James R | On 06, Oct 2018

How do you follow the provocative Chinese animation Have A Nice Day? The controversial film is just one of many notable acquisitions by MUBI in the last year, including Luca Guadagnino’s remake of Suspiria and Godard’s The Image Book, both of which MUBI is screening at the London Film Festival this month. Even as MUBI continues to celebrate Hitchcock classics, its showcase of modern releases finds room this week for unsung modern maestro James Gray, American director Kevin Everson, and – through MUBI GO (which offers a free cinema ticket every week to its subscribers) – A Star Is Born, available 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

We Own the Night – 6th October

One of America’s best, James Gray makes heart-felt, precisely evoked dramas as if the New American Cinema era was still happening. In 1988, New York’s police wage an all-out war on drugs. Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix), manager of a nightclub that is often frequented by gangsters, tries to remain neutral but hides a potentially fatal secret: his brother (Mark Wahlberg) and father (Robert Duvall) are both cops.

Hitchcock Classics: Frenzy – 7th October

MUBI moves to the Master of Suspense’s natal London for its season finale. Wickedly violent and perversely funny, Frenzy is a self-referential, serial killer thriller variation on the wrongly accused man theme. Hitch does it again: he has us at the edge of our seats, and fully aware of his genius.

Kevin Everson: Cinnamon – 11th October

In his debut film, a multi-faceted exploration of drag racing in the Midwest, Kevin Jerome Everson fully encompasses the community, ecstasy, and expertise of this unusual sport. Gently drifting between fiction and reality, Cinnamon is an eloquent expression of black unity and excellence.

 

Other new releases on MUBI

Exclusive: Have a Nice Day

A hard rain is about to fall on a small town in Southern China. News of a robbery spreads fast, and over the course of one night everyone starts looking for the stolen swag. A whirlwind neo-noir, and a pioneering slice of independent Chinese animation. Read our full review

I Love You Phillip Morris

If you thought you would never see Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor passionately in love, think again. Based on the real life of a police officer-turned-con man, the naughty boys behind Bad Santa deliver an outrageously funny black comedy about love and deception, as hysterical as it is subversive. Read our full review

Landscape in the Mist

Young Voula and her 5-year-old brother Alexandros board a train from Athens bound for Germany, in search of their father, whom they have never met. Over the course of this coming-of-age road trip through Greece, director Theo Angelopoulos depicts the failure of contemporary society.

10,000km

With the London-set Anchor & Hope in cinemas, MUBI brings back Carlos Marqués-Marcet’s debut, which sees a couple try to maintain a long-distance relationship between Los Angeles and Barcelona. Natalia Tena and her co-star David Verdaguer both earned Goya award nominations for Best New Actor.

byNWR: Cottonpickin’ Chickenpickers

A late entry in the “hicksploitation,” country music, drive-in movie genre, this eye-poppingly colourful oddball corrals a motley crew of lesser-known music performers and fading Hollywood legends (Lila Lee and Sonny Tufts) into a moonshine-soaked sort-of-chase picture, punctuated by great tunes.

“We are excited to present this regional curiosity in its new sparkling restoration, made from the original 35mm negative. Previous releases were plagued by murky sound and dull colors that didn’t do justice to the Florida-location photography. Here’s your chance to watch it as never before! ” —NWR

In the House

Prolific French filmmaker François Ozon (Swimming Pool, Frantz) crafts this creative thriller: a cat-and-mouse game between a teacher and his creative writing student, whose ever-elaborating story-within-a-story begins to entwine everyone around him. An inventive and entertaining literary comedy. Read our full review.

Gaspar Noe: Enter The Void

MUBI’s Gaspar Noe double-bill concludes with this tale of an American drug dealer living with his sister in Japan. Killed during a drug bust, Oscar’s spirit enters the astral plane. His journey through life after death takes him back to the past and through the present neon club scene of Tokyo after dark. The result is a stunning, scandalous, hallucinatory experience that’s as divisive as it is visceral.

