New York Film Festival 2024

[Chris Knipp]

HAPPYEND (Neo Sora 2024)

Dystopia with a light touch, this film depicts some near-future techno-loving Tokyo high school kids who get into a tangle with their dictatorial, conventional Principal and some demonstrations result after he imposes a high tech surveillance system to spy on them. Sora is the son of Ryuichi Sakamoto and made an elegant film about his late father that was in last year's NYFf. Charming and thought-provoking, this promises Sora as a new voice in Japanese cinema.

Happyend, 113 mins., debuted at Venice in the Orizzonti sectioin, showing also at Vancouver, Toronto, New York, Zurich, Busan, Hawaii and London BFI. Screened for this review as part of the NYFF. To be released in Japan Oct. 4, 2024.

Showtimes
Sunday, September 29
6:00 PMStandby Only
Monday, September 30
9:15 PMStandby Only

[Chris Knipp]

VIET AND NAM (Trương Minh Quý 2024)

A beautiful, sensuous, almost trance-like film about Vietnam's war legacy, its present stagnation, and two gay twenty-something coalminers who make love down in the mines, and help the mother of one of them look for the body of her husband, his father, dead in the American war. In Un Ceertin Regard at Cannes.

Showtimes
Tuesday, October 1
8:30 PMStandby Only
Wednesday, October 2
6:00 PMBuy Tickets
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[Chris Knipp]

PEPE (Nelson Carlos de los Santos Arias 2024)

Writer/director/editor/composer Nelson Carlos de los Santos Arias has many ideas flying around in his head when he unreels this high-concept film, which takes the idea of the banished Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar's dispersed ménage of exotic African animals and in particular, one hippo who escaped from the herd and was shot down. An opaque head-trip whose formats are too variable and chronology too languid to provide a viable experience for the viewer.

Showtimes
Saturday, October 5
9:30 PMBuy Tickets
Sunday, October 6
6:15 PMStandby Only
Wednesday, October 9
12:30 PM

[Chris Knipp]

ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL (Rungano Nyoni 2024)

Surrealism and traditionalism blend in this funeral wake exposure of a dead uncle's sexual predations on young female family members. A continually enjoyable and eye-opening film. The Zambian-born, Welsh-raised filmmaker unfolds another misogyny fable focused basically on the harsh abuses faced by young girls even in ttoday's African society.

Showtimes
Thursday, October 3
9:00 PMBuy Tickets
Saturday, October 5
6:30 PMBuy Tickets

[Chris Knipp]

OH, CANADA (Paul Schrader 2024)

Based on the late Russell Banks' novel, this depicts a renowned documentarian in Canada who fled the US draft in the sixties. Deathly ill, sitting for an admiring portrait, he sets out, in the novel anyway, to undermine that project by revealing all his ugly secrets. But this message gets confused in the adaptation.

Showtimes
Saturday, October 5
12:45 PMStandby Only
Sunday, October 6
3:30 PMBuy Tickets
Wednesday, October 9

[Chris Knipp]

THE FRIEND (Scott McGehee, David Siegel 2024)

Engaging adaptation of the Sigrid Nunez's National Book Award winner about a woman friend (Naomi Watts) who falls heir to the harlequin Great Dane of her dear departed friend Walter (Bill Murray). The adjustment to the dog is a process of grieving, for both her and the dog. An enlightening charmer.

Showtimes
Thursday, October 3
6:00 PMStandby Only
Friday, October 4
3:00 PMStandby Only
Monday, October 14

[Chris Knipp]

HARD TRUTHS (Mike Leigh 2024)

This brilliant film by the great Mike Leigh about a women who verbally abuses everyone starts out hilarious and ends up deeply sad.

Showtimes
Saturday, October 5
3:15 PMS
Sunday, October 6
12:00 PM
Thursday, October 10
6:00 PM
Friday, October 11