reel revival

Houston film lovers get a nostalgic treat with 35mm screenings at MFAH

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Lynn Wyatt Theater

Film fans are flocking to the MFAH's 35mm screenings.

Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Not too long ago, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston screened Emilia Perez, the Spanish-language, Netflix-distributed crime comedy/musical that recently won big at the Golden Globes, landing statues for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and was just nominated for 13 Oscars, including Best Picture.

The streamer not only released Perez in theaters, but 35mm prints were struck for those venues that wanted to play it on analog film, like the MFAH. “I saw that Emilia Perez was playing in 35mm at the Paris Theater in New York,” longtime MFAH film curator Marian Luntz tells CultureMap, “and I thought, I wonder what they're doing with the distribution of the film on 35. And, so, we were fortunate. We reached out to our contact at Netflix, and he said, ‘Yes, we have very few prints, but when do you want to show it?’ And I gave these dates, and they said yes and we're really proud.”

Perez isn’t the only film getting shown the old-fashioned way. Fellow Oscar nominees Anora, Nickel Boys, Nosferatu and The Brutalist (which can also be seen in 70mm) all have had 35mm engagements at other theaters. Ever since acclaimed auteurs like Paul Thomas Anderson, Christopher Nolan, and Quentin Tarantino proudly declared that they will always make movies on analog film, fellow filmmakers have been following suit.

Even though MFAH has analog and digital film projectors in both their Brown and Lynn Wyatt theaters (upcoming 35mm screenings includes Julie Dash’s directorial debut Daughters of the Dust and the Marilyn Monroe-Jane Russell classic Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), there are no first-run movie houses in Houston equipped to play day-and-date flicks on 35mm. Currently, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema’s South Lamar location in Austin is the only multiplex in the state that has an auditorium reserved for new releases on analog film.

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston film projectors The MFAH is the only venue in Houston screen films on 35mm.Courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

But are Houston moviegoers even craving that these days? “I would love to see more 35mm and 70mm,” writer (and MFAH’s “Jazz on Film” programmer) Peter Lucas says. “But honestly, I don't think Houston cares about that at all.”

Rice film professor/Rice Cinema programmer Charles Dove believes that watching a film on film will always be the better experience. “What happens is that the screen goes completely black every few frames of the film, and it generates a kind of hypnotic way of watching a film, unlike the continuous projection of a digital projection,” says Dove. “There's actually like a frame, a thing that's flickering, making the film flicker, right? So, if it's at 18 frames per second, it flickers more, right? If it's at 24, it’s closer to the idea of the persistence of vision, when people imagine that the images are moving when they really aren't.”

Whenever Luntz does a 35mm screening at the MFAH, the response is usually positive. “I do think it's something that adds a little bump for the public,” she says. “I think it definitely inspires some people to turn out who may have seen a film before, in any other format. I do think it's an incentive and we make a big deal about it. We have that trailer that was made when we were reopening after the pandemic that has interviews with two former projectionists, Tish [Stringer] and Trey Ferguson… We make a point of acknowledging the projectionists and asking for applause before we start [the feature presentation].”

Stringer, who has held analog film screenings/lectures at The Menil Collection, believes that more movies would get released on film if more audiences ask for them. “We have to educate the audience so that they can demand from the theaters and from the industry what they want,” says Stringer, who has worked at MFAH and Rice Cinema. “Theaters today have to find ways to inspire people to get off the couch and back into the screening room. We have to show how we're different from home theater experiences.”

Come fall, Rice Cinema will rejoin the MFAH in playing 35mm films for local cineastes. Back when the program screened films at Rice Media Center (before it was demolished in 2021), Rice Cinema had analog and digital projectors available. Currently, it has been playing films on digital in a temporary space in Sewall Hall, where a new, state-of-the-art auditorium – with analog and digital projectors – will debut in the fall.

“I literally just got off a Zoom call with the guys who are designing our new projection space in the new building,” Dove says. “They just turned their monitor around and showed us the projectors that they're working on for us… One of the first things we're going to do in the new theater is show Last Night at the Alamo in 35mm, which is the last film we showed at the old space in honor of [cinematographer] Brian Huberman, who will be in his 50th year as a faculty member at Rice.”

Luntz says 35mm prints of newer films could get booked for future MFAH screenings, but don’t expect them immediately. “The reality for us is that we at the moment are booked up until May,” she says.

movies museums museum of fine arts houston

Movie Review

Steven Soderbergh sees horror from a new perspective in Presence

Photo courtesy of Neon

Callina Liang in Presence.

There are few directors more adept at moving between genres than Steven Soderbergh. Throughout his career, he has made dramas and comedies, heist films and thrillers, films with serious topics like drug trafficking and films with frivolous subjects like male dancers. He’s also dipped his toe into horror on occasion, something he does again with Presence.

However, typical of the hard-to-pin-down filmmaker, this film is not your typical ghost story, as its plot is told from the perspective of the presence itself. With the camera as its “eyes,” the audience sees a family of four move into an older-but-updated home: Mother Rebekah (Lucy Liu), father Chris (Chris Sullivan), son Tyler (Eddy Maday), and daughter Chloe (Callina Liang). The family dynamics are established early, as Rebekah favors Tyler and pins her hopes and dreams on him, while Chris has a strained relationship with Rebekah and tries to protect Chloe from stress, who has recently gone through a trauma.

The family’s various issues keep the atmosphere tense, and for the most part the presence is merely an observer to their conversations and activities. But Chloe can sense it whenever it’s close to her, and this connection leads it to sometimes announce itself via physical interactions with objects in different rooms. As the other family members gradually become aware of it as well, the story’s supernatural aura starts to increase.

Working from a screenplay by David Koepp, Soderbergh does a kind of switcheroo on audience expectations. In your typical haunted house story, the mystery of the ghost(s) is what drives the plot and keeps things scary. But since the audience, in essence, is the ghost, we know everything it is doing at all times. Instead, the suspense comes from the family itself, who have backstories that make the whole clan dysfunctional, at best.

Story elements are brought in through different ways than your typical film, with little hints being dropped along the way about various things that have happened in the family’s recent past. Why Tyler seems to be angry with Chloe all the time, or why Rebekah and Chris never seem to be on the same page with anything the family is dealing with are equally as interesting as anything the presence is doing.

The first-person perspective (used in a much different way than in the recent - and now Oscar-nominated - Nickel Boys) gives an intimacy to the film that is sometimes invasive, sometimes disorienting, but always engrossing. Soderbergh, who acted as the cameraman himself, takes the camera to almost every nook and cranny of the house, often getting so close to the actors that it’s uncomfortable. The constant, silent movement of the presence/camera makes for great viewing, lending the audience a knowledge they rarely have.

Liu is given a meatier part than she’s had in recent years, and she plays the complicated role for all it’s worth. Sullivan, best known for his role on the NBC TV drama This is Us, is equally good, with a demeanor that’s slightly at odds with his stature, but in a good way. Both Liang and Maday have light resumes (this is Maday’s first credit of any kind), but their performances are what make the film as effective as it is. With the presence more interested in her character than anyone else, Liang is asked to do a lot, and she is especially memorable.

While more of a family drama than a true horror film, the paranormal aspect of Presence gives enough of a spooky vibe for it to qualify. The highly successful film demonstrates that, 36 years after his breakthrough, Soderbergh remains one of the more fascinating directors out there, willing to try different projects instead of doing the same thing over and over again.

---

Presence opens in theaters on January 24.

movies film