The Weekly MUBI Digest | 8th September 2018
David Farnor | On 08, Sep 2018
This week saw MUBI announce its new initiative, MUBI GO, which offers a free cinema ticket every week to its subscribers – kicking off this week with The Miseducation of Cameron Post at participating cinemas. But there’s more than enough online to justify the monthly subscription price, as MUBI takes us back to school for a new term-themed season, and also teaches us a thing or two about suspense with a Hitchcock retrospective.
What’s new, coming soon and leaving soon on the subscription service? This is your weekly MUBI Digest:
This week on MUBI
Back-to-School: The Bling Ring – 8th September
Sofia Coppola turns her camera on the fame-obsessed world of Los Angeles, as a group of teenagers take us on a thrilling and disturbing crime-spree in the Hollywood hills. Based on true events, the group, who were fixated on the glamorous life, tracked their celebrity targets online. Read our full review
Hitchcock Classics: Rope – 9th September
After strangling a former classmate in pursuit of the perfect murder, two friends hold a dinner party for their victim’s friends and family in order to raise the stakes. Using a wide range of innovative cinematic techniques, Hitchcock’s “one-take” film is an audacious thriller starring James Stewart.
Avalon (2001) – 10th September
In Mamoru Oshii’s future world, young people are increasingly becoming addicted to an illegal (and potentially deadly) battle simulation game called Avalon.
Exit Through the Gift Sop – 11th September
Globally renowned graffiti artist Banksy fiercely guards his anonymity to avoid prosecution. The line between what is real and what might be fake begins to blur when a kooky French shop keeper attempts to film Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner.
Bernard Mandico: Boro in the Box – 12th September
A fantasised portrayal of Polish auteur Walerian Borowczyk: Boro in the Box discovers a cruel and obscene world. He experiences banal yet colorful adventures, caressing erotic birds and organic cameras in a phantasmagorical Alphabet.
Bernard Mandico: Living Still Life – 13th September
Fièvre, a mysterious woman, collects dead animals in the wild and brings them back to life with animated films. One day, a man comes to see Fièvre—his wife is dead.
Bernard Mandico: Les Garcons Sauvages – 14th September
Five adolescents of good families enamoured with the occult, commit a savage crime. A Dutch Captain takes them in charge for a repressive cruise on a haunted, dilapidated sailboat. Exhausted by the Captain’s methods, the five boys prepare to mutiny.
Other new releases on MUBI
Hitchcock Classics: Shadow of a Doubt
Hitchcock’s favourite of his own movies follows Young Charlotte, who is excited that her Uncle Charlie is coming to visit. However, as secrets about him come to the fore, she will soon need to make hard choices that could end up destroying the whole family. Hitchcock’s film noir is an exploration of small-town America, where proud and distinguished facades conceal darker dimensions.
byNWR: Spring Night, Summer Night
As byNWR’s Volume II goes live, MUBI continues its run of Nicolas Winding Refn’s restored films. The melancholy story of a half brother and sister in rural southern Ohio whose relationship suddenly turns intimate, sending the already-struggling farm family into a crisis of love, shame and recrimination. Joseph L Anderson’s 1967 drama is cast entirely with regional actors and filmed on location in 35mm B&W.
“The saga of this film’s aborted release and its disappearance from screens for nearly 40 years could fill volumes. This 4K digital reconstruction is the original director’s cut, unlike the reedited version released in drive-in theatres under the unfortunate title Miss Jessica is Pregnant.” —NWR
Baronesa
MUBI joins forces with the non-fiction heroes at Open City to present this raw and powerful Brazilian film debut. Juliana Antunes’ relaxed, revealing drama provides an intimate exploration of the pressures placed on women—and their resilience, alone and communally—in a poor neighbourhood.
Back-to-School: Thelma
With an electrifying romance at its heart, Thelma plunges deep into its titular character’s soul to unleash long suppressed demons. Exquisitely blending the supernatural with the psychological, Trier has concocted a slow-burning Scandi update of De Palma’s Carrie likely to take your breath away.
Back-to-School: After Lucia
Michel Franco (Chronic) won Un Certain Regard’s top prize with his debut, this unflinching study on bullying, vigorously tackling the vulnerability of wanting to fit in with a Hanekian aura. The violence of high school is rendered here with chilling precision—and brace yourselves for that ending!
Back-to-School: The Wave
This gripping drama calls to mind the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment, one of the most captivating of psychological fallouts, where normal people so quickly embraced the roles of oppressor and oppressed, powerful and powerless. Here, the German setting carries its own dark depths.
