Runs & Limited Engagements

LOVING VINCENT uses 65,000 hand-painted frames, extrapolated from Van Gogh's works, to bring the painter's world to life in all its pulsating, thickly colored glory. More than a technical stunt, the film is a compelling, thoroughly researched dramatization of Van Gogh's life, concentrating on his final weeks and rendered in CITIZEN KANE-like flashbacks, as a postman's son seeks to unravel the truth about the painter's contradictory personality and still-unexplained death. In English. DCP digital.

Followed by LOVING VINCENT: THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM (2019, Miki Wecel, Poland, 60 min.). The story of how LOVING VINCENT came to be made is nearly as compelling as the film itself. This behind-the-scenes documentary covers the four-year evolution of the film from a proposed 7-minute short by an unknown director to an Oscar-nominated feature utilizing groundbreaking techniques and a small army of painters and animators. In English and Polish with English subtitles. DCP digital. (MR)

Comedies don’t come any more hallucinatory or candy-colored than this Cannes prize-winner, especially when a herd of King Kong-size Pekingese puppies swarm the screen in a dreamy pastel haze. Gender-bending wackiness, over-the-top caricatures, and subplots galore inspire delight at every turn. Evil twin sisters that would make Cinderella’s siblings cringe, two lesbians posing as a nun and an orphan boy, and a wild government cloning plot figure in a plan to fleece an innocently dim-witted national hero. Beefcake soccer star Diamantino (Cotta) adopts mute refugee boy Rahim in order to boost his public image after flubbing a kick in the World Cup. The bad guys are off and running to “Make Portugal great again,” and directors Abrantes and Schmidt race from one zany move to the next, fighting evil with the lethally disarming weapons of chubby puppies, a fluffy kitten, and stinging political satire. In Portuguese with English subtitles. DCP digital widescreen. (BS)

Ursula K. Le Guin transcended the labels of genre and gender to be recognized as a major American author. Entering the field of science fiction when it was male-centric and action-oriented, she revolutionized the genre with new attitudes toward gender fluidity, feminism, fantasy, anarchism, and utopianism in such classics as A Wizard of Earthsea, The Left Hand of Darkness, and The Dispossessed. Working with Le Guin (who died last year at the age of 88) over a period of ten years, filmmaker Curry engaged the feisty but camera-shy author in a series of revealing interviews that explore her artistic and political evolution. Painterly animation sequences visualize Le Guin's novels, and interviews with Margaret Atwood, Michael Chabon, Neil Gaiman, and David Mitchell testify to her literary importance. DCP digital. (MR)

As demonstrated by her award-winning hits ROSENWALD and THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HANK GREENBERG, Aviva Kempner makes inspiring and entertaining documentaries that focus on neglected Jewish American heroes. Her latest subject is renaissance man Moe Berg, who excelled behind the plate as a major-league catcher and behind the lines as an agent working for the OSS during World War II. Called "the brainiest man in baseball," Berg earned a law degree at Columbia U. and triumphed on the radio quiz show "Information Please." As part of an all-star team touring Japan in 1934, he covertly took film footage that was later used to help guide the famous Doolittle raid on Tokyo. During the war, he played a crucial role in the race to beat out Germany in the development of the A-Bomb, including a mission to Switzerland to observe top German scientist Werner Heisenberg and assassinate him if necessary. DCP digital. (MR)

In one of the most controversial and ultimately misunderstood films ever made, Pasolini horrifically, shockingly, and fearlessly revisits his early premise of sexuality as a liberating force and comes to a new conclusion. The film is structured around the three descending levels of hell from the Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of Sodom: the circles of Madness, Excrement, and Blood. SALÒ is set in World War II Italy, where four of the fascist elite select sixteen innocent young men and women to become their sex slaves in a graphic and morally illustrative tale of lost humanity and the corrupting nature of power. In Italian with English subtitles. 35mm. (BS)

Carlo Levi's classic 1945 memoir was adapted as a four-part miniseries on Italian TV, then reduced to two hours in its U.S. release. This new restoration brings Rosi's uncut version to American audiences for the first time. The story is set in Fascist-ruled Italy in 1935, when Levi (Volontè), a leftist writer, painter, and physician from Turin, is exiled to a remote village in the southern province of Luciana. The first half of the film is an immersive fish-out-of-water drama, as Levi struggles to adapt to the customs of the seemingly backward villagers. A visit from his feisty sister (Massari), a friendship with a disgraced priest, a covert romance with a superstitious housekeeper (Papas), and the town's need for a competent doctor rouse Levi from his isolation. The second half becomes more political, its politics drawn not from books and rhetoric, but from Levi's lived experiences with the peasants, who, he comes to realize, are alienated from the government no matter which party is in power. In Italian with English subtitles. New 2K DCP digital restoration. (MR)

King Hu’s revisionist take on the historical kung fu drama features an alluring quartet of female martial artists, including the legendary Taiwanese stars Angela Mao (aka “Lady Whirlwind”) and Hsu Feng, who bring a sly and smoothly elegant aspect to a genre better known for all-male butt-kicking. The director’s third film in his renowned “inn” trilogy (following COME DRINK WITH ME and DRAGON INN) mixes Yuan Dynasty (ca. 1306) intrigue with martial arts action choreographed by the great Sammo Hung. Tipped off that the corrupt warlord Lee Khan (Tien Feng) and his band of warriors will soon arrive at the Spring Inn, the crafty lady landlord deploys her team of four ex-con serving maids to lay hands on the rebel battle map in his possession by hook or by crook. In Mandarin with English subtitles. New 2K DCP digital widescreen restoration. (BS)