MELISSA ANDERSON | DAVID FEAR | JOSHUA ROTHKOPF

The Last Mistress

Sex and the City
Release date: May 30
Full disclosure: Last year I went on a total bender and watched every single episode of this series—which is somehow both aggravatingly retrograde and alarmingly insightful. I completed them in a two-week period, suffering occasional PTSD flashbacks to the time I worked in the Condé Nast building. Call it sadomasochistic devotion; I’m sure Kim Cattrall’s Samantha Jones would want to whip me for it.

The Last Mistress
Release date: June 27
Speaking of sadomasochistic devotion, Asia Argento shows just that—and then some—in Catherine Breillat’s superb adaptation of the 1851 novel by Jules-Amédée Barbey d’Aurevilly. Director and star hated each other, apparently, but fury is its own special brand of passion, and it infuses every single frame.

The Exiles
Release date: July 11
Lovingly excerpted in Thom Andersen’s essential documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself, Kent MacKenzie’s nearly lost 1961 film on Native Americans living in the Bunker Hill neighborhood of L.A. finally receives a proper theatrical release, thanks to Milestone Films, which was responsible for bringing Killer of Sheep to audiences last year.

Before I Forget
Release date: July 18
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this savagely funny, honest film by Jacques Nolot since I saw it at the Toronto Film Festival last September. Playing a 58-year-old HIV-positive ex-hustler reminiscing about regret, humiliation and fortitude, Nolot proves himself the cinematic heir to Proust.

Momma’s Man
Release date: August 22
Not to be confused with Mamma Mia!, Azazel Jacobs’s story follows an adult son returning to live with his parents—played by the director’s real-life ma and pa, Flo Jacobs and experimental-film kingpin Ken Jacobs—in the Chambers Street loft where Azazel grew up. This promises to be a much smarter take on regression than, say, Failure to Launch.