Starring: Kristy Swanson, Donald Sutherland, Paul Reubens, Rutger Hauer, Luke Perry

Sunday, July 31 show hosted by the 30 Years Later podcast, with hosts Ricky Camilleri (AOL Build) and Chris Chafin (Vox, Rolling Stone).

“All I want to do is graduate from high school, go to Europe, marry Christian Slater, and die.”

Buffy! The movie that launched the show that launched the career of Joss Whedon, a man in his 50s with a legacy so influential and fraught that you might think he’s a former president, and not a guy who’s good at writing believable monster-fighting teenagers.

Starring: Lori Petty, Ice-T, Naomi Watts, Malcolm Mcdowell

This wild, futuristic action-fantasy is set in the year 2033 where drought and pollution have turned the Earth into a desert wasteland. The planet’s water supply is controlled by a despotic company that is opposed by a few courageous rebels who regularly risk their lives to poach the precious fluid.

Starring: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton, Jonas Armstrong, Tony Way

Major Bill Cage is an officer who has never seen a day of combat when he is unceremoniously demoted and dropped into combat. Cage is killed within minutes, managing to take an alpha alien down with him. He awakens back at the beginning of the same day and is forced to fight and die again… and again… as physical contact with the alien has thrown him into a time loop.

Starring: Thomasin McKenzie, Ben Foster, Jeffery Rifflard

Will and his teenage daughter, Tom, have lived off the grid for years in the forests of Portland, Oregon. When their idyllic life is shattered, both are put into social services. After clashing with their new surroundings, Will and Tom set off on a harrowing journey back to their wild homeland.

Oscar Snubs
Despite numerous nominations (including a win for Best Director by the LA Film Critics Association) and wide acclaim including 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, Debra Granik’s brilliant third narrative feature Leave No Trace did not get one single Academy nomination.

Jane Campion, one of only five women filmmakers every nominated for a Best Director Oscar said it best: “Over the last 20 years, Debra has become one of the most important voices in American cinema. And her film Leave No Trace is certainly one of the most moving dramas of the year… I am delighted that Debra has been nominated for Best Director at the Spirit Awards and won Best Director from the LA Film Critics. This is far-sighted recognition…. I believe she should be part of the Best Director Oscar conversation.”

Starring: Melissa McCarthy, Richard E. Grant, Dolly Wells, Jane Curtin, Ben Falcone

The true story of bestselling celebrity biographer (and friend to cats) Lee Israel, who made her living in the 1970s and ’80s profiling the likes of Katherine Hepburn, Tallulah Bankhead, Estee Lauder and journalist Dorothy Kilgallen. When Lee is no longer able to get published because she has fallen out of step with current tastes, she turns her art form to deception, abetted by her loyal friend Jack.

Oscar Snubs
While Can You Ever Forgive Me does have nominations (Best Actress, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, and Best Adapted screenplay co-written by Nicole Holofcener) we feel as if the Academy certainly feel that Marielle Heller should have received a Best Director nod and the film is definitely a Best Picture contender.

Starring: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey

The most personal project to date from Academy Award-winning director and writer Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men, Y Tu Mama Tambien), Roma follows Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a young domestic worker for a family in the middle-class neighborhood of Roma in Mexico City. Delivering an artful love letter to the women who raised him, Cuarón draws on his own childhood to create a vivid and emotional portrait of domestic strife and social hierarchy amidst political turmoil of the 1970s.

Starring: Zain Al Rafeea, Yordanos Shiferaw, Boluwatife Treasure Bankole

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Nadine Labaki’s Capernaum tells the story of Zain, a Lebanese boy who sues his parents for the “crime” of giving him life. Capernaum follows Zain, a gutsy streetwise child as he flees his negligent parents, survives through his wits on the streets, takes care of Ethiopian refugee Rahil and her baby son, Yonas, being jailed for a crime, and finally, seeks justice in a courtroom. Capernaum was made with a cast of non-professionals playing characters whose lives closely parallel their own. Following her script, Labaki placed her performers in scenes and asked them to react spontaneously with their own words and gestures. When the non-actors’s instincts diverged from the written script, Labaki adapted the screenplay to follow them.

While steeped in the quiet routines of ordinary people, Capernaum is a film with an expansive palette: without warning it can ignite with emotional intensity, surprise with unexpected tenderness, and inspire with flashes of poetic imagery. Although it is set in the depths of a society’s systematic inhumanity, Capernaum is ultimately a hopeful film that stirs the heart as deeply as it cries out for action.

Join us for a special evening of short films, curated by artist Alex Da Corte.

Beginning with Art21’s recent Extended Play digital film, Alex Da Corte: 57 Varieties, the program will include Da Corte’s own video work, as well as a selection of influential films that have inspired the artist.

Following the film program, Da Corte will be joined by Art21’s curatorial assistant, Danielle Brock for a Q&A.

This venue has a wheelchair accessible entrance. American Sign Language interpretation is available by request with at least two weeks notice. To request ASL interpretation, inquire in advance about wheelchair access, or contact us about any accessibility-related questions or concerns, please email accessibility@art21.org.

Film Program
Excerpts from Rubber Pencil Devil (2018) by Alex Da Corte
Alex Da Corte: 57 Varieties (2018) by Art21
Frank Film (1973) by Frank and Caroline Mouris, Preserved by the Academy Film Archive
The Perfect Human (1968) by Jørgen Leth
Slow Graffiti (2017) by Alex Da Corte

Starring: Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Tiffany Haddish, Alison Brie, Nick Offerman, Charlie Day, Will Ferrell, Maya Rudolph

Produced by The Midnight Archive, CATCHING THE GHOST follows photographer Shannon Taggart, a New York based photographer whose globe-spanning work focuses on spiritualism, mediumship and seances.  This film gives a brief history of the real-life Victorian phenomena of spirit photography.