Stuff I Have Been Watching May 2020 (Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month)

1. Enter the Dragon. 1973. Directed by Robert Clouse. Starring Bruce Lee, John Saxon, and Jim Kelly. via the amazon app. with Michal, Marta, and Monika. 2 May
2. Deadwood season 2. HBO. with Michal.
3. Becoming. Directed by Nadia Hallgren. 2020. Join former first lady Michelle Obama in an intimate documentary looking at her life, hopes, and connection with others as she tours with "Becoming." via the Netflix app. with Marta and Monika. 6 May.
4. A Taxing Woman. Directed by Juzo Itami. 1987. Japan. Starring Nobuku Miyamotu. A fierce and dedicated tax collector ruthlessly pursues a hood operating adult motels and crooked real estate deals. with Michal. via the Criterion Channel. 5 May.
5. The Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion. Directed by Juzo Itami. 1992. Japan. An upscale Japanese hotel hires Mahiru Inoue, a lawyer adept at dealing with the Yakuza, to help them ride their hotel of the local gangsters so they can get a contract for a meeting of important foreign officials. via the Criterion Channel app. 11 May.
6. Uncut Gems. Directed by Josh and Bennie Safdie. 2019. United States. Starring Adam Sandler, Lakeith Stanfield, Julia Fox, Kevin Garnett, Idina Menzel, Eric Bogosian, Judd Hirsch. From acclaimed filmmakers Josh and Bennie Safdie comes an electrifying thriller about Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler), a charismatic New York City jeweler always on the lookout for the next big score. When he makes a series of high-stakes bets that could lead to the windfall of a lifetime, Howard must perform a precarious high-wire act, balancing business, family, and encroaching adversaries on all sides, in his relentless pursuit of the ultimate win. Purchased from iTunes and watched via the movies app. 17 May. 
7. Woman in Witness Protection. Directed by Juzo Itami. 1997. Japan. Biwako is the sole witness to a grizzly murder. When she is convinced to play bait for the killer, two cops are assigned to protect her, one who is a super-fan and the other who couldn’t car who she is. Via the Criterion Channel app. 21 May.
8. Stray Dogs. Directed by Tsai Ming-liang. 2013. Taiwan, France. Starring Lee Kang-Sheng, Yang Kuei-mei, Lu Yi-ching. On the margins of a crumbling, perpetually rain-soaked Taipei, a single father (Lee Kang-sheng) makes his meager living holding up an advertising placard on a traffic island in the middle of a busy highway. His children, meanwhile, wait out their days in supermarkets, living off samples of free food. And then one day a mysterious woman enters their lives. There are real stray dogs to be fed in Tsai’s everyday apocalypse, but the title also refers to its principal characters, living the crueles of existences on the ragged edges of the modern world. Stray Dogs is many things at once: minimal in its narrative content and syntax, as visually powerful as it is emotionally overwhelming, and bracingly pure in both its anger and its compassion. Via the Criterion Channel. 22 May.
9. Law of the Border. Directed by Lutfi Akad. 1966. Turkey. Starring Yilmaz Guney. Set along the Turkish-Syrian frontier, this terse, elemental tale of sumgglers contending with a changing social landscape brought together two giants of Turkish cinema. Director Lutfi O. Akad had already made some of his country’s most notable films when he was approached by Yilmaz Guney — a rising action star who would become Turkey’s most important and controversial filmmaker — to collaborate on this neo-Western about a quiet man who finds himself pitted against his fellow outlaws. Combining documentary authenticity with a tough, lean poetry, Law of the Border transformed the nations’ cinema forever — even though it was virtually impossible to see for many years. Via the Criterion Channel. 23 May.
10. Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Directed by Bi Gan. 2018. China. Starring Tang Wei, Huang Jue, Sylvia Chang. Bi Gan’s dazzling sophomore feature is a hallucinatory, noir-tinged stunner about a lost soul (Huang Jue) on a quest to find a missing woman from his past (Tang Wei). Following leads across Guizho province, he crosses paths with a series of colorful characters, among them a prickly hairdresser played by Taiwanese superstar Sylvia Chang. When the search leads him to a dingy movie theater, the film launches him — and us — into an epic, gravity-defying sequence, an immersive, hour-long odyssey through a labryinthine dreamscape that ranks as one of the true marvels of modern cinema. China’s biggest art-house hit of all time, Long Day’s Journey Into Night confirms Bi as one of the most daring and exciting auteurs working today. Via the Criterion Channel. 23 May.
11. The Mirror. Directed by Jafar Panahi. 1997. Iran. Starring Mina Mohammad Khani, Aida Mohammad Khani, Kazem Mojdehi. Iranian master Jafar Panahi explores the interplay of imagination and reality this slyly inventive meta-film marvel. When her mother is late to pick her up from school, first grader Mina (Mina Mohammad Khani), takes matters into her own hands, navigating the public transportation and bustling traffic of Tehran on a precarious adventure of the everyday. But what begins as a charming child’s-eye portrait of Iranian society soon reveals itself to be something even richer and more surprising, as Panahi turns the convention of narrative filmmaking inside out. Via the Criterion Channel. With Marta. 25 May.
12. Taxi. Directed by Jafar Panahi. 2015. Iran. Starring Jafar Panahi. Internationally acclaimed director Jafar Panahi drives a yellow cab through the vibrant streets of Tehran, picking up a diverse (and yet representative) group of passengers in a single day. Each man, woman, and child candidly expresses his or her own view of the world while being interviewed by the curiouys and gracious driver-director. His camera, placed on the dashboard of his mobile film studio captures a spirited slice of Iranian society while also brilliantly redefining the borders of comedy, drama, and cinema. Via the Criterion Channel. With Marta. 26 May.
13. A Brighter Summer Day. Directed by Edward Yang. 1991. Taiwan. Starring Chang Chen, Lisa Yang. Among the most praised and sought-after titles in contemporary film, this singular masterpiece of Taiwanese cinema, directed by Edward Yang, finally comes to home video in the United States. Set in the early sixties in Taiwan, A Brighter Summer Day is based on the true story of a crime that rocked the nation. A film of both sprawling scope and tender intimacy, this novelistic, patiently observed epic centers on the gradual, inexorable fall of a young teenager (CHen Chang, in his first role) from innocence to juvenile deliquency, and is set against a simmering backdrop of restless youth, rock and roll, and political turmoil. Via the Criterion Channel. 28 May.
14. Lawrence of Arabia. Directed by David Lean. 1962. United States. Starring Peter O’Toole, Alec Guiness, Omar Sharif. A young idealistic British officer in WWI, Lawrence is assigned to the camp of Prince Faisal, an Arab tribal chieftan and leader in a revolt against the Turks. In a series of brilliant tactical maneuvers, Lawrence leads fifty of Faisal’s men in a tortured three-week crossing of the Nefud desert to attack the Turkish-held port of Aqaba. And following his successful raids against Turkish troops and trains, Lawrence’s triumphant leadership and unyielding courage gain him nearly god-like status among his Arab brothers. Purchased from iTunes. Watched via the movies app. With Michal, Marta, and Monika. 31 May.