The Best Documentary nominee, the terrific Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, will be playing this Saturday at 1:30; we’ll also have an encore of theOscar-shortlisted From Ground Zero, playing this Sunday at 1:00 pm. 

There are a couple more chances to see the nominees for the Animatedshort films with showtimes on Tuesday and Wednesday, and we’re adding a handful of showtimes for the Documentary short films, playing Friday, Sunday, and Thursday. 

Nickel Boys is one of the year's very best films, and I've been longing to bring it to the Pickford for some time, so it’s especially pleasing to have it here this week in the lead up to the Oscars ceremony. 

It's rare that the Academy gets it right, but I think in this case they have: the nomination for Best Picture is more than well deserved. The Academy did, of course, get it wrong in that the film also should have been nominated for Best Cinematography, with DP Jomo Fray doing wholly distinctive, incredible work here.  Fray was also the DP for All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, one of the most gorgeous and visually poetic films of 2023, and so it's no surprise that his visual approach is so astounding here, too.  

Based on the Colson Whitehead’s historical novel, the film--which follows the harrowing experiences of two African-American boys who've been sent to an abusive "reform” school--tells the story from a first-person perspective, but it's unlike almost any other first-person cinematic perspective we've seen before. The camera functions as the eyes of the boys, literally taking the place of the boys' eyes.  Alternating between the two boys’ individual viewpoints, we see the story as it plays out for them, and we experience only the things that happen to them and we see only the things they see. 

The effect is, initially, a little disorienting; it's such a new kind of cinematic language, unlike what we're used to. I've seen it used only a few other times (e.g. in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, where the camera functions for a brief period as the eyes of a paralyzed man), but I've never seen it used for the entirety of a film before. It's an incredible experience and, I think, perfectly suited to this film, where the protagonist(s), who experience such terrible things, are always the cinematic subjects and never the objects: we look with them, we don't look at them.

It's a really powerful kind of centering, and it helps avoid the problem we've seen so often in the movies, however well-intentioned: the objectification of Black people who are experiencing pain. This movie refuses to engage in that objectification, even while it still tells a historical story of the horrific wrongs this country has inflicted on its citizens. 

We'll likely only have the film for one week, and I'd urge you to see it if you can.  It's a wholly unique film, and it really must be seen on the big screen. 

And now for something completely different. Well, completely different at least from our more openly serious and prestigious Oscar nominees: The Monkey, a new comedy-horror film. 

Think Tucker and Dale vs. Evil or Shaun of the Dead. Plus some of the deadpan comedy-horror humor of The Dead Don't Die. 

Directed by Osgood "Oz" Perkins -- son of Anthony Perkins (aka Psycho’s Norman Bates) -- whose film Longlegs last year was a breakout hit, The Monkey will please Longlegs fans, but they'll be in for a much different tone this time. Where Longlegs offered a terrifyingly creepy vibe and not much gore, The Monkey is very gory but in a cartoonish way that isn't particularly scary (purposefully so), and audiences will be startled into laughter more than they'll be startled into fear. 

Running at a beautifully narratively tight 98 minutes and based on a Stephen King short story, the film tells the tale of twin brothers who find what they think is a toy, a musical monkey left by their absentee father. The film's opening scene, however--a flashback that involves a very funny bit-part from Adam Scott--has set us up for the fact that this is no "toy," and the presence of the monkey in the brothers' lives and their efforts to deal with it from childhood on, pushes the narrative forward.  

It's always a delight to encounter a filmmaker who truly loves movies and loves horror, much like what we’ve often seen from Edgar Wright, and Perkins is one of those directors. He knew how to develop intense uneasiness in Longlegs, and he knows how to use cinematic tools in The Monkey like smash cuts in editing for hilarious comedic effect.

Theo James is excellent in the lead (playing both adult versions of the twins) and others like the fabulous Tatiana Maslaney (who plays the boys' mother), Elijah Wood, and Oz Perkins himself (in a very funny small part) round out a superb cast, all of whom know the assignment.

The film's thematic heft is a bit slight, but it's similar in its ideas to those of The Dead Don't Die, and they are nicely satisfying, particularly for a comedy-horror film: "everybody dies and you can't control when or how or who -- that's just life."  A dark message, of course, but because of the comedic vehicle of the film, it's not a feel-bad movie, and I walked out of my screening smiling and chuckling to myself. 

It’s a film for fans of Stephen King, Shaun of the Dead, The Dead Don’t Die, and even more serious works like Nosferatu, a film for horror fans, genre fans – and anybody looking for a bit of cathartic and (literally) visceral comedy.

Our Spike Lee Joint series also continues in celebration of Black History Month, and this week we’re screening Malcolm X, starring Denzel Washington in a dazzling performance for which he was nominated for (and should have won) Best Actor at the Oscars.  Malcolm X is an American epic, and this screening provides a rare opportunity to see the film on the big screen. At over three hours in length, it can be difficult for theaters to fit into a screening schedule, but it is a film that every American should watch, not only as one of the greatest of American movies, but also as it offers essential  insights in our own history and into a figure that has been often deeply misunderstood and misrepresented.  In the film, Lee offers a riveting, rich portrait of a complicated man whose ideas evolved over his lifetime and whose murder, like that of Martin Luther King Jr., deprived Americans of an historic leader in the Civil Rights Movement.  And as Brandon Wilson–who will be again offering us a superb introduction prior to the film–notes, Lee’s film is notable not just for its excellence but for doing the essential work of shattering long held erroneous assumptions about Malcolm X within the American psyche and within dominant narratives.  And while, much like Killers of a Flower Moon or The Brutalist, Malcolm Xrips along beautifully, belying its length (it’s a long film that does not feel long!), we will be offering a 15-minute intermission, so don’t let the length keep you away.  Join us on Thursday, Feb. 20, at 7 pm!  Last, horror fans, rejoice! We’re offering a sneak peek preview on Thursday, Feb. 20, of Osgood Perkins’s new film, The Monkey, in the lead up to its opening week.  I’ll have more to say about the film next week, but for now, just let me note, Perkins, as the son of famed actor Anthony Perkins (aka Norman Bates from Psycho), is doing a splendid job of living up to his horror roots–and then some. His film Longlegs last year was rightfully a breakout hit and almost instantaneously created devoted fans, who loved the intensely creepy slow burn that that film was. The Monkey is completely different in tone–more comedy-horror than a straight horror–but much like Longlegs, I knew just from the opening scene, I was in the hands of a superb filmmaker who intended his audience to have a very good time.  And I did. It’s another great week for cinema. See you at the movies, friends!  Melissa