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Opening This Week: Oscar Shorts, Bad Boys for Life, The Irishman, Marriage Story and more...
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City Lights Cinema

Greetings City Lights Fans,

Welcome to the Oscar Edition! Last week we caught up with encore screenings of Jojo Rabbit, while holding Little Women and Bombshell. All three of these multiple-Oscar nominees (and the very well-liked Just Mercy) will be ending this Thursday, so make plans to check 'em out! Starting Friday is one seriously packed schedule! We bring back A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Tom Hanks was nominated for Best Actor), as well as Ford V Ferrari (4 Nominations). More on those below. Here's what else we have going on:

Oscar Shorts: Live Action and Animation. These terrific packages are a great way to get your short-film fix, given they are some of the best shorts presented at qualifying festivals throughout 2019. Animation includes several bonus films to fill out a strong program. See more below.

Hell hath officially frozen over: given the continued requests for The Irishman and Marriage Story, I've relented on my Netflix stand in order to give both titles a one-week Oscar-run at City Lights! The Irishman probably needs no introduction given the amount of ink and awards it has already achieved--and now nominated for 10 Academy Awards, including Picture, Director, several actors and much more. It's a long one, so bring a pillow if you must. And Marriage Story, from the gifted Mr. Gerwig, Noah Baumbach, is a tour-de-force of acting from Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, both nominated among 6 Academy nominations. 

The #1 film of the last two weeks running finally makes it onscreen in Florence. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence reunite for Bad Boys for Life, giving the franchise a major update and by all accounts hit it out of the park with their typically hilarious chemistry. "The first thing you notice in Bad Boys for Life, the third entry in what can now accurately be called a series, is that Will Smith has not aged one iota since he appeared in the first installment 25 years ago. The second and rather more remarkable surprise is that this new installment directed by two virtually unknown Belgians, Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, is decisively the best of the trio; it actually has a heart, or what passes for one in a gigantic, slam-bang industrial enterprise like this. Michael Bay is not missed. In all events, this quite gigantic crowd-pleaser looks to be the first big hit of the new year and decade." Hollywood Reporter

We have some killer special events, starting with Nicolas Cage in his fantastic off-beat mode, appearing as a husband/father going rather mad in cult director Richard Stanley's gloriously crazy H.P. Lovecraft adaptation, Color Out of Space. "Stanley ratchets up the off-kilter humor while playing down the deep melancholy present in the short story’s original text. This observation could be seen as a knock on the director’s approach, but for audiences going in with zero expectations beyond a good time, the interlaced humor feels like nothing more than playing to Cage’s unique strengths." The Playlist

In Search of Mozart is featured today (1/29) and an encore on Saturday, and 2/5 we have a National Theatre event you won't want to miss: Sally Field and Bill Pullman in a the Arthur Miller revival of All My Sons

Happy viewing and have a great week!
 
