Why go to New York? Films of course

One of the most fun things about New York City is the number of art house cinemas. I can think of Cinema Village, Quad Cinema, IFC, Angelika, Film Forum, Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, Film Society of Lincoln Center, Sunshine, Metrograph and I’m missing two or three if not more. Over the past week I’ve been to Lincoln Plaza, Lincoln Center, Film Forum – twice – and the Quad. So needles to say any visit to New York includes a heaping dish of cinema…..The first two movies I saw were Nocturama and California Typewriter, neither no longer showing. Nocturama (Bertrand Bonello, 2016) at Lincoln Center is a tale of a group of young Parisians who plot to blow up several sites in their fine city. Yet it’s unclear what the purpose is. They aren’t overly Islamic though there are a few who appear Middle Eastern. Their motive is more to target a random number of institutions they for one reason or another detest – from a government ministry to the tower of a bank that just cut thousands of jobs. This movie had every indication of a taut political thriller. To some extent it was but the lack of ideological intent undercut the plot, and about half the movie is spent on the assailants trapped in a hideout surrounded by police, not scintillating cinema. …..Then it was a couple of blocks walk over to Lincoln Plaza Cinemas for California Typewriter (Doug Nichol, 2016). This film is, well, a nerdy if sweet documentary about a nerdy subject, the typewriter. The title is about one of the few remaining shops that devotes itself to repairing and collecting typewriters. And we learn there are some fanatical devotees to the pre-digital word processor – actor Tom hanks, who owns more than 250, and Toronto’s Martin Howard, who literally swoons at the sight of certain age old examples of the beast, such as a 19th century Sholes & Glidden. This is a better movie than Nocturama – it’s tighter and more engaging. The point of it all is to celebrate the near past we’ve almost lost – analogue inventions. Hanks, Howard and people like playwright Sam Shepard and author David McCullough laud the typewriter’s mechanical immediacy for providing a more realistic experience. As musician John Mayer says, “The typewriter doesn’t judge you. It just goes, ‘Right away sir.’” Or author McCullough: “There’s a tactful satisfaction that I think is part of our humanity.” ….More films from the East Coast in my next post.