Gaspar Noe: Irreversible

Told in reverse chronological order, Gaspar Noe’s graphic, controversial feature explores the nature of revenge through a story about a beautiful woman who is raped in an underpass in Paris.

Dawson City: Frozen Time

Using archival footage to tell the story, Dawson City: Frozen Time pieces together the bizarre true history of a collection of some 500 films dating from 1910s-1920s, which were lost for over 50 years until being discovered buried in a sub-arctic swimming pool deep in the Yukon Territory in 1978.

Antiviral

The directorial debut of Brandon Cronenberg, set in a scathingly satirical future where fans buy celebrities’ illnesses to be closer to their idols, feels a lot like something his dad would make. In this case, that’s no bad thing. Read our full review.

Automatic At Sea

On a whim, Eve, a Swedish traveler, accepts an invitation from Peter to vacation on his family’s private island off the coast of New England in Matthew Lessner’s 2016 drama.

The Last of Us

N is coming from the desert to reach North Africa and make an illegal crossing to Europe. He steals a boat, but it soon sinks into the middle of the sea. N then embarks in an imaginary surrealistic odyssey where he makes intense and fleeting encounters, and rediscovers his relationship with nature.

Eros Plus Massacre

In the 20s, the anarchist revolutionary Sakae Osugi is financially supported by his wife, journalist Itsuko Masaoka. He spends his time doing nothing but philosophizing about political systems and free love and visiting with his lovers Yasuko and the earlier feminist Noe Ito.

When I Saw You

Jordan, 1967: displaced in a refugee camp after the occupation of their West Bank village, an 11-year old boy and his mother enact the emancipating dream that every refugee has imagined countless times. With Wajib in cinemas now, don’t miss the chance to catch up with Annemarie Jacir’s 2012 film.

Kevin Everson: Tonsler Park

Election Day, 8 November 2016. In Tonsler Park, Charlottesville, the workers in the polling station hand out voting slips and see rows of voters pass by. Democracy in action. MUBI begins a retrospective of Kevin Everson’s work.

Kevin Everson: The Island of St. Matthews – 27th September

Years ago Kevin Jerome Everson asked his aunt about old family photographs. Her reply — that “we lost them in the flood” – was the catalyst for this film, a poem and paean to the citizens of Westport, Mississippi, the hometown of the filmmaker’s parents.

Kevin Everson: Quality Control

Consisting of a series of 16mm single take shots filmed in the summer of 2010, Quality Control represents the careful labour of workers on the production line of a large-scale dry cleaning operation in Pritchard, Alabama.

Hitchcock Classics: Rope

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.

Hitchcock Classics: The Trouble with Harry

The trouble with Harry is that he’s dead, and everyone seems to have a different idea of what needs to be done with his body. As the sheriff gets involved and local artist Sam offers his help, the community slowly unravels the mystery.

Hitchcock Classics: The Man Who Knew Too Much

A rare example of an auteur remaking his own movie, Hitchcock’s Hollywood version of his earlier film is pure 1950s: Technicolor, widescreen, and about marriage: a rocky relationship between Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day. When their son is kidnapped, the couple beautifully unites to get him back in this classic thriller.

Hitchcock Classics: Marnie

When Mark falls obsessively in love with Marnie, an icy pathological liar and common thief, he blackmails her into marrying him. However, he soon discovers that she has severe psychological issues, and he resolves to help her come to terms with her past trauma. The relevance of this psychosexual masterwork (and its troubled production) in the current climate is uncanny.

 

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

 

Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon

Cry-Baby
Available until end of: 6th October

The Bling Ring
Available until end of: 7th October

Rope
Available until end of: 8th October

Avalon
Available until end of: 9th October

Exit Through the Gift Shop
Available until end of: 10th October

Boro in the Box
Available until end of: 11th October

Living Still Life
Available until end of: 12th October

The Wild Boys
Available until end of: 13th October

The Rover
Available until end of: 14th October

 

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