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Paul Schrader’s Hardcore is one of the writer-director’s most unabashedly autobiographical films. The opening montage of winter in Grand Rapids, Michigan, contains shots of the street where he grew up, his family members, and places he worked. Schrader has also mentioned in interviews that George S. Scott’s Calvinist furniture manufacturer, Jake Van Dorn, is an equivocal portrait of his father.

That entire sequence is shot through with ambivalence. The Van Dorn clan is depicted with warmth and hominess, but there are cracks evident in the facade: the disapproving comments about modern media; the passive-aggressive way in which the emotionally distant Jake talks down to a female employee; and the absence of a presiding maternal figure.

When his daughter, Kristen (Ilah Davis), inexplicably goes missing on a church trip to California, Jake is determined to track her down with the help of Andy Mast (Peter Boyle), a morally...

” If they move, kill ’em! “

Golden Anniversaries: Films of 1969 features 6 classic films celebrating their 50th anniversaries. This second edition focuses on 1969 and features a half-dozen films, all screening for free at the St. Louis Public Library (1301 Olive Street St. Louis) over 3 weekends in late summer. (This series kicked off August 31st at 1:30pm with Midnight Cowboy). On Saturday September 14th at 1:30pm the ’69 film will be The Wild Bunch directed by Sam Peckinpah. There will be an intro and post-film Q&a with W.K. Stratton, author of The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film . W.K. Stratton will be selling and signing copies of his book at the event. Admission is Free. A Facebook invite can be found Here

The Wild Bunch was a ground-breaking, revisionist western from director Sam Peckinpah, Although violence existed in the cinema before this film,...

“You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it.”

Golden Anniversaries: Films of 1969 features 6 classic films celebrating their 50th anniversaries. This second edition focuses on 1969 and features a half-dozen films, all screening for free at the St. Louis Public Library (1301 Olive Street St. Louis) over 3 weekends in late summer. (This series kicked off August 31st at 1:30pm with Midnight Cowboy). On Saturday September 14th at 1:30pm the ’69 film will be The Wild Bunch directed by Sam Peckinpah. There will be an intro and post-film Q&a with W.K. Stratton, author of The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film . Admission is Free. A Facebook invite can be found Here

Easy Rider (1969) is much more than a 60s relic – it’s still a great movie even today. I find it...

Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI.NEWSBarry Jenkins by Liz Seabrook for Little White LiesBarry Jenkins is set to direct a film about the life of the late Alvin Ailey, the choreographer considered one of the most important of the twentieth century. Recommended Viewinga wonderfully lush and eerie trailer for the 4K restoration of Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now, which opens in theaters on July 5. The BFI and the Royal Astronomical Society have uncovered the very first film of a solar eclipse, captured by British magician Nevil Maskelyne in 1900. One century after the solar eclipse was first captured on film, arrives the first trailer for James Gray's Ad Astra, which stars Brad Pitt as an astronaut searching for his missing father—who was involved in a government project on extraterrestrial life—in space. The official trailer for Carlos Reygadas's Our Time,...

Winter and spring 2019 have seen a number of gorgeous art and making of books, along with some indispensable looks at Hollywood icons. Plus, we finally have the definitive look at the films of 1999, and what made that year so stellar–and so influential.

Best. Movie. Year. Ever. How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen by Brian Raftery (Simon & Schuster)

This year has seen countless looks at the cinema 1999, and with good reason. It seems almost impossible to imagine a 12-month span that saw the release of such varied gems as The Matrix, Election, Being John Malkovich, Office Space, Fight Club, Magnolia, Boys Don’t Cry, The Limey, Rushmore, and The Virgin Suicides—not to mention Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut. All of the aforementioned films are documented in Brian Raftery’s expertly crafted Best. Movie. Year. Ever. And, of course, he also includes Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace,...