FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER ANNOUNCES 'VERSE JUMPING WITH DANIELS, FEBRUARY 3–9

A week of Daniels' features plus the directors' curated selection of films, music videos, and 35mm movie trailers

 

 

New York, NY (January 12, 2023) – Film at Lincoln Center announces ’Verse Jumping with Daniels, from February 3–9.

In little over a decade, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (better known by their joint film credit, Daniels) have established a formidable, consistently surprising body of work that has catapulted them to the foreground of popular American cinema. Their willfully odd, wildly entertaining films—works of deranged maximalism with an unabashed sincerity—offer propulsive thrills alongside absurdist humor and deftly combine the aesthetics of music videos, video games, interactive storytelling, and animation into a style that has become unmistakably their own. Daniels’ knack for resonating with present-day anxieties emerged in full force with their 2016 debut feature, the uncategorizable Swiss Army Man, and most recently with their widely celebrated Everything Everywhere All at Once, which jumps through its own intricate multiverse of film references—from kung fu and Hollywood actioners to experimental animation to nonfiction cinema.

This February, Film at Lincoln Center is pleased to present Daniels’ features, plus a curated selection of films, music videos, and 35mm movie trailers handpicked by the directors themselves, who will appear in person for Q&As for their features. Daniels will also introduce two films from the series: Leos Carax’s unclassifiable Holy Motors; and the Hong Kong Cut of Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster.

Additional selections from the series include Daniel Scheinert’s The Death of Dick Long, a darkly funny thriller set in the Deep South; Hayao Miyazaki’s modern-day masterpiece Princess Mononoke; Masaaki Yuasa’s postmodern cult animation Mind Game, based on the Robin Nishi manga; The Rider, director Chloé Zhao’s compassionate depiction of the hardscrabble economy of America’s rodeo country; the disarmingly sweet Mister Lonely, directed by Harmony Korine after an eight-year hiatus from filmmaking; Jeff Tremaine’s vulgar, unapologetically crude hidden-camera comedy Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa; Jennie Livingston’s landmark documentary Paris Is Burning, made over seven years; Jûzô Itami’s Tampopo, a hilarious take on food, love, and a tribute to spaghetti Westerns and chambara films; and Songs from the Second Floor, Roy Andersson’s reckoning with the melancholic norms and anomalies of modern life.

Two enthralling 35mm double features will be a part of the Daniels’ selections: director Lau Kar-leung’s transcendent partnership with Jackie Chan, Drunken Master II, followed by David Fincher’s hyper-stylized Fight Club; and Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle, a hilarious send-up of kung fu and American cinema followed by The Matrix, the Wachowskis’ revolutionary reimagination of cinematic visualization, considered to be one of the most influential movies of all time.

Additionally, FLC will present “An Evening of Shorts with Daniels,” a jam-packed block of short films, internet and music videos, animation tests, and more—a rare glimpse into the tempo and form of their restlessly inventive combined consciousness, which will be introduced by the filmmaking duo.

Organized by Florence Almozini, Tyler Wilson, and Daniels.

Acknowledgements:
A24; Katherine Rowe and Lindsay Stevens, Rowe PR; Rachel Goldfinger; Walter Blum; Abso Lutely Productions; Kirsten Lepore and Prettybird; Yve Yang Gallery; Mikey Please; Ryan Staake and Mad Decent; Eliot Rausch; Daniel Mercadante

Tickets are on sale now for FLC Members and go on sale for the General Public at 4pm ET on Thursday, January 12 and are $17 for the General Public; $14 for Students, Seniors, and Persons with Disabilities; and $12 for FLC Members. See more and save with a 3+ Film Package (discount automatically applied in cart) or a $99 All-Access Pass, limited quantities available. Special 2-for-1 double feature pricing for Drunken Master II + Fight Club on Feb. 8 and Kung Fu Hustle + The Matrix on Feb. 9; discount automatically applied in cart.

 

Please note: Face masks and full vaccination are strongly recommended, but not required at FLC. Visit filmlinc.org/safety for more information. 

FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS
All films will screen at the Walter Reade Theater (165 W 65th St)
A full schedule can be found below or here.