Back-to-School: Cry-Baby
The only thing better than a back-to-school movie about skipping school? 1950s Americana by way of queer maverick John Waters! With Johnny Depp in the lead and countless cameos (clever and trashy alike), Cry-Baby is at once a sardonic send-up and loving vision of the most iconic of American decades.
Lou Ye: Blind Massage
Concluding MUBI’s journey through the ardently subversive yet humanist cinema of Lou Ye, we arrive at his 2014 film Blind Massage. A deeply respectful look into the experience of living with blindness both communally and in isolation. A cogent, moving, and complicated work on a subject often failed.
Lou Ye: Spring Fever
Luo Haitao has been hired by Wang Ping’s wife to spy on the passionate relationship between her husband and another man, but slowly loses control of the situation. With his beautiful girlfriend, Li Jing, he is drawn in to the affair, overcome by the fever of drunken spring nights.
Lou Ye: Love and Bruises
The 3rd film in MUBI’s Lou Ye retro was made during the director’s exile for having made Summer Palace. It follows Hua, who, exiled in Paris, wanders between her tiny apartment and the university, drifting between former lovers and recent French acquaintances. She meets Matthieu, a young worker who falls madly in love with her. Possessed by an insatiable desire for her body, he treats her like a dog.
New Canadian Cinema: Idizwadidiz
Two friends walk and draw circles. It is what it is, idizwadidiz, c’est ce que c’est, seskecé. Nice weather.
New Canadian Cinema: Maison du Bonheur
In 30 carefully constructed segments, Maison du bonheur paints an endearing picture of the everyday life of 77-year-old Juliane Sellam, a long-time resident of Paris. Alone in her Montmartre apartment, Sellam enjoys the little things in life.
New Canadian Cinema: The Art of Speech
One of Québec’s most inventive cinematic poets, Olivier Godin crafted his sophomore film on a shoe-string budget with an expressionist use of digital video and boundless imagination. The result: The Art of Speech is a densely layered, Godardian comedy laced with an evocative mystery and romance.
Paul Schrader Picks: 8 1/2
A talented director’s new project is unravelling around him, along with his life. His search for inspiration leads him down many a strange and twisted paths. Known as one of the greatest films about film ever made, it turns one man’s artistic crisis into a grand epic of the cinema.
Paul Schrader Picks: Listen to Britain
A depiction of life in wartime England during the Second World War. Director Humphrey Jennings visits many aspects of civilian life and of the turmoil and privation caused by the war, all without narration.
“Humphrey Jennings brought something very new to documentaries with this film, and he did this film at a low point for Britain – yet it is absolutely full of originality and full of humanity.”
A Cambodian Spring
A Cambodian Spring charts the chaotic and violent wave of change shaping modern-day Cambodia, and follows three activists over six years as they speak out against the injustices taking place all around them in the name of progress, development and democracy.
Sullivan’s Travels
MUBI kicks off a Preston Sturges double-bill with this classic adventure. Hollywood director Joel McCrea, tired of churning out lightweight comedies, decides to make O Brother, Where Art Thou, a serious, socially responsible film about human suffering. After his producers point out that he knows nothing of hardship, he hits the road as a hobo.
The Lady Eve
MUBI’s Preston Sturges double-bill concludes wit this Oscar-nominated 1940s comedy. It’s no accident when wealthy Charles falls for Jean–she is a con artist with her sights set on his fortune. But matters complicate when she starts falling for him. When Charles suspects Jean is a gold digger, he dumps her. Jean, fixated on revenge, devises a plan to re-conquer him.
Machete
Machete, a legendary ex-federal officer, is left for dead after clashing with notorious Mexican drug kingpin Torrez. He escapes to Texas, trying to forget his past. But what he finds is a web of corruption that leaves a bullet in a senator and Machete a wanted man.
A monthly subscription to MUBI costs £7.99 a month, with a 30-day free trial.
Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon
Do You Wonder Who Fired the Gun?
Available until end of: 8th September
Summer Palace
Available until end of: 9th September
My Man Godfrey
Available until end of: 10th September
A Cambodian Spring
Available until end of: 11th September
Cape Fear
Available until end of: 12th September
Historytelling
Available until end of: 13th September
The Art of Speech
Available until end of: 14th September
Djon Africa
Available until end of: 15th September
Love and Bruises
Available until end of: 16th September
T-Men
Available until end of: 17th September