Hello, everyone!

Nevermind my slight cough as I drag myself back into the land of the living after a battle with the virus-that-shall-not-be-named; it’s good to be back and celebrating movies again! And what a fabulous slate of movies we have this week: Pickford favorite Poor Things continues for one final week -- nab the chance to see it if you haven’t yet before it leaves on Feb. 15. The crushingly powerful and uniquely visionary film The Zone of Interest also continues for one more week; this will be the film’s last week, too, so I’d urge you to catch it before it leaves, also on Feb. 15.

We also have not one, not two, but three new terrific movies joining the Pickford family this week: Martin Scorsese’s multi-Oscar-nominated masterpiece Killers of the Flower Moon; Andrew Haigh’s brilliant and tenderly devastating All of Us Strangers; and Tran Anh Hung’s mouth-watering cinematic culinary delight The Taste of Things.

Directed by Martin Scorsese and starring a luminous Lily Gladstone (whom I desperately hope wins a much-deserved Oscar), Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert DeNiro, Jesse Plemmons, and a host of other Hollywood greats, Killers of the Flower Moon details the true-to-life tale of oil, white greed, and the string of horrific and systematic murders perpetrated against the Osage people in the 1920’s. While David Grann’s 2017 book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, upon which the film is based, tells a sort of whodunit narrative, focusing on the investigation of the nascent FBI, and we only find out who the perpetrators are at the end of the book, filmmaker Scorsese shifts focus to the complicated romantic relationship between Osage woman Mollie (Gladstone) and Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio), and he chooses to reveal the murderers early on in the film, so we watch the crimes slowly, unbearably, and inexorably unfold.

Scorsese’s shift of focus rather brilliantly accomplishes two things: first, it gives Mollie a more central role (rather than giving that role to the white FBI investigator) and thus centers more than it otherwise would on the Osage perspective, and second, it gives Scorsese a chance to do what he does best, that is, to explore and reveal the darkness of the hearts of (white) men. The result is devastating and profound. The murderous men of this film are much the same as the gangsters Scorsese has been obsessed with throughout his career, except here, it’s none of the “fun” of crime that Goodfellas offers and all of the thudding, heartsick depravity that we saw in The Irishman. And with Mollie’s heart and soul as the new warm moral center of the film, the crimes of these men against her and her people are thrown with urgent, sharp relief upon the soul of America itself. As such, Scorsese offers us an opportunity to view a terrible history that we’d, perhaps, much prefer to hide from as Americans but a history that can only be healed if we look long and deeply.

I must note, there has been some concern that Scorsese does not center the Osage perspective enough, that it centers too much on the darkness of the hearts of the white murderers. But while Hollywood, by rights, should have given space long, long ago for Indigenous storytellers to tell this story, I am not sure anyone but Scorsese would have been given the money, the time, and the stars, to make the epic he did at this moment in our American history. And the film itself shows just how well aware Scorsese himself is of his white positionality as a storyteller, for while I will not give away the ending, it is there that Scorsese’s full moral conscience as a filmmaker shines through: with a coda in that ending, he reveals an awareness of his own frailty as a storyteller and a knowledge that the story he has told must and should be told by others who are not him. In so doing, he gives Hollywood a moral imperative and a path forward. Would that it would listen.

All of Us Strangers is the newest film from Andrew Haigh, the British filmmaker who also brought us beautiful and emotionally resonant films like Weekend and 45 Years. All of Us Strangers is no less beautifully resonant, and it features what is, for my money, one of the very best performances of the year from Andrew Scott (it was, frankly, deeply disappointing that such a performance was not recognized by the Oscars this year!). The supporting cast also includes a truly wonderful Paul Mescal, as well as Claire Foy, who is utterly compelling in her role, and Jaime Bell.

To say too much more about the film would be to spoil the profoundly emotional experience that the film is, but I will just note a few things. First, the film has been billed as primarily a gay romance, and that is absolutely an essential part of the film, but I'd say the story really leans more towards a familial drama than a romance, and as such, it tenderly and probingly explores parent-child relationships, and it offers a deeply moving depiction of reaching across generational lines through heartbreak and towards love and understanding. Second, to say the film absolutely wrecked me would be an understatement. The tears for me started about 30 minutes in and simply didn't let up for the rest of the film. I’m not sure it will affect everyone in this way, but I’ve heard tell of many a screening where the sniffles in the audience are distinctly audible. It might be wise to bring a few tissues along to the film -- I certainly wish I’d brought more. Third, I am still grappling with the ending of the film and what I think about it myself, and I expect it may divide audiences. I will be eager to hear what you all think!

The Taste of Things is from filmmaker Tran Anh Hung, perhaps best known for his beautiful film The Scent of Green Papaya, and this newest film is no less masterful, earning Hung the Best Director honor at Cannes and a nomination for the Palme d’Or last year. The film is a wonderful entry in that grand but rare tradition of film where food plays a glorious, mouthwatering central role. Think films like Babette's Feast, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, or Tampopo. And like in Babette's Feast, it's also about the way food unites people in love, in friendship, and in community, but here, the central communal relationship is between a romantic couple, two extraordinary cooks, played by Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel, whose passion for one another expresses itself primarily through their passion for food. The cooking of a sauce, of a fish, or of a vegetable is not just an exercise in completing a recipe; it is an act of love and desire, and Hung, with an extraordinary delicacy of touch, imbues each and every food scene, each singular shot of a sauce or a meat or a hand stirring a pot, with a stupendous energy that is as warmly delicious as it is electrifying.