Michael

Download this week's times right here.
BIRDS OF PREY (AND THE FANTABULOUS EMANCIPATION OF ONE HARLEY QUINN): R, 109m 
Since the events of Suicide Squad, Batman has disappeared, leaving Gotham City unprotected from crime, and Harley Quinn has left the Joker. When Cassandra Cain, a young girl, comes across a diamond belonging to crime lord Black Mask, Harley joins forces with Black Canary, Huntress and Renee Montoya to help protect her.
BAD BOYS FOR LIFE: R, 124m 
"Not so much bad Bad Boys, more good Bad Boys. And not so-bad-it’s-good Bad Boys either. Instead, this is comfortably the best entry in the series to date. Which isn’t bad." Empire
THE IRISHMAN: R, 209m 
"The Irishman is all about the end of something. It is to gangster movies what John Ford’s “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” was to westerns. Without a doubt, it’s a masterpiece." San Francisco Chronicle
MARRIAGE STORY: R, 135m 
"It’s funny and sad, sometimes within a single scene, and it weaves a plot out of the messy collapse of a shared reality, trying to make music out of disharmony. The melody is full of heartbreak, loss and regret, but the song is too beautiful to be entirely melancholy." The New York Times
OSCAR SHORTS 2020: LIVE ACTION: NR, 103m 
For the 15th consecutive year, Shorts HD and Magnolia Pictures present the Oscar-Nominated Short Films. This is your annual chance to predict the winners (and have the edge in your Oscar pool)! A perennial hit with audiences around the country and the world, don’t miss this year’s selection of shorts. Lists of titles in each program, along with synopses and running times, will be available after the nominations are announced on Jan. 13th. The Live-Action program usually runs 2 hours.
OSCAR SHORTS 2020: ANIMATION: NR, 83m 
For the 15th consecutive year, Shorts HD and Magnolia Pictures present the Oscar-Nominated Short Films. This is your annual chance to predict the winners (and have the edge in your Oscar pool)! A perennial hit with audiences around the country and the world, don’t miss this year’s selection of shorts. Lists of titles in each program, along with synopses and running times, will be available after the nominations are announced on Jan. 13th. The Animated program usually runs 80 min.
FORD V FERRARI: PG-13, 152m 
"The chemistry between Bale and Damon is what makes the movie move the way it does, along with the script. Bale alone in the race car figuring out how to win and survive is where the film really sings." The Wrap
A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD: PG, 107m 
"There are some very funny lines in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, much of it predicated on the outwardly ludicrous meeting of profound cynicism and hope. Lloyd’s character arc is well handled by Rhys (The Americans), and the denouement is one only a Scrooge could call humbug." Original Cin
DOLITTLE: PG, 106m 
After losing his wife seven years earlier, the eccentric Dr. John Dolittle, famed doctor and veterinarian of Queen Victoria’s England, hermits himself away behind the high walls of Dolittle Manor with only his menagerie of exotic animals for company. But when the young queen falls gravely ill, a reluctant Dolittle is forced to set sail on an epic adventure to a mythical island in search of a cure, regaining his wit and courage as he crosses old adversaries and discovers wondrous creatures. The doctor is joined on his quest by a young, self-appointed apprentice and a raucous coterie of animal friends, including an anxious gorilla, an enthusiastic but bird-brained duck, a bickering duo of a cynical ostrich and an upbeat polar bear and a headstrong parrot, who serves as Dolittle’s most trusted advisor and confidante.
1917: R, 119m 
"Perhaps no film can capture the enormity of that war, which left around 17 million dead, and generations to grieve. Director Sam Mendes wisely takes the opposite approach, personalizing the experience through two young British soldiers sent on a harrowing, high-stakes, night-long mission, he creates a film that is tense, exhilarating and profoundly moving." BBC
COLOR OUT OF SPACE: NR, 111m 
"Color Out of Space is a delightful surprise. The film’s success is best viewed through the lens of Nicolas Cage’s increasingly deranged performance, which always entertains as it heightens, but never at the expense of servicing the story and elucidating just how dangerous the Color is." IGN
IN SEARCH OF MOZART: NR, 128m 
Produced in association with the world's leading orchestras, opera houses and musicians. Told through a 25,000 mile journey along every route Mozart followed; IN SEARCH OF MOZART is a detective story that travels to the heart of old Europe… and the heart of genius itself.
ALL MY SONS: NR, 180m 
Broadcast live from The Old Vic in London, Academy Award-winner Sally Field (Steel MagnoliasBrothers & Sisters) and Bill Pullman (The SinnerIndependence Day) star in Arthur Miller’s blistering drama All My Sons

America, 1947. Despite hard choices and even harder knocks, Joe and Kate Keller are a success story. They have built a home, raised two sons and established a thriving business.

But nothing lasts forever and their contented lives, already shadowed by the loss of their eldest boy to war, are about to shatter. With the return of a figure from the past, long buried truths are forced to the surface and the price of their American dream is laid bare.

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