Night of the Living Dead + Day of the Dead (August 1^st)

Trust the Astor Theatre to host the perfect tribute. George A. Romero, who passed away on the 16^th of July, was one of the most defining figures to work in the Horror genre. He singlehandedly defined everything we would come to associate with the Zombie film all the while injecting his pictures with the kind of potent social commentary that all great Horror has.

Lipstick Under My Burkha – Indian Film Festival of Melbourne Opening Night (August 10^th)

Hailed as a victory for Indian women, Lipstick Under My Burkha is a black comedy film written and directed by Alankrita Shrivastava that’s drawing all the right kinds of controversy. Following four women as they each experience their own starkly different sexual awakenings and reawakenings, Lipstick Under My Burka was denied certification in India on the grounds that “The story is lady orientated, their fantasy above life. There are contagious sexual scenes, abusive words, audio pornography and a bit sensitive touch about one particular section of society” which sounds more like an endorsement to me…

Fantastic Planet with Original Live Score by Krakatau (August 10th)

Not to be confused with the sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet, Fantastic Planet written by Roland Topor and directed be Rene Laloux is a stunningly unique animated sci-fi film first released in 1973. Consistently ranked one of the greatest animated films of all time, and winner of the Grand Prix special jury prize at the ’73 Cannes Film Festival, it’s an experience that’s truly unforgettable. See it at the Melbourne International Film Festival with an original live score by Melbourne prog rock group Krakatau.

MIFF 2017 Sci-Fi Marathon (August 12th)

From 9:30 PM ‘til midday the next, get ready and comfortable for this year’s sci-fi marathon brought by the Astor Theatre and the Melbourne International Film Festival. Including some of the stranger, lesser-known and under-appreciated films of the genre, from Tetsuo: The Iron Man to David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ, even the biggest sci-fi fans have got something to look forward to here.

I Am Not Your Negro – Melbourne Premiere at MIFF (August 13^th)

One of the most famous and widely respected public intellectuals, when such a thing wasn’t a rarity, to live, James Baldwin only grows more relevant with every year that passes. Long overdue for a proper documentary portrait, I Am Not Your Negro has been sweeping up awards from festival to festival. Don’t miss it, and go buy Go Tell It On The Mountain while you’re at it.

Once upon a time, if you’d believe it, there were directors that not only were most recognized for their work in a genre that’s as good as dead today, but they made their entire career out of it. Directors like John Frankenheimer and Alan J. Pakula made some of the most defining films of the 1960’s and 70’s, films that captured the paranoia and cynicism of a culture that felt they were at the brink of Nuclear War. Films like The Manchurian Candidate, Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View and All the President’s Men.

Like the Western or the Slasher genre, the Paranoia Thriller hasn’t disappeared entirely. Just as Hollywood and others will keep pumping out the occasional 3:10 to Yuma and True Grit, they’ll keep pumping out Syriana and Michael Clayton. But while these films don’t seem to have too hard a battle to win themselves a couple of deserved awards, they don’t seem to stick to the culture like the genre once did. Back in 1976 there wasn’t a more appropriate film for the Zeitgeist than one like All the President’s Men.

But why’s that the case? All the President’s Men, for those unfamiliar, tells the story of the Washington Post journalists Woodward and Bernstein investigating the Watergate Scandal that lead to Richard Nixon’s resignation as President. It was the final entry in the loose thematic “paranoia” trilogy by director Alan J. Pakula, following 1971’s Klute and 1974’s The Parallax View. Considering the current POTUS’s potential collusion with Russia during the election, no one needs reminding what it feels like to have a potentially criminal President.

With the Vietnam War and connected protests, the Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis and the wider Cold War, not only did it seem like the fingers were only an inch away from entering the Nuclear Launch Codes but it was becoming harder and harder to be patriotic. All of a sudden, we had governments we no longer felt we could trust, we had police shooting protesters like the four dead in Ohio, we had masked terrorists breaking into the Munich Olympic Village and killing 11 Israeli athletes, we had weapons that had the power to destroy the world and our enemies had them too, we had more close calls than we had fingers on each hand. It felt like you weren’t able to place your trust in anyone anymore and perhaps, as The Manchurian Candidate questioned, that included yourself.

So where are we at today that’s so much different to then? Those feelings never seemed to disappear entirely, always simmering in the background waiting for something to tip the scales again and in 2001 we got it. Since 9/11 we’ve swapped what was once World War III paranoia for the fear that one day, who knows where or when, another group of ideological terrorists will carry out an attack we could never see coming. The paranoia is back, and with all the wide reaching social consequences that the old one had, we’ve got what looks like it could turn out to be a modern-day Watergate scandal in the Trump Campaign’s Russian conspirators, we’ve got dodgy Wall Street investments leading to global financial collapse and the promise that all of it might happen again very soon.

While, all the way back in the 60’s and 70’s when the vast majority of these films were made, they were considered to be timely and of the era they’ve never really dated. The climate today is perfect for the genre to have a renaissance, and we have the writers and the directors to make it happen. Who wouldn’t want to see John Hillcoat, or Andrew Dominik, or David Michôd, or Denis Villeneuve, or David Fincher tackle a genre like this?

