Under this week’s banner of Men Adrift the bittersweet masterpiece by Peter Bogdanovich `The Last Picture Show’, captures high-school students coming of age in a bleak, dying Texas town in the early 1950s. See Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges and Cybill Shepherd as their magnificent careers begin (Friday, 7 August and Sunday, 9 August, 4.30pm).
`Variety’ magazine hailed Australian writer-director Adrian Chiarella for his succinct and incisive debut about a demonic presence invoked to punish homosexual desire. With `Leviticus’ he earns himself a prime place among new genre voices (7pm August 7-8).
Adapted from the 2016 Disney version, `Moana’ is a highly popular musical adventure film. The super heroic Moana sets out on a mission to the Oceanic seas to save her people. It has won praise for promoting diversity and rejecting the trappings of romance, as well as having a fine message for young girls in an age often obsessed with body image and glamour.
Moana screens at 11am on Saturday and Sunday, 8-9 August 4.30pm on 10 August, 11am on 15-16 August and 4.30 on 17 August.
Hard as it may be to imagine a film in which all four of the cast are annoying, `The Invite’ (Monday, 8 August, 2pm) achieves that with a bickering couple meeting an ideal duo in smug Edward Norton and European-styled Penélope Cruz.
The loss of the American Dream comes to us virtue of Gene Hackman and Al Pacino in `Scarecrow’ ( August 8, 4.30pm, August 9, 2pm. They are two lonely blokes who stumble across each other and become mates. Between visiting earthy women, they discuss opening a car wash in Pittsburgh.
Robert De Nero is unforgettable in `Taxi Driver’ (9-10 August, 7pm) as we watch him descend from painful to nerve-wracking to pitiful. Portraits of urban malaise are never darker, bleaker, or more claustrophobic than here.
`The Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion’ (13 August, 4.30pm, 15 and 17 August, 2pm) is a psychological, black-humoured satire on corruption in office, which seems just what’s needed these days. A top cop kills his mistress and then tests whether he will be charged.
`Backrooms’ 13 August, and Monday, 17 August at 7 pm) bends the spaces that haunted the internet for years, into horror film as mesmerising as it is terrifying.
`Tuner’ is based on a terrific idea. A skilled piano tuner finds a well-paid side gig in cracking safes. Smart humour, critics say, plus vivid characterisations. (13-15 August 7pm).
As a sharp change of pace` Klute’ is unconventional, being both a detective thriller and a character-driven mood piece. It helps cement Oscar winner Alan Pakula’s place as one of the great directors of the1970s, or any decade.
4.30pm on 14 -15 August brings yet another classic, this time the satirical `The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie’, Luis Buneul’s dissection of six people coming to dine together but failing to eat, being interrupted by reality and illusion.
And, whoopee, under the banner of Freedom & Folly, the following week sees the arrival of `Spider-Man: Brand New Day,’ `The Long Goodbye,’ `Annie Hall,’ `One Night Only’, and `Harold and Maude’. What a feast!
For bookings and further details please see Phoenix Cinema.
