The Weekly MUBI Digest | 18th November
David Farnor | On 18, Nov 2017
MUBI is breaking out its biggest exclusives to date week, with the return of Miguel Gomes’ epic Arabian Nights trilogy (read our interview with the director here) and this year’s top Berlinale prize winner, On Body and Soul, fresh from cinemas. Add to that a partnership with Nicolas Winding Refn, which has gifted us two restored classics, including low-budget exploitation flick The Nest of the Cuckoo Birds and 1967’s Hot Thrills and Warm Chills.
What’s new, coming soon and leaving soon on the subscription service? This is your weekly MUBI Digest:
This week on MUBI
Natural Born Killers – 18th November
Oliver Stone’s controversial comedy, which follows two mass murderers (Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis), remains as black as ever.
A Hard Day’s Night – 19th November
It’s 1964 and four young lads from Liverpool are about to change the world. John, Paul, George, and Ringo play cheeky comic versions of themselves in a film that captured the astonishing moment when they officially became the singular, irreverent idols of their generation and changed music forever.
Heat-Haze Theater (Kagero-Za) – 20th November
Matsuzaki is a playwright in 1926 Tokyo supported by a wealthy patron. One evening, Matsuzaki crosses paths with a beautiful and mysterious woman, leading to an odyssey of infidelity and obsession…
Mulberry Street – 21st November
On a scorching day in Manhattan, the denizens of a tumbledown tenement on Mulberry Street grouse about the heat, but as night falls, they find themselves battling a horde of mutants turning powerless New Yorkers into a bloodthirsty new species.
Knock on Any Door – 22nd November
Andrew Morton is an attorney who made it out of the slums. Nick Romano is his client, a young man with a long string of crimes behind him. After he lost his paycheck gambling, hoping to buy his wife some jewelry, she announced she was pregnant. Later he finds her dead from suicide.
Bitter Victory – 23rd November
In Nicholas Ray’s WWII drama, a British officers, Captain Leith and Major Brand, a South African, lead a daring raid to steal crucial documents from a Nazi stronghold in Libya. However, the two don’t seem particularly fond of each other.
Wet Woman in the Wind – 24th November
One afternoon, Shiori, a very sexually active young woman working in a café, is riding her bicycle and cuts off Kosuke, who is pulling a two-wheeled cart. Once a recognized playwright, Kosuke now lives a quiet life in a mountain hut, far away from the city, in the hope of escaping his past.
Other new releases on MUBI
NWR: The Nest of the Cuckoo Birds
An undercover agent is sent to infiltrate bootleggers in the Florida Everglades, but winds up lost in the swamps and stuck in a decrepit hotel with a few of peculiar inhabitants. Bert Williams’ 1965 flick starts off as a police actioner, but quickly morphs into an unholy fairy tale of Southern Gothic melodrama and horror. Read our full review.
NWR: Hot Thrills and Warm Chills
Rita Alexander stars as the towering gang leader of a trio of hoodlum gals looking to make one last big score, run away with a mess of diamonds and live the dream in paradise. Dale Berry’s eccentric 1967 gem from Texas wildcard director Dale Berry, underscored by a relentlessly brilliant Perez Prado soundtrack. Read our full review.
Heat
Robert De Niro. Al Pacino. Michael Mann. Three icons of cinemas combine for his seminal crime drama, which sees a determine cop and an equally ruthless criminal in a cat-and-mouse game in a nocturnal Los Angeles caught with cool intensity by Mann’s deep-focused camera. A modern classic.
The Fountain
A doctor’s endless search for a cure to his wife’s cancer spans centuries in Darren Aronofsky’s ambitious, divisive sci-fi, as she writes the tale of a 16th Century conquistador looking for eternal life.
Zigeunerweisen
Winner of multiple Japanese Academy Awards, Zigeunerweisen tells of two intellectuals and former colleagues from military academy who involve their wives in a series of dangerous sexual games.
