We begin in New York, where, starting tonight, Spectacle will be screening two films by Giuseppe Andrews—and then again on Monday and the following Thursday. Here’s Zach Clark in the L on Touch Me in the Morning (1999): “In the midst of starring in studio movies and Oscar bait (Pleasantville, American History X, The Other Sister, Detroit Rock City), twenty-year-old Andrews directed his first feature, which defies every filmmaking convention and breaks all the rules of good taste…. Presented as an absurdist comedy with no one but Andrews appearing to be in on the joke, the final product is a terrifying slice of Americana that predicts and predates Tim & Eric, Trash Humpers, and mumblecore, but exceeds them all in audacity and authenticity.”
Adam Rifkin’s documentary on Andrews, Giuseppe Makes a Movie, is currently playing at Anthology Film Archives. It’s a record of the making of Garbanzo Gas (2007) and, as Carson Lund writes for Slant: “Giuseppe isn’t an insurgent cursing the wasteful ways of consumerist America; whatever his political convictions…, he’s awfully good at concealing them beneath a disposition of energetic positivity. He excites at the very notion of spending only $1,000 on a feature, relishes the challenge of wrapping a movie in 48 hours, and giddily cites European auteurs like Pasolini, Fassbinder, and Buñuel without a trace of irony or envy.”
Eric Kohn will be at Videology this evening discussing his new collection, Harmony Korine: Interviews.
Back in the L, Elise Nakhnikian recommends Howard Hawks’s His Girl Friday (1940), screening for four nights, starting tonight at the IFC Center; and Ashley Clark recommends Djibril Diop Mambety’s Touki Bouki (1973), screening January 20, 24 and 25 at MoMA n conjunction with a weeklong run of Mati Diop’s A Thousand Suns (2013): “Its cornucopia of stunning, sun-baked imagery, sonic dissonance and sharp political subtext renders it one greatest films of the 70s, and one of the best debuts of all-time.”
Tuesday sees the opening of Flaherty NYC: That Obscure Object of Desire, a series programmed by Sierra Pettengill and Pacho Velez running every other Tuesday at Anthology.
Ongoing: Welles 100 at Film Forum and Eccentrics of French Comedy at the French Institute Alliance Française.
Los Angeles. For Artforum, Paige K. Bradley talks with John Waters about Beverly Hills John, an exhibition of new work on view at Marianne Boesky Gallery through February 14. “Because celebrity is the only obscenity left in the art world, it’s a subject I’ve had to make fun of and use.”
The UCLA Film & Television Archive’s Kenji Mizoguchi retrospective opens today and runs through February 15.
On Sunday, the Filmforum presents Vera Brunner-Sung’s first feature film, Bella Vista.
Good Men Good Women: The Films of Hou Hsiao-hsien, January 29 through March 1 at TIFF Cinematheque in Toronto
Chicago. Tonight, Chicago Filmmakers and Beguiled Cinema present two films Dan Sallitt made before his 2012 breakthrough with The Unspeakable Act, Honeymoon (1998) and All the Ships at Sea (2004). The double feature will be introduced by Ray Pride and Ignatiy Vishnevetsky will host a Q&A.
Godard: The First Wave, “a series of seventeen features and three shorts concentrating on the still vigorous auteur’s early career,” is on at the Gene Siskel Film Center through March 4 and Peter Sobczynski has an extensive overview at RogerEbert.com.
Love Battles: The Films of Jacques Doillon, a series of Monday screenings at Doc Films, is on through March 9. Ben Sachs in the Reader: “One of the most distinctive things about Doillon might be the way he blurs the distinctions between outsider and professional filmmaking—his accomplished work with actors has inspired comparisons with such great directors as Cassavetes and Bergman, while his confined, nonjudgmental perspective evokes home movies.”
Michael Smith talks with Samantha Fuller about her documentary on her father, Samuel Fuller, A Fuller Life, screening tomorrow and Monday at the Siskel Film Center.
San Francisco. Noir City 13: ‘Til Death Do Us Part opens at the Castro today and runs through January 25. See Brian Darr‘s preview here in Keyframe and a fresh entry from Vince Keenan.
Berkeley. Ready for His Close-Up: The Films of Billy Wilder is on at the Pacific Film Archive through February 28 and Michael Guillén‘s posted a linkerrific overview.
London. The London Short Film Festival is on for a few more days, the occasion for Sophie Monks Kaufman to consider the future of the short in Little White Lies.
Vienna. The Austrian Film Museum’s Vittorio De Sica retrospective is on through February 12.
Tokyo. “Last November, Japan Times film critic Kaori Shoji predicted that the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival’s (YIDFF) program of screenings would slant toward sociopolitical analysis, focusing on substance over style,” writes Mike Sunda. “Audiences must have welcomed this weighty exposition of the documentary format, as the success of December’s lineup—dubbed the Documentary Dream Show—has prompted an encore, with selected repeat screenings taking place at K’s Cinema in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward over the course of the month.”
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