December '22 @ Ragtag

Cinema Friends, the weather outside is frightful but the fire is so delightful,

The first frost is well behind us, and with December atop our calendars, winter is here. For most, the season brings a complicated mix of emotions not easily to put into language.

Words like Hygge, a Scandinavian sentiment for coziness and well-being; Gemütlich, the German familiar and inviting warmth; or the Portuguese Saudade, the nostalgic melancholy that drifts in with the holidays (and often one too many eggnogs) all grasp at our longing for warmth and connection in the cold… but nothing communicates the ineffable quite like film.

All through December, our new series, Ways to Stay Warm presents a slate of cold-weather cinema across genre and language. Not-quite-Christmas flicks, frosty locales, holiday party gauntlets, great coats, laughter, heartbreak, and more than one kind of family are all thrown into the soft glow of pale winter light.

"Royal bought the house on Archer Avenue in the winter of his 35th year,” opens Wes Anderson’s storybook feature, The Royal Tenenbaums. Screening on 35mm, Friday-Sunday, December 9–11, the film’s family reunion meets many of us as we prepare for our own homecomings—capturing all of the anxiety, baggage, and calamity that comes with gathering near to those dear to us.

[READ MORE: Wes Anderson Can’t Let Anything Go - story on our Letterboxd]

Adaptations, resolutions, and the impossible standards of the early-2000s go under the microscope as Extra Credit re-examines Bridget Jones’s Diary on Monday, December 12. An equally charming and crass pop-culture time-capsule, Bridget finds its three stars at the height of their cultural capital and reinterprets Pride & Prejudice as cozy turn-of-the-century rom-com pastiche.

Genre-outliers, Hustlers and The Thing both take shelter from the biting cold in iconic fashion—be it wrapped up in Jennifer Lopez’s fur coat on a rooftop; or with rationed booze, fire, and a parka at an arctic outpost. The money-moving, holiday-set, strip-club heist flick Hustlers screens Wednesday-Sunday, December 14–18, while John Carpenter’s un-hygge horror celebrates its 40th anniversary with a new restoration Thursday-Friday, December 15–16.

2022 Sundance International Audience Award winner, Girl Picture opens for a full run on Friday, December 16 to make the yuletide gay. Alli Haapasalo’s exuberant, queer, and achingly bittersweet Finnish indie lays bare the spectrum of female friendship and desire as three girls chase adulthood down the frigid streets of Helsinki over three Friday nights. Then, Tuesday-Thursday, December 20 - 22, we screen the newly restored Tokyo Godfathers, anime-auteur Satoshi Kon’s Chaplin-esque tale of a drunk, a transwoman, and a tween runaway searching Tokyo for an abandoned baby’s home is a Christmas (Eve) Carol to found family.

Finally, we bid farewell to December and the whole of 2022 with When Harry Met Sally… screening on 35mm Thursday-Saturday, December 29–31. The twelve year on-again, off-again, friendship-turned-romance traverses museums, delicatessens, New Year’s Eve parties, and emotional minefields. Indisputable in its charm and significance, Nora Ephron’s screenplay defined the modern romantic comedy.

[READ MORE: When Harry Met Sally: a Literal Labor of Love - story on our Letterboxd]

Whether it’s gathering the family (Tenenbaum or otherwise), sharing a drink, falling in love, wielding a flamethrower, or just bundling up in a great coat…

…there are many ways to stay warm,

Ted Rogers

PS:

Pick up a Season Pass: 7 tickets for $60. Use them however you wish—see all seven films yourself, introduce the whole family to your favorite, or gift them indiscriminately to your neighbor, your barista, your bartender, and your therapist!