Wednesday
Jul192023
First & Last 024
Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 9:00AM Can you guess the movie from its first and last shot?
The answer is after the jump...
tagged first and last
first and last Wednesday, July 19, 2023 at 9:00AM Tuesday
Jul182023
How Had I Never Seen... "The Wind Rises"?
Tuesday, July 18, 2023 at 12:00PM 
Hayao Miyazaki has been announcing his retirement for over a quarter century, each new project since Princess Mononoke received like a potential swan song. Such is the case of his latest flick, the enigmatic How Do You Live?, retitled The Boy and the Heron for the Anglophone market. After a lead-up to release that saw no promo beyond the poster, the film was finally seen by the Japanese public, enjoying its big opening last week. And yet, few folks are keen on sharing details about the animated project, including the narrative's basic premise. While the rest of the world waits for an opportunity to glimpse Miyazaki's latest "last" picture, it's an excellent time to watch the not-so-final career-capper that came before, which, to my great shame, I had never seen.
This July, The Wind Rises celebrates its 10th anniversary, something worth celebrating as we prepare to see another auteur's exploration of an inventor whose efforts resulted in mass death during WWII. Not that Miyazaki's biopic of engineer Jiro Horikoshi, whose fighter designs defined Japanese air force in the 30s and 40s, is attempting the same IMAX-sized scale as Nolan's Oppenheimer…
Tuesday
Jul182023
First & Last 023
Tuesday, July 18, 2023 at 9:00AM Can you guess the movie from its first and last shot?
The answer is after the jump...
tagged comedy, first and last
comedy, first and last Monday
Jul172023
Review: A quartet of actresses grace "The Miracle Club"
Monday, July 17, 2023 at 6:30PM by Matt St Clair
Thaddeus O’Sullivan’s The Miracle Club is the latest entry in the multiverse involving pictures where elderly, award-winning actress legends unite Avengers-style for an adventure. However, compared to previous entries in the unofficial multiverse like Book Club, 80 for Brady, and Poms, The Miracle Club is a more profound effort. There are moments of humor to be found in this story about friends coming together for a potentially “last” trip to fulfill an unrealized dream or goal but The Miracle Club leans heavily on the dramatic side.
Set in 1960s Ireland, Oscar winners Kathy Bates and Dame Maggie Smith play Eileen and Lily, two close-knit friends from the working-class village of Ballygar...
Monday
Jul172023
MUBI: Three by Wong Kar-Wai
Monday, July 17, 2023 at 11:22AM 
Happy birthday to Wong Kar-Wai. The Hong Kong auteur turns 65 today, the same day I say goodbye to 28 and welcome my 29th year –we're birthday twins! But of course, I've loved the director long before discovering we shared July 17th, having fallen for his cinema when I glimpsed Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung cross paths in slow-motion, saw the treacherous enchantment of a kitschy lamp lost in Buenos Aires, experienced a Nouvelle Vague color kaleidoscope to the sound of "California Dreamin'." It's only fitting to celebrate the date by pouring over some of Wong's most ravishing pictures, remembering his mastery as we mourn a decade since his last feature.
Join me as I consider three films MUBI has programmed specially for July, a collection they call As Time Goes By. A trio marked by lavish spectacle, they reach for the stars – a wuxia experiment, a sci-fi lament, and a martial-arts biopic like none other…