OFFICE

(2015, Johnnie To) Chairman Chow Yun-fat and CEO lover Sylvia Chang plan to take their company public, even as junior execs wax idealistic – and scheme – amid the dazzling semi-abstract sets ... and it’s a musical! Adapted from Chang’s smash hit play Design for Living by the director of Election and Triad Election. DCP. Approx. 119 mins.
12:30, 5:10, 9:40

 “A nimble political softshoe with filmmaking dazzle! If Mr. To were an American, his name would fall from lips as easily as Martin Scorsese’s, another artist alive to cinema’s past as well as its present…At once sharp and exceedingly playful, Office registers as up to the minute because of China’s economic turmoil. Its smashing look gives visible form to the idea of China as an enormous machine even as Mr. To nods to other reference points, from the pinwheeling Busby Berkeley-like formations to the huge office clock that seems transported from Metropolis, to Lee’s popping eyes and swooping bangs, which invoke Robert Morse in the 1967 movie musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”
– Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

“Dazzlingly composed around massive wireframe sets, translucent cubes, and grids of intersecting lines that bring to mind both picture frames and prison bars, OFFICE IS ONE OF THE MOST ORIGINAL AND IMAGINATIVE MUSICALS OF THE LAST DECADE… For his first official foray into the genre, To brings his usual knack for cutting movement and stunningly composing figures against space to a world of pure stylization. The result puts Hollywood’s recent attempts at reviving the musical to shame.”
– A.V. Club

“[A] boldly designed experiment!”
– Film Comment

“UNIQUELY EXPRESSIONISTIC, JOYFUL, AND ENGROSSING! […] A must-see for anyone looking for a thoughtful, and genuinely spectacular new musical.”
– Simon Abrams, RogerEbert.com

KISS ME KATE

(1953, George Sidney) “They’ll tap into your lap!” Ex-spouses Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson reunite for a tempestuous show-within-the-movie staging of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, in MGMization of the Cole Porter musical, with “too darn hot” Ann Miller and high-octane young Bob Fosse. DCP. Approx. 109 mins.
2:50, 7:30

“Their ‘From This Moment On’ number, choreographed by Fosse, is one of the high points of movie-musical history; in its speed and showmanship one can see the Fosse style in its earliest film realization.”
– Pauline Kael

“Literate, witty and thoroughly beguiling…one of the best and most neatly plotted musicals of the decade…every song a show stopper.”
– Clive Hirschhorn, The Hollywood Musical

“QUERULOUS LOVERS, WASPISH DIALOGUE AND ERUDITE HOODLUMS FOR COMIC RELIEF!”
– Time Out (London)