New York is the star of the show in this Film Club series
Join our resident film buff, Doc Crane, for weekly screenings of some of the best new and classic films at the Weston AIC. For a full preview of this month's upcoming films, check out Weston Media Center's newest show, "The Film Club" on Verizon channel 45 or Comcast Chanel 9 or on-demand online.
Moonstruck
THURSDAY, JANUARY 5, 1:30-4:00 PM
1987, 102 minutes
With broad, vibrant brushstrokes, Norman Jewison directed this film starring Cher as an Italian-American widow faced with a second chance at love. Set in Brooklyn Heights amidst a tradition-bound family, Cher’s character is engaged to Danny Aiello but finds a soul-mate in his brother, Nicholas Cage and needless to say, complications arise on the road to Amore.
BE ADVISED–– This film is rated PG, with smoking, drinking, infidelity, mild profanity and lots of red sauce.
The Thomas Crown Affair
THURSDAY, JANUARY 12, 1:30-4:00 PM
1999, 113 minutes
As cinematic confections go, the two Thomas Crown Affairs are notable in that they are windows into the times that made them. The first film, released in 1968 and set in Boston with Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, is an exercise in mid-sixties cool. But in the story of a bored tycoon who stages a robbery for kicks, only to find himself falling for the investigator, there was a distinct sense ennui from that period.
In the 1999 remake with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo, there is no languor whatsoever, as the film embraces Giuliani’s New York in all its hubristic glory, with the city coming across as flush, fun, benign, and safe––an illusion that would be swept away two years later. But the film is undeniably buoyant, with Brosnan’s unflappable, unknowable billionaire meeting his match in Rene Russo’s insurance investigator. If Faye Dunaway played the role in 1968 as the embodiment of glam, Russo is a force of nature, determined to bring down Thomas Crown- all the while enjoying the chase until their affections catch up with them. The third star of the film is Dennis Leary, his acerbic persona in top form as a jaundiced but ethical police detective who provides a reality check as Brosnan and Russo’s cat-and-mouse romance grows ever more intense.
BE ADVISED–– This film is rated R, with smoking, drinking, profanity, sexuality, nudity, art theft, corporate leveraging, musical appropriation, getting tasered, and snagging a seat at Cipriani’s without a reservation.
The Automat
THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 1:30—4:00 PM
2021, 79 minutes
Before there was McDonald’s, before there was Howard Johnson’s, there was Horn & Hardart’s Automat, once the largest restaurant chain in America. The Automats were essentially cafeterias with food portions behind coin-operated glass doors, which may not sound all that appetizing from today’s perspective, but from the 1920s to the ‘50s New Yorkers saw them as the height of modernity, and by most accounts the food was good. This documentary is full of fond memories about the rise and fall of a Gotham institution, with reminiscences from Mel Brooks, Colin Powell, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Carl Reiner, Elliott Gould, and Howard Schultz.
BE ADVISED–– This film is rated TV-PG, with drinking, mostly profanity, sexual overtones, urban decline, 5-cent coffee, well-remembered pie, and Mel Brooks singing.