“River of Grass” (1994), directed by Kelly Reichardt, IFC Center, through March 17The micro-budget debut of Reichardt, who has become one of the most interesting filmmakers working today — “Old Joy” (2006), “Wendy & Lucy” (2008), “Meek’s Cutoff” (2010) — is something of an oddity at first glance: an hour-long quasi-lovers-on-the-run drama shot on 16mm in the barren, swampy landscapes of the Florida Everglades. Cozy (Lisa Bowman) plays a dissatisfied housewife who meets Lee (Larry Fessenden) at a bar. Their connection, although they don’t realize it at first, is that Lee is in possession of a gun that Cozy’s father, a former jazz drummer turned police investigator, misplaced. But astute viewers will notice a few key similarities to Reichardt’s later work, including an interest in narrative drift, the mythology of the road movie, and the relationship between characters and landscape.The film is screening in a restored version, presented by Oscilloscope in partnership with the Sundance Institute, UCLA Film, and TIFF — because, sadly, it takes three organizations to fund a film restoration. It was previously was shown at the Toronto Film Festival in 2015 and the Sundance Film Festival in January this year.“The Age of Innocence” (1993), directed by Martin Scorsese, Metrograph, March 20There’s a theory I have — a theory I’m sure I’m not alone in prescribing but one that is not said enough — that the best work of Martin Scorsese is the work he makes after the heralded classics. Following “Raging Bull” (1980), his operatic black-and-white boxing drama, he made two of his best films: the overlooked “The King of Comedy” (1983) and “After Hours” (1985). Almost a decade later, on the heels of the coked-up gangster strut of “Goodfellas” (1990), Scorsese went in the opposite direction, first with “Cape Fear” (1991), a remake that deserves more recognition, and then the even better “The Age of Innocence,” an adaption of the novel by Edith Wharton. Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Newland Archer, a lawyer who is arranged to be married to May Welland (Winona Ryder), a young girl from a prominent family in the same social class. But he is swayed from his devotion by the arrival of Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer), a cousin of his spouse who is courting controversy from the gossiping members of New York’s upper class due to her escape from a marriage and rumored affairs with other men. Wharton’s novels are satirical tragedies, eviscerations of the stifled position of women in a moneyed society, and Scorsese drapes every frame of the film in opulent set-design (Dante Ferretti) and lavish costumes (Gabriella Pescucci, who won an Academy Award), which manage to please the eye with their detailed beauty without feeling claustrophobic. And, as I typically like to mention here, Metrograph is screening a 35mm print, the way the film should be seen.“Baby Face” (1933), directed by Alfred E. Green, Film Forum, March 19This is the film that practically erected Hollywood’s Production Code (it was formally adopted but not heavily enforced, as evidenced by “Baby Face,” until around 1934). Barbara Stanwyck plays Lily Powers, a woman who, after years of being traded by her father for favors that would help his business, flees to New York from Pennsylvania after his death and discovers that she can manipulate men with her looks and charm and rise to the top of a company. Stanwyck developed the script with Daryl Zanuck from an original short story by Cosmo Hamilton, published in Hearst’s International magazine in 1917, and the film was reportedly shot in a swift 18 days. But after complaints that it violated that hardly-followed Production Code — the critic and film programmer Dave Kehr has linked “Baby Face” with gangster pictures such as “Public Enemy” (1931) and “Little Ceaser” (1931) — the studio agreed to cut it down. Luckily, the Library of Congress discovered a pre-censorship negative of the film, which is the version screening here.“Sweet Sweetbacks Badass Song” (1971), directed by Melvin Van Peebles, Museum of the Moving Image, March 16Screening in a restored 35mm print, Melvin Van Peebles’s still radical “Sweet Sweetbacks Badass Song” was made in the aftermath of “The Watermelon Man” (1970), his studio-system debut. The experience was apparently so distasteful that he decided to make his next project completely independently, with an estimated budget of $500,000 (a number Van Peebles refuses to confirm) that includes a reported $50,000 donated by Bill Cosby at the last minute. Van Peebles stars as the main character that goes on the run with the promise to extract revenge on the two white cops he saw beating a black man. Not enough space here to write about all the reasons you should see this film, or how important Van Peebles is to film, literary, and theatrical culture.“Comic Book Confidential” (1988), directed by Ron Mann, Spectacle, March 19In some ways, Rom Mann’s “Comic Book Confidential” is completely dated as a comprehensive view of the alternative comics universe, and in other ways it still captures at least part of the weird spirit that drives many of these artists to create their work. I love some of the sections here, especially with Charles Burns and Lynda Barry, and the variety of voices is worth celebrating. This is a document that should be seen, especially if you’re a fan of this kind of work, and watching it only begs the question: Why hasn’t there been an update in some form, even made by other people, that continues the story post-1988?
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