Make Way for Tomorrow / “Place aux Jeunes” (1937)
dir. Leo McCarey

Between Duck Soup (1933) and The Awful Truth (1937), director Leo McCarey is best known for making some of Hollywood’s greatest screwball comedies. But when it comes to melodrama, his 1937 classic Make Way for Tomorrow easily takes top billing. This simple and incredibly heartbreaking story follows an elderly couple (Beulah Bondi and Victor Moore) forced, by economic hardship, to live separately after fifty years of marriage. Through a series of crushing events, McCarey recounts their final days together, culminating in an unforgettable “second honeymoon” sequence that, as Orson Welles reportedly once said, “would even make a stone cry.”
Opens Jan 23. Cinémas Action. www.actioncinemas.com

Zabriskie Point (1970)
Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni

A smorgasbord of sixties radical chic, counterculture and psychedelic raunchiness, the late Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point portrays a young generation of rebellious Americans on the brink of self-destruction. Indeed, the film’s remarkable closing sequence does just that: set to the tripped out tunes of Pink Floyd, it features six slow-motion minutes of exploding televisions, refrigerators, and other capitalistic debris. Its other famous scene—one that would cause much controversy and garner the film a cult status (currently unavailable on DVD, it can only be seen on the big screen)—reveals a gigantic orgy of naked, fornicating hipsters sprawled out across Death Valley. Did someone say “California Love”?
Opens Jan 30. On limited release. Check www.allocine.com

2007’s Top 5

1. Syndromes and a Century, dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul: This obscure love story set in two Thai hospitals confirms Weerasethakul’s status as one the world’s most innovative filmmakers. A daring mix of Kiarostami and Kubrick, Syndromes constantly shifts from the real to the surreal to the unreal, exploring a myriad of narrative possibilities, including cinema’s own unknown future.

2. Zodiac, dir. David Fincher: Audiences were surprised to learn that Zodiac was not another Seven or Panic Room, but rather a careful, prodding portrait of 70’s working class San Francisco plagued by a mysterious serial killer. This time around, Fincher’s mastery reveals itself not with shock and suspense, but in the elegant way he shows how ordinary people confront the unexplainable.

3. La Graine et le mullet, dir. Abdellatif Kechiche: After the crossover success of L’Esquive, Tunisian-born French director Kechiche has managed to once again find the middle road linking cinéma populaire and cinéma d’auteur. In the tradition of Pialat or Cassavettes, he pulls this off by featuring amateur and professional actors whose startling performances reveal a side of France we all seem to know, yet rarely see on TV or at the movies.

4. We Own The Night, dir. James Gray: Subtlety had never been Gray’s (Little Odessa, The Yards) strongpoint, and We Own The Night’s crushing Shakespearean tragedy pushes ahead without a hiccup towards its (some would say predictable) conclusion. But it also showcases some of the year’s finest movie moments, including an already legendary car chase that may make you want to go out and buy some new wipers.

5. Superbad, dir. Greg Mottola: Okay, this is as basely commercial as it gets, but Superbad is probably the funniest comedy of the new century. Seeing an entire French audience howl for two hours of endless teenage sex pranks shows that, in the end, all great mother jokes are universal.

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