Arabian Nights Vol. I
In Portugal, over 600 shipyard workers are being laid off. An apiarist fights off an invasion of foreign bees. An African wizard creates an aerosol spray that cures impotence in world leaders and IMF financiers. A judge puts a cockerel on trial for crowing too early. (Read our interview with Miguel Gomes.)
Arabian Nights Vol. II
An elderly criminal becomes a folk hero as he successfully evades hordes of police; a stern judge oversees a case involving 13 stolen cows, mail-order brides, a genie and a machete-wielding human lie detector; a Maltese poodle shuffles between households in a recession-stricken estate. (Read our interview with Miguel Gomes.)
Arabian Nights Vol. III
Scheherazade, the daughter of the grand vizier, weaves tales to please the king and stay her own execution. Realising she will soon run out of stories to tell, she hatches a plan to escape the palace. Meanwhile, finch hunters offer a musical analogy for Portugal’s 21st-century woes. (Read our interview with Miguel Gomes.)
On Body and Soul
When a man and woman who meet at work begin to know each other, they discover that they have the same dreams at night, and they decide to make them come true. Subtly moving and brutally raw, read our full review of Ildikó Enyedi’s first feature since the 90s.
Dead or Alive
MUBI kicks off a triple-bill of Takashi Miike’s Dead or Alive films. A yakuza of Chinese descent and a Japanese cop each wage their own war against the Japanese mafia. But they are destined to meet. Their encounter will change the world.
Dead or Alive 2
Miike returns to his world of violence, masculinity, and pop surrealism with this sequel, as two contract killers cross paths in the middle of the same job and realise they are childhood friends. Together, they take a break from killing and visit the small island they once called home.
Dead or Alive: Final
The ace cop of a totalitarian police force and a drifting android play their parts in a post-apocalyptic society. They are destined to fight. Their encounter will change them forever.
Terri
If you saw Sky Living’s endearingly low-key, true to heart Doll & Em you already know the great vibes produced by indie director Azazel Jacobs (son of the great experimental filmmaker Ken Jacobs). His generous sensitivity is showcased in this down to earth school dramedy with John C. Reilly.
Historic Centre
Pedro Costa, Manoel de Oliveira, Aki Kaurismaki and Victor Erice all join forces to direct parts of this toured through modern Guimarães, the founding city of Portugal.
Postcards From The Zoo
Little Lana was three years old when she was abandoned, alone in the Zoo. Raised by a giraffe trainer, the Zoo is the only world she knows. Until one day, a charming magician arrives and Lana finds her love, for she is ready to leave.
The Cut
The Cut tells the story of a father and a daughter, whose relationship fluctuates between proximity and detachment, at the moment of a haircut.
Under Electric Clouds
A work of epic ambition, this vision of near-future Russia consists of seven vignettes centred on an unfinished building whose architect perhaps went mad.
Tripoli Cancelled
Fresh from its premiere at the London Film Festival is this challenging experiment. A metaphorical take on the physical and mental isolation of the migrant, the film is inspired by director Naeem Mohaiemen’s father, who was trapped in Greece’s Ellinikon Airport without a passport in 1977. The film follows a week in the life of a man who has been living in limbo at an airport for a decade.
Bobbi Jene
MUBI’s next pick from the BFI London Film Festival is a love story, portraying the dilemmas and inevitable consequences of ambition. It is a film about a woman’s fight for independence, a woman trying to succeed with her own art in the extremely competitive world of dance.
A monthly subscription to MUBI costs £5.99 a month, with a 30-day free trial.
Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon
Drinking Buddies
Available until end of: 18th November
Ley Lines
Available until end of: 19th November
Autumn Leaves
Available until end of: 20th November
Neruda
Available until end of: 21st November
Tripoli Cancelled
Available until end of: 22nd November
The Beautiful Person
Available until end of: 23rd November
Making Plans for Lena
Available until end of: 24th November
A German Youth
Available until end of: 25th November