a highly-opinionated selection of things happening around town, and sometimes out of town. this month's page here.
sat. jan. 4 the night mayor, washington merry-go-round @ ucla film archive back to the future, back to the future part ii, back to the future part iii @ egyptian how strange to be named federico, 8 1/2 @ aero harry dean stanton: partly fiction 4:30 PM @ silent movie theater chain & the gang @ the smell sun. jan. 5 moonbeams (12:00), cruel summer (11:15) @ part time punks @ the echo housemaids FREE 7 PM @ ucla film archive m. geddes gengras @ human resources the godfather part ii @ egyptian the search for emak bakia 2:45 PM @ silent movie theater cutie and the boxer 5 PM @ silent movie theater the 51st ann arbor film festival traveling tour: 16mm show @ filmforum @ spielberg @ egyptian mon. jan. 6 upsilon acrux (10:10) @ pehrspace the final edition, attorney for the defense @ ucla film archive the hunt @ aero tue. jan. 7 the guns of navarone 1 PM @ lacma the past @ aero the apostle FREE 1:30 PM @ skirball the apartment FREE (RSVP) @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges wed. jan. 8 ms. 45 8 PM @ the crest the patent leather kid 7:15 PM @ silent treatment @ silent movie theater lost & found film club: clowns mimes & puppetry crimes 10:15 PM @ silent movie theater being there FREE 3 PM @ santa monica library main branch white dove @ satellite death lens @ the echo jessica pratt, bouquet, bart davenport FREE @ hyperion tavern thu. jan. 9 the great beauty @ aero nightmare alley @ silent movie theater sidewalk stories @ lacma moshe safdie: the power of architecture 8 PM @ skirball being there FREE 3 PM @ santa monica library main branch the general secretary is trapped in a snow globe 7 PM @ moca grand the colors of the desert: a conversation with petra haffter FREE (RSVP) 7 PM @ goethe-institut lost highway @ cinerama dome blood and roses FREE 5 PM @ the crank @ ucla james bridges dr. strangelove FREE @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges fri. jan. 10 hausu MIDNIGHT @ nuart searching for sugarman FREE 8 PM @ monterey park art + film lab @ east la college ms. 45 10 PM @ the crest in the palm of your hand, the skeleton of mrs. morales @ ucla film archive fritz the cat, heavy traffic @ egyptian blue is the warmest color @ aero being john malkovich, the purple rose of cairo @ new beverly sat. jan. 11 frenchman's creek, adventures of casanova @ ucla film archive 8 1/2 FREE @ egyptian the heartbreak kid (1972) 1:30 PM @ downtown independent allah-las, nick waterhouse @ echoplex white magic @ mccabe's being john malkovich 3:15 7:30 PM, the purple rose of cairo 5:30 9:45 PM @ new beverly frankenstein created woman FREE 7 PM @ jumpcut cafe sun. jan. 12 the bitter tea of general yen 7 PM @ ucla film archive heavy metal, american pop @ egyptian intolerance @ aero far from vietnam @ filmforum @ spielberg @ egyptian this island earth, it came from outer space @ new beverly mon. jan. 13 before midnight @ aero this island earth, it came from outer space @ new beverly ms. 45 10:30 PM @ silent movie theater tue. jan. 14 gilda 1 PM @ lacma corners, froth, gangrene gang @ the echo the chosen FREE 1:30 PM @ skirball kansas city confidential, 99 river street @ new beverly ms. 45 10:10 PM @ silent movie theater towheads @ silent movie theater wed. jan. 15 silent country FREE 7 PM @ goethe-institut becky stark, carolyn pennypacker riggs, etc @ let's get emotional @ trepany house kansas city confidential, 99 river street @ new beverly ms. 45 7:45 10:00 PM @ silent movie theater like father like son FREE (RSVP) 7 PM @ usc ray stark thu. jan. 16 upstream color, primer @ aero kansas city confidential, 99 river street @ new beverly ms. 45 9:15 PM @ silent movie theater beverly hills cop FREE @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges dear comrade 8 PM @ machine fri. jan. 17 white fence, parquet courts @ fonda stephen steinbrink @ pehrspace little fugitive FREE 7 PM @ monterey park art + film lab @ east la college the criminal code, by whose hand? @ ucla film archive fantastic planet, waking life @ egyptian vertigo (70mm) @ aero ghost world MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater day for night, irma vep @ new beverly gimme the loot 10 PM @ silent movie theater tokyo story 7:15 @ silent movie theater sat. jan. 18 the goonies 6:30 PM @ electric dusk drive-in the kneeling goddess, red fish @ ucla film archive the lodger, strangers on a train @ aero spokenest @ redwood dadaismus @ hm157 day for night 3:00 7:30 PM, irma vep 5:15 9:45 PM @ new beverly the hunt 7:15 PM @ silent movie theater tokyo story 4:15 @ silent movie theater sun. jan. 19 for whom the bell tolls 7 PM @ ucla film archive lunacy, dimensions of dialogue, street of crocodiles @ egyptian spellbound, notorious @ aero lynne sachs: two los angeles premieres @ filmforum @ spielberg @ egyptian son of frankenstein, house of frankenstein @ new beverly laurence anyways 7 PM @ silent movie theater stoker 10:20 PM @ silent movie theater mon. jan. 20 son of frankenstein, house of frankenstein @ new beverly the angel's share @ silent movie theater sightseers 10 PM @ silent movie theater numax presenta FREE 7 PM @ the public school lynne sachs: your day is my night 8:30 PM @ redcat tue. jan. 21 born yesterday 1 PM @ lacma wand, audacity, together pangea @ the smell computer chess 7:45 PM @ silent movie theater the pink panther FREE @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges wed. jan. 22 night shapes FREE 7 PM @ goethe-institut thu. jan. 23 chris cohen @ the echo the pleasure garden, stage fright @ aero pather panchali FREE 7 PM @ csun armer theater cosmonauts, audacity, tomorrow's tulips @ church on york together pangea FREE 7 PM @ origami manon FREE 5 PM @ the crank @ ucla james bridges the exiles @ fringe la @ state historic park fri. jan. 24 wooden shjips, carlton melton @ the echo sick birds die easy @ egyptian the ring (1927), the manxman @ aero night of the demons MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater brannigan's law, hex horizontal @ the smell transmission: part i 7 PM @ center for the arts eagle rock the gold rush 7:20 PM @ silent movie theater a touch of sin 9:30 PM @ silent movie theater sat. jan. 25 wooden shjips @ soda bar (SD) this strange passion, twilight (1945) @ ucla film archive the roaring twenties 2 PM, california alcohol production during prohibition @ egyptian a retrospective of d.w. griffith's biograph films part 1 @ spielberg @ egyptian rear window @ aero white dove (10:00) @ bootleg the gold rush 2:15 PM @ silent movie theater this is martin bonner 4:30 PM @ silent movie theater a touch of sin 7 PM @ silent movie theater love as laughter @ echo country outpost sun. jan. 26 wooden shjips @ constellation room (santa ana) american promise FREE 7 PM @ ucla film archive laura @ egyptian downhill, rebecca @ aero venice sponto film fest FREE 7 PM @ beyond baroque a touch of sin 8:30 PM @ silent movie theater brigid mccaffrey: three desert films @ filmforum @ spielberg @ egyptian mon. jan. 27 a touch of sin 9:45 PM @ silent movie theater thom andersen and noel burch: red hollywood 8:30 PM @ redcat bouquet FREE 7 PM @ pieter tue. jan. 28 to sir with love 1 PM @ lacma the flight FREE 7 PM @ goethe-institut a touch of sin 10:15 PM @ silent movie theater wed. jan. 29 the policewoman FREE 7 PM @ goethe-institut lili's journey FREE (RSVP) 7 PM @ usc ray stark thu. jan. 30 terms and conditions may apply FREE @ hammer game show models, good luck miss wyckoff @ egyptian champagne, the farmer's wife @ aero come back to the five and dime jimmy dean jimmy dean @ lacma aparajito FREE 7 PM @ csun armer theater suspicion, gaslight @ new beverly beyond outrage FREE (RSVP) 7 PM @ usc ray stark the circus @ silent movie theater a touch of sin 9:30 PM @ silent movie theater fri. jan. 31 jon brion @ largo the great flamarion, the furies @ ucla film archive lawrence of arabia (70mm) @ egyptian easy virtue, rope @ aero scavenger hunt MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater lacma9 shorts program FREE 7 PM @ monterey park art + film lab @ east la college shells (10:45), shark toys (11:30), spokenest (9:15) @ pehrspace eraserhead MIDNIGHT @ nuart gangrene gang @ the smell the grapes of wrath @ cinerama dome suspicion, gaslight @ new beverly modern times @ silent movie theater the art of punk 2:00 3:00 PM @ la art book fair @ janm democracy forum cutie and the boxer 9:45 PM @ silent movie theater sat. feb. 1 monty python and the holy grail 8 PM @ alex theatre edward scissorhands 6:30 PM @ electric dusk drive-in warm white @ the smell suspicion 3:00 7:30 PM, gaslight 5:00 9:30 PM @ new beverly cate le bon @ soda bar (SD) johan kugelberg 3 PM @ la art book fair @ moca geffen new l.a. art fair (11:00 AM-5:00 PM) @ paramount ranch colleen green @ church on york cutie and the boxer 7:15 9:30 PM @ silent movie theater modern times 5 PM @ silent movie theater lawrence of arabia (70mm) @ aero baraka (70mm), samsara (70mm) @ egyptian other states 8 PM @ epfc sun. feb. 2 jealousy 7 PM, beautiful sky @ ucla film archive venice west and the la scene 8 PM @ beyond baroque wand (2:00), ducktails (5:00) @ la art book fair @ moca geffen courtyard the ruling class @ new beverly new l.a. art fair (11:00 AM-5:00 PM) @ paramount ranch ty segall band, wand FREE 6 PM @ permanent records cutie and the boxer 8:30 PM @ silent movie theater mon. feb. 3 the blank tapes FREE @ satellite a medal for benny, hostages @ ucla film archive the ruling class @ new beverly cutie and the boxer 9:45 PM @ silent movie theater tue. feb. 4 shadow of a doubt 1 PM @ lacma the crucible FREE 1:30 PM @ skirball the ruling class @ new beverly an autumn afternoon FREE (RSVP) @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges wed. feb. 5 strangers in the night, the man from laramie @ ucla film archive lost & found film club: sid laverents amateur auteur grill point FREE 7 PM @ goethe-institut thu. feb. 6 the music room FREE 7 PM @ csun armer theater repulsion FREE 6:30 