Everything Everywhere All at Once
Daniels, 2022, USA, 139m
In their second feature-film collaboration, Daniels evoke everyone from Wong Kar Wai, Harmony Korine, and Stephen Chow and everything from video games, YouTube algorithms, wire fu, Japanese anime, late 1990s Hollywood nihilism, and more: Michelle Yeoh delivers a career-defining performance as Evelyn Wang, a first-generation Chinese-American living above her laundromat business with her aging father (James Hong), her teenage daughter (Stephanie Hsu), and her kind but painfully naive husband (Ke Huy Quan). Amid an IRS audit (spearheaded by a nearly unrecognizable Jamie Lee Curtis) that reveals the cracks of her family and livelihood, Evelyn plunges into a multiversal war of “’verse jumpers” that puts the fate of every universe in her hands… This hardly describes the gag-a-minute, gleefully maximalist feature, whose high-wire achievement here is precisely in balancing the unwieldy tone promised by its title with a cinematically legible sense of infinity, all while issuing a profoundly emotional warning to our overstimulated present. An A24 release.
Friday, February 3 at 6:00pm (Q&A with Daniels)

Swiss Army Man
Daniels, 2016, USA, 97m
Daniels announced themselves with this unequivocally weird, frequently hilarious debut feature, which won the U.S. Dramatic Directing Award at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and remains one of the most original films of that year, due in no small part to the impeccably balanced performances from Paul Dano and Daniel Radcliffe. Dano stars as Hank, a lonely castaway on a deserted island who, on the brink of committing suicide, happens upon a washed-up corpse named Manny (Radcliffe). Over time, Manny emits signs of life and peculiar, multitudinous abilities that might help Hank return to civilization. Daniels, who shared editing and visual effects duties in addition to directing, combined their eye-popping imagery and gallows humor with their near-innocent faith in cinema that freed them to turn a fart joke into a personal, moving story about friendship and deep-seated delusion. An A24 release.
Saturday, February 4 at 6:30pm (Q&A with Daniels)

The Death of Dick Long
Daniel Scheinert, 2019, USA, 100m
Between Swiss Army Man and Everything Everywhere All at Once, native Alabamian Scheinert stepped aside to direct this darkly funny thriller set in the Deep South. From a screenplay by Billy Chew, The Death of Dick Long kicks off as a police procedural surrounding the mysterious passing of its titular character (Scheinert) and escalates into harebrained folly as his dim-witted friends and bandmates, Zeke and Earl (Michael Abbott, Jr. and Andre Hyland), incompetently cover up their roles in their late pal’s disappearance. To tell more would ruin the perverse twist of this richly textured, Coen-esque portrait of small-town secrecy and middling garage rock, which doesn’t mock its characters so much as behold them with arm’s-length sympathy. An A24 release.
Sunday, February 5 at 3:15pm (Q&A with Daniel Scheinert)

The Grandmaster [Hong Kong Cut]
Wong Kar Wai, 2013, Hong Kong/China, 130m
Cantonese and Mandarin with English subtitles
Nearly 10 years in the making, Wong Kar Wai’s latest feature to date is perhaps his most ambitious project, a propulsive action epic inspired by the life and times of the legendary kung fu master Ip Man (played by Tony Leung with effortless precision and cool). The story spans the tumultuous republican era that followed the fall of China’s last dynasty: a time of chaos, divided loyalties, and war, but also the golden age of Chinese martial arts. Filmed in a range of stunning locations that include the snow-swept landscapes of Northeast China and the country’s subtropical South, The Grandmaster—presented here in Wong’s original 130-minute cut—features exquisitely staged action and virtuosic performances by Leung and Ziyi Zhang, who lends a transfixing allure to the fictional Gong Er, Ip’s friend and fellow martial artist.

“Wong Kar-Wai's historic kung fu epic is an exploration of mourning and the loss of tradition, features fight scenes with some of the most gorgeous insert shots we've ever seen, and we referenced it constantly while working on the fight choreography for our film. (Thrilled to be screening the original Hong Kong edit of the film, before a US distributor who rhymes with Harmy Crimescene cut out 20 minutes.)” —Daniels
Friday, February 3 at 9:30pm (Introduced by Daniels)

Holy Motors
Leos Carax, 2012, France, 112m
This unclassifiable, expansive movie from Leos Carax operates on the exhilarating logic of dreams and emotions. After a prologue in which Carax himself, clad in pajamas, walks through a corridor that leads to a theater full of silent spectators, Holy Motors segues to actor Denis Lavant, Carax’s longtime collaborator, playing a mysterious man named Oscar who inhabits 11 different characters over the course of a single day. This shape-shifter is shuttled from appointment to appointment in Paris in a white stretch limo driven by the soignée Edith Scob (Eyes Without a Face); not on the itinerary is an unplanned reunion with Kylie Minogue. To summarize the film any further would be to take away some of its magic; the most accurate précis comes from its own creator, who aptly described Holy Motors after its world premiere in Cannes as “a film about a man and the experience of being alive.”

