Noah Baumbach’s Dream Double Feature: Eyes Wide Shut and Babe: Pig in the City

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Acclaimed arthouse film director/writer Noah Baumbach gets to take over the programming at New York’s Metrograph Theater on Saturday evening, and his “dream double feature” is one that probably doesn’t make immediate sense: Babe: Pig in the City and Eyes Wide Shut. So we’ll let him do the talking:

“When Jake asked me if there was a double feature I’d like to present at his new theater, I said, ‘That’s easy, Eyes Wide Shut and Babe: Pig in the City. When Jake asked me if I would write something about them, I thought, I can’t believe you’re going to make me defend this decision. But here’s a try. Both movies take place in strange alternate cities. Part storybook, part nightmare. I’ve never been to these places, but I know what they are. One has a disturbing and harrowing chase scene that concludes with a pig rescuing a deranged, drowning dog hanging upside down by a chain. The other has a disturbing and harrowing pot-induced marital argument in a bedroom. All I know is, I get a similar hit off these two movies. They’re so otherworldly that I sometimes doubt my memory of them. They feel like dreams I had as a kid, or movies I once pretended to have seen.”

Regardless of whether or not you can siphon the meaning from that highly poetic description, you should probably go see this if you can. The double feature starts with Babe: Pig in the City at 7:00 p.m. and continues with the racier Eyes Wide Shut at 9:15. Tickets are available on the Metrograph’s website.

You can read our 2015 feature on Baumbach here, check out our guide to music snobbery in his films here and peruse our reviews of several of his movies here.

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