This week, The Brattle Theatre showcases new 4K restorations of two very different auteurist masterpieces. On one end of the spectrum, Stanley Kubrick’s sumptuous costume epic “Barry Lyndon” (1975), which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. “Lyndon” is famed as arguably the apex of the director’s notorious attention to detail: To film interior scenes using only period-appropriate candlelight, Kubrick had to obtain enormous lenses commissioned by Nasa to capture the moon landing. This reputation, however, belies the film’s mischievous sense of humor, and you may be surprised to find yourself laughing out loud at Ryan O’Neal’s wildly unscrupulous Irish social climber. There’s a good chance you’ll also find yourself laughing at Yorgos Lanthimos’ international breakout “Dogtooth” (2009), which screens opposite “Lyndon” – but you’ll probably feel bad about it afterward. The blackest of comedies, “Dogtooth” concerns a Greek businessman who, for reasons unknown, has raised his now-grown children in complete isolation, thus understandably stunting their development; incest, mutilation and hilariously awkward dance sequences abound. Both films screen Friday through Monday, if you’d like to treat yourself to a feel-weird double feature for the ages.
IFFBoston’s “World of Wong Kar Wai” series reaches its centerpiece Saturday at the Somerville Theatre with perhaps Wong’s best-loved film, “In the Mood for Love” (2000). Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung, arguably Wong’s most vital collaborators (save, perhaps, for cinematographer Christopher Doyle), play neighbors in 1960s Hong Kong who, convinced their spouses are having an affair, begin roleplaying in preparation for a confrontation and slowly begin to form a bond of their own. “In the Mood for Love” is a master class in atmosphere and pregnant pauses; though Leung and Cheung never so much as kiss, they remain one of the most iconic screen couples of the 21st century. This 25th anniversary edition is preceded by “In the Mood for Love 2001,” a rarely seen short film that reunites the film’s stars, this time as a star-crossed employee and customer in a contemporary convenience store. It’s a fittingly opaque addition to one of arthouse cinema’s most mysterious romances, which continues to entrance a quarter-century on.
On Monday, the Somerville’s “Great Remakes” series veers into harrowing noir territory. Classic Hollywood thrillers don’t come much more brutal than J. Lee Thompson’s “Cape Fear” (1962), in which brutal criminal Max Cady (Robert Mitchum) stalks the family of the attorney (Gregory Peck) who sent him to jail. It’s the sort of film that, thanks to the once-rigid Hollywood production code, could not have been made 10 years earlier; though the word itself is never uttered, the entire story hinges on the threat of rape and brutality at the hands of Mitchum’s diabolical psychopath. It’s little wonder that the film attracted the attention of Martin Scorsese, who tackled the material in 1991 for his very first remake. This time, Cady is inhabited by Scorsese muse Robert De Niro, who transforms the character into a snarling, tattooed force of nature; his nemesis is portrayed by Nick Nolte, but Scorsese grants far more agency to his wife and daughter, played by Jessica Lange and Juliette Lewis. Both versions screen back to back – though you may want to have some chamomile tea on hand afterward to settle your nerves.
As summer comes to a close and the ever-expanding “spooky season” nears the horizon, it seems only fitting that the programmers of Brookline’s Coolidge Corner Theatre return to Mount Auburn Cemetery on Tuesday for another installment of its yearly “Cemetery Cinema” series. Per series tradition, the Coolidge has lined up a double feature that mines our attitudes and anxieties regarding mortality, projected on the big screen under the stars (or, in the event of inclement weather, in the cemetery chapel). This year’s double-header kicks off with a new 4K restoration of Atom Egoyan’s quietly devastating “The Sweet Hereafter” (1997), starring Ian Holm as an attorney tasked with helping a community work its way through an unimaginable tragedy. The mood is lightened, more or less, by Cambridge native Errol Morris’ debut documentary “Gates of Heaven” (1978), which uses a curious news item about the relocation of a pet cemetery as a jumping off point to explore our relationship with death, as well as the larger-than-life personalities who run and frequent the cemetery. Both films are unforgettable in their own right, and the opportunity to view them on the beautiful grounds of Mount Auburn is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
The Brattle’s “Summer of Satire” series concludes Wednesday with arguably its most radical double feature. Though he has been overshadowed in the public eye by his movie star son, Robert Downey Sr. was a legend of the 1970s cinematic underground whose outrageous social satires were staples of the nascent midnight movie scene. Downey’s signature film, “Putney Swope” (1969), stars Arnold Johnson as a Black radical who, through happenstance, is named chief executive of a Madison Avenue advertising agency, which he promptly reinvents as an engine of mass-media subversion. It’s paired with Melvin Van Peebles’ equally anarchic “Watermelon Man” (1970), a wry spin on Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” in which white bigot Jeff Gerber awakens one morning to find himself in the body of a Black man (Gerber is played, both pre- and post-transformation, by Black standup comedian Godfrey Cambridge). The films embody the radical spirit of the times, as well as Putney Swope’s own motto: “Rockin’ the boat’s a drag – what you do is sink the boat!”
Oscar Goff is a writer and film critic based in Somerville. He is film editor and senior critic for the Boston Hassle and his work has appeared in the monthly Boston Compass newspaper and publications such as WBUR’s The ARTery and iHeartNoise. He is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, and the Online Film Critics Society.
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