“A movie we regularly rewatch to remind ourselves that the only rule of good filmmaking is 'don't be boring.'” —Daniels
Saturday, February 4 at 9:00pm (Introduced by Daniels)

An Evening of Shorts with Daniels
Various, 2011-18, 114m
Before making a splash at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival with their debut feature, Daniels were creating short films, music videos, and commercials that were unmistakably their own with a canny melding of digital and practical visual effects, genres, and tones that ranged from eerie and playful to sincere, absurdist, and downright deranged. Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that they’re ardent supporters of the short in all its forms and were eager to curate an evening of their favorite miniatures of late. Consider this program—a jam-packed block of short narratives, documentaries, internet and music videos, animation tests, and more—a rare glimpse into the tempo and form of their restlessly inventive combined consciousness.

“We've drawn so much inspiration from the freewheeling world of short films and music videos, but you so rarely get to see them on a big screen. We're so excited to share some of the sexiest, funniest, weirdest ones we've ever seen.” —Daniels

Diplo - Set it Off
Ryan Staake, 2012, USA, 4m
An infinite stripper pole extends into space in this playful and mesmerizing music video for Diplo’s “Set It Off.” Tracking the quiet choreography of striptease in high-definition slow motion, Ryan Staake finds a vertical pattern of intimacy amid sonic bursts and color surges.

Interesting Ball
Daniels, 2014, USA, 13m
A bouncing red ball charts a course to the absurd in Daniels’ most recent short to date, which tapped into their vision of the multiverse long before Everything Everywhere All at Once. A child’s prank call gone awry, a widow chasing her runaway refrigerator, a frat-boy Transformer bounding across a beach, and Kwan sucking Scheinert into his butt—these vignettes, and others, accumulate into a kaleidoscopic portrait of the inevitable.

The Scared is scared
Bianca Giaever, 2013, USA, 8m
For a college project, filmmaker and radio producer Bianca Giaever asked a six-year-old for a story, which she matched to animated graphics and lo-fi footage, paced exactly as the young narrator described it in real time. What begins as a tale about a bear, a mouse, and their trip to a pool becomes a disarmingly lucid rumination on overcoming fear and anxiety.

I Am Your Grandma
Jillian Mayer, 2011, USA, 1m
An autobiographical video diary log recorded for her unborn grandchildren, this hilariously cracked time capsule from Jillian Mayer contemplates mortality and the sociological amplitudes of invention and legacy in just over a minute.

Glory at Sea
Benh Zeitlin, 2008, USA, 26m
Slipping between planes of realism and fantasy, filmmaker Benh Zeitlin’s Glory at Sea is a work of both subdued myth and a valiant optimism, in which survivors of a terrible storm construct a makeshift boat and sail out in search of the loved ones they have lost at sea.

Myslivci
Jan Saska, 2011, Czech Republic, 24s
​​Limbs can be guns too in this blink-and-you-miss-it short from Czech animator Jan Saska, made as a test for his 2015 animation Happy End.

The Eagleman Stag
Mikey Please, 2010, USA, 9m
Animated with paper and foam, Mikey Please’s monochromatic animation is a nine-minute memory piece on the perception of time itself. The Eagleman Stag’s darkly comedic depiction of one man’s obsessive life is at once miniature, universal, and acutely material.

Bottle
Kirsten Lepore, 2011, USA, 6m
In this delicately observed and minutely detailed stop-motion from Kirsten Lepore (Marcel the Shell with Shoes On), a correspondence between unlikely subjects—one a mound of sand, the other a pile of snow—develops into a strangely affecting story about engaging with the physical world.

The Passage
Kitao Sakurai, 2018, USA, 22m
The face of Philip Burgers contains hilarious multitudes in this “silent” short film from director Kitao Sakurai and Abso Lutely Productions. The Passage follows a man (Burgers) as he journeys by land, air, and sea to escape the clutches of his mysteriously straight-faced pursuers—all without uttering a single word. What emerges is a funny adventure of miscommunication and navigating a route through the unknown.

Words
Daniel Mercadante and Will Hoffman, 2010, USA, 3m
Play, blow, break, split, run, fly, light. Daniel Mercadante and Will Hoffman’s montage of verbal wit forms connections through a word’s disparate interpretations.

