New Releases for November 21 2023

OPPENHEIMER (2023)

Only like one of the biggest movies of the year.  Written for the screen and directed by Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer thrusts audiences into the mind of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), whose landmark work on the Manhattan Project created the first atomic bomb. (BLU-RAY and DVD)

THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS (2022) (Janus Contemporaries)

An epic journey of friendship and self-discovery set in the Italian Alps, The Eight Mountains is a cinematic experience as intimate as it is monumental. Adapting an award-winning novel by Paolo Cognetti, Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch portray, through observant detail and stunning landscape photography, the profound relationship between Pietro (Luca Marinelli) and Bruno (Alessandro Borghi), who first meet as children in an Alpine village. Years later, the estranged friends reunite, after the passing of Pietro’s father (Filippo Timi), in order to realize his dream of rebuilding a ruined cabin on a mountain slope. This emotional project, and their subsequent explorations of the mountains, create a strong bond between the two—yet individual dreams, and the demands of society, ultimately drive them to pursue irrevocably divergent paths. (DVD)

MISTER ORGAN (2022)

Intrepid journalist and filmmaker David Farrier, whose previous film Tickled became a global sensation for exposing the dark underbelly of competitive endurance tickling, faces off against his greatest foe yet in MISTER ORGAN, an enthralling and bizarre tale that finds Farrier in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a mysterious con man who is wreaking havoc on his neighborhood. (DVD)

FOUR ADVENTURES OF REINETTE AND MIRABELLE (1987)

Shot quickly in and around Paris during a production break on Rohmer's The Green Ray (Le Rayon Vert), Four Adventures of Reinette and Mirabelle is a breezy, witty film that traces the exploits of two young women—one an ethnology student from the city, the other an unsophisticated aspiring artist from the country. Reinette and Mirabelle (played by Joëlle Miquel and Jessica Forde) become instant friends upon meeting in the first of four vignettes that make up the film (The Blue Hour), and in their first two days together, they decide to become roommates in Paris. Throughout the three remaining stories, they encounter many of the inevitable characters of a modern city: the impossible waiter (The Waiter), the Metro-station hustler (The Beggar, the Kleptomaniac and the Hustler), and the snooty gallery owner (Selling the Painting). (BLU-RAY)

MEAN STREETS (1973) (Criterion Collection)

Martin Scorsese emerged as a generation-defining filmmaker with this gritty portrait of 1970s New York City, one of the most influential works of American independent cinema. Set in the insular Little Italy neighborhood of Scorsese’s youth, Mean Streets follows guilt-ridden small-time ringleader Charlie (Harvey Keitel) as he deals with the debts owed by his dangerously volatile best pal, Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), and pressure from his headstrong girlfriend, Teresa (Amy Robinson). As their intertwined lives spiral out of control, Scorsese showcases his precocious mastery of film style—evident in everything from his propulsive editing rhythms to the lovingly curated soundtrack—to create an electrifying vision of sin and redemption. (4K ULTRA HD and BLU-RAY)

Last but not least, filmmaker Ryan Jafri made a generous contribution to our End of Year fundraiser, and he also included a copy of his short film The Call.

"1965. An accountant hunches over a desk scribbling calculations on a notepad. No matter how hard he tries, the numbers won't add up. He has just a few hours to turn this mess around and save his career, but the clock is ticking and his heart is racing as he realizes someone’s been sabotaging his work."