New releases and coming soon to MUBI UK (13th May 2017)
David Farnor | On 13, May 2017
MUBI continues May in style with one of the most iconic heists ever put on celluloid to a hidden gem from Portugal and a highly underrated comic book movie.
Here’s what’s new, coming soon and leaving soon to the subscription streaming service:
This week on MUBI
Rififi – 13th May
After making such American noir classics as The Naked City and Brute Force, blacklisted director Jules Dassin went to Paris and embarked on a tale of four ex-cons who hatch one last glorious robbery in the City of Lights. The result is a noir caper featuring one of the greatest heists you’ll ever see.
Hellboy – 14th May
When the Nazis open a paranormal portal, an infant demon named Hellboy is the result. Raised by the Allies, he becomes the world’s unlikeliest – and reddest – superhero. Ron Perlman is perfectly cast as the demonic good guy, teaming up with Guillermo del Toro to make one of the best, and underrated, comic book movie double-bills.
Les Hautes Solitudes – 15th May
MUBI’s Philippe Garrel retrospective continues with a silent black-and-white portrait of fallen 40-year-old star Jean Seberg, 15 years after Breathless, struggling with alcohol, fear, loneliness, chemical dependence and dementia.
The Professionals – 16th May
Shot on location across the American Southwest and Mexico with Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan and Jack Palance, Richard Brooks’ adventure is a 1960s epic a la The Dirty Dozen. Cannes poster mascot Claudia Cardinale is the icing on the cake.
Other new releases on MUBI
John From
Rita has everything. 15 years and a whole summer ahead of her; a future ex-boyfriend and a best friend to braid her hair. But then, she visits an exhibition from a known neighbour, and her perfect world crumbles around her. Picked out as a Special Discovery by MUBI, this hidden gem establishes João Nicolau as one of Portugal’s leading modern filmmakers.
Century of Birthing
MUBI’s Lav Diaz retrospective continues with this drama bout an artist struggling to finish his work, while a storyline about a cult plays in his head: Fundamentalism will destroy the world. The artist’s muse is endangered by his process. Will he redeem her, in the end? In the words of MUBI: “Like some of the best 19th-century novelists, Lav Diaz is a genius at interweaving multiple stories to create a truly expanded canvas of characters, landscapes and social and political struggle.”
The Assassin
Marcello Mastroianni stars in Elio Petri’s first film, a wicked social satire from 1961. He plays crooked antique dealer Alfredo, whose apartment is broken into by the police. They then bring him to the station, where he is accused of the murder of Adalgisa de Matteis, an ex-mistress. During the long and painful interrogation, he remembers some obscure fragments of his past.
The 10th Victim
This next collaboration between director Elio Petri and silver screen icon Marcello Mastroianni is a retro-futurist sci-fi satire of social bloodlust, playfully twisting genre expectations long before Battle Royale and The Hunger Games, as Victim and Hunter run around Italy trying to score a kill in front of the movie crews they arranged so they could make commercials from the footage.
The Lady from Shanghai
MUBI marks Orson Welles’ birthday with his classic noir from 1947. It stars Rita Hayworth as a femme fatale who catches the eye of an Irish sailor. He soon finds himself implicated in a murder, despite his innocence. Based on the 1938 crime novel If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King, the film climaxes with one of the iconic moments in cinema history.
Buffalo ’96
Vincent Gallo directs and stars in this story about social misfit Billy Brown, who has recently been released from prison. His first port of call is to find a bathroom – instead he finds a dancer called Layla.
The Virgin’s Bed
The first feature-length film in MUBI’s Philippe Garrel retrospective is a cinematic conflagration and re-invention of Biblical storytelling for a culture and an audience having just passed through the convulsions of May ’68. The loose allegory stars model-artist-musician Zouzou as Mary Magdalene, French actor Pierre Clémenti as Jesus and the director himself as a misguided apostle.
Homo Sapiens
Following its nationwide screening at Picturehouse cinemas last month, MUBI teams up with the intriguing new programming collective Misc. Films to stream Nikolaus Geyrhalter’s documentary, which explores places that have been forgotten or abandoned by their builders, from Fukushima to Bulgaria. Expect stunning things.
Starman
With Starman, John Carpenter riskily expanded his cinema for a supernatural love story: that of a communion between a young woman and a extraterrestrial being.
Christine
MUBI’s John Carpenter double-bill is completed with Christine, his one-of-a-kind look at American teenage life: the repression, the rock n’ roll… and, of course, the supernatural auto-mobile.
Battle Royale
Forget The Hunger Games. Before Katniss’ Mockingbird came director Kinji Fukasaku with his shocking, violent political satire that takes Lord of the Flies to the extreme.
Le Revelateur
MUBI launches a new retrospective dedicated to auteur Philippe Garrel, whose new film debuts in Cannes this month. It begins in Garrel’s, 20s with the first film he made among the radical Zanizbar art collective.
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Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon
Maesta, The Passion of the Christ
Available until end of: 13th May
And Now for Something Completely Different
Available until end of: 14th May
Juliet of the Spirits
Available until end of: 15th May
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Available until end of: 16th May
The Marriage of Maria Braun
Available until end of: 17th May
Fragment 53
Available until end of: 18th May
Contact High
Available until end of: 19th May
Rouge
Available until end of: 20th May