The External World
David O’Reilly, 2010, USA, 17m
A young boy struggling at the piano, aging rabbits wilting away in a retirement home, excrement giving birth. Video game sound effects and glitched-out polygonal animations collide in David O’Reilly's sweet and sickly stream-of-consciousness short, which pushes the artificial and unreal to its limits yet never fails to communicate an emotional truth.

What I Have to Offer
Eliot Rausch, 2012, USA, 5m
“So you are here and I am here, spending our time as we must.” A 70-minute lecture delivered by Charlie Kaufman in 2011 is excerpted and juxtaposed with delicate, surprising, and everyday images that hint at the vast dimensions of creative expression.
Sunday, February 5 at 6:00pm (Introduced by Daniels)

Princess Mononoke
Hayao Miyazaki, 1997, Japan, 133m
Japanese with English subtitles
​​Hayao Miyazaki’s breathtaking epic spirits viewers away to a folkloric world of gods, demons, and magic. After he’s stricken with a fatal curse, a young prince journeys westward in search of a cure, only to find himself embroiled in an epic struggle between humans and animals—led by Princess Mononoke, aka San, a fierce warrior woman raised by wolves—for control of the ancient deer god’s forest. Overflowing with imagination and visual beauty, this modern-day masterpiece stands as a singular achievement in animation: a morally complex, feminist fable with an impassioned message of ecological stewardship.

“A masterpiece. Also a confusing film to see as a kid. We couldn't decide if we were in love with the Princess or wanted to be her. Still not sure.” —Daniels
Saturday, February 4 at 1:15pm

Mind Game
Masaaki Yuasa, 2004, Japan, 103m
Japanese with English subtitles
Based on the Robin Nishi manga, Masaaki Yuasa’s postmodern cult animation Mind Game, his debut feature, is a genre-melding ego-cum-acid-trip to the beyond (and back) that channels everything from Buddhism and the Bible to Hayao Miyazaki, Tex Avery, and Salvador Dalí. The head-spinning barrage of surreal images in its opening sequence should tell all you need to know about Yuasa’s singular style, which mixes live-action and animation with a far-from-linear story about a wimpy protagonist named Nishi. After Nishi is shot in the butt by a deranged Yakuza gangster, his consciousness is projected into the afterlife, where he’s confronted with a shape-shifting god and a phantasmagoric journey expressed by Yuasa’s singular imagination—a film instantly hailed by the likes of Satoshi Kon and Bill Plympton.

“Proof that Anime is 20 years ahead of Hollywood. This film has one of the most chaotic and jubilant finales, and we'll be chasing this inspiration for the rest of our careers.” —Daniels
Saturday, February 4 at 4:00pm

The Rider
Chloé Zhao, 2017, USA, 104m
The hardscrabble economy of America’s rodeo country, where, for some, riding and winning is the only source of pleasure and income, is depicted with exceptional compassion and truth by a filmmaker who is in no way an insider: Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) was born in Beijing and educated at Mount Holyoke and NYU. Set on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, The Rider is a fiction film that calls on nonprofessional actors to play characters similar to themselves, incorporating their skill sets and experiences. Brady Jandreau is extraordinary as a badly injured former champion rider and horse trainer forced to give up the life he knows and loves. An NYFF55 selection.

“Our favorite kind of independent cinema to watch in a theater. Chloé Zhao has the ability to capture an authenticity that very few filmmakers can, you'll forget that you're not watching a documentary, yet it'll break your heart in the way only a true story can.” —Daniels
Sunday, February 5 at 1:00pm

Mister Lonely
Harmony Korine, 2007, USA, 35mm, 112m
Following an eight-year hiatus, Harmony Korine returned to filmmaking with this disarmingly sweet, fascinatingly oblique meditation on the obsessive nature of faith and celebrity worship. Diego Luna stars as a Michael Jackson impersonator based in Paris who develops a crush on a woman living as Marilyn Monroe (Samantha Morton). She invites Michael to a commune in the Scottish Highlands inhabited by other celebrity impersonators, including her husband, Charlie Chaplin (Denis Lavant), and their child, Shirley Temple; meanwhile, a subplot follows a group of skydiving nuns and a priest-pilot played by Werner Herzog. As strange and full of unusual ideas as Korine’s previous two features, Mister Lonely eschews those earlier films’ harsh provocations in favor of heartfelt, indelible images that reveal his intuitive command of composition and movement.

