With both the festive season upon us and new restrictions imposed on cinemas, the mack is back and we’re here to discuss our cinema comforts! We discuss our chicken-soup films that we watch religiously, as well as try to determine the common themes tying our movie choices that can reveal what we find comforting about our picks.
Film Club
With director Viktor van der Valk joining our next episode to discuss transcendental films, we have picked Au Hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966) as both our film club pick and an alternative Christmas watch. It is currently available on Mubi and will be kicking off our conversation with Viktor! Let us know your thoughts.
Next episode
Transcendental films with Viktor van der Valk
Viktor van der Valk (Iceland, 1987) directed Wegloos/Vegleysa (2011) while studying at the School of the Arts Utrecht (HKU). The short was selected for the Debut Competition at the Netherlands Film Festival. After three years at the HKU, Van der Valk continued his film education at the Netherlands Film Academy in Amsterdam, where he made the short films Steen/Brick (2013) and Onno de Onwetende/Onno the Oblivious (2014). Nocturne is his first feature and has its world premiere at IFFR 2019. His brother, actor Vincent van der Valk, plays the lead role.
Films mentioned
(click on the links for tickets to screenings at LAB111)
- Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria, 2019)
- Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006)
- The Beatles: Get Back (Peter Jackson, 2021)
- Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993)
- It’s A Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946)
- Tick, Tick… Boom! (Lin-Manuel Miranda, 2021)
- West Side Story (Steven Spielberg, 2021)
- West Side Story (Jerome Robins & Robert Wise, 1961)
- Spielberg (Susan Lacy, 2017)
- Lost In Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
- Her (Spike Jonze, 2013)
- The Lord of the Rings trilogy (Peter Jackson, 2001-03)
- Damnation (Béla Tarr, 1988)
- Mean Girls (Mark Waters, 2004)
- Unfriended (Levan Gabriadze, 2014)
- School Of Rock (Richard Linklater, 2003)
- A Serious Man (Ethan & Joel Coen, 2009)
- The Big Lebowski (Ethan & Joel Coen, 1998)
- Fargo (Ethan & Joel Coen, 1996)
- La Haine (Matthieu Kassovitz, 1995)
- Miami Vice (Michael Mann, 2006)
- Blade Runner 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)
- Tenet (Christopher Nolan, 2020)
- Dune (Denis Villeneuve, 2021)
- Sicario (Denis Villeneuve, 2015)
- Old (M. Night Shyamalan, 2021)
- The Muppet Christmas Carol (Brian Henson, 1992)
- Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988)
- Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)
- It Happened One Night (Frank Capra, 1934)
- Paddington (Paul King, 2014)
- Gremlins (Joe Dante, 1984)
- Jingle All The Way (Brian Levant, 1996)
- Singin’ In The Rain (Stanley Donen & Gene Kelly, 1952)
- Sátántangó (Béla Tarr, 1994)
- Cold War (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2018)
- Heat (Michael Mann, 1995)
Our hosts
