Oh, the Museum of the Moving Image, how I love thee. Not only just because I live so close, but because the museum has been doing some amazing screenings and retrospectives (and finally seems to have their projection issues fixed). An ongoing Jim Henson exhibit and screenings of most of the Muppet films plus retrospectives for Paul Newman, Errol Morris, Frank Sinatra and Gus Van Saint wasn’t enough for this summer, as they’ve just added a special double feature for next week.
Bellflower (review) and Mad Max.
Details below. Check here for tickets.
A great double-feature film event for a hot summer night: a preview of one of the year’s most anticipated indie films and a rare screening of a 35mm print of the original Mad Max. The shockingly violent, darkly romantic indie film Bellflower, a breakout hit of this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is about two friends who build Mad Max-inspired flamethrowers and muscle cars to prepare for global apocalypse. One of the friends falls in love with a charismatic woman he encounters, setting off a unique, unforgettable tale of love, hate, betrayal, and extreme violence. As critic James Rocchi described it, Bellflower is “Handmade and heartfelt, intense and darkly gorgeous, with the sunburned intensity of a high-summer fever dream.”
This special double-feature event starts with a preview screening of Bellflower (2011, 106 mins. Directed by Evan Glodell. With Glodell, Jessie Wiseman), followed by a live video call conversation with Glodell, who not only wrote, directed, and starred in the movie, but also designed its custom-made camera, which uses vintage parts, and Russian lenses, combined with a digital camera, to create a powerful visual style. After the discussion and a brief intermission, there will be a screening of the original Mad Max (1979, 88 mins. Directed by George Miller. With Mel Gibson), a dystopian vision of the future, with Gibson as a policeman who seeks revenge against the biker gang that killed his family.
Tickets: $15 public / $10 Museum members / Free for Silver Screen members and above. Call 718 777 6800 or order online.