The backstory of the film, too, adds some additional wonderful layers to the film that make the experience of it all the richer going in. In a beautifully illuminating interview that film critic Tim Grierson hosted for the LA Times with Hung, Binoche, and Magimel, they reveal the deeply personal nature of the film: Binoche and Magimel were, at one time, a romantic couple themselves, and while they have a daughter together, the film is the first time they’ve been in contact with one another for years. The romantic history beneath the surface of the film can be felt, I believe, in every shot. Further, Hung himself has an on-set personal romantic connection: as Grierson notes in the LA Times, “The film is dedicated to Tran Nu Yen Khe, the actor, painter and sculptor who has been Hung’s wife for decades. She starred in his 1993 debut, The Scent of Green Papaya, and served as costume designer on The Taste of Things.” While Hung has said there is no overlap in the film between his own romance and the onscreen romance, his friends have noted the similarities in the relationship and he admits to adding dialogue to the film from his own real life relationship. Real life connection or no, the film is undeniably layered and the romantic energy and truth of it is felt in every shot.

Finally, we have a week packed with no less than four very special events:

Guy Maddin’s wonderfully zany Brand Upon the Brain! is February’s Third Eye film, our monthly series of staff-curated cult movies. The month’s selection comes to us from our intrepid Executive Director, Susie Purves, and it’s an especially unique pick this month because, even in this age of streaming, where everything seems accessible online, this film is simply not streamable. It resides only on the rare physical disc or in the even rarer cinematic space of a cinema like ours, so what a pleasure it is to have a chance to screen it!

Susie writes about the film, “In the weird and wonderful supercinematic world of Canadian cult filmmaker Guy Maddin, personal memory collides with movie lore for a radical sensory overload. This eerie excursion into the Gothic recesses of Maddin’s mad, imaginary childhood is a silent, black-and-white comic science-fiction nightmare set in a lighthouse on grim Black Notch Island, where fictional protagonist Guy Maddin was raised by an ironfisted, puritanical mother. Originally mounted as a theatrical event (accompanied by live orchestra, Foley artists, and assorted narrators), Brand upon the Brain! is an irreverent, delirious trip into the mind of one of current cinema’s true eccentrics.” A trip not to be missed!

Brand Upon the Brain! plays on Saturday, February 10, 10 pm.

And the Rocket Sci Fi monthly selection is here with none other than Reptilicus. In this delightfully weird film, the fun begins when Danish engineers drilling in Lapland find the tail of a mysterious prehistoric beast. They dutifully send the tail off to a lab in Copenhagen, but, as these things go--a door left ajar here, a lack of refrigeration there-- the tail becomes much more than the scientists bargained for, and a new monster is unleashed upon the world. Chaos, mayhem, monsters terrorizing the countryside, all designed especially for the joy of audiences! Projectionist and Rocket Sci Fi curator Steve Meyers will be on hand to give us an introduction, and you won’t want to miss it, as it’s the last film and the last introduction we’ll have in this series for a while!

Come join us, Sunday, February 11, 1:45 pm.

Millennium Mambo is our Cinema East selection this month from master filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien. Keep an eye out for the Sunday Cinema East newsletter from curator, Jeff Purdue, who will offer, as always, a thoroughly wonderful written introduction to the film.

Millennium Mambo plays Tuesday, February 13, 7:45 pm with an in-person introduction to the film by curator, Jeff Purdue.

Finally, I could not be more excited to say that our From the Mind of Jordan Peele series is finally here! The series was created In honor of 2024's Black History Month and of Bellingham's enduring love for horror, and with our 3-film series this month, we'll be celebrating the unique cinematic art of Jordan Peele, an extraordinary filmmaker who kicked off a feature film career with Get Out in 2017 and became the first African-American screenwriter to win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Prior to 2017, of course, Peele was well-known for his hilarious, inventive, and socially-conscious comedy in Key & Peele, but Peele was also a longtime horror-aficionado. With Get Out, as his stunning feature film debut, Peele offered a wonderfully inventive new entry in the horror genre, a brilliant marriage of horror, comedy and social commentary and, thus, a showcase of Peele's passions and unique sensibilities. His subsequent features, Us and Nope, which we’ll be playing later this month, have offered the same brilliance in the marriage of tone and subject, while also showcasing ever-deeper thematic elements and new explorations of genre conventions.

I’m also happy and honored to say that Professor Felicia Cosey of Western Washington University will be introducing Get Out for us this Thursday. Professor Cosey is currently teaching a class on Elevated Horror -- "Elevated horror film—also called slow horror, art horror, and indie horror—is a subgenre that embraces storytelling and character development to evoke a profound sense of dread in the spectator" -- and she is "a film, television, and media studies scholar. Her research and teaching interests focus on representations of race, gender, and sexuality in various forms of popular culture. Her current scholarship investigates post-apocalyptic fantasies in film, television, video games, and literature."

Join us Thursday, February 15 at 8:00 for Professor Cosey’s introduction and for Get Out itself, one of the most compelling horror-thrillers of the last decade.

Phew. What a week! See you at the movies, friends!

Melissa