Film: Mauvais Sang

Director: Leos Carax
Starring: Denis Levant

(From web site: http://filmforum.org/film/mauvais-sang-carax-film)

1986) Did Michel Piccoli and Hans Meyer's partner jump or was he pushed? Either way, the American Lady wants her money in two weeks. To pull a new job, they'll need partner's son Denis Lavant, busy now dumping Julie Delpy and reinventing alienation - and then he meets Piccoli's 30-years-younger girlfriend Juliette Binoche. Carax's deliriously intense mix of New Wave style with full-blown French Romanticism, its dazzling colors keyed to a retina-searing red. Approx. 105 min. DCP.

For more detailed synopsis: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/mobile/m/mauvais_sang/

Film: The Dog

(From web site:
http://www.filmlinc.com/films/on-sale/the-dog)

THE DOG
ALLISON BERG, FRANK KERAUDREN, 2013
USA | FORMAT: DCP | 101 MINUTES

On August 22, 1972, John Wojtowicz attempted to hold up a Chase Manhattan branch in Brooklyn. He went in with two accomplices, one of whom lost his nerve and walked away. Wojtowicz's objective was to pay for a sex change for his wife, a transvestite named Ernie. The robbery devolved into a 14-hour standoff that magnetized the attention of the neighborhood and then of the entire city, ended tragically for Wojtowicz's remaining cohort, and landed him in prison for six years. Sound familiar? It should if you're a movie fan. But if you thought that the events depicted in Dog Day Afternoon were crazy, wait until you see Allison Berg and Frank Keraudren's portrait of the real motor-mouthed, uncorked Wojtowicz. Every side of the story behind the real robbery is about four times crazier, and the larger story of Wojtowicz's life is hilarious, hair-raising, and giddily profane, all at once. A Drafthouse Films release.

Theater: The Opponent at 59E59, NYC

A young boxer returns to visit his former coach on the day when a life changing match is scheduled. This is the story of the physical and mental games embraced by young and old when engaged in boxing as a sport, a career, and a compulsion. The result, on stage, is poignant, extremely real and tragic.

In the end, you want to say "but that's not what life is really like; people make choices and can always change their life path." But the common thread for both young and old is an addiction: to the gamble of becoming famous, to the stupor of avoiding the pain in one's own body, to avoidance of meaningful attachments to a wife and child. This story is about more than winning and losing: it is about those deep and meaningful elements of being human that become lost, regardless of the outcome of the match. The boxer eventually recognizes the damage that they are capable of, to both themselves and their opponent.