After Robert Altman’s MASH plays this Wednesday, Sundance Cinemas’ mid-week “Classics” spot will be vacant for two weeks.
As announced today on Facebook and Twitter however, the often-questionable prepackaged series will resume with Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting on Oct. 22. Co-written by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, the Boston drama has been vaulted into high esteem in the years since its release for the late Robin Williams’ performance as no-bullshit psychologist, and rightfully so.
Psycho (Oct. 29) should make for an appropriate warm-up to Cinematheque’s Hitchcock films currently in the midst of an encore program at the Chazen Museum, although Van Sant’s questionable 1998 carbon copy remake might have left Good Will Hunting with a fascinating if not entirely welcome aftertaste. Disney’s Halloween/Christmas hybrid The Nightmare Before Christmas plays on Nov. 5. Its placement between both respective holidays should give audiences time to ponder the awkward aesthetic that results from mashing up Santa Claus and Henry Selick’s macabre humor.
Miloš Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest plays on Nov. 12 followed by Tim Burton’s gothic wetdream Edward Scissorhands on Nov. 19. Beetlejuice would make for a far more worthy inclusion here but compared to Scissorhands’ snow fetish, it’s nowhere near the Wisconsin-appropriate November selection. Oh god, the snow.
- Sundance’s next round of “Classics” begins Wednesday, Oct. 22.