Winter Kills
(William Richert, 1979, 97 min, USA, 35mm)
New 35mm Restoration!
This thinly veiled and hyper-paranoiac take on the JFK assassination stars Jeff Bridges as Nick Kegan, scion of a fabulously wealthy and powerful family headed by patriarch John Huston (“the real delight of the film” — Vincent Canby, The New York Times), as a character based on Joe Kennedy. Bridges soon finds himself going down multiple rabbit holes while trying to unravel the conspiracy behind the murder of a U.S. president, his older brother.
“Hectic, giddy, absurd – but, in its evocation of a conspiracy so logical that it is beyond belief, the film dramatizes the power of such an idea to attract true believers.” – Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“[It] can’t decide whether it wants to be a comedy or a nightmare, so it splits the difference. Even by 1979 standards, it’s a seriously warped film. Writer-director William Richert once called it ‘cinematic cocaine: relentless, just getting higher and stranger, shooting through contemporary paranoia.’” – David Fear, Rolling Stone
