Birdman + All About Eve

Double feature: Here’s a fun new game to play – which Best Picture Oscar winner about ego, aging, and Hollywood’s incursion into the New York theater world am I talking about: “Birdman” or “All About Eve”? 

Cave of Forgotten Dreams + Animals are Beautiful People

Double feature: This is a pairing of two documentaries that diverge in tone but share a surprisingly similar ambition: to illuminate the thoughts of those whose minds might be unfathomable to us.

Boyhood + Jules and Jim

Double feature: Of course I am neither the first, nor will I be the last, to recommend “Boyhood.” But what I may be able to add is the observation that its exploration of time and existence is a uniquely American one.

How so? 

Elf + E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

Double feature: This one is, admittedly, a no-brainer. But how many apter double features for this time of year are there?

What Maisie Knew + About a Boy

Double feature: “What Maisie Knew” and “About a Boy” are two low-key literary adaptations examining what, and how, two only children understand and absorb upheaval in their domestic lives. (Seasonally appropriate bonus points to “About a Boy” for easing viewers into the holiday season.)

Frances Ha + Bridget Jones’s Diary

Double feature: When “Frances Ha” came out, many reviewers hung their claims for its distinction on the fact that its heroine was a young woman, and yet its narrative had essentially nothing to do with that young woman’s love life. Presumably, this separated it from the pile of marriage-plot driven romantic comedies with women in the lead, a pile in which “Bridget Jones’s Diary” stands honorably near the top.

A New Leaf + The Lady Eve

Double feature: These two films are essentially mirror images of each other. Their plots are the same – a worldly schemer attempts a romantic con on a wealthy but naive amateur biologist; a series of witty, swanky hijinks ensue. But in “A New Leaf” the “mark” is female, whereas “The Lady Eve” reverses the gender assignment –and that makes all the difference.

Gandhi + Black Narcissus

Double feature: A double feature of epics that will take the better part of a day to watch, the pairing of “Gandhi” and “Black Narcissus” provides ample fodder for considerations of dominion, overcoming, and the good/evil within us (i.e. whether one or both are inherent, and how each has the potential to conquer the other, if only temporarily).

Before Midnight + Claire’s Knee

Double feature: The perfect pairing for the (unofficial) last weekend of summer – “Before Midnight” and “Claire’s Knee.”  Why? It’s not just that both are set, either all or in part, during summer’s end. It’s that, in a larger sense, the two films are structured around, and brim over with, markers of time.