DO THE RIGHT THING (Spike Lee, 1989)
- Monday, March 5
A bravura ensemble-cast masterpiece from director Lee, who also stars as a pizza delivery boy who watches as temperatures and racial tensions flare between the local blacks, whites, Italians and Koreans on a sweltering summer day. Both seriously funny and a grippingly dramatic social commentary, with great performances from Danny Aiello and John Turturro in particular.
THE BROOD (David Cronenberg, 1979)
- Monday, March 12
This early gem from Cronenberg demonstrates how little his themes have changed over the past few decades. Here his trademark “body horror” is used to comment on families in crisis and the dangers of repressed trauma, as avant-garde psychotherapeutic techniques (courtesy of a brilliant Oliver Reed, portraying the misguided man of science) unleash a marauding band of vengeful mutant furies.
MILDRED PIERCE (Michael Curtiz, 1945)
- Monday, March 19
Director Curtiz, perhaps best known as the director of Casablanca, here turns his hand to hard-boiled novelist James M. Cain’s melodramatic portrait of Joan Crawford’s Southern Californian housewife/waitress/restauranteur who becomes locked in a battle of romantic wills with her own daughter. A brilliantly crafted commentary on the potential pitfalls for women living in a man’s world.
SPRING FORWARD (Tom Gilroy, 2000)
- Monday, March 26
A truly unsung (and almost-unseen) marvel of a film. Actor Tom Gilroy steps into the director’s chair to deliver a sweetly melancholic film about male bonding. Shot chronologically through the seasonal changes of a year, Spring Forward tells the story of an elderly parks maintenance man (Ned Beatty in a career-best role) and his new, recently paroled assistant (Leiv Schrieber).
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