“If you haven't seen this movie, do us a favor and go in blind. Scheinert's all time favorite film festival experience was wandering into this one with no idea who made it or what it was about.” —Daniels
Sunday, February 5 at 8:30pm

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa
Jeff Tremaine, 2013, USA, 102m
This vulgar, unapologetically crude, and occasionally wholesome hidden-camera comedy turns a feature-length focus on the perverted 86-year-old Irving Zisman (Johnny Knoxville in heavy makeup), a recurring Jackass character since 2001, who is tasked with driving his 8-year-old grandson Billy (Jackson Nicoll) cross-country to his deadbeat dad. Scripted on the fly by Knoxville, Jeff Tremaine, and Spike Jonze, the film’s plot-driven interactions with common men and women—people unaware that they’re in a movie—dovetail as hooks on which to hang loony stunt work and demented, gross-out pranks from Irving and his young charge. Far from mean-spirited, Bad Grandpa shows a surprisingly genuine interplay between Knoxville and Nicoll, who remain totally committed to the bit even during their most bizarre experiments with unsuspecting strangers.

“There's nothing like seeing a Jackass movie in a theater with a crowd. But Bad Grandpa has HEART. No, seriously, it's equal parts offensive and heartfelt and one of our all time faves.” —Daniels
Monday, February 6 at 7:00pm

Paris Is Burning
Jennie Livingston, 1990, USA, 71m
Made over seven years, Jennie Livingston’s landmark documentary offers a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City’s African American and Latinx Harlem drag ball scene and its rival fashion “houses,” observing fierce contests for trophies and mothers offering sustenance in a world rampant with homophobia and transphobia, racism, AIDS, and poverty. Featuring legendary voguers, drag queens, and trans women—including Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza—Paris Is Burning celebrates the joy of movement, the force of eloquence, and the draw of community. Winner of a Sundance Grand Jury Prize (Documentary) in 1991.

“Come however you are, or however you want to be: Upcoming Pretty Girl, Schoolboy/girl Realness, Town and Country, Military, EXECUTIVE REALNESS!!!” —Daniels
Monday, February 6 at 9:00pm

Tampopo
Jûzô Itami, 1985, Japan, 115m
Japanese with English subtitles
Initially marketed as the first “ramen Western,” Jûzô Itami’s Tampopo is a hilarious take on food and love that also functions as a tribute to spaghetti Westerns and chambara films. Cowboy-hatted truck driver Gorō (Tsutomu Yamazaki) and his sidekick, Gun (a young Ken Watanabe), stop at a small noodle shop, where they meet Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto), who soon follows their guidance to learn the “art of noodle soup making” to bolster her meager business. Threaded throughout their story are vignettes about food, including one set in a class about eating spaghetti, another about a dying housewife’s final meal for her family, and the tale of a gangster and his lover, who use kink games to explore the pleasures of eating. Restored in 4K from the original camera negative.

“The only thing as good as a great movie is great food. This hilarious, beautiful, surreal masterpiece has both! Buy concessions, prepare for the screening with Japanese breakfast, lunch, and dinner beforehand (then you'll probably want second dinner after.)” —Daniels
Tuesday, February 7 at 6:30pm

Songs from the Second Floor
Roy Andersson, 2000, Sweden, 98m
Swedish with English subtitles
Rigorously staged vignettes in such striking settings as a furniture store, an airport, and a seemingly endless traffic jam build off of one another in Roy Andersson’s singular feature from 2000, which reckons with the melancholic norms and anomalies of the modern world. Through a diverse cross-section of Swedish life—including an office worker, an immigrant, an arsonist, and a magician—Andersson finds humanistic pathos through what he has referred to as “the complex image,” a tableau aesthetic designed to instigate social criticism via static long shots and layered compositions. Winner of a Special Jury Prize at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.

“There's no one like Roy Andersson. A series of unforgettable, sad, beautiful, moving paintings we can't wait to put on the big screen.” —Daniels
Tuesday, February 7 at 9:00pm

35mm Double Feature: Drunken Master II + Fight Club

Drunken Master II
Lau Kar-leung, 1994, Hong Kong, 35mm, 102m
Cantonese with English Subtitles
Filmed at the peak of Jackie Chan’s prime, 16 years after his breakout turn in Drunken Master, this transcendent pairing of classic Shaw Brothers director Lau Kar-leung and Chan resulted in what many claim is the greatest martial arts film ever made. In this take on the legend of Wong Fei-hung, Chan shares the screen with the great Ti Lung and also Anita Mui, who almost steals the show as his motormouthed stepmother. The plot revolves around Fei-hung’s attempts to foil a foreign syndicate trafficking in ancient Chinese artifacts, but the film’s jaw-dropping kung fu sequences need little explanation. The lush, opulent film was made with no consideration for budget or schedule—it took three months just to shoot the final action scene.

