Goings On: Victim Returns (and More)
We begin this round in the UK because, starting Friday, Park Circus is putting Basil Dearden’s Victim (1961) back in theaters, “marking 50 years since the Sexual Offences Act 1967 initiated a major development of the country's human rights legislation and a movement towards the decriminalization of homosexuality.”
In the Guardian,Steve Rose notes that the film’s star, Dirk Bogarde, “never publicly acknowledged his sexuality but Victim opened a distinguished second act to his career that included sexually complex classics such as The Servant,Death in Venice, and The Night Porter.Victim was ‘the wisest decision I ever made in my cinematic life,’ Bogarde later said. ‘It is extraordinary . . . to believe that this modest film could ever have been considered courageous, daring or dangerous to make. It was, in its time, all three.’”
More Goings On
New York. At Screen Slate, Cosmo Bjorkenheim recommends catching Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly (2006) with Keanu Reeves “as Bob Arctor, a deep-undercover narc quickly approaching total neurological burnout, Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson as his—respectively—conspiracy-obsessed and endearingly incompetent roommates, and Winona Ryder as his cagey girlfriend whose twitchiness really does indicate a hidden identity.” Tomorrow and Wednesday at MoMA.
On Thursday, Jonathas de Andrade introduces an evening at Light Industry: “Jorge Bodanzky and Orlando Senna’s Iracema: Uma Transa Amazônica lifts its name from José de Alencar’s 1865 novel Iracema, one of the foundational texts of Brazilian literature. . . . Inspired by neorealism as well as the films of John Cassavetes and Jean Rouch, the directors constructed Iracema by enacting a road-movie scenario inside everyday settings, combining artifice and documentary to yield a richly atmospheric parable whose lessons still maintain a grim relevance.”
Los Angeles. Tomorrow evening, Acropolis Cinema presents Anocha Suwichakornpong’s By the Time It Gets Dark (2016).
Also tomorrow, but at Cinefamily, Greg Proops will record a new episode of his monthly Film Club podcast live before a screening of Alan J. Pakula’s All the President’s Men (1976).
And yet another option for tomorrow would be David Chung’s Roboforce (1988) with Tony Leung and Tsui Hark and Jamie Luk’s Robotrix (1991). Writing for the New Beverly, Marc Edward Heuck recommends these “two gleaming, glorious, action-packed sagas of Hong Kong Battle Robots, sophisticated technological weapons with seductively lovely faces!”
San Francisco. The SFMOMA series Johnnie To: Cops and Robbers runs from Thursday through August 6 and To himself will be on hand for the final three days.
From Wednesday through Friday, Canyon Cinema presents Three Nights for Ernie Gehr, starting at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, then at the Exploratorium and, on Friday, the Roxie Theater. Gehr will be there all three nights.
Chicago. A 35 mm print of Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends (1978) will be preceded by a 16 mm print of Joyce Chopra and Claudia Weill’s Joyce at 43 (1973) on Wednesday. The Chicago Film Society has details.
Montreal. The Fantasia International Film Festival is on through August 2 and Andrew Mack’s posting reviews at ScreenAnarchy while Brian Tallerico’s sending daily dispatches into RogerEbert.com (Days One,Two, and Three).
London. On Thursday, the Korean Cultural Centre launches its final season of Korean Film Nights in 2017 with Shin Sang-ok’s It's Not Her Sin (1959).
Brussels. As noted at Sabzian, this year’s L’heure d’été series of classic films focuses on Tokyo.
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