James R | On 26, Jan 2019

MUBI concludes its trio of MyFrenchFilmFestival treats this week, with the latest film starring Vincent Cassel. But first, there’s time for a double hit of Spike Lee joints to celebrate the filmmaker’s Oscar nomination for BlacKkKlansman. Speaking of awards, on the big screen, meanwhile, you can use MUBI Go (which offers a free cinema ticket every week to its subscribers) to catch Destroyer, starring Nicole Kidman, at participating cinemas.

What’s new, coming soon and leaving soon on the subscription service? This is your weekly MUBI Digest:

 

This week on MUBI

Spike Lee: Inside Man – 26th January

A tough detective matches wits with a cunning bank robber, as a tense hostage crisis is unfolding. Into the volatile situation comes a woman named Madeleine, a mysterious power broker who has a hidden agenda and threatens to push the situation past the breaking point. Wall Street, America and injustice collide in Spike Lee’s gripping bank heist blockbuster.

MyFFF: Black Tide – 27th January

Dany, the Arnault family’s teenage son, has disappeared. The case is assigned to François Visconti, a world-weary and disillusioned detective. He sets out to find the missing teenager while he is reluctant to take care of his own son, Denis, 16, who seems to be mixed up in drug trafficking. Erick Zonca returns with a fiercely dark and twisting thriller, led by an unforgettably volatile Vincent Cassel.

Les Unwanted de Europa – 28th January

MUBI handpicks some favourites from last year’s Rotterdam Film Festival, with Fabrzia Ferraro’s 2018 road movie delving into the meaning of exile by confronting human vulnerability with the immensity of landscape.

Hong Sang-soo: Yourself and Yours – 29th January

Painter Youngsoo hears secondhand that his girlfriend, Minjung, has recently had (many) drinks with an unknown man. This leads to a quarrel that seems to end their relationship. The next day, he sets out in search of her, at the same time that Minjung has a series of encounters with strange men.

Wim Wenders: The American Friend – 30th January

Jonathan Zimmerman, a picture framer who suffers from a fatal disease, crosses paths with Tom Ripley, who trafficks in forged artworks. Drawn into an underworld of shady gangsters, Zimmerman is tempted to commit murder for a sum of money that would ensure the welfare of his family after his death.

byNWR: Satan in High Heels – 1st February

This 1962 exploitation pic stars Meg Myles as Stacey Kane, a voluptuous burlesque dancer who robs her drug-addicted husband, then skips town and heads for the Big Apple, where she finds work at a high-end strip club.

 

Other new releases on MUBI

MyFFF: Keep an Eye Out

MUBI begins a trio of titles from this year’s My French Film Festival with Quentin Dupieux’s absurd new comedy. Keep an Eye Out places asinine slapstick and ingenuous dialogue in the ripe confines of a police interrogation to chaotic, hilarious and cathartic effect.

MyFFF: Let the Girls Play

The true, kick-ass story of the first female football team in France, this comedy puts the macho alpha males of the late 60s back in their place, and scores with every joke.

The Blues Brothers

A pair of two-bit crooks go on a quest to save the Catholic orphanage where they were raised by reuniting their former band for a charity gig.

Spike Lee: Do the Right Thing

Spike Lee’s initial masterpiece is an incendiary reckoning with American racism in the microcosmic neighbourhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, as we follow a pizza delivery boy over the course of the hottest day of the year.

Hanagatami

Spring, 1941. 16-year-old Toshihiko attends school in the coastal town of Karatsu, where his aunt cares for his ailing cousin. Immersed in the seaside’s nature and culture, Toshihiko soon befriends the town’s other extraordinary adolescents as they all contend with the war’s gravitational pull.

Pity

Babis Makridis directs this darkly funny story of a man who feels happy only when he is unhappy: addicted to sadness, with such need for pity, that he’s willing to do everything to evoke it from others. This is the life of a man in a world not cruel enough for him.

Island of the Hungry Ghosts

On Christmas island, one of the planet’s largest land migrations takes place. Forty million crabs make their way through dense jungle to the sea. But the island’s sublime beauty hides another, darker presence: the Australian government runs a high-security detention facility for asylum-seekers.

Charlie Wilson’s War

Written by Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) and directed by Mike Nichols (The Graduate), Charlie Wilson’s War is a political comedy teeming with refreshing humour to confront a nigh forgotten political gamble taken amidst the cold war.

Hong Sang-soo: Right Now, Wrong Then

MUBI’s Hong Sang-soo retrospective continues with his wickedly conceptual comedy of melancholy and life choices. Two dueling narratives of varying possibilities, chance, and outcome, all of Hong’s storytelling gambits pay off in this Golden Leopard winner.

Hong Sang-soo: Nobody’s Daughter Haewon

Is she tired of life or love? Why else is Haewon falling asleep in a restaurant? Haewon, a student, feels abandoned. Her mother is about to emigrate to Canada and Haewon has decided to end her affair with one of her professors because he is so unsupportive…

Wim Wenders: Alice in the Cities

Phillip is a roving German reporter who, after a chance encounter with an elusive American woman, reluctantly accepts temporary custody of little Alice. Their friendship grows while traveling through various European cities on a search for the girl’s grandmother.

Wim Wenders: Kings of the Road

A roving film projector repairman saves the life of a depressed psychologist who has driven his car into a river, and they end up on the road together, traveling from one rural German movie theater to another. Along the way, the two men, each running from his past, bond over their shared loneliness.

Wim Wenders: The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick

The goalkeeper Josef Bloch is sent off after committing a foul during an away game. This causes him to completely lose his bearings. He wanders aimlessly through the city streets and spends the night with the box-office attendant of a movie theatre.

Vanderweerd: Lost Land

MUBI showcases rising Belgian documentarian Pierre-Yves Vanderweerd, who departs from staid convention to embrace the poetic and sensorial possibilities of evoking the lives of lost peoples, their outer landscapes and inner beings.

Vanderweerd: The Eternals

Vanderweerd’s latest feature beautifully, movingly captures the condition of those stranded in a conflict forgotten by most.

Control

With 2019 marking the 40th anniversary of Joy Division’s first album, Unknown Pleasures, go back to the band’s story with Anton Corbijn’s flawlessly composed monochrome portrait of Ian Curtis, played with intensity by Sam Riley.

Occidental

The mood is heated. Demonstrations are taking place across France, also in front of the Paris hotel where an Italian named Giorgio is booking the bridal suite for him and his boyfriend Antonio. Hotel manager Diana doesn’t trust them and calls the police to get rid of the odd couple.

Renzo Piano, the Architect of Light

Award-winning filmmaker Carlos Saura follows Renzo Piano in the construction of one of his most iconic projects – the Centro Botín art gallery, located in Santander. A rigorous interrogation of the relationship between architecture and cinema, as both artists delve into the creative process behind this remarkable structure that altered the landscape and artistry of the city.

 

A monthly subscription to MUBI costs £7.99 a month, with a 30-day free trial.

 

Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon

Lost in Translation
Available until end of: 26th January

The City of Lost Children
Available until end of: 27th January

Looper
Available until end of: 28th January

The Cotton Club
Available until end of: 29th January

Funny Ha Ha
Available until end of: 30th January

Crisis
Available until end of: 31st January

Poison
Available until end of: 1st February

My Twentieth Century
Available until end of: 2nd February

The Loveless
Available until end of: 3rd February

 

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