The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, February 22-28
Candyman (1992)
Directed by Bernard Rose
Candyman might appear to be a politically incorrect film about an evil magical negro (subverting that trope/cliché in what seems a bold move)… but it’s more than meets the eye. As its white protagonist stumbles into black mythology and tries to overanalyze it, the film becomes a veiled criticism of cultural appropriation, with the Chicago housing crisis and race relations as the backdrop for the Candyman myth. Beyond the racial critique, Candyman is also a very bloody and gory film that serves both as a psychological thriller (the female protagonist is deemed insane, rendering all the killings doubtful) and as one of the first revolutionary self-aware slashers. Jaime Grijalba (February 24, 2pm, 4:30pm, 7pm, 9:15pm at BAM’s “The Art of the Social Thriller,” programmed by Get Out director Jordan Peele)