ALL ABOUT LILY CHOU-CHOU 2001
At once grand and intimate, Shunji Iwai’s All About Lily Chou-Chou is one of the great coming-of-age melodramas of the early 21st century and a sublime, singular music-filled portrait of teen alienation and the comforting embrace of pop music that now feels downright prescient. Following a group of interconnected high schoolers obsessed with a Bjork-like pop icon whose private inner lives are only fully revealed in chat rooms, Iwai’s expansive epic elevates adolescent angst into the realm of high art, beautifully shot amidst the verdant grasses of suburban Japan. (Museum of the Moving Image)
Sunday, May 3
Director: Shunji Iwai
Starring: Hayato Ichihara, Shugo Oshinari, Yu Aoi
Runtime: 146 min., Japan
Language: Japanese w/ English subtitles
POLICE STORY 1985
The jaw-dropping set pieces fly fast and furious in Jackie Chan’s breathtakingly inventive martial-arts comedy, a smash hit that made him a worldwide icon of daredevil action spectacle. The director/star/one-man stunt machine plays Ka-Kui, a Hong Kong police inspector who goes rogue to bring down a drug kingpin and protect the case’s star witness (Chinese cinema legend Brigitte Lin) from retribution. Packed wall-to-wall with charmingly goofball slapstick and astoundingly acrobatic fight choreography—including an epic shopping-mall melee of flying fists and shattered glass—Police Story set a new standard for rock-’em-sock-’em mayhem that would influence a generation of filmmakers from Hong Kong to Hollywood.
Thursday, May 21
Friday, May 22
Director: Jackie Chan
Starring: Jackie Chan, Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung
Runtime: 101 min., Hong Kong
Language: Cantonese w/ English subtitles