Scraps on Cinema

I was sitting at a single-post table near the back of Julius' on 159 W 10th. In between scanning the playbills, magazines, and fliers papering the walls and trying to write the preliminary outline of this piece, I just kind of stared into my clear plastic cup, where an orange rind was floating in shallow beer like an upside-down smile, reminding me of the Cheshire cat. The place was packed to the gills, which isn't unusual. But local hero John Cameron Mitchell let it be known that he and some friends were going to be DJ'ing that Thursday night following a Q&A at the IFC Center. The theater is hosting a limited revival through February 3rd of his 2006 film  Shortbus , newly restored and distributed by Oscilloscope Laboratories. Originally released by the now-defunct TH!NKFilm, Shortbus  is a seminal piece of independent queer cinema, an ensemble drama about the intersecting romantic lives and sexual dysfunctions experienced by a bunch of mostly professional middle-class ...

Having spent the last three years in prison for unpaid debts, Rahim Soltani (Amir Jadidi) is granted a two-day leave in order to attempt to rectify the situation with his creditor, his former father-in-law Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh). Staying with his older sister Malileh (Maryam Shahdaei) and her husband Hossein (Alireza Jahandideh), Rahim plans on paying off part of his substantial debt by selling some gold coins that his lover, Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldoust), discovered in a lost handbag she found at a bus stop. Circumstances compound and get in the way, however. Upon appraisal, Rahim is disconcerted by the fact that the gold might not be worth as much as he previously thought. It's an ordeal in itself just to get Bahram to tentatively consent to releasing Rahim from his charges against him, dredging up old wounds of Rahim's failed business and his failed marriage. And though Rahim is initially optimistic, reality starts to settle in, not the least because Malileh, unlike her hu...

On the morning after a one-night stand, web designer Giovana (Renata de Lélis) and chiropractor Yago (Eduardo Mendonça) wake up on the balcony of Giovana's high-rise apartment to a public health and safety alert on their phones and the sounds of air raid sirens. Mysterious pink cloud formations have descended upon the city and other parts of the Earth, and breathing in their toxic particulates causes death within ten seconds. Giovana and Yago, are forced to shelter in place, only able to contact their friends and family via video chat. As the days stretch on interminably, the government initiates a system in which much needed rations are delivered by drones through a series of vacuum tubes. The days stretch into weeks. Giovana wants to keep her relationship with Yago casual, to maintain her independence. Yago wants kids someday. Giovana wants none. She's just waiting for a solution to the crisis is found, for things to go back to normal. But as weeks stretch into months, and mo...

It kind of boggles the mind that anyone could look at the year 2021 and conclude that it was a good year for cinema, or look forward to 2022 with any optimism. Every generation, of course, has its vanguard of critics and cinephiles who are predisposed to deem the times of their youth and innocence superior to the times in which their own mortality, and the disintegration of the world they thought they knew around them, takes on exponential gravity. But, then again, one can also take note of the increasingly defensive posture of those who insist upon the continuing relevance of the cinematic art form. We can take for granted that not merely the culture of cinema itself, but also the quality of the films, are in a state of precipitous decline, if only because the optimistic perspective is so apparently forced, performative, even fanatical. Charges of "gatekeeping," or "elitism," or "implicit bias" are one thing when they roll off the tongue with disaffection...