James R | On 06, Jan 2018

MUBI continues to ring in the new year with a look back at the first films by some of the world’s best modern and upcoming filmmakers, including exciting new directing duo The Safdie Brothers.

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

 

This week on MUBI

Reprise – 6th January

Following Joachim Trier’s unsettling Thelma, go back to the director’s first, a precise yet playful character study and occasionally satirical story about the pitfalls of two young, ambitious writers who are also best friends.

The Pleasure of Being Robbed – 7th January

Impressed by Robert Pattinson’s Good Time? Get to know The Safdie Brothers with their scrappy, hard-scrabble, New York debut, The Pleasure of Being Robbed, which follows a curious and lost Eleonore looking for something everywhere, even in the bags of strangers who find themselves sadly smiling only well after she’s left their lives.

REY – 8th January

In the nineteenth century, a French adventurer sets off to establish a kingdom in the inhospitable South of Chile, uniting the feared Mapuche under him. The response of the Chilean army is devastating. Rey is both an intricately designed adventure film as well as powerful textural experiment.

JM Basquiat: The Radiant Child – 9th January

The story of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose work defined, electrified and challenged an era, and whose untimely death at age 27 has made him a cultural icon.

A Spectre Is Haunting Europe – 10th January

MUBI begins a triple-bill of Julian Radlmaier’s work with 2012’s A Spectre Is Haunting Europe. A Georgian temporary worker experiences unlikely adventures in today’s Berlin accompanied by the ghost of Vladimir Mayakovsky, poet of the soviet Revolution. Meanwhile, his friend Kasimir inherits a substantial amount but doesn’t know how to proceed.

A Proletarian Winter’s Tale – 11th January

Three Georgians have to clean a castle where an arms manufacturer’s art collection is on exhibit. They aren’t welcome at the opening party and are banished to the attic, but downstairs the splendid buffet attracts them. Why not just ignore the unfair prohibition and cross the line of class society? The second of three Julian Radlmaier films.

Self-Criticism of a Bourgeois Dog – 12th January

MUBI concludes its Julian Radlmaier trio, as young filmmaker Julian, ironically played by Radlmaier himself, falls for a young expat and offers her the leading part in his wannabe Communist fairy tale film.

 

Other new releases on MUBI

The Protagonists

An Italian movie crew goes to London to make a documentary about a murder case that took place a few years before. Loved Call Me By Your Name? Be sure to catch up with Luca Guadagnino’s debut, starring Tilda Swinton.

Before Midnight

After seeing Ethan Hawkes’ Jesse and Julie Delpy’s Celine meet on a train in 1995, Richard Linklater’s second follow-up, Before Midnight, isn’t just the next chapter in their relationship or a deeply honest exploration of love and reality (unlike the majority of romantic comedies produced today) – it’s like catching up with old friends. When was the last time you could say that about a film? Read our full review

Django Unchained

Quentin Tarantino’s violent Western is a lot of things, but one thing it isn’t is boring. Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz pair up as a freed slave and German dentist to exact revenge upon white folk – but it’s away from the blood splattering that Django Unchained finds its unexpected depth, with Samuel L. Jackson stealing the show as a conflicted butler. Read our full review.

The Gold Diggers – 2nd January

Sally Potter’s 19783 musical adventure follows two women searching for answers: one investigating the nature of money, the other chasing her own memories.

Kinetta

At a Greek hotel in the off-season, a chambermaid, a man obsessed with BMW cars, and a photo-store clerk attempt to film and photograph various badly re-enacted struggles between a man and a woman.

Something Different

Vera Chytilova wrote and directed this two-part story that took the Grand Prix at the Mannheim Film Festival.

Being John Malkovich

A lowly puppeteer takes a job as a file clerk in an office, only to discover a mysterious portal that transports a person into the mind of actor John Malkovich, only to be spit out alongside the New Jersey Turnpike fifteen minutes later.

A Serious Man

Larry Gupnick’s (Stuhlbarg) life is going off the rails. Or at least, the rails are rapidly disappearing. His wife, Judith (Sari Lennick), is leaving him. His son is soon to come of age, but is more concerned about stealing money to buy pot. And his colleague, Sy (Melamed), is the one joining Judith once they’re separated. Up for tenure and down on his luck, Larry turns to his church for help. Packed with existential enigma, the Coen Brothers have painted a personal portrait of the world they grew up in and, in doing so, created one of cinema’s most accurate depictions of faith – and all its ridiculous (and irrelevant) stubbornness. Read our full review.

Felicite

Félicité, free and proud, is a singer in the evenings in a bar in Kinshasa. Her life changes when her 14-year-old son is the victim of a motorcycle accident. To save him, she begins a frantic race through the streets of an electric Kinshasa, a world of music and dreams. Winner of Berlin’s Silver Bear, Alain Gomes’ fantastic film is the latest to be snapped up exclusively by MUBI. (Read our full review.)

Ava

A young woman finds out she is condemned to gradually lose her sight while spending her summer vacation at a beach resort. While her mother Maud has vowed to make Ava’s month of holidays an unforgettable experience, Ava decides to take a another route.

The Anderson Tapes

A thief just released from ten years in jail, takes up with his old girlfriend in her posh apartment. He makes plans to rob the entire building. What he doesn’t know is that his every move is recorded on audio and video tape, although he is not the subject of any surveillance.

Mallrats

Following his cult classic Clerks with full support from Hollywood, Kevin Smith turned in Mallrats the similarly location bound slacker comedy which stands as a perfect portrait of the 90s.

Double Indemnity

“How could I have known that murder could sometimes smell like honeysuckle?” Billy Wilder’s noir classic, co-written with king of hard-boiled crime Raymond Chandler, sees an insurance salesman talked into a murder by Barbara Stanwyck’s femme fatale. Iconic, must-see cinema.

Tokyo Godfathers

Satoshi Kon is one of the great animators of cinema but, after only four movies, died at the too young age of 46. MUBI celebrates his work with a double-bill, beginning with this quasi-remake of John Ford’s 3 Godfathers.

Paprika

Satoshi Kon’s final feature is a reminder of his genre and reality-bending ambition and imagination. Paprika follows a research psychologist, who begins using a revolutionary new technology to enter the dreams of her psychiatric patients in order to help them. But when a prototype is stolen, it could spell disaster.

The Age of Innocence

Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer and Winona Ryder lead Martin Scorsese’s resplendent adaptation of Edith Wharton’s classic novel.

Donnie Darko

Richard Kelly’s enigmatic, mind-bending fusion of teen movie, horror flick and sci-fi thriller is an instant cult classic, boasting a bold screenplay, a great performance by Jake Gyllenhaal and a man in a giant rabbit shot called Frank.

 
A monthly subscription to MUBI costs £5.99 a month, with a 30-day free trial.

 

Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon

Antiporno
Available until end of: 6th January

Felicite
Available until end of: 7th January

Mulberry St.
Available until end of: 8th January

Umberto D.
Available until end of: 9th January

Radio Mary
Available until end of: 10th January

Cilaos
Available until end of: 11th January

La Bouche
Available until end of: 12th January

Donnie Darko
Available until end of: 13th January

Bill Viola: The Road to St Paul’s
Available until end of: 14th January

The Age of Innocence
Available until end of: 15th January

 

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