PM @ santa monica library montana branch terms and conditions may apply FREE (RSVP) @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges the cement garden FREE 5 PM @ the crank @ ucla james bridges if... @ aero johnny guitar, in a lonely place @ egyptian han bennink, peter kolovos (performance) @ downtown independent fri. feb. 7 the three burials of melquiades estrada FREE 7 PM @ monterey park art + film lab @ east la college kingdom of the spiders MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater trouble every day 8 PM @ new beverly tomorrow's tulips @ echo country outpost for the cause 3:55 PM @ pan african film festival the retrieval 7:30 PM @ pan african film festival cuba: an african odyssey 9:55 PM @ pan african film festival titus 10:05 PM @ pan african film festival melvin & jean: an american story 10:40 PM @ pan african film festival the kid, a dog's life @ silent movie theater a field in england 9:45 PM @ silent movie theater nebraska FREE @ lacma a field in england 11:30 PM @ downtown independent gangrene gang @ the smell the act of killing @ the crest sat. feb. 8 to live FREE 7 PM @ monterey park art + film lab @ east la college the warlocks (11:30), drinking flowers (10:00) @ bootleg trouble every day 7:30 10:00 PM @ new beverly a night with jp sniadecki @ clockshop shark toys FREE 6 PM @ permanent records finding samuel lowe 3:55 PM @ pan african film festival brothers hypnotic 6:15 PM @ pan african film festival til infinity: the souls of mischief 8:45 PM @ pan african film festival goldfinger, thunderball @ egyptian gravity, y tu mama tambien @ aero a field in england 10 PM @ silent movie theater a field in england 11:30 PM @ downtown independent stories we tell FREE 3 PM @ santa monica library main branch generation war FREE (RSVP) 3 PM @ goethe-institut sun. feb. 9 he walked by night 7 PM, the naked spur @ ucla film archive people's park @ filmforum @ spielberg @ egyptian a man called god 6:35 PM @ pan african film festival go for sisters 7:05 PM @ pan african film festival blue caprice 7:30 PM @ pan african film festival let the fire burn 8:15 PM @ pan african film festival of good report 9:15 PM @ pan african film festival coonskin @ egyptian double indemnity, the bitter tea of general yen @ aero trouble every day @ new beverly a field in england 8:00 10:15 PM @ silent movie theater a field in england 10 PM @ downtown independent my bloody valentine nite @ park time punks @ echoplex mon. feb. 10 the blank tapes FREE @ satellite thrones, david scott stone, john wiese @ handbag factory toussaint louverture 8:35 PM @ pan african film festival the act of killing @ aero a field in england 11 PM @ silent movie theater a field in england 10:45 PM @ downtown independent far from beijing: the state of independent chinese cinema 8:30 PM @ redcat blackfish @ the crest emily lacy & jonathan silberman @ pieter tue. feb. 11 minnie and moskowitz 1 PM @ lacma the great flood FREE (RSVP) @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges big men 1:10 PM @ pan african film festival the retrieval 1:20 PM @ pan african film festival til infinity: the souls of mischief 9:15 PM @ pan african film festival three kings, flirting with disaster @ aero diamonds of the night @ silent movie theater a field in england 9:50 PM @ silent movie theater a tribute to les blank FREE (RSVP) 7 PM @ usc ray stark a field in england 7:10 PM @ downtown independent wed. feb. 12 vote for henryk FREE 7 PM @ goethe-institut thu. feb. 13 the world of apu FREE 7 PM @ csun armer theater colleen green @ troubadour fri. feb. 14 eternal sunshine of the spotless mind MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater harold and maude MIDNIGHT @ nuart spiritualized @ ace hotel levitation room, l.a. witch @ the smell sat. feb. 15 casablanca 7 PM @ electric dusk drive-in warriors of the rainbow part i: sun flag 7 PM, warriors of the rainbow part ii: rainbow bridge @ ucla film archive spiritualized @ ace hotel sun. feb. 16 diamonds are forever 5:10 PM, never say never again @ new beverly mon. feb. 17 the blank tapes FREE @ satellite diamonds are forever, never say never again @ new beverly tue. feb. 18 inequality for all FREE @ hammer to kill a mockingbird 1 PM @ lacma diamonds are forever, never say never again @ new beverly wed. feb. 19 the making of an avant-garde FREE @ hammer willenbrock FREE 7 PM @ goethe-institut thu. feb. 20 devi FREE 7 PM @ csun armer theater ringo deathstarr @ church on york fri. feb. 21 strange impersonation, the last frontier @ ucla film archive marissa nadler @ the church on york sat. feb. 22 warriors of the rainbow part ii: rainbow bridge 3 PM @ ucla film archive new works salon 8 PM @ epfc umberto @ private island gallery mon. feb. 24 the blank tapes FREE @ satellite tue. feb. 25 the day of the jackal 1 PM @ lacma wed. feb. 26 kinski, bottomless pit @ bootleg summer in berlin FREE 7 PM @ goethe-institut thu. feb. 27 the postmaster FREE 7 PM @ csun armer theater fri. feb. 28 jon brion @ largo sat. mar. 1 the godfather 7 PM @ electric dusk drive-in desperate, railroaded! @ ucla film archive mon. mar. 3 border incident, devil's doorway @ ucla film archive thu. mar. 6 the big city FREE 7 PM @ csun armer theater sat. mar. 8 the sandwich man, island etude @ ucla film archive wed. mar. 12 cloud 9 FREE 7 PM @ goethe-institut thu. mar. 13 charulata FREE 7 PM @ csun armer theater fri. mar. 14 what time is it there? @ ucla film archive troll 2 MIDNIGHT @ nuart sat. mar. 15 side street, winchester '73 (1950) @ ucla film archive tue. mar. 18 kraftwerk: autobahn (7:30) @ disney hall kraftwerk: radio-activity (10:30) @ disney hall wed. mar. 19 kraftwerk: trans europe express (7:30) @ disney hall kraftwerk: the man-machine (10:30) @ disney hall stopped on track FREE 7 PM @ goethe-institut thu. mar. 20 kraftwerk: computer world (7:30) @ disney hall kraftwerk: techno pop (10:30) @ disney hall nayak FREE 7 PM @ csun armer theater fri. mar. 21 kraftwerk: the mix (7:30) @ disney hall kraftwerk: tour de france (10:30) @ disney hall sun. mar. 23 the tall target 7 PM, the far country @ ucla film archive thu. mar. 27 the adversary FREE 7 PM @ csun armer theater sun. mar. 30 man of the west 7 PM, the tin star @ ucla film archive thu. apr. 3 distant thunder FREE 7 PM @ csun armer theater thu. apr. 17 the golden fortress FREE 7 PM @ csun armer theater thu. apr. 24 the chess players FREE 7 PM @ csun armer theater WHAT IT IS: The Adversary (Pratidwandi) (1970), 110 mins. The first of three films collectively known as “The Calcutta Trilogy” that examine the city of Kolkata’s effect on youth and the high price it extracts from them. Stylistically daring and inventive, The Adversary is one of Ray’s most politically potent and provocative films. AMERICAN PROMISE Produced and directed by Joe Brewster, Michèle Stephenson In this remarkable, longitudinal documentary, filmmakers Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson capture 12 years in the lives of their son Idris, and his best friend Seun, two young black boys who enter the prestigious Dalton School in New York as kindergartners, only to part when one goes instead to public school. The result is a provocative examination of the difference that schools make in the life of a child, and of the difference that race makes, regardless of the school. Winner of a U.S. Documentary Special Jury award at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, the film opens new possibilities for debate about the democratizing potential of education in America. This event is a collaboration with POV, PBS’ nonfiction film series. For more information, please visit pbs.org/pov. Cinematographer: Alfredo Alcantara, Margaret Byrne, Jon Stuyvesant, Errol Webber. Editor: Erin Casper, Mary Manhardt, Andrew Siwoff. Digital video, color, 140 min. The Art of Punk Created by Bryan Ray Turcotte and Bo Bushnell A screening of the three part series featuring the art and artists behind the iconic punk logos of Black Flag, Dead Kennedys and Crass. Attorney for the Defense (1932) Directed by Irving Cummings After his court arguments send an innocent man to his death, remorseful prosecutor William J. Burton (Edmund Lowe) becomes a defense attorney and takes the wronged man’s son under his wing, but their bond is tested when Burton’s two-timing ex-lover (Evelyn Brent) surfaces. Her scheming seduction results in a dead body and a tense drama, as Burton struggles to atone for past mistakes. Columbia Pictures Corp. Producer: Harry Cohn. Screenwriter: Jo Swerling. Cinematographer: Teddy Tetzlaff. Editor: Gene Havlick. Cast: Edmund Lowe, Evelyn Brent, Constance Cummings, Donald Dilloway, Bradley Page. 35mm, b/w, 70 min. Beautiful Sky (Cielito Lindo) (Mexico, 1935) Directed by Roberto Gavaldón, Roberto O’Quigley A young Arturo de Córdova cuts a dashing figure as Mexican Revolutionary hero Felipe Vélez. Bearing a debt of gratitude to fellow fighter José Orozco (for once saving him from execution), Vélez faces complications upon discovering that he and his friend love the same woman. Romantic rivalry intensifies their fervor for the national cause in this classic from the golden age of Mexican cinema. Producer: José Luis Bueno. Screenwriter: Ernesto Cortázar. Cinematographer: Gabriel Figueroa, Jack Draper. Editor: Jorge Bustos. Cast: Arturo de Córdova, Felipe de Flores, Lupita Gallardo, Max Langler, Carlos López. 35mm, b/w, in Spanish with English subtitles, 70 min. The Big City (Mahanagar) (1963), 131 mins. The Big City, Ray’s first portrayal of life in his native Kolkata, follows a young woman who decides to take a job to help support her family. A powerful human drama that is both hopeful morality tale and a commentary on the identity of the modern Indian woman. THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN Directed by Frank Capra An unusual love story from pre-Code Hollywood presents Barbara Stanwyck as a straight-laced American missionary in war-torn China who finds herself the unwilling guest of the eponymous general (Nils Asther). The lushly photographed melodrama continues as captor and captive fall for each other, a passion molded by tumultuous times and soon to become taboo in Hollywood. Columbia Pictures Corp. Screenwriter: Edward Paramore, based on the novel by Grace Zaring Stone. Cinematographer: Joseph Walker. Editor: Edward Curtis. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Nils Asther, Toshia Mori, Walter Connolly, Gavin Gordon. 35mm, b/w, 89 min. BLOOD AND ROSES An Italian upper-class household’s female vampire ancestor is awakened from her ancient slumber to possess a love tormented young woman in Roger Vadim’s haunting and erotically charged horror film BLOOD AND ROSES. Although best known for bringing international fame to Brigitte Bardot with …And God Created Woman and as the director of the erotic sci-fi camp classic Barbarella, Roger Vadim can also be said to have presaged the popular European erotic vampire film subgenre with this groundbreaking yet overlooked supernatural horror film. Lauded for its beautiful imagery and cinematic artistry, BLOOD AND ROSES is presented in all its hauntingly exquisite glory from an IB Technicolor print courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archive. “One of the most beautiful supernatural pictures ever produced… This picture practically invents the Euro-Horror film as we know it.” - Joe Dante, director of Gremlins & The Howling “The picture is consistently beautiful to look at, and an admirably restrained fusion of eerie mood and haunting music.” - The New York Times Border Incident (1949) Directed by Anthony Mann Acting in cooperation, an immigration investigator from Mexico (Ricardo Montalban) and his American counterpart (George Murphy) stage an undercover operation in which the Mexican official will pose as an illegal border-crosser, to monitor the experiences of braceros who enter the U.S. illegally, and sometimes in grave danger. The plot exposes a number of ills and wrongdoers, and quickly enough places the agents themselves in harm’s way. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp. Producer: Nicholas Nayfack. Screenwriter: John C. Higgins, based on a story by George Zuckerman. Cinematographer: John Alton. Editor: Conrad A. Nervig. Cast: Ricardo Montalban, George Murphy, Howard Da Silva, James Mitchell, Arnold Moss. 35mm, b/w, 92 min. Brigid McCaffrey: Three Desert Films Brigid McCaffrey in person! Filmforum is delighted to welcome Los Angeles-based filmmaker Brigid McCaffrey with three of her recent films, including one area premiere and one world premiere! McCaffrey has been making unconventional explorations of land and water for several years, recently wandering the byways and fault lines of Southern California. These three films portray individual navigations of regional landscapes; a major reservoir and recreational site at the edge of Los Angeles County, a defunct mining town turned tourist attraction, and the ranging geologic formations of the Mojave Desert. Amidst these precarious landscapes we spend time with subjects living through transitions, experiencing solitude, seeking camaraderie, and reflecting on how and where to land. California Alcohol Production During Prohibition Chef, educator and historian Ernest Miller will take us back to Los Angeles before and during Prohibition to discover how some members of the local beer and wine industry survived by cleverly working around the Volstead Act's ban on liquor. Chef Miller also will discuss what happened to the industry after Prohibition ended in December 1933. If not for Prohibition, Los Angeles might be a leader in wine and beer production today (the country's largest winery was once located in Alhambra). Items used by alcohol manufacturers to make and advertise their product also will be displayed. 60 min. CHAMPAGNE 1928, Rialto, 105 min, UK, Dir: Alfred Hitchcock In this effervescent romantic comedy, British star Betty Balfour plays a spoiled rich girl whose free-spending ways inspire her father (Gordon Harker) to play a trick that will teach her a little frugality - and test the true intentions of her fiancé. Though the film is far afield thematically from the director’s later work, Hitchcockian touches bubble up from the opening Champagne glass shot to the surprise ending. Presented with live musical accompaniment. Charulata (The Lonely Wife) (1964), 117 mins. Set in late nineteenth-century, pre-independence India, Ray’s Charulata is an exquisite story of a woman’s artistic and romantic yearning. A subtle and delicate tale of a marriage in jeopardy and a woman taking the first steps toward establishing her own voice. The Chess Players (Shatranj Ke Khilari) (1977), 113 mins. The Chess Players focuses on events surrounding Britain’s colonial involvement in India in the late nineteenth-century. Employing Western actors and stars from the Bombay cinema, the film was Ray’s most expensive production and one of his few to utilize English dialog. CLOUD 9 Germany, 2008, 100 min., German with English subtitles. Starring Ursula Werner, Horst Rehberg, Horst Westphal Inge, a seamstress in her 60’s, returns a pair of mended trousers to Karl, a customer 10 years her senior. The two are immediately drawn to each other and, within a matter of moments, have consummated their new relationship. Inge then returns home to Werner, to whom she has been happily married for 30 years. Though she tries to resist, Inge can’t deny her feelings for Karl, and the two begin to see each other regularly. Even Inge’s daughter is supportive of the affair, although she urges her mother to keep it a secret. However, Inge refuses to live a lie, and her decision to tell Werner of her relationship with Karl changes both of their lives irrevocably. With its explicit and honest love scenes, Cloud Nine rejects more mainstream depictions of the elderly in film. It is a rare late-in-life love story and Dresen is by turns fearless and tender in his handling of the material. THE COLORS OF THE DESERT: A CONVERSATION WITH PETRA HAFFTER Why are deserts so mysteriously distant and enchanting at the same time? Is it because they are ancient or because of their sense of endlessness? Or do the inhabitants captivate us because they still live as they have for a thousand years or try with a vengeance to adapt to modern life? Fairy tales were told about them, adventures have been reported, and expeditions conducted. No other country is so overwhelming and at the same time holds so many secrets as the desert. In her five part documentary series produced for ARTE / ZDF Enterprise © entitled "The Colors of the Desert,"award winning filmmaker Petra Haffter seeks to unravel the secrets of one of the most fascinating landscapes on our planet. Traveling to Bolivia, the Colorado Plateau, Mojave Desert, Egypt and Jordan, Haffter tours the deserts in effort to capture the breathtaking beauty and fragility of the landscape and to introduce us to the people who call this barren environment their beloved home. Why is one desert red and another yellow? Why is gray not just gray? What do the ripples in the sand tell us? And what is the enormous influence of the elements - and time? This spectacular journey through the colors of the desert discloses some of the secrets. Screening is followed by a discussion with Petra Haffter and a reception for the artist. Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean 1982, 109 min, color Written by Ed Graczyk; directed by Robert Altman; with Sandy Dennis, Cher, Karen Black, Sudie Bond, and Kathy Bates The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA)—the organization that brings you the Golden Globes—has provided enormous support to the ongoing restoration of classic films. In association with the HFPA and The Film Foundation (TFF), Film Independent at LACMA presents the restoration of 1982’s Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. In 1982, after suffering through a few career missteps, director Robert Altman made a characteristically big bet on himself by taking on a stripped-down production of the Ed Graczyk play, Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. He came through the successful adaptation a changed man. It began the series of plays that Altman brought to the screen during that decade, including David Rabe’s Streamers and Christopher Durang’s Beyond Therapy, a serial departure from the loose-limbed improvisatory approach that initially made Altman’s film reputation. This bustling and bawdy comic melodrama also flipped the script on someone else in the shallows of her own career—Cher—and changed the perception of her from a Vegas performer living in the seedier margins of showbiz to an actress worthy of serious consideration. It even got her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Jimmy Dean may also be the first ironic invocation of Marfa, Texas. It’s where the members of a James Dean Fan Club (Cher and a cast that includes Sandy Dennis, Karen Black, Sudie Bond, and, in an early film role, Kathy Bates) meet at a Woolworth’s within hailing distance of the location of Dean’s film, Giant. Altman uses flashbacks to pit two eras against one other. He also constrains the action to a single set, keeping alive the stage atmosphere that attracted him to the material in the first place. Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive with funding provided by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and The Film Foundation. The Criminal Code (1931) Directed by Howard Hawks Sentenced to 10 years for an accidental death, Robert Graham (Phillips Holmes) is given a break when his sympathetic prison warden takes him on as chauffeur. However, Robert’s upcoming parole and his love for the warden’s daughter are threatened when he witnesses a murder by cellmate Galloway (a chillingly vengeful Boris Karloff) and must choose between his freedom and the inmates’ code of silence. Columbia Pictures Corp. Producer: Harry Cohn. Screenwriter: Fred Niblo Jr., Seton I. Miller, based on the play by Martin Flavin. Cinematographer: Teddy Tetzlaff, James Wong Howe. Editor: Edward Curtiss. Cast: Walter Huston, Phillips Holmes, Constance Cummings, Boris Karloff, De Witt Jennings. 