Cinema News: An alternative future in ‘Timecode’

February 27, 2026 | View in browser

A woman stands on a Los Angeles street speaking on a cell phone.

By Mark Olsen

Staff Writer

Hello! I'm Mark Olsen. Welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

There's so much energy around moviegoing in Los Angeles right now and two recent stories really capture how exciting of a scene it is. Cerys Davies wrote a feature about the revival of physical media among younger movie fans, how DVDs, Blu-rays and even VHS tapes have become a way for people to break free of streaming-service algorithms and take back control of what they are watching.

Stores such as Vidiots, Vidéothèque and Cinefile are all at the forefront of this renewed interest in actually holding and maybe even owning a movie for yourself. In January, Vidiots said it had its biggest month ever, renting an average of 170 movies daily (on one day, it rented out 500 titles).

"If something gets deleted off an online platform, I will still be able to watch it because I have a physical copy," said Vidiots customer Lauren VanDerwerken. "It feels really precious to be able to own things physically and not be at the mercy of studios' financial decisions."

Ed Saxon, producer of Jonathan Demme's "Married to the Mob," was pleasantly surprised when a new edition of the film was recently released by the Cinématographe label.

"In an era where we're all so online, it was reassuring and felt nurturing," Saxon said. "It's good evidence of how much film culture means to people."

In another example of something special happening Los Angeles, Carlos Aguilar spoke to filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu about "Sueño Perro," an installation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art celebrating the 25th anniversary of his debut feature, "Amores Perros."

The installation has also been on display in Madrid and Mexico City. Iñárritu himself had not seen "Amores Perros" for some years before rewatching it at last year's Cannes Film Festival.

"I was struck by how well the film holds up," he said. "And it's not just because I made it. It still has a rhythm and a muscle. It hasn't aged badly at all. On the contrary, it's like a young old soul."

'Timecode' in 35mm

Mezzanine will present Mike Figgis' 2000 "Timecode" in 35mm on Tuesday at Brain Dead Studios with actors Saffron Burrows and Mia Maestro present for a Q&A. Among the first studio films shot on digital video, the film uses an innovative real-time split-screen technique, with multiple cameras capturing intersecting action and storylines on a stretch of Sunset Boulevard near the beloved Book Soup (which is still there). The cast includes Stellan Skarsgård, Salma Hayek, Julian Sands, Alessandro Nivola and many more.

In Kevin Thomas' original review, he wrote, "It's all in the name of the digital video revolution, but at the same time it's a clever way of providing crucial layering and heightening a hip, satirical take on bad old Hollywood ways in which beauty, talent and ambition collide with sex, power and drugs with the usual consequences. 'Time Code' wouldn't pack nearly as much punch if it were told in traditional narrative style involving much cross-cutting nor seem nearly as provocative and illuminating."

In an extended production story by Amy Wallace, Sony Pictures Chairman John Calley said the film is designed "to say, 'Something new is happening now, guys. If you have a video camera and you have an idea, you can make a movie.' There has always seemed to me to be a bizarre internal contradiction in trying to do the adventuresome in a conventional way. Figgis wanted to make a film that's never been done before."

Figgis, who also made last year's "Megadoc" about the production of Francis Ford Coppola's "Megalopolis," said to Wallace, "It's like punk in the '70s, which came out of a kind of real dissatisfaction with the overproduction of the Beach Boys and everybody talking about 48 tracks and taking two years to make an album. Someone said, 'Let's go back to mono and record the album in one take in two days.' Every movement has those moments where people [say], 'Enough of the high end.'"

Mikio Naruse retro

The American Cinematheque has launched a 28-film retrospective of Japanese filmmaker Mikio Naruse featuring 35mm prints from the National Film Archive of Japan. In a special kickoff event tonight at the Egyptian, the series will play 1933's "Every-Night Dreams" and "Apart From You," along with a special Benshi performance of live narration by Ichiro Kataoka and pianist Makia Matsumura. No less than Akira Kurosawa himself once said, "Mikio Naruse's style is like a great river with a calm surface and a raging current in its depths."

Writing about 1956's "Flowing" in 1986, Times critic Michael Wilmington wrote, "It is Naruse's quiet, understated compassion and surgically precise craft that make 'Flowing' a masterpiece. This film, so seemingly unassertive, apparently rambling and plotless, has a devastating impact and aftershock. … We are face to face with humanity in extremis: a serenely tragic unveiling that would make 'Flowing' a treasure in any era."

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Points of interest

'24 Hour Party People'

On Thursday, Vidiots will screen Michael Winterbottom's 2002 "24 Hour Party People," my vote for one of the best music movies ever made, capturing the chaotic energy of the scene in Manchester, England, from the late 1970s to early 1990s through the eyes of host and producer Tony Wilson. Played by Steve Coogan, Wilson was a TV presenter turned record label impresario who was involved with groups such as Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays and many more.

The cast is an astonishing roll call of British talent, including Shirley Henderson, Paddy Considine, Andy Serkis, Sean Harris, Rob Brydon, Simon Pegg and cameos from people who were actually involved in the story being told. The film is also among the last shot by acclaimed cinematographer Robby Müller, known for such movies as "Paris, Texas," "To Live and Die in L.A." and "Dead Man."

In his review, Kevin Thomas called the film "a boldly innovative account," adding, "Tony Wilson is a flat-out great screen character. … He is an imposing figure, given to literary quotations and grandiose allusions. Wilson's ego knows no limits, but neither does his passion, and his zeal comes across as astoundingly free from greed."

As the real-life Wilson once explained himself to Times music critic Robert Hilburn, "In a sense, I'm like a Charles Dickens hero. All Dickens heroes are complete nonentities who know 217 wacky people. I'm the guy who knows all the wacky people and the creative people. I just stand in the center and explain it to others."

'La Dolce Vita' in 35mm

On Thursday, the American Cinematheque's Aero Theatre will host a 65th anniversary screening of Federico Fellini's 1960 landmark "La Dolce Vita" on 35mm. The film stars Marcello Mastroianni as a tabloid journalist in Rome making his way through a world of empty glamour. It remains one of the essential classics of European art-house cinema.

In a September 1961 review of the film, Philip K. Scheuer wrote, "The movie establishes Fellini, maker of 'I Vitteloni,' 'La Strada' and 'The Nights of Cabiria,' as one of the greats of the medium. … He makes today's wider screen come alive. Fellini's approach here is more cynical than compassionate; for some of the excesses he depicts the only possible emotional outlet can be nervous laughter."

In a separate article, Scheuer quoted Fellini as saying, "I didn't want to make any condemnation or promote any causes or reach any conclusions, for that matter. I just wanted what I always wants as a director, and that is to look inside and outside of myself and the world I know, and above all to look with 'virili occhi' — strong eyes, free eyes."