From Chautauqua to post apocalyptic action, June is “Pickford perfect.”
Fresh off teaching a course about one of the great pioneers of the movie industry, the Good Professor Kaufmann has penned a terrific feature about Mary Pickford. Unless you are a film historian or total movie geek, we guarantee you’ll be surprised and possibly even moved by this tenacious woman’s story. She was certainly a woman before her time; her success was remarkable and her decline, cruel.
We should also mention that the good professor will be presenting a couple of Pickford flicks on Wednesday, June 3 as part of Pack Memorial Library’s Chautauqua series, held in conjunction with this year’s Chautauqua at Warren Wilson College. More information about the series is on page 15.
As always, the Asheville Film Society, hosted by Mountain Xpress film critic Ken Hanke, and the Hendersonville Film Society, hosted by our own Chip Kaufmann, continue to offer a wonderful array of films. Of particular note this month is the AFS screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope on June 17 at Carolina Cinemas, and the HFS screening of a little seen gem of a film, So Long at the Fair, starring Jean Simmons and Dirk Bogarde.
As for current releases, Chip’s senses were so assaulted with the latest chapter in the Avengers franchise, and with George Miller’s long awaited fourth installment of Mad Max, that he went to see Hot Pursuit. (Color me surprised and knock my socks off – and no we didn’t make him do it!)
The action-comedy, starring Sofia Vergara and Reese Witherspoon, has been resolutely slam-panned by critics, but taking it simply for what it’s meant to be (and it doesn’t pretend to be anything more than it is), Chip just let himself enjoy it.
Meanwhile the clear cut critical winner for both of us this month was a new adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s classic novel Far From the Madding Crowd. The good professor is a big fan of the 1967 version staring Julie Christie, but I am not. The new version is beautifully filmed and wonderfully streamlined from its source material. It will, no doubt, be on my top ten list at the end of the year, and I was delighted to review it.
At press time we were anticipating an onslaught of mainstream summer fare, some of which looks affable and enjoyable enough. There are a couple of smaller art house titles that we’re hoping will be a wonderful refuge from summer’s usual CGI action and gore fests, including Alan Rickman’s A Little Chaos, starring Kate Winslet and Matthais Schoenaert (see Far From the Madding Crowd review, and my DVD pick Bullhead), and Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s anime When Marnie Was There.
Until next month, enjoy!