35mm, b/w, 97 min. CUTIE AND THE BOXER “‘Art is a demon that drags you along,’ says 80-year-old visionary painter Ushio Shinohara in first-time director Zachary Heinzerling’s delicate portrait, but neither Shinohara nor his supportive wife and fellow artist Noriko are looking for a cure. Heinzerling’s beautifully shot, painfully intimate look at the aging couple’s struggle to survive amid personal and financial strain is both heartbreaking and intricately profound. This is a story about creative desire so strong it hurts. Shinohara, a resident of NYC’s fine art scene since the late ‘60s, primarily indulges in a practice known as “box painting,” an aggressive technique that finds him hurtling paint-covered gloves across a massive canvas, churning out loud, stream-of-conscious abstractions in under three minutes. The filmmaker brings this world to life with a mixture of realism and vivid imagery. Set to Yasuaki Shimizu’s smooth jazz compositions, animations based off Noriko’s drawings and subtle camerawork that explores the crevices of Shinohara and Noriko’s lives, Cutie and the Boxer uses each frame in expressive ways on par with its subjects’ work.” — Eric Kohn, Indiewire. Filmmaker Zach Heinzerling will be here in person for a Q&A after the film! Dir. Zachary Heinzerling, 2013, digital presentation, 82 min. DEAR COMRADE Dear Comrade is an experimental essay film inspired by a significant moment in California’s ‘utopian’ history — the creation of Llano del Rio, one of the most successful secular cooperative colonies in the US. The film tours the ruins of the colony and talks with local historians and scholars, but its primary focus resides not so much in the past as in the musings, questions, courage, frustrations, fantasies, and labors of many before and after Llano who have assumed comparable struggles –- to forego economic and political security to craft an alternative society. Dear Comrade is a little less than an hour, and the screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Mady Schutzman, author and queer theorist Jack Halberstam, artist Robby Herbst, and actors B.J. Dodge and Hugo Armstrong. Desperate (1947) Directed by Anthony Mann Seeking an honest living to support his pregnant wife, a returning veteran accepts a job that turns out to be illegal—trafficking stolen furs. Attempting an exit, he becomes embroiled in a police incident, and soon has the mob and the cops on his tail, as he flees with his wife from pillar to post. This straightforward yarn is also a sobering tale of disillusionment. RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. Producer: Michael Kraike. Screenwriter: Harry Essex, from a story by Dorothy Atlas and Anthony Mann. Cinematographer: George E. Diskant. Editor: Marston Fay. Cast: Steve Brodie, Audrey Long, Raymond Burr, Douglas Fowley, Jason Robards. 35mm, b/w, 73 min. Devi (The Goddess) (1960), 93 mins. In Devi, Ray tells the story of a young woman who comes to believe that she is an incarnation of the goddess Kali. Here the filmmaker explores the idea of the modern Indian woman and sensitively shows the pressures and difficulties this new ideal created. Devil's Doorway (1950) Directed by Anthony Mann An outright study of manifest destiny, Devil’s Doorway pits an upstanding citizen against his fellow townspeople, who resent his Native American heritage and social advancement. Scheming to deprive Shoshone Civil War hero Lance Poole (Robert Taylor) of his justly owned lands through skullduggery or violence, the good people of Medicine Bow, Wyoming form a rueful picture of ruthless American expansionism. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp. Producer: Nicholas Nayfack. Screenwriter: Guy Trosper. Cinematographer: John Alton. Editor: Conrad A. Nervig. Cast: Robert Taylor, Louis Calhern, Paula Raymond, Marshall Thompson, James Mitchell. 35mm, b/w, 84 min. Dimensions Of Dialogue 1982, 12 min. Arguably Svankmajer’s greatest film, and one of the most startling animated shorts ever made. Here, he explores the various forms of dialogue through Archimbaldo-like heads that cannibalize and devour each other in a savage game. Heads clank and rattle, clay figures kiss and melt. In Czech with English subtitles. Distant Thunder (Ashani Sanket) (1973), 101 mins. Set during World War II, Distant Thunder tells the story of the man-made famine that caused the deaths of five million inhabitants of Colonial Bengal. An emotionally charged film that contrasts the course of terrible events and the astonishing beauty of the world. DOWNHILL (WHEN BOYS LEAVE HOME) 1927, British Film Institute, 105 min, UK, Dir: Alfred Hitchcock Popular composer and performer Ivor Novello cowrote the play upon which this drama was based, and he stars as Roddy Berwick, a top rugby player at a tony English boarding school. Roddy takes the blame for his best friend when a local girl both had dated gets pregnant, and his life goes downhill from there. Told with minimal intertitles, this silent benefits enormously from Hitchock’s visual panache. Features a newly commissioned vocal score by Shlomo. EASY VIRTUE 1927, British Film Institute, 69 min, UK, Dir: Alfred Hitchcock This adaptation of Noel Coward’s play skewers high-society hypocrisy with a couple of familiar faces from the director’s DOWNHILL, Isabel Jeans and Robin Irvine. Suspected of adultery, Larita Filton (Jeans) is divorced by her husband and flees the scandal for France, where she meets a young man (Irvine) unaware of her past. They marry, but soon Larita’s reputation as a woman of “easy virtue” returns to haunt her. Presented with live musical accompaniment. Far From Vietnam New restoration! A film by Jean-Luc Godard, Joris Ivens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch, Chris Marker, and Alain Resnais Filmforum brings this classic collaboration to Los Angeles. Featuring almost every approach possible to agitprop filmmaking, Marker and company created a protest film unlike any other to that point. Introduced by Thom Andersen! THE FARMER'S WIFE 1928, Rialto, 107 min, UK, Dir: Alfred Hitchcock Farmer Sweetland (Jameson Thomas) has been a widower for years when his daughter’s marriage inspires him to look for a new wife. Methodical in his search for a bride, he enlists his steadfast housekeeper, Minta (THE RING’s Lillian Hall-Davis), to help him come up with a list of possible spouses - who each put the proud Sweetland through the gauntlet. Hitchcock’s sense of humor is rarely shown to better effect than in this touching film. Presented with live musical accompaniment. The 51st Ann Arbor Film Festival Traveling Tour, 16mm show Los Angeles Filmforum kicks off 2014 with a great set of new experimental films in 16mm. Including recent works by Scott Fitzpatrick, Mark Toscano, Kevin Jerome Everson, Mary Helena Clark, Alexandra Cuesta, Kimberly Forero-Arnias, Josh Weissbach, Kathryn Ramey, Jodie Mack, Baba Hillman, Christopher Becks & Peter Miller. Ann Arbor Festival Programming Director David Dinnell in person. The Final Edition (1932) Directed by Howard Higgin When the crusading local police commissioner is murdered, intrepid newspaperwoman Anne Woodman (Mae Clarke) uses her sleuthing skills, feminine wiles and a racy black bathing suit to go after the notorious racketeer responsible for the crime, securing both the scoop and the heart of her hot-tempered editor (Pat O’Brien) in this briskly wisecracking caper. Columbia Pictures Corp. Screenwriter: Dorothy Howell. Cinematographer: Benjamin Kline. Editor: Jack Dennis. Cast: Pat O’Brien, Mae Clarke, Mary Doran, Bradley Page, Morgan Wallace. 35mm, b/w, 66 min. Finyé (The Wind) Mali, 1982, 100 minutes Written and directed by Souleymane Cissé Starring Fousseyni Sissoko, Goundo Guissé, and Balla Moussa Keita Writer/director Souleymane Cissé’s 1982 drama starts with a deft intimacy—following high-school classmates from two disparate worlds as they traverse the tricky roads of family and friends while keeping an eye on their futures. Ba is a young man from the village, struggling to keep his grades up, and Batrou is the sensitive daughter of a no-nonsense military man. But then Cissé shifts the ground beneath the feet of his characters—and the audience—when a political stand becomes the center of the story. What seemed to be a tried and true story of the path to adulthood becomes another altogether different one. “The wind awakens the path of man,” a title informs at the beginning of Finyé, and Cissé is out to reveal what happens when a force of nature prods another such force into action. THE FLIGHT Dir. Roland Gräf, GDR, 1977, 94 min. German with English subtitles, digital. Starring Armin Mueller-Stahl, Jenny Gröllmann Roland Gräf’s dramatic thriller focusing on an East German Dr.’s struggle to escape to the west was Armin Mueller-Stahl’s final DEFA film. When Dr. Schmith’s (Armin Mueller-Stahl) proposal for international research on infant mortality is rejected, he decides to leave East Germany and strikes a deal with an escape agency that promises him a leading position at a children’s hospital in West Germany. But then the decision is reversed: the project is approved and his international colleagues want Dr. Schmith to head the GDR section. Moreover, he falls in love with his new colleague, Katharina (Jenny Gröllmann). Schmith initially tries to ignore the arrangements he made with the escape agency, but they blackmail him. Things soon turn deadly... As the topic of escaping to the West was taboo in the GDR, The Flight is an exception in East German film history. The film, which won the Grand Prix at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 1978, was the last one Armin Mueller-Stahl made at the East German DEFA studios. In 1980, only two years after the release of the film, he left East Germany for the West because of professional restrictions imposed upon him after he joined protests against the expatriation of the dissident singer/songwriter Wolf Biermann. FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS Produced and directed by Sam Wood Sam Wood’s epic adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s novel of the Spanish Civil War offered key supporting parts to an international cast, including fourth-billed Arturo de Córdova. Playing quick-tempered republican guerilla Augustin, actor Arturo de Córdova sharpens the story’s political edge, and lends credibility and stature to its portrayal of the difficulty and danger of anti-fascist struggle. UCLA Film & Television Archive’s restoration of this film restores several minutes to truncated versions that were circulated for years, and will be presented with entry music and an intermission. Paramount Pictures, Inc. Screenwriter: Dudley Nichols, based on the novel by Ernest Hemingway. Cinematographer: Ray Rennahan. Editor: Sherman Todd, John F. Link. Cast: Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman, Akim Tamiroff, Arturo de Córdova, Vladimir Sokoloff. 