“Order drinks at the bar but don't drink them until Jackie does! (Thrilled to be showing the full length Hong Kong release untouched by that same US distributor "Mr Harmy Crimescene".)” —Daniels
Wednesday, February 8 at 6:30pm

Followed by:
Fight Club
David Fincher, 1999, USA, 35mm, 139m
A nameless yuppie insomniac (Edward Norton) and a glamorous soap salesman (Brad Pitt) process late 1990s angst through bare-knuckled therapy in David Fincher’s ultra-sleek coming-of-age film for thirty-somethings. Based on the novel by diesel-mechanic-turned-writer Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club disappointed at the box office upon its release, when it was met with mixed reviews—labeling it everything from “cheerfully fascist” to “one sustained psychosexual ejaculation”—but it soon found a cult following. Nihilistic, uncompromising, downright hypocritical, and one of the most influential Hollywood films of the 1990s, Fight Club achieved the remarkably straight-faced feat of denouncing rampant consumerism through its use of celebrity actors and state-of-the-art style.

“Fincher's darkly hilarious opus. But don't join a Fight Club! This movie's a cautionary tale.” —Daniels
Wednesday, February 8 at 8:45pm

35mm Double Feature: Kung Fu Hustle + The Matrix

Kung Fu Hustle
Stephen Chow, 2004, Hong Kong/China, 35mm, 98m
Cantonese and Mandarin with English subtitles
Writer-director-actor Stephen Chow’s hilariously bonkers homage to/send-up of kung fu and American cinema displays an audacious blending of genres and tones that turned the 2004 feature into an instant modern classic. In China’s Canton region in the 1940s, a wannabe gangster named Sing (Chow) tries to scam residents of a Shanghai slum, but his plan crumbles and inadvertently kick-starts a turf war with the unassuming tenants, who all happen to be martial arts grandmasters. Something like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon by way of Buster Keaton and Quentin Tarantino, this joke-a-minute comedy remains quite possibly the most absurd action film ever committed to celluloid. The fight scenes are courtesy of legendary action choreographer Yuen Woo Ping (Drunken Master, The Matrix).

“Nobody combines action, comedy, and visual effects like Stephen Chow. When you combine the masterful fight choreography of Yuen Woo-Ping with the satirical genius of Stephen Chow, you get one of the most memorable action films of all time.” —Daniels
Thursday, February 9 at 6:30pm

Followed by:
The Matrix
The Wachowskis, 1999, USA, 35mm, 136m
A revolutionary reimagination of cinematic visualization that paved the way for three sequels, a spin-off anime, video games, and endless parodies and think pieces, The Matrix isn’t just one of the most influential movies of all time—it changed how the mainstream responded to reality itself. Keanu Reeves stars as the computer programmer drawn into the “real world” of freedom fighters (including Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss), who are up against a computer-driven digital matrix feeding on humans, and necktie-clad agents of a simulation (led by Hugo Weaving) tasked with keeping the system in place. From its popularization of wire fu and groundbreaking bullet-time effects demonstrating the concept of “faster than a speeding bullet,” to its remarkably lucid distillations of Baudrillard and Lacan and head-to-toe leather aesthetic, the Wachowskis’ magnum opus might be written all over pop culture today, but it rarely screens on 35mm.

“Unsurprisingly, rewatching this in a theater inspired us to start writing Everything Everywhere. Take the red pill! [also f*ck the alt-right (and long live the Wachowski Queens!)]” —Daniels
Thursday, February 9 at 8:45pm

Images: Everything Everywhere All at Once (A24); The Death of Dick Long (A24); Swiss Army Man (A24); Drunken Master II (Warner Bros./Park Circus); The Grandmaster (Lionsgate); Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (Paramount Pictures); Holy Motors (AGFA / Shout! Factory); Mister Lonely (IFC Films); Mind Game (TK); The Matrix (Warner Bros./Park Circus); Fight Club (Fox/Disney); Kung Fu Hustle (Sony Pictures); Princess Mononoke (© 1997 Studio Ghibli; GKIDS); Songs From the Second Floor Janus Films); The Rider (Sony Pictures Classics); Tampopo (Janus Films); and Paris Is Burning (Janus Films)