The Best Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: NYC Repertory Cinema Picks, January 25-31
Dogs in Space (1986)
Directed by Richard Lowenstein
Set in 1978, Dogs in Space evokes a time when bands formed overnight in Melbourne. The film, which stars INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, focuses on one such band, the name of which is the name of film. Along with friends and friends of friends, they live in a shared house. It’s communal living, and Lowenstein conveys this with a flowing, mobile camera, maintaining spatial relations, and picking out people, or groups of people, before moving onto the next one and the next.
Dogs in Space has ceaseless energy as people smash TVs, pile into cars, and of course, play music. House parties burst into bacchanals. If not destroying their home, this clique is throbbing and twitching in clubs. They live at night and sleep during the day. They laugh, they cry, they fuck, and they fight. Dogs in Space is the punk Renoir film you never knew existed, but welcome with open arms. Tanner Tafelski (January 25, 7:30pm at the Alamo Drafthouse)
