July 11-17, 2025

Hello, friends! 

We have a whole fresh slate of new releases for you this week, a couple of indie-arthouse gems, Tatami and Familiar Touch, and the commercial blockbuster that is the talk of the town, Superman.  

In a world where cynicism can be the wearying norm, James Gunn's new iteration of Superman returns us to the sincerity of the world's most wholesome superhero, a sharp departure from Zach Snyder's darker interpretations in Man of Steel (2013), Batman v Superman (2016), and Justice League (2017). Here, Superman, played by David Corenswet (Twisters), retains a firm belief in the idea of human goodness and in his own mission to do good in the world. 

That's not to say the film doesn't contain plenty of Gunn's classic humor and snark, nor is it without allusions to real world trauma. Gunn here leans into Superman's immigrant roots, a refugee whose home had been destroyed, someone who is seeking to establish himself and his identity in the home his parents chose for him but who finds himself confronted with suspicion and malicious misinformation.

 There is a particular poignance to this immigrant theme of the film when we recall the Superman character was created in the 1930's by "two Jewish men, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who were keenly aware of rising antisemitism and Nazi oppression" (NYT), and their comic strips underscored their compassion for and identity with immigrants who might be facing accusations of being "un-American":

Gunn manages to work in other allusions to real world events, too. As Alissa Wilkinson notes in her New York Times review, "it also has masked bad guys with guns dragging random people away to be imprisoned in cages where nobody can find them. It has an authoritarian, invasion-happy leader of a vaguely Cyrillic country who hangs a propagandistic portrait of himself astride a horse on his wall and gives entirely fabricated statements at news conferences. It has [Lex] Luthor, who believes himself to be a genius and yet is jealous beyond measure of anyone who makes him feel weak."  As pointed as these allusions might be, however, the film keeps its lightness and, essentially, its optimism. 

It's a film that is not without flaws -- for me, the plot is a bit too convoluted, some characters are less characters and more caricatures (e.g. Superman's parents), Lois Lane (played by a terrific Rachel Brosnahan) is a bit underwritten -- but I have been considering that the overwhelmingly warm reception so far from critics and from the earliest audiences is a sign that we are all hungry for that optimism, a more hopeful vision of America, and for a sincere superhero who believes this world is one worth fighting for. And in that, James Gunn's Superman succeeds.

Our last new theatrical film this week is the exquisite Familiar Touch, written and directed by Sarah Friedland in her feature film debut. It's a graceful, sensitively-drawn film that follows Ruth, a former cook, in the early stages of dementia whose son moves her to an assisted living facility, where she grapples with the loss of her home and the familiarity of that space and with her own shifting grasp on identity. 

It's a rare film that depicts some of the challenges of old age on screen and an even rarer film that doesn't sensationalize dementia; as Hannah Strong aptly notes in her review for Little White Lies, "there is great emotional heft to [this] relatively simple film, and a dignity and empathy afforded to dementia patients (or indeed anyone living in a care facility) that feels astonishingly rare on-screen, where sensationalism tends to bring the house down." Instead of sensationalism, we get something "momentously human" (LA Times), a gentle, but honest portrait of a woman who could be any one of us or who could be one of our own family members. 

It is, quite simply, a beautifully told story, equally beautifully portrayed by Kathleen Chalfant as Ruth, and it is a reminder that while cinema sometimes explodes on the screen, with a muscled man in red and blue fighting a dastardly Lex Luthor, it also just as profoundly explodes in our hearts with its simple depiction of a character like Ruth. 

It's another film that likely won't stick around for long; it's also one you won't want to miss.

And we've also got two special events this week, two films that are among my all-time favorites, The Florida Project, a part of our Third Eye series, and Vertigo, part of our Hitchcock Presents series. 

The Florida Project, written and directed by Sean Baker, whose Anora won Best Picture at last year's Oscars, is my favorite of Baker's films, and it's been chosen by Brooke, one of our wonderful Pickford volunteers. Brooke eloquently describes the film in this way: "The Florida Project juxtaposes an aesthetically idealized world with the ugly realities of people living on society's margins. It takes what is an everyday, mundane tragedy and makes it beautiful. It forces the audience to confront a difficult truth while highlighting the powerful, tender relationship between Halley and her daughter Moonee. Despite having every odd stacked against her, Halley is a kind, patient, selfless, and adoring parent. She's a better mother than most, yet many would smugly judge her, blind to the privilege that shields them from the struggles she faces. The film challenges this hypocrisy, urging us to reconsider our assumptions about parenting, poverty, and the invisible barriers that separate us." 

Join us on Saturday at 10 pm (and you might want to bring a few tissues -- it never fails to make me cry!)!

Finally, Vertigo, arguably one of the greatest films ever made, landing as the #1 film on the Sight and Sound list in 2012 and ever haunting the hearts and minds of any who see it. I don't know how many times I've seen it at this point in my life, but its richness still confounds and delights me. Miguel Maris, likewise, writing of Vertigo for Sight and Sound in 2012, noted, "Why, after watching Vertigo more than, say, 30 times, are we confident that there are things to discover in it – that some aspects remain ambiguous and uncertain, unfathomably complex, even if we scrutinise every look, every cut, every movement of the camera?" 

On its surface, the plot, even with its shocking twists, is easy to comprehend: a man (Jimmy Stewart), a former police detective, is tasked with investigating another man's wife (Kim Novak), an investigation that turns to obsession, and we watch as that obsession turns into something dangerous. What's less easy to understand, perhaps, is the way the film captures our own emotions and perspectives as audience members and turns us upside down, slowly but dizzyingly playing on what we feel and think and see until our own perceptions, even our morality, feels as muddled as the ones depicted on screen.  And somehow this muddle, instead of being frustrating, is one of the most thrilling experiences cinema can offer. 

Hitchcock once said he loved to "play the audience like an organ," and the joy of watching his films is one part letting ourselves be played and one part trying to figure out how he does it. I'll never get tired of both. 

Join us on Sunday at 1:00 pm, when I'll be on hand to offer some introductory remarks, or on Thursday at 7:45 pm for the encore!   

See you at the movies, friends!

Melissa