Hudson Valley Crucial Viewing: May 10 - May 23

Hey movie fans! Slight format change this time. The truth is that it’s surprisingly hard to write original descriptions of five different movies every two weeks, and I’m totally struggling with that part of this newsletter. There’s a lot of clever people out there writing reviews on Letterboxd, so I think this time I’m going to pick a couple of quotes for each movie that do a good job of encapsulating what it’s all about. So we’re going to try that and see how it goes. Your feedback is welcome.

Here’s some Kingston Film Foundation news: we’ve received our official status as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization! Easily the most excited I’ve ever been to open a letter from the IRS. Accordingly, we’re now rolling out our new membership plan, called the Popcorn Club! Learn more and sign up at the link, or sign up in person at Saturday’s screening of Rear Window at Headstone Gallery!

Nancy Savoca's HOUSEHOLD SAINTS
with director Nancy Savoca, producer / co-writer Rich Guay, and author Francine Prose

Starr Cinema, Rhinebeck – Saturday, May 11, 1:00pm

“The rare movie that pulls off very funny comedy and very bleak tragedy, and reckons with spirituality in a way that’s both sincere and skeptical.”
“There is a scene…where Lili Taylor thinks she is having a religious experience and realizing god is everywhere and the thing that is physically happening to her is Michael Imperioli is holding her hand. And I just think that is so beautiful.“
“The power of restoration! I def got more into this on a rewatch, on a big screen, with an audience, with quality superior to the VHS rip I’d seen before.”
(1993, 124min)

Alfred Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW
Headstone Gallery, Kingston – Saturday, May 11, doors at 7:30pm, movie at sundown

“The suspense, the humor, the direction, the music, gorgeous Grace Kelly, James Stewart as a lovable asshole; It's a wonderful example of how great the movies can be, and like all great artists, Hitchcock questions our fascination while simultaneously reveling in the contained insanity.”
“Hitchcock isn’t referred to as the master of suspense without good reason, and his direction in Rear Window is one of the best instances of how Hitchcock builds tension, bit by bit, over and over again, until the audience reaches their boiling point.”
“What's most fascinating about Rear Window is that while the film is resolutely from Stewart's point of view, the camera stretches beyond his obsession with the possible murder of a neighbor’s wife into something closely resembling cinema itself.”
(1954, 115min)

Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT
Tinker St. Cinema, Woodstock – Tuesday, May 14

“Still the most exquisitely beautiful and effortlessly immersive science fiction story ever devised.”
“The way this thing is designed to be experienced—especially the incredibly moving, dense, and spacey (apparently largely improvised) soundscape—practically screams in your face that in a world where your identity and history are probably fabricated and there is no foreseeable future for any of us, then where you come from and where you're going matter a lot less than who's in the room with you right now and how they are making you feel.”
“First time seeing it on the big screen and somehow one of the best things ever made got even better.”
(1982, 117min)

Wong Kar-Wai's CHUNGKING EXPRESS
Bardavon, Poughkeepsie – Thursday, May 16, 7:30pm

“Perfect movie, intimate but not claustrophobic, bittersweet but not sad, funny but not silly, beautiful but not pretty, ultimately, nothing more or less than what life feels like.”
“No city is as shamelessly alive as Wong Kar-wai's Hong Kong. Coins clatter, music plays, rain pours. Go through the fish tank, embrace the neon blur, live fast and love slow. Gunshots in the night, a sweet serenade.”
“That's what I think Wong Kar-Wai pulls off so well with this film. He creates these parallel stories of people who want to connect but are too lost to do anything about it.”
(1994, 103min)

Claire Denis's BEAU TRAVAIL
UPAC, Kingston – Thursday, May 23, 7:30pm (NOTE THE DATE CHANGE, this is moved from May 30)

“Denis poeticizes the potentially reductive. Through her lens, it is colonialism that seems tribal and primitive to watching natives, and sexual repression rather than inhibition that corrodes the mind. The hard flesh of soldiers becomes part of the landscape, eroding their humanity into yet more sand for the desert.”
“The performances are naturalistic and by its hypnotic visuals and rhythm (those training drills really have an almost musical feel to it), and its great use of music, it becomes a real treat with an ending so sad but so sublime.”
“The world of men in Beau Travail exist under a burning sun. They are caught in routine, their military precision almost a dance. These men exist in unison, as a collective, and their feelings matter not.”
(1999, 92min)