IMPORTANT NOTE: please use a VPN whenever visiting Hextube, or anywhere else on the internet, for that matter. Protect your privacy.

For this Friday Movie Night, we’re starting off with The Ascent (1977), one of the most highly-acclaimed of all Soviet films, and the magnum opus of director Larisa Shipetko (wife of Elem Klimov of Come and See [1985] fame.) Wow, Soviet women’s cinema, and it’s the 88th-highest-rated film on Letterboxd’s Top 250? We should check this out. The story concerns a pair of partisans who have to go behind enemy lines to retrieve supplies for their comrades. Things get dicey from there. War is hell etc.

After that is Being There (1979), a magical-realist tale of a simple, sheltered gardener (played by Peter Sellers of Pink Panther / Dr. Stranglelove fame) who wanders into the wider world after the death of his boss, and quickly finds himself moving up the ranks of the business and political elite using nothing but his homespun advice and naïve charm. I have been told this is “Forrest Gump, but good”. Okay, we’ll give it a shot. Director is Hal Ashby, who is otherwise best-known for Harold and Maude (1971).

We’ll start at 8PM EST on Hextube, right here:

https://live.hexbear.net/c/movies

Be there, comrades!

Letterboxd:

• The Ascent: https://letterboxd.com/film/the-ascent/
• Being There: https://letterboxd.com/film/being-there/

Doesthedogdie.com links:

• The Ascent: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/107702
• Being There: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/25079

CWs for The Ascent:

• Deaths of animals.
• Carnism.
• Hanging.
• Torture.
• Nazis.
• Gun violence.
• Blood.
• War crimes.
• Sad ending.

CWs for Being There:

• A character is heard masturbating.
• References to sex.
• Smoking.
• Someone dies of illness.
• Unstable reality.

Links to movies:

• The Ascent: https://tankie.tube/w/wkGHK3KbgYD18hRyt3vGq1
• Being There: https://tankie.tube/w/d5LVA56ief7X5ATAfuzduE