Escape from Alcatraz

The last film in a five-film collaboration between Clint Eastwood and director Don Siegel, Escape from Alcatraz tends to go through phases, one minute it’s a well-loved classic and then the next everyone seems to have forgotten about it all over again. Same can be said for its director. With films like Dirty Harry, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the John Cassavetes/Lee Marvin version of The Killers, he’s more than earnt his place among the greats.

Cinema Paradiso

Alright, more than a little bit of a left-turn from Escape for Alcatraz, Cinema Paradiso is about a man who finds purpose in life after discovering the magic of cinema, and cinema doesn’t get much more magical than this film. With a score by Ennio Morricone and one of the most beautiful montages ever put to celluloid, this film is a must see. It’s guaranteed to stick to you like glue.

The Battle of Midway

Can’t say I’ve seen the list of directors awarded a Purple Heart military medal of honour, but I can’t imagine it’s very long. John Ford, the man behind virtually every great John Wayne Western, as part of the same initiative that led to John Huston’s Let There Be Light directed the grainy, vibrantly coloured, patriotically scored documentary of the Battle of Midway, a turning point in the Pacific Theatre.

Drunken Master

Along with Police Story, Drunken Master both introduced Jackie Chan to his what-would-become-rabid Western fanbase as well as establish many of the martial arts film clichés we know and parody today. As always, Jackie Chan is effortlessly charming, a seemingly natural comedian and one hell of a martial artist. There’s perhaps some relief to be had in that Drunken Master stands before the time when each Jackie Chan film seemed to always be trying to one-up the stunts from the previous film. It’s exactly what it should be, it knows what it is and it’s brilliant.

The Civil War by Ken Burns

As far as anyone’s concerned, Ken Burns might as well have invented the television documentary. His style, whether or not he really was the originator of it, is so widely mimicked and parodied that someone might have experienced the parody before the original. The Civil War, along with Jazz and Baseball, is a must-watch from the Ken Burns library. It’s a rich, blink-and-you’ll-miss-twenty-details, seemingly minute-by-minute account of the darkest chapter in American history.

The Astor’s brought out of the big guns this time. With a run of Kubrick, a run of the Coen Brothers and a run of Hitchcock classics, if that was all there was it’d still be a ripper of a calendar but of course that’s not the case. As always, this list could be twenty entries longer but here are my top five sessions not to miss this time ‘round.

North By Northwest (July 20th, 7:30PM)

It’s kind of hilarious that one of the most iconic Hitchcock films (and iconic Cary Grant performances, for that matter) was written solely because they couldn’t crack the thing they were supposed to be writing. Facing writer’s block, Alfred Hitchcock simply started flinging sequence ideas at screenwriter Ernest Lehman and it was up to him to make it all work. From the sequence at the United Nations, the Crop Duster, to Mount Rushmore, as Lehman said himself “Since I never knew where I was going next, I was constantly painting myself into corners, and then trying to figure a way out of them.” North By Northwest is the perfect example of how sometimes making it up as you go along is the best thing you can do.

Rope (July 27th, 7:30PM)

If you don’t know Rope, it did the whole “film in one shot” thing a lot earlier than Birdman and it did it in 1948. Starring Farley Granger and John Dall as young arrogant too-smart-for-their-own-good Nietzsche loving murderers based on real-life Leopold and Loeb, Rope is Hitchcock at his suspenseful best. Like Lifeboat, Rear Window or North By Northwest, Hitchcock was a master of painting himself in a corner. He used self-imposed limitations to bring out everything he had as a filmmaker and the results speak for themselves. There’s a reason Hitchcock’s been so widely mimicked for over half a century.

Badlands/Days of Heaven (July 30th, 7PM)

For a while people wondered if these two masterpieces would be the only films Terrence Malick would ever release, and while I’m not nearly as negative about his post Thin Red Line work as some people, if these two were the last I wouldn’t complain. Badlands will always be my favourite, and Days of Heaven always my very, very close second. These films manage to be both accessible, concise and familiar as well as deeply thoughtful, philosophical, rich and inventive. Two of the finest examples of the New Hollywood era of American Filmmaking.

Dirty Harry/Magnum Force (September 3rd, 7PM)

While it may be Sudden Impact that gave us the second enduring Harry Callahan quote in “Go ahead, make my day”, it’s Magnum Force that stands as the only truly great Dirty Harry sequel. While the original had uncredited rewrites from both Terrence Malick and John Milius, Magnum Force finally gives Milius a screen credit along with a then-unknown Michael Cimino. With Milius moving on to Apocalypse Now and Cimino on to The Deer Hunter, what better writing duo to tackle the king of all tough guy cops.

The Conversation/Three Days of the Condor (September 6th, 7:30PM)

Here are two of the finest examples of a genre that I really miss, not like I was even alive to see it at its height. Whatever happened to the Paranoia Thriller? The Conversation and Three Days of the Condor are absolutely gripping from start to finish, they’re unpredictable, they’re terrifying and they’re so meticulously plotted that, while you’ll feel your fair share of unease, you’ll never feel like you aren’t in good hands.