35mm, color, 157 min. Frenchman's Creek (1944) Directed by Mitchell Leisen When an English noblewoman (Joan Fontaine) seeking escape from her loveless marriage falls for a dashing French pirate (Arturo de Córdova) and joins him for adventure raiding the Cornish coast, she must choose between following her heart on the high seas, or resuming her responsibilities as a wife and mother. A swashbuckling 17th-century romance filmed in lavish Technicolor, the film is possibly de Córdova’s most satisfying American outing. Paramount Pictures, Inc. Producer: B.G. DeSylva. Screenwriter: Talbot Jennings, based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier. Cinematographer: George Barnes. Editor: Alma Macrorie. Cast: Joan Fontaine, Arturo de Córdova, Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Cecil Kellaway. 35mm, color, 110 min. The Furies (1950) Directed by Anthony Mann The Furies casts Barbara Stanwyck as Vance, Walter Huston’s headstrong daughter who runs his ranch in New Mexico Territory. Vance faithfully protects her best friend, the Mexican-American Juan (Gilbert Roland). When her new, socialite stepmother (Judith Anderson) dares to challenge her authority, Vance disfigures her with a pair of scissors. Stanwyck’s character offers an action-packed, cowgirl rebellion against patriarchy that foreshadows her later work with director Samuel Fuller. Paramount Pictures Corp. Producer: Hal B. Wallis. Screenwriter: Charles Schnee. Cinematographer: Victor Milner. Editor: Archie Marshek. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Huston, Gilbert Roland, Wendell Corey, Judith Anderson. 35mm, b/w, 107 min. GAME SHOW MODELS 1976, Vinegar Syndrome, 89 min, USA, Dir: David Gottlieb One of the stranger drive-in experiments of the mid-’70s, GAME SHOW MODELS began its life as an AFI-funded art film but was transformed into a T&A-fueled attempt to cash in on the era's game show craze at the request of distributor Sam Sherman. Following the life of a former hippie turned white collar worker, MODELS is an earnest commentary on the woes of dropping into society and is punctuated by some magnificent period footage of Los Angeles. Discussion between films with director David Gottlieb. The General Secretary is Trapped in a Snow Globe: William E. Jones on Peter Roehr Los Angeles Filmforum at MOCA presents William E. Jones, a Los Angeles based artist, filmmaker and curator whose diverse body of work explores materiality, memory and subcultures; he has recently produced a body of work in conversation with the career of the late German artist Peter Roehr. This program will include a rare presentation of Peter Roehr’s sound and film montages. These works restructure American advertising using strict, mechanical repetition. Partially inspired by the physicality, eroticism, and congruency with Bob Mizer’s work, evident in Roehr’s wrestling film Ringer, Jones’ performance and video Film Montages (For Peter Roehr) explore the erotic possibilities embedded within Roehr’s life and methodical editing. Introduction by Alison Kozberg The Golden Fortress (Sonar Kella) (1974), 120 mins. A young boy is haunted by memories of a previous life and is kidnapped by sinister scheming bandits. A bewitching comedy-thriller, The Golden Fortress shows Ray at his most playful and includes some of the most memorable performances in Bengali cinema. GOOD LUCK, MISS WYCKOFF 1979, Vinegar Syndrome, 105 min, USA, Dir: Marvin J. Chomsky Legendary production designer Polly Platt (THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, TERMS OF ENDEARMENT) wrote the screenplay for this adaptation of William Inge’s novel about a high school Latin teacher (Anne Heywood), whose life is upended by an abusive affair with a black student (John Lafayette). A searing tale examining race and sex in 1950s America, the film costars Donald Pleasance, Robert Vaughn, and Ronee Blakeley. Discussion between films with director David Gottlieb. The Great Flamarion (1945) Directed by Anthony Mann The Great Flamarion is an aging vaudeville sharpshooter whose act is assisted by a married couple acting as human targets. The wife is unhappy, though, and is itching to engineer a little accident to get rid of her alcoholic husband. The great Erich von Stroheim plays the sharpshooter with great sensitivity, and a psychopathic edge, again qualifying him as a typical Anthony Mann hero. Republic Pictures Corp. Producer: William Wilder. Screenwriter: Anne Wigton, Heinz Herald, Richard Weil. Cinematographer: James S. Brown Jr. Editor: John F. Link. Cast: Erich von Stroheim, Mary Beth Hughes, Dan Duryea, Stephen Barclay, Lester Allen. 35mm, b/w, 75 min. GRILL POINT Germany, 2001, 107 min., German with English subtitles Starring Axel Prahl, Steffi Kühnert, Thorsten Merten Two long-married couples, Uwe and Ellen, Chris and Katrin, share evenings together and enjoy a comfortable friendship in Frankfurt/Oder. One day, Chris visits Ellen’s perfume shop, ostensibly to buy a gift for his wife, though the encounter leads to an affair between Chris and Ellen. The two manage to keep their situation a secret for a time until Katrin discovers the two together. Both marriages fall apart in the wake of the revelation of the affair, although where the relationships go from there is hardly predictable. There are no easy explanations for the character’s actions and Dresen instead relies on the perceptive characterizations of the actors to elucidate motivation. The dialogue was improvised on location and the natural, hand-held camera work adds to the loose atmosphere of the film. With its astute observations about friendship and marriage, Grill Point offers a warm and insightful take on modern relationships. He Walked by Night (1948) Directed by Alfred L. Werker, Anthony Mann This story following the cat-and-mouse pursuit of a cop-killing, black marketeer is the quintessential “police procedural,” featuring a degree of technical detail heretofore unknown. An un-credited Anthony Mann (who assumed directorial duties from Alfred Werker) is generally acknowledged as the creative force behind this innovative noir, featuring cutting-edge location shooting by cinematographer John Alton, and climaxing in a gripping chase through the Los Angeles sewer system. Eagle-Lion Films, Inc. Producer: Robert T. Kane. Screenwriter: John C. Higgins, Crane Wilbur, from a story by Crane Wilbur. Cinematographer: John Alton. Editor: Alfred De Gaetano. Cast: Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, Roy Roberts, Whit Bissell, James Cardwell. 35mm, b/w, 80 min. Hostages (1943) Directed by Frank Tuttle Actor Arturo de Córdova portrays Paul Breda, Czech resistance leader in the struggle against the Nazi occupation of his country. In this suspenseful anecdote, Breda and a group of Czechoslovakian hostages are held under suspicion of killing a Nazi officer, a sham procedure that could end in execution for all. De Córdova is an effective ensemble player, winning over to the opposition the apolitical Milada (Luise Rainer), daughter of a Czech collaborator. Paramount Pictures, Inc. Producer: Sol C. Siegel. Screenwriter: Lester Cole, based on the novel by Stefan Heym. Cinematographer: Victor Milner. Editor: Archie Marshek. Cast: Arturo de Córdova, Luise Rainer, William Bendix, Paul Lukas, Katina Paxinou. 35mm, b/w, 88 min. HOUSEMAIDS Directed by Gabriel Mascaro. This insightful documentary offers a penetrating gaze into the deeply rooted class experiences implicit in the institution of private servitude, personified by housemaids—an integral part of the household in Brazil. Filmmaker Gabriel Mascaro invited adolescents in seven households to film their housemaids for a week, providing him with the footage for editing. The result is a subtle but clear-eyed examination of the entrenched inequality that makes such economic relationships so intractable and complex, and rife with unstated assumptions about power, privilege and freedom. Digital video, color, in Portuguese with English subtitles, 76 min. HOW STRANGE TO BE NAMED FEDERICO (CHE STRANO CHIAMARSI FEDERICO) 2013, Bim Distribuzione, 90 min, Italy, Dir: Ettore Scola This documentary by director Ettore Scola focuses on his longtime friend Federico Fellini, using personal memories, archival footage and recreations to paint a loving portrait of the legendary Italian filmmaker. In Italian with English subtitles. In the Palm of Your Hand (En la palma de tu mano) (Mexico, 1950) Directed by Roberto Gavaldón In this exquisite Mexican film noir, Arturo de Córdova portrays “Karin,” a charlatan clairvoyant whose psychic glimpses into the secrets of society ladies are actually gleaned by his wife from the gossipy beauty salon where she works. Consulted by a wealthy woman rumored to have murdered her millionaire husband, Karin enters into an intoxicating and destructive affair with this captivating femme fatale. Producer: Felipe Mier, Óscar J. Brooks. Screenwriter: Jose Revueltas, Roberto Gavaldón, based on a story by Luis Spota. Cinematographer: Alex Phillips. Editor: Charles L. Kimball. Cast: Arturo de Córdova, Leticia Palma, Carmen Montejo, Ramón Gay, Consuelo Guerrero de Luna. 35mm, b/w, in Spanish with English subtitles, 90 min. Island Etude (Taiwan, 2006) Directed by Chen Huai-en A young man embarks upon a bicycle tour around the periphery of the island of Taiwan. Along the way he encounters many fellow travelers: a graffiti artist, a lovely traveling student from Lithuania, allowing each to affect him in some way. In this moving valentine to Taiwanese civil society, “Ming’s” experiences suggest the negotiations and transformations taking place everywhere in the country… for those open to experience. Producer: Yang Lai-yin. Screenwriter/Cinematographer: Chen Huai-en. Editor: Chen Bo-wen. Cast: Tung Ming-hsiang, Teng An-ning, Ruta Palionyte, Danny Deng, Darren. 35mm, color, in Mandarin and Lithuanian with English subtitles, 109 min. It’s A Frame-Up! (2013, 29 min. Dir. Michael Schlesinger). In this faux 1938 short, the vaudeville team of Biffle and Shooster wangle jobs in an art gallery - on the very day a priceless painting has been delivered. With Nick Santa Maria, Will Ryan, Robert Picardo and Daniel Roebuck. “I can't think of any other intentional comedies of recent years that have given me so many, or so many varied, big laughs in the space of 30 minutes. It makes what has basically been a dead art form for the past 50 years feel vital once again.” - Tim Lucas, Video Watchdog. IT’S A GIFT 1934, Universal, 73 min, USA, Dir: Norman Z. McLeod Considered by some to be the Great Man’s greatest film, this short, sweet W.C. Fields vehicle is little more than a series of zany sketches loosely tied to his desire to move to California and grow oranges. Includes the legendary "Mr. Muckle" and "Carl LaFong" scenes, as well as the hanging mirror and sleeping porch routines. Jean Rouverol, who co-wrote THE FIRST TIME, plays Fields’ daughter. Jealousy (Celos) (Mexico, 1935) Written and directed by Arcady Boytler Playing a supporting role in his debut, actor Arturo de Córdova fortuitously landed in Russian-born Arcady Boytler’s sophisticated psychological melodrama, of a type rare in Mexico at the time, but which would typify the actor’s later career. A brilliant doctor (Fernando Soler) is engaged to be married, but love for his betrothed is suffocated by suspicion and jealousy, with de Córdova cast as the surgeon’s assistant, wrongly suspected as a rival. Producer: Felipe Mier. Cinematographer: Alex Phillips. Editor: Arcady Boytler, Juan José Marino. Cast: Fernando Soler, Vilma Vidal, Arturo de Córdova, Emilio Fernández, Luis G. Barreiro. 35mm, b/w, in Spanish with English subtitles, 79 min. KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL Kansas City Confidential, Phil Karlson's low (low) budget, B-grade film noir, opens on a Kansas City armored-car robbery perpetrated by cynical, corrupt ex-policeman Timothy Foster (Preston S. Foster). Foster devises an outrageous scheme: he will recruit three of the most vicious and unrelenting criminals he can find (screen heavies Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam and Neville Brand) to undertake a robbery, blackmailing them into the heist with incriminating evidence from other "jobs." As an eccentric and clever conceit, Foster forces each of the perpetrators to wear masks, thus concealing their identities from one another and preventing the old pitfall of the men squealing and backstabbing. The heist comes off without a scratch, but a complication arises when the ignorant cops pick up an unrelated fellow, Joe Rolfe (John Payne) for his ownership of a van similar to the one used in the caper. In time, Rolfe is cleared, but he grows irate over the accusations and sets off to find Foster and co. and teach them a lesson. He finally happens upon one of the perpetrators in Mexico, beats him nearly to death, and assumes the victim's identity - and that's when things really get complicated. Though produced under the Hays Code censorship regulations, Kansas City Confidential constituted one of the most brutal and violent crime pictures made up through that time; as such, it retains historical significance. 1952, USA, 35mm, 99 minutes. Directed by Phil Karlson; screenplay by George Bruce and Harry Essex; story by Rowland Brown and Harold Greene; starring John Payne, Coleen Gray, Preston Foster, Neville Brand, Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam The Kneeling Goddess (La Diosa Arrodillada) (Mexico,1947) Directed by Roberto Gavaldón In this near-noir by actor Arturo de Córdova’s frequent director Roberto Gavaldón, millionaire Antonio Ituarte (de Córdova) gives his wife an unusual wedding gift: a life-sized statue of a kneeling, nude woman—secretly modeled by his lover, Raquel (María Félix). When the mistress demands that Antonio leave his wife, to whom misfortune then befalls, Antonio becomes the very figure of the tormented reprobate—both inflamed and disgusted by his obsession with Raquel. Producer: Rodolfo Lowenthal, Luis Cortés, Jorge Cardeña. Screenwriter: José Revueltas, Roberto Gavaldón, based on a story by Ladislao Fodor, with the collaboration of Alfred B. Crevenna and Edmundo Báez. Cinematographer: Alex Phillips. Editor: Charles L. Kimball. Cast: María Félix, Arturo de Córdova, Rosario Granados, Fortunio Bonanova, Carlos Martínez Baena. 35mm, b/w, in Spanish with English subtitles, 107 min. LACMA9 Shorts Program Total running time: 79 minutes In conjunction with the Monterey Park Art+Film Lab presented by LACMA, watch a diverse selection of films—shorts, independents, and international films that are sure to capture your imagination. All screenings take place in the recital hall of the Performing and Fine Arts Center. Short films are nimble shape shifters, embodying a latitude of expression that longer works often cannot. LACMA9 presents a collection of all ages-friendly shorts, from beloved children's classics to auteur films celebrating people and places. All screenings take place in the recital hall of the Performing and Fine Arts Center. FILMS INCLUDE: * Daybreak Express 1953, five minutes, rated G. Directed by D. A. Pennebaker. A vivid, kaleidoscopic, and kinetic trek through former New York City El train lines set to a Duke Ellington score. * Olivia's Place 1966, six minutes, rated G, 16 mm. Directed by Thom Andersen. An intimate portrait of the patrons, workers, and objects inside Olivia’s Place, a long-defunct Santa Monica diner. Aware the diner would soon be gone, Andersen captured its essence in this series of moments, as tribute. * Kristallnacht 1979, six minutes, not rated, 16 mm. Directed by Chick Strand. A haunting black-and-white film dedicated to the memory of Anne Frank. The abstract, shimmering water hints at images of the film’s namesake catastrophe. * The Sound We See: A Los Angeles City Symphony 2010, 28 minutes, not rated. Created by the Echo Park Film Center. Shot on Super 8 black-and-white film, this is a cinematic exploration of Los Angeles’s many environments and landscapes. A 2010 collaboration between the Los Angeles City Symphony and the Echo Park Film Center (a local nonprofit), the short film is the masterwork of youth who spent over 14 weeks capturing the dynamic sights and sounds of their neighborhoods. The film opens with the young filmmakers’ proclamation “This is my city!” and is over in the blink of an eye. * Red Balloon 1956, 34 minutes, rated G. Directed by Albert Lamorisse. French, with English subtitles. Filmed in Paris’s Ménilmontant neighborhood, this newly restored fantasy featurette remains one of the most beloved children’s films of all time. Follow a young boy’s fable-like adventures with a voiceless balloon as they become nearly inseparable on the streets of Paris. The Last Frontier (1956) Directed by Anthony Mann Two rugged trappers (Victor Mature, James Whitmore) and their Indian guide (Pat Hogan) become scouts at a remote frontier fort, tenuously defended by a young officer (Guy Madison) and an Indian-hating Colonel, at a time when tensions with local tribes are running high. Cool heads and high principles take a back seat to jingoism and passion in director Anthony Mann’s decidedly unromantic portrait of a frontier community. Columbia Pictures Corp. Producer: William Fadiman. Screenwriter: Philip Yordan, Russell S. Hughes. Cinematographer: William Mellor. Editor: Al Clark. Cast: Victor Mature, Guy Madison, Robert Preston, James Whitmore, Pat Hogan. 35mm, color, 98 min. LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON Would you choose your natural son, or the son you believed was yours after spending 6 years together? Kore-eda Hirokazu, the globally acclaimed director of Nobody Knows, Still Walking and I Wish, returns to the big screen with another family - a family thrown into torment after a phone call from the hospital where the son was born… Ryota has earned everything he has by his hard work, and believes nothing can stop him from pursuing his perfect life as a winner. Then one day, he and his wife, Midori, get an unexpected phone call from the hospital. Their 6-year-old son, Keita, is not ‘their’ son - the hospital gave them the wrong baby. Ryota is forced to make a life-changing decision, to choose between ‘nature’ and ‘nurture.’ Seeing Midori’s devotion to Keita even after learning his origin, and communicating with the rough yet caring family that has raised his natural son for the last six years, Ryota also starts to question himself: has he really been a ‘father’ all these years… The moving story of a man who finally faces himself when he encounters an unexpected wall for the first time in his life. Running time: 120 minutes. In Japanese, with English subtitles. LILI'S JOURNEY Compelled by the central role of women to achieve all the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015, their place became the foundation of the feature length documentary Lili's Journey. Lili's Journey started with two sisters' simple quest to find candid answers on what it means to be a woman in our day and age, evolving into a serendipitous voyage throughout the most diverse cultures, traditions and religions. The world is not short of courageous women for women. But what will it take to get on the road of this gender equal society everybody seems to be talking about lately? We travelled the world over to fnd out. From Pro Mujer in Latin America shedding light on the concept of micro credit to Queen Rania in Jordan who spoke to us about the paramount place of education. Back in New York we were inspired by Diane von Furstenberg but also Christy Turlington Burns who is putting heart and soul to accomplish positive results in Maternal Health. Spotlight on trailblazers, we encountered Zainab Salbi who, having escaped the clutches of Saddam Hussein, went on to change the lives of many women who suffered the most pervasive tactical war violence. Never failing to make an impression we were truly marked by the very charismatic former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet who recently brought about the frst UN agency for Women, and we celebrate the Nobel Peace Prize winning efforts of Shirin Ebadi in modern day Iran. A groundswell is taking place. There is no doubt. But what will it take to address the issues facing women in its variety of degrees all across the globe? The flm aspires to amplify the voices of exceptional women and make their case crystal clear to the public. There can be no social progress without the inclusion of women. Running time: 84 minutes. LOST & FOUND FILM CLUB: CLOWNS, MIMES & PUPPETRY CRIMES January’s “Clowns, Mimes & Puppetry Crimes” program surveys our growing collection of shorts from the wacky worlds of pantomime and puppeteering. Step right up for a program of perfect pratfalls and strange novelty acts, plus some of the oddest puppets you’ve ever seen on the big screen. LOST & FOUND FILM CLUB: SID LAVERENTS, AMATEUR AUTEUR For the first time, Lost & Found Film Club would like to honor a single filmmaker, whose playful creativity, technical innovation, D.I.Y. attitude and outsider status exemplifies the Lost & Found aesthetic: San Diego’s Sid Laverents. Most famous for his homemade 1970 one-man tour de force Multiple SIDosis — which inspired countless multi-tracked music videos with its laboriously low-tech in-camera effects — Laverents spent his early career as a vaudevillian and bandleader before being bitten by the filmmaking bug in his mid 50's. In his wake, he left a trail of zany shorts involving odd jobs, cloning and shaving cream explosions. With his living room as backdrop, and his wife as co-star, Laverents blurred the lines between hobbyist and artist, creating and distributing films through old-school rental catalogs until his death at the age of 100 in 2009. We'll screen a marathon of his best-loved 16mm shorts, as well as gorgeous 35mm restorations of Multiple SIDosis and Sid's feature-length autobiography, The Sid Saga. Program introduced by preservationist Ross Lipman. Restored prints courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Our program: It Sudses And Sudses, 1963, 16mm, 9min.; One Man Band, 1964, 16mm, 10min.; Multiple SIDosis, 1970, 35mm, 9 min.; Stop Cloning Around, 1980, 16mm, 15min.; The Sid Saga (parts I-III), 1985-1989, 35mm, 90min. LUNACY (SÍLENI) 2005, Zeitgeist Films, 118 min, Czech Republic, Dir: Jan Svankmajer Noted Czech director Jan Svankmajer channels Edgar Allan Poe and the Marquis de Sade in this surreal horror film. Beset by nightmares, Jean Berlot (Pavel Liska) visits an asylum at the suggestion of the debauched Marquis (Jan Tríska). The asylum embodies poles of excessive freedom and excessive discipline, and when Berlot falls for a woman there, he discovers how thin the line between madness and sanity really is. In Czech with English subtitles. Lynne Sachs: Two Los Angeles Premieres Lynne Sachs in person! Filmforum is delighted to welcome back New York filmmaker Lynne Sachs with the Los Angeles premieres of two of her unique works. Moving regularly through the different possibilities of documentary and narrative approaches, Sachs finds the simple beauties and underlying social tensions of people trying to form their places in the world. Quietly empathetic with people often overlooked, and easily conversant with all the tools of filmmaking, each work from Sachs offers up a new way of looking at people and a new way of thinking about film. LYNNE SACHS: YOUR DAY IS MY NIGHT Shot in the kitchens, bedrooms, weddings halls and mahjong parlors of New York’s Chinatown, Your Day Is My Night (2013, 64 min., HD) is a provocative, many-layered hybrid documentary in which Lynne Sachs explores the immigrant stories that unfold in a “shift-bed” apartment—a domestic space shared, due to economic necessity, by people neither in the same family nor in a relationship. Seven characters ranging in age from 58 to 78 play themselves as Sachs transforms the shift-bed into a stage, illuminating a collective history of Chinese immigration through intimate conversations, dreams, autobiographical monologues, songs and theatrical improvisations. Since 1994, Sachs’ experimental films have investigated the intricate relationships between personal observation and collective memory, notably in locations of international conflict such as Vietnam, Bosnia and Israel. In person: Lynne Sachs, cinematographer Sean Hanley The Making of an Avant-Garde Co-presented with the MAK Center for Art and Architecture The Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS) began as a core group of young architects including Diana Agrest, Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Philip Johnson, Rem Koolhaas, Richard Meier, and Anthony Vidler, seeking alternatives to traditional forms of education and practice. IAUS has since redefined architectural discourse and practice in the United States and abroad. (2013, Dir. Diana Agrest, 64 min.) A Q&A with director Diana Agrest follows the screening. The Man from Laramie (1955) Directed by Anthony Mann In the last of his eight films with director Anthony Mann, James Stewart plays a vengeance-minded stranger who alights in a frontier town seeking the man responsible for his brother's death. His revenge scheme involves him in a kind of high desert Oedipal struggle between ailing cattle baron Donald Crisp, his hotheaded son and his sober foreman over the future of the largest ranch in the territory. Columbia Pictures Corp. Producer: William Goetz. Screenwriter: Philip Yordan, Frank Burt, based on the novel by Thomas T. Flynn. Cinematographer: Charles Lang. Editor: William Lyon. Cast: James Stewart, Arthur Kennedy, Donald Crisp, Cathy O’Donnell, Alex Nicol. 35mm, color, 102 min. Man of the West (1958) Directed by Anthony Mann Representing his small town, Link Jones (Gary Cooper) travels to Fort Worth with a bagful of money, aiming to hire a schoolteacher. Waylaid by bandits, Link must retrieve his money to maintain his town’s trust, though this may involve acknowledging dark truths about his own past. Director Anthony Mann frames a fair question in this drama: whether the most virtuous man is always the most effective. Ashton Productions, Inc. Screenwriter: Reginald Rose, based on the novel by Will C. Brown. Cinematographer: Ernest Hall. Editor: Richard V. Heermance. Cast: Gary Cooper, Julie London, Lee J. Cobb, Arthur O’Connell, Jack Lord. 35mm, color, 100 min. MANON Fiercely debated, awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and promptly forgotten, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s postwar adaptation of the 18th century novel Manon Lescaut stands in stark contrast to the elated promise of liberation, presenting instead, the complex repercussions of the German occupation and the realities of mass displacement. When Leon (Michel Auclair), a soldier in the French resistance, rescues Manon (Cecile Aubry), from an angry mob who has accused her of collaboration, the two lovers are drawn into the bleak underworld of post-occupation Paris. This disenchanted love story is recounted in flashback after the stowaways are discovered on a ship bound for Palestine carrying Jewish refugees. “A painstakingly magnificent film” - The Hollywood Reporter “A dark surrealist fever dream” - Harvard Film Archive A Medal for Benny (1945) Directed by Irving Pichel The paisano residents of a small California town recall young rascal Benny with mixed affection and approbation, as he left town under a cloud following a fracas with a policeman. News that Benny has been posthumously named a war hero sets folks reassessing their relationships to him. Actor Arturo de Córdova, cast as a would-be suitor to Benny’s girlfriend (Dorothy Lamour), is a rascal whose get-rich-quick schemes are displaced by a newfound nobility in the wake of Benny’s apotheosis. Paramount Pictures, Inc. Screenwriter: Jack Wagner, based on a story by Jack Wagner and John Steinbeck. Cinematographer: Lionel Lindon. Editor: Arthur P. Schmidt. Cast: Dorothy Lamour, Arturo de Córdova, J. Carrol Naish, Mikhail Rasumny, Charles Dingle. 35mm, b/w, 77 min. MS. 45 King of New York, Bad Lieutenant, The Funeral — all indelible cinematic classics from the mind of Abel Ferrara, whom we proudly call one of America’s greatest and most unique living filmmakers. Ms. 45, one of Ferrara’s earliest works, comes to Cinefamily in a brand-new DCP restoration, and is by far one of the best of the drive-in vigilante films kicked off some years earlier by Death Wish. This gritty ditty puts a novel spin on the premise by turning its avenging gun-packer into a beautiful young mute woman cleaning up the streets. Thana (Zoë Tamerlis, co-writer of Bad Lieutenant), a diligent worker in NYC’s garment district, has the ultimate bad day as she’s assaulted not once, but twice in visceral fashion. Shocked to her core, her nights become consumed by seductive prowls through the city — which often results in male pigs winding up on the wrong end of a bullet. Tamerlis offers a compelling silent performance that eerily echoes Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion, while Ferrara displays an amazing command of the medium on very limited means. Eerie, firey, unforgettable. Dir. Abel Ferrara, 1981, DCP, 80 min. The Music Room (Jalsaghar) (1958), 100 mins. With The Music Room, Ray brilliantly evokes the crumbling opulence of the world of a fallen Indian aristocrat clinging to a fading way of life. An incandescent depiction of the clash between tradition and modernity and a defining work of the filmmaker’s career. The Naked Spur (1953) Directed by Anthony Mann Actor James Stewart portrays relentless bounty hunter Howard Kemp, who together with a drifter and morally dubious ex-soldier pursues outlaw Ben Vandergroat (played to perfection by Robert Ryan) for the $5,000 reward on his head. Stewart delivers a morally complex performance as he struggles to resist killing and violence, only to finally give in to his primal urges. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp. Producer: William H. Wright. Screenwriter: Sam Rolfe, Harold Jack Bloom. Cinematographer: William Mellor. Editor: George White. Cast: James Stewart, Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh, Ralph Meeker, Millard Mitchell. 35mm, color, 93 min. Nayak (The Hero) (1966), 120 mins. From his second original screenplay, Ray’s Nayak tells the story of a Bengali matinee idol, who while on a cross-country train journey, ends up revealing all of his personal secrets to a young journalist. A compelling meditation on fame and the fragility of public personas. The Night Mayor (1932) Directed by Ben Stoloff A flashy big city mayor (Lee Tracy) with a predilection for parties risks a scandal when he falls in love with a nightclub dancer (Evalyn Knapp) and a jealous rival threatens to expose their affair. Based on the controversial figure of New York City mayor Jimmy Walker, The Night Mayor’s Bobby Kingston must choose between love and politics in this brash pre-Code drama. Columbia Pictures Corp. Screenwriter: Gertrude Purcell. Cinematographer: Teddy Tetzlaff. Editor: Maurice Wright. Cast: Lee Tracy, Evalyn Knapp, Donald Dillaway, Eugene Pallette, Vince Barnett. 35mm, b/w, 65 min. NIGHT SHAPES Germany, 1998, 104 min., German with English subtitles Starring Dominique Horwitz, Michael Gwisdek, Meriam Abbas In June of 1996, all of Berlin awaits a visit from the Pope. As evening descends on the city, Hanna, a young homeless woman, is given 100 Marks and decides to spend the evening in a hotel with her friend Victor, though the two go through hell before finding a room. Jochen the farmer, eager to experience all that the city has to offer, ends up following a teenage prostitute to her hotel where he refuses her advances and instead tries to save her. Hendrik Peschke, assigned by his boss to meet an associate at the airport, suffers one nightmare after another when he cannot find him. These three stories, thinly linked by each one’s narrative bleakness, unfold on an evening when Berlin is distracted by the arrival of the Pope. The three protagonists endure the indifference of the city in this very dark yet very amusing film from early in Dresen’s career. 99 RIVER STREET Ernie Driscoll (John Payne) is an ex-fighter who came within seconds of winning the world championship. He's now forced to eke out a living driving a cab. A basically decent guy, he has lots of people who care about him, including Linda James (Evelyn Keyes), a slightly ditsy actress friend -- but Ernie also has a short fuse, especially where his wife Pauline (Peggie Castle) is concerned. His rage boils over when he spots her kissing another man, but her unfaithfulness turns out to be the least of his worries. The man she's seeing, Vic Rawlins (Brad Dexter), is a career criminal with both the police and his former partners after him, and he sees Ernie as the perfect fall-guy. The law and Rawlins' criminal associates are soon closing in on Ernie, while he tries desperately -- with Linda's help -- to buy the time he needs to unravel this nightmare. 1953, USA, 35mm, 83 minutes. Directed by Phil Karlson; screenplay by Robert Smith; story by George Zuckerman; starring John Payne, Evelyn Keyes, Brad Dexter, Frank Faylen, Peggie Castle Numax Presenta (1980, 105 min) Financed with the contingency fund of the workers’ assembly at the Numax factory, this historical documentary is a bittersweet account of the partial successes and ultimate failure of the struggle for self-organisation of a group of workers in late 1970s Spain. Rather than speaking for the workers, late filmmaker Joaquim Jordà records the vivid discussions among them, allowing opposing views to unfold before the camera. The film traces a dramatic shift from the aspirations of self-management to defeat by self-exploitation, and the key role that women played in this movement. OTHER STATES: SOUND/FILM PERFORMANCES BY PAUL CLIPSON, CHRIS DUNCAN, & COLLIN MCKELVEY Join us for an evening celebrating the release of REEL, a new book of film projectionist drawings and notes being released by LAND AND SEA made in collaboration with Paul Clipson and premiering at the Los Angeles Art Book Fair, surveying over a decade of 35mm screenings at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where Clipson works as a projectionist, will be introduced at EPFC with a video collage of films featured in the book. The evening will feature two performances by sound artists Chris Duncan and Collin McKelvey with new Super 8 and 16mm films by Paul Clipson, as well as screenings of Clipson’s recent Super 8mm shorts DIFFICULT LOVES (2013), VOID REDUX (2013) and OTHER STATES (2013). Paul Clipson is a San Francisco-based filmmaker who often collaborates with sound artists and musicians on films, live performances, and installations. His Super 8 and 16mm films aim to bring to light subconscious visual preoccupations that reveal themselves while working in a stream of consciousness manner, combining densely layered, in-camera edited studies of figurative and abstract environments, in a process that encourages unplanned-for results, responding to and conversing with the temporal qualities of musical composition and live performance. Chris Duncan is an Oakland-based artist who employs repetition and accumulation as a basis for experiments in visual and sound based media. Often in flux between maximal and minimal, Duncan’s work is a constant balancing act of positive or negative, loud or quite, solitary or participatory and tends to lead towards questions regarding perception, experience and transcendence. Outside of his studio practice he also organizes events and runs a small artist book press and record label called LAND AND SEA with his wife, Maria Otero. Collin McKelvey is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Oakland CA. McKelvey’s work is rooted in the utilization of sound, particularly field recordings and electronics, to produce immersive environments that reflect on issues of time, place, and the way experiences are lived and remembered. THE PATENT LEATHER KID “If you aren’t a fight fan, you will be when you have seen it.” — Screenland Epic in scope, this deeply human character study showcasing the formidable acting talents of megastar Richard Barthelmess (Broken Blossoms, Way Down East, Tol’able David) stands alongside The Big Parade one of the silent era’s most empathetic WWI epics. Beginning on New York’s Lower East Side, The Patent Leather Kid tells the tale of a tough, streetwise prize fighter with slick, black hair (hence the nickname!) who initially balks at the idea of fighting outside the ring, yet is forced to apply the courage of a pugilist to the grim realities of battle on France’s front lines. Also featuring a breakout performance from Molly O’Day, Al Santell’s patriotic drama — which almost never screens anywhere in the world — comes to The Silent Treatment, with live music by Cinefamily accompanist Cliff Retallick. Dir. Alfred Santell, 1927, 35mm, 150 min. THE PLEASURE GARDEN 1926, British Film Institute, 90 min, UK, Dir: Alfred Hitchcock Fans of Alfred Hitchcock will likely notice familiar visual cues and themes in his directorial debut, which was released only after THE LODGER had proven a hit. American silent star Virginia Valli plays Patsy Brand, a chorus girl at the Pleasure Garden Theatre who befriends aspiring performer Jill Cheyne (Carmelita Geraghty). While Jill trifles with her many suitors, Patsy is faithful to her man - and it almost costs her her life. The BFI drew from several extant prints for this meticulous restoration of THE PLEASURE GARDEN, which features the film’s original color tints and tones. THE POLICEWOMAN Germany, 2001, 95 min., German with English subtitles Starring Gabriela Maria Schmeide, Axel Prahl Anne has just completed her studies to enter the police force and is assigned a position in Rostock, a city of drab, pre-fab concrete buildings. She soon discovers that the inhabitants match the bleak architecture of the city as she spends her days handling domestic disputes, prostitution, and robberies. She develops complicated relationships with her married colleague Mike, with whom she has an affair, a young thief named Benny, whose difficult home life elicits her sympathy, and a Russian burglar who abuses her trust and puts her job in jeopardy. With a documentary-style realism and attention to detail, The Policewoman records a part of Germany not often depicted on film. Dresen expertly conveys the harsh reality of Anne’s lonely life spent handling petty crime, yet he manages to keep the film from being dragged down by the unforgiving circumstances of Anne’s existence. The Postmaster (1961), 56 mins.; and Kanchenjungha (1962), 102 mins. Ray’s first original screenplay and his first film to be shot in color, Kanchenjungha followsthe shifting and evolving relationships of an upper-class vacationing Bengali family. Together with The Postmaster, an excerpt from the multi-part film, Three Daughