer in the confines of the art space, but the buisnessman’s real world dramas and involvement with the Yakuza gang threaten their lives and blossoming love. The artist’s troubled childhood is depicted in flashbacks facilitated through her yarn, string and fabric based installation projects. LISTEN
An Oliver Postgate stop-motion animation depicting the legend of the building of Stonehenge during Arthurian era Briton. Merlin uses wit and wizardly powers to convince uncooperative Giants to give up, carry and assemble the rocks needed for the construction. Two dance sequence bookend the film. The opening dance depicts the Giants discovering the healing stones in Africa. The final dance is a celebration of the completion including Merlin, the knights and the Giants. LISTEN
A Coen Brothers’ dark comedy and aesthetic homage to Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show. Sandra Bullock and Frances McDormand play the native Texan wives of Midwest immigrants William H. Macy and Tom Hanks who sink both of their families’ savings into opening Texas’ first John Deere tractor dealership. The wives produce a series of increasingly elaborate local television commercials and events at local fairgrounds that draw attention, but undermine the husbands’ roles in the business success. The action culminates in Corpus Christi during a Hurricane Celia in August of 1970. Cloris Leachman cameos. LISTEN
Alfonso Cuarón adapts a stripped down and politically reflective reinterpretation of Peter Pan. The adaptation emphasizes Neverland as an escape from Victorian era industralized pollution and social oppression of colonial society. The production design of the imaginary island’s oceans and jungles mimic the natural landscapes of Mexico City and surrounding Central American areas. Javier Bardem plays Captain Hook. LISTEN
A Martin Scorcese film that tracks the epic rivalry of two door-to-door Mary Kay Cosmetics sales ladies across the boroughs of NYC. The women, both stay-at-home wives of Mafia connected “contractors,” began as friends raising their respective families in the same area of Staten Island. After their grown children leave home they decide to join the Mary Kay sales team to combat their empty nest syndrome. The rivalry starts as they are pitted against each other on their mutual turf and escalates as they spread out into the surrounding neighborhoods. The families of the women get involved in the clash which leads to schisms in the Mafia family. A local District Attorney uses the distractions and family infighting to his advantage to help bring down a previously unstoppable gangster kingpin. - for Ariel A. LISTEN
Three trailers included on an old VHS copy of the movie Stand By Me. The tape quality is spotty due to age and usage. The original owner of the tape watched the video 50 times in just under a two month period and generally fastforwarded through the previews. The first trailer is for a Sylvester Stallone legal drama whose existence you barely remember. The second preview includes Melanie Griffith’s Oscar baiting performance as a single mother with a thick southern accent. The final trailer is the story of a boys friendship with a dolphin. You have no memory of that particular film. LISTEN