CRITERION CHANNEL GRILL SAFDIE BROS ON THE FILMS THEY LOVE

The Criterion Channel continues to provide premium viewing options over the isolation period. A jewel in their programming crown is Adventures in Moviegoing, the ‘films that inspire me’ series that has gone one-on-one with such talents as Sofia Coppola, Paul Feig, Guillermo del Toro, Brad Bird and Julie Taymor. This Sunday May 3, presenter Peter Becker goes one-on-two, when he chats with Josh and Benny Safdie, the filmmaking brothers behind such anxiety-inducing thrillers as Uncut Gems (2019), Good Times (2017) and Heaven Knows What (2014).

Ahead of the latest episode, a handful of works that The Safdies will be referencing were announced, allowing fans time to catch up with the films and filmmakers that rev up the already frantic creative impulses of two of Hollywood’s most exciting young directors...

THE NAKED CITY (Dir: Jules Dassin; U.S.A., 1948) Stars: Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff (pictured, right) and Dorothy Hart. WINNER - 1949 Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Editing.
Plot: Two New York City detectives investigate the death of an attractive young woman. The apparent suicide turns out to be murder.
Need to know…: One of the first films to list technical credits at the end of the movie; a young photographer named Stanley Kubrick shot behind-the-scenes stills for Look magazine. 

IN A LONELY PLACE (Dir: Nicholas Ray; U.S.A., 1950) Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame and Frank Lovejoy.
Plot: A potentially violent screenwriter is a murder suspect until his lovely neighbor clears him. However, she soon starts to have her doubts.
Need to know…: Included in the National Film Registry in 2007; the marriage of star Gloria Grahame and director Nicholas Ray dissolved during filming, the pair keeping it secret from the studio for fear that one of them would be replaced.

CAMERA BUFF (Dir: Krzysztof Kieślowski; Poland, 1979) Stars: Jerzy Stuhr, Malgorzata Zabkowska and Ewa Pokas. WINNER - Golden Prize and FIPRESCI Prize at the 1979 Moscow International Film Festival. 
Plot: When a young father buys an eight-millimetre movie camera to record his new baby’s growth, he inadvertently becomes the official photographer for the local bureaucracy. His new passion comes with domestic stress and fresh philosophical dilemmas.
Need to know…: One of four films shot by Kieślowski in 1979, alongside Seven Women of Different Ages, From a Night Porter’s Point of View, and Kartoteka.   

GLORIA (Dir: John Cassavetes; U.S.A., 1980) Stars: Gena Rowlands (pictured, right), Buck Henry and Julie Carmen. WINNER - 1980 Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
Plot: When a young boy's family is killed by the mob, their tough neighbor Gloria becomes his reluctant guardian and the pair go on the run in New York.
Need to know…: After Faces (1968) and A Woman Under the Influence (1974), this was John Cassavetes’ third film to receive an Academy Award nomination - for his wife Gena Rowlands, for Best Actress. 

BLESS THEIR LITTLE HEARTS (Dir: Billy Woodberry, 1984) Stars: Nate Hardman, Kaycee Moore and Angela Burnett. WINNER - Otto Dibelius ‘New Cinema’ Film Award at the 1984 Berlin International Film Festival.
Plot: Charlie Banks views his chronic unemployment as a spiritual trial, but he can’t sustain a family of five. While his wife works to support them with dignity, Charlie has an affair that threatens his marriage and family.
Need to know…: Included in the 2013 National Film Registry; featured in Thom Andersen’s landmark 2003 collage film, Los Angeles Plays Itself.

MEANTIME (Dir: Mike Leigh, 1984) Stars Marion Bailey, Tim Roth and Phil Daniels. 
Plot: A working-class family struggles to stay afloat during the recession under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Mother is working, but father and the couple’s two sons are on the dole.
Need to know…: Gary Oldman suffered an eye injury when Tim Roth threw a milk bottle into a fluorescent lighting strip, showering Oldman in glass and requiring a hospital stay; was made for British television, though scored theatrical seasons internationally after critical success at home.

CLOSE-UP (Dir: Abbas Kiarostami, 1990; pictured, right) Stars Hossain Sabzian, Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Abolfazl Ahankhah. NOMINEE - Cahiers du Cinéma Top 10 Films of 1991 (5th place)
Plot: Pretending to be filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf, a conman enters a middle class home in Tehran, offering a prominent part in a next movie. The actual people involved in the incident re-enact the events that followed.
Need to know…: Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.

HERO (Dir: Stephen Frears; U.S.A., 1992) Stars Dustin Hoffman, Geena Davis and Andy Garcia.
Plot: A down-on-his-luck thief tops of a bad day when he loses a shoe while rescuing passengers of a plane crash. Celebrity beckons for the petty crook and he plans to take advantage, but then someone else claims credit for it.
Need to know…: Mariah Carey originally recorded her hit single, "Hero", for this movie, Sony Records did not think the power ballad was a good fit; Chevy Chase appears uncredited in the Columbia Pictures release because of contractual obligations he had with Warner Bros at the time.

THE MIRROR (Dir: Jafar Panahi; Iran, 1997) Stars Mina Mohammad Khani, Aida Mohammadkhani and Kazem Mojdehi. WINNER - Golden Leopard at the 1997 Locarno International Film Festival. 
Plot: When a young girl becomes lost in the hustle and bustle of Tehran, her journey turns into a dazzling exercise on the nature of film itself.
Need to know…: Panahi has said that the film was meant to show how "reality and the imagination are intertwined, they are very similar".

ADVENTURES IN MOVIEGOING with JOSH and BEN SAFDIE will have its international premiere on Sunday May 3 via The Criterion Channel.