November is a really exciting month for indie/specialty films and special screenings in Cincinnati, with the action starting right on November 1 thanks to two significant events at the Esquire Theatre in Clifton. One is a special 10 p.m. screening of a new idea that seems perfect for the independent theater circuit: pairing classic silent movies with music by top adventurous rock musicians. The program is called Silents Synced, because the music is timed to the action in the film.
Radiohead provides the music for the kickoff title, Nosferatu (With Radiohead). The unauthorized (and somewhat changed) 1922 adaptation of the Dracula novel by a master of German Expressionist cinema, F.W. Murnau, features the phenomenal actor Max Schreck as the vampire Nosferatu. The music will come from Radiohead’s albums Kid A and Amnesiac.
Silents Synced was created by Josh Frank, a music writer involved with independent movie theaters in Austin, Texas. “This is the culmination of everything I’ve been involved with creatively,” Frank told The Los Angeles Times. “The theme here is what else can you do with your favorite music? It’s about the theatrics of putting on a show for people and using what I’m passionate about, which is music and experimenting with narrative.”
The Times story goes on to say that Nosferatu will be followed by Buster Keaton’s Sherlock Jr., accompanied by music from REM’s Monster and New Adventures in Hi Fi and preceded by a Charlie Chaplin short backed by music from Girls Against Boys. Other presentations are in the works using music by Pearl Jam, They Might Be Giants, The Pixies, and Amon Tobin.
Incidentally, Schreck is so convincing as the vampire that he inspired one of Willem Dafoe’s best performances (which is really saying something), playing a mysterious version of the actor in 2000’s Shadow of the Vampire. Dafoe is also involved with Nosferatu remake scheduled for a Christmas release from director Robert Eggers (The Lighthouse).
Anora
[Watch the trailer. Playing now at the Esquire Theatre and AMC Newport on the Levee.]
In my film column for October, I previewed the pending arrival of this romantic comedy/drama from director Sean Baker about a New York stripper/sex worker whose marriage to a Russian oligarch’s son causes serious problems with his family. It won the top Palme d’Or award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and the lead actor, Mikey Madison, was immediately hailed for her great performance. The film’s distributor, Neon, was planning to take this strong Oscar candidate into wide release on November 8, but the terrific initial New York/Los Angeles results ($90,000 per-screen average from six theaters) led to Cincinnati getting it early.
Anora’s reviews have been as strong as its box office. “Sometimes a movie actually earns the old cliché of a ‘star-making turn,’ and I’m here to say that Sean Baker’s Anora is this year’s star maker,” New York Times critic Alissa Wilkinson wrote in her critic’s pick review. “I’ve seen it twice, and both times I left the theater on a high, exhilarated by the performances, the rhythm, the emotional shape of it. The only question that remains—and it’s a great one to have to ask—is exactly whose star Anora will make. One obvious (and obviously correct) answer is Mikey Madison, who plays the titular character.”
Conclave
[Watch the trailer. Playing now at the Mariemont Theatre, AMC Newport on the Levee, AMC West Chester, and Cinemark Oakley.]
While Anora looks a cinch to be an award-winning major hit, it has competition from this indie-produced and distributed movie now in theaters that opened last week in 1,753 theaters to an excellent $3,708-per-screen average. But more importantly, it got admiring reviews and prompted a lot of discussion in the culture at large.
Based on a 2016 novel by Robert Harris, Conclave is a thriller about the political maneuvering and intrigue inside a College of Cardinals conclave that convenes to elect a new pope after the current one dies. The conclave is organized by the College’s dean, played by Ralph Fiennes. While the entire cast—which includes such respected veteran actors as Isabella Rossellini, Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow—has been getting praise, Fiennes is especially being singled out. Manohla Dargis in The New York Times called him “sensational.” Such praise, of course, brings Oscar talk; Fiennes has been nominated twice but never won.
The topic of political intrigue is timely given the current U.S. elections and also the fact that real-life Pope Francis is 87 and has had health problems. This prompted USA Today to publish a Q&A formatted story headlined “How much of Conclave is smoke and mirrors?” For example, how much of Conclave was actually filmed at the Vatican? (None; the Vatican doesn’t allow it.)
Blitz
[Watch the trailer. Opens November 8 at the Mariemont and Cinemark Oakley.]
The latest film from the always stimulating and individualist director Steve McQueen, whose 12 Years a Slave (2013) won a Best Picture Oscar, follows a boy who goes off by himself in World War II London and finds his life at risk from the Nazi blitz (mass airplane bombing) of the city. Saoirse Ronan stars as the boy’s worried mother.
Memoir of a Snail
[Watch the trailer. Opens November 8 at the Esquire.]
This stop-motion animated feature film with adult themes revolves around Grace (voiced by Sarah Snook of Succession fame), who recounts the difficult story of her life to her pet snail, Sylvia. “What’s worse than the shells that other people place us in our lives?” asks Brian Tallerico in his review for RogerEbert.com. “The shells that we place on ourselves. This idea of the intangible things that we carry on our backs, like insecurity, depression, grief, and trauma, is at the core of Adam Elliot’s moving stop-motion saga Memoir of a Snail, which is unlike any other animated film you will see this year. It’s a gorgeous film, but it’s also an emotionally intelligent movie, one that shifts and flows between comedy and tragedy, reminding us that life can only be lived forward.”
A Real Pain
[Watch the trailer. Opens November 15 at the Mariemont.]
Directed by Jesse Eisenberg, this film is about two cousins (Eisenberg and Succession’s Kieran Culkin) whose tour of Poland to honor their grandmother becomes problematic as family tensions develop while they travel.
The Bling Ring
[Watch the trailer. Screens at 7:30 p.m. November 6 at the Esquire.]
Leontine Cinema’s November presentation in its ongoing presentations of outstanding movies directed by women is Sofia Coppola’s 2013 film based on a Vanity Fair article about a teen/youth gang so enamored by L.A. pop culture they burglarize the homes of celebrities. This stylish movie with a hip soundtrack is one of Coppola’s more successful films.
Werkmeister Harmonies
[Watch the trailer. Screens at 7:30 p.m. November 12 at the Esquire.]
Covington’s Conveyor Belt Books presents a very serious, very beautiful art film directed by Béla Tarr, a visionary Hungarian artist sometimes compared to the later Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky,. The film takes 145 minutes and 39 thoughtful shots to consider the life of János and his uncle György during the Communist era in Hungary. The title, according to Wikipedia, “refers to the 17th century Baroque musical theorist Andreas Werckmeister. György Eszter, a major character in the film, delivers a monologue asserting that Werckmeister’s harmonic principles are responsible for aesthetic and philosophical problems in all subsequent music and should be replaced by a new theory of tuning and harmony.”
Chronicles of a Wandering Saint
[Watch the trailer. Screens at 7 p.m. November 1 and 4 p.m. November 3 at the Garfield Theatre, downtown.]
Cincinnati World Cinema presents an encore screening of a beautifully filmed recent Argentine movie about a woman who says she’s witnessed a miracle. In its review, Variety says, “First-time filmmaker Tomás Gómez Bustillo, who wrote and directed Chronicles of a Wandering Saint, cites the work of writers Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar and Jorge Luis Borges as major influences on what he describes as Latin American Magical Realism. (It) takes a surprising turn around the half-hour mark, shifting from gentle satire of religious belief to something more philosophical.”
Woodward Theater Screenings
With one of the best directors currently working, Kelly Reichardt, reportedly in town to film a new movie called The Mastermind (according to thecinemaholic.com), now is a good time to catch a revival of one of her best films, First Cow at 7:30 p.m. November 10. It’s a lovely, tense, and beautifully crafted film about the challenges two men face trying to create a viable new life in the Oregon Territory of 1820 America. They seem to have found the answer making “oily cakes” with a mysterious ingredient, until it all goes terribly wrong. Although First Cow is considered a 2019 film, it didn’t get a theatrical release until summer 2020, when few people were going to theaters (if they were even open) because of the COVID pandemic. I watched a great many films via streaming that year, and First Cow was my favorite of that year’s new releases. It deserves to be seen by more people.
Candy Mountain, which Conveyor Belt Books is bringing to the Woodward at 7:30 p.m. November 25, brings back memories. Living in San Francisco in 1987-88, I opened my Friday newspaper one day to read the film reviews and was shocked to see an interview with Robert Frank about a new movie he co-directed (with writer Rudy Wurlitzer). Frank was the photographer behind The Americans photo essay project of the 1950s that—as R.J. Smith aptly noted in his Frank biography American Witness—ranks with Howl and On the Road as the greatest artistic achievements of the Beat movement. I knew Frank made movies but also that he rarely if ever talked about his personal work.
In the newspaper interview, he said he was happy to talk about Candy Mountain because it wasn’t a personal project but rather work for hire. I ran out to see it and found its story quite engrossing. It’s an evocatively filmed tale of a New York City guitarist (Kevin J. O’Connor) who takes off for Canada to find an elusive guitar maker (Harris Yulin). Along the road, he meets various colorful characters played by such actual musicians as David Johansen, Tom Waits, Joe Strummer, Dr. John, and Leon Redbone. The movie vanished fairly quickly and seemed forgotten. Recently, though, Film Movement Classics announced it had been digitally restored in 2K and available for bookings.
Get Woodward tickets and more info here.
Speed Museum Screenings
The cinema at Louisville’s Speed Art Museum, under the leadership of curator Dean Otto, always puts a priority on treating film as art, and I consider it a valuable regional resource. Among its November films is a powerful new documentary I was able to see earlier this year via a stream from the Sundance Film Festival. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat by Belgian director Johan Grimonprez investigates the infamous killing of Patrice Lumumba, the anti-colonialism leader of the Congo in Africa. It screens at 6 p.m. November 22 and 3 p.m. November 23.
“African politics and American jazz collide in this magnificent essay film, a riveting historical rollercoaster that illuminates the political machinations behind the 1961 assassination of the Congo’s leader Patrice Lumumba,” says the Speed website. “Richly illustrated by eyewitness accounts, official government memos, testimonies from mercenaries and CIA operatives, speeches from Lumumba himself, and a veritable canon of jazz icons.”
For those interested in all things Sundance, which you should be if you’re serious about wanting the famed film festival to relocate here, Sundance Indigenous Film Festival is an 83-minute program of work by indigenous filmmakers—four from the 2024 festival, three from 2023, and one from 2005. It screens at 7 p.m. November 7.
Get Speed Museum tickets and more info here.
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