Over the last 20 years, IFC Films has focused on distributing quality international and independent cinema, attracting filmmakers as varied as Steven Soderbergh, Spike Lee, Lars von Trier, Jacques Rivette, Richard Linklater, Miranda July, Hirokazu Kore-eda, and Abbas Kiarostami.
We Knew Jack “When your character is called master and commander, you better be a take-charge guy.” This bon mot begins Jack Garner’s 2003 review of one of his favorites of that year.
We Knew Jack The last time Jack Garner graced the Dryden Theatre in the course of a public program was in 2019 when we honored Robert Forster with a double feature of some of the actor’s most iconic roles. Jack considered Forster a friend for several decades and was honored to introduce these two films to the audience that day.
The Other Mank Mankiewicz’s second film with Gene Tierney (after Dragonwyck) is this haunting, supernatural romance from the novel by R. A. Dick. Most known for Bernard Herrmann’s beautiful sea-swept score, the film was also nominated for an Academy Award for Charles Lang’s black-and-white cinematography.
IFC Comedies During production of Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2005), director Michael Winterbottom became enamored with the improvised divergences between actors Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. A few years later, Winterbottom approached Coogan and Brydon with an idea for a television series. Surprisingly touching despite its rapid-fire humor, the television series was edited into a feature film that spawned three more iterations.
IFC Comedies Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan are back, visiting sites associated with Byron and Shelley in Italy. This time, Brydon has been engaged to write a follow-up article and invites Coogan along for the excursion.
IFC Comedies Michael Winterbottom, Steve Coogan, and Rob Brydon had seemingly concluded their Trip trilogy with this installment (though they’d return once again with The Trip to Greece in 2020). Here, we see the entertainers working their way through restaurants and destinations in Spain, mirroring a trip Coogan made when he was eighteen.
IFC Comedies Based on director Armando Iannucci’s British television series The Thick of It and haunting the corridors of power and political spin in London, Washington, DC, and New York City, In the Loop follows nefarious Director of Communications Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) as he tries to clean up after ineffectual politicians and ambitious power brokers. In the Loop features wonderful comedic performances and the type of satire we would come to expect from Iannucci in The Death of Stalin and Veep.
By Popular Demand | We Knew Jack | Orson Welles’s Birthday! “I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I couldn’t stop watching. I submit that that’s one definition of an essential film.” Jack Garner would often cite Citizen Kane as his favorite film—he taught it in classes and brought it up in conversation.
By Popular Demand/We Knew Jack Hitchcock was one of Jack Garner’s favorite directors, but when it came time to include an article about the director in his book From My Seat on the Aisle, there was only one title to choose: “Rear Window . . . [is] pretty special in the theater."
Member Movie Night | IFC Comedies Writer-director Armando Iannucci (In the Loop, Veep) casts bumbling Brits (Michael Palin, Jason Isaacs) and awkward Americans (Steve Buscemi, Jeffrey Tambor) as Krushchev and company in this darkly comic film about the banality of evil and its violent consequences. GEM members admitted for free. Only members may attend this screening.
Preservation Legacy: Ed Stratmann Mentored by the museum’s first film curator James Card, Ed Stratmann knew that he needed to get preserved and restored films in front of an audience for the process of preservation and restoration to truly be complete. So, when asked to curate programs, he did so with enthusiasm. Stratmann created this program as a look into the moving image treasures that exist within the museum’s vaults.
IFC Comedies Writer-director Armando Iannucci (In the Loop, Veep) casts bumbling Brits (Michael Palin, Jason Isaacs) and awkward Americans (Steve Buscemi, Jeffrey Tambor) as Krushchev and company in this darkly comic film about the banality of evil and its violent consequences.
The Other Mank Mankiewicz’s peak came in the late 1940s and early 1950s as he received Academy Awards in back-to-back years for both writing and directing—a feat that has so far never been matched. The first of these films was A Letter to Three Wives, based on a Cosmopolitan short story by John Klempner that was expanded by the author into the novel A Letter to Five Wives before Fox purchased the rights for adaptation.
The Other Mank Mankiewicz finally emerged from his brother Herman’s shadow with All About Eve, which swept the Academy Award nominations (fourteen in all—still a record) and captured six, including Best Picture and two for Mankiewicz as writer and director.
When Ed Stratmann gave the James Card Memorial Lecture in 2009, he curated as part of his presentation this selection of films from Rochester’s past.
The Other Mank Mankiewicz’s last film under his Fox contract is this dramatization of real-life events in World War II. A valet at the British embassy in neutral Turkey (James Mason) has ambitions to move beyond his station and becomes a spy for the German government, photographing sensitive military documents and selling them.
Judy, Judy, Judy (Garland) Judy Garland and Gene Kelly shared a special friendship, formed when Garland took Kelly under her wing in his first film For Me and My Gal in 1942. Kelly would later repay this kindness as Garland was dealing with illness and drug addiction during the making of their last film together, Summer Stock (1950).
The Big Sleep The second collaboration between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall was this adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s legendary detective novel with Bogie as Philip Marlowe.
Judy, Judy, Judy (Garland) The Shop Around the Corner gets a musical update with Judy Garland and Van Johnson. In the Good 'Ol Summertime is filled with music from the first decade of the century (“Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland,” “I Don’t Care”) and Buster Keaton adds his brand of elevated slapstick to a supporting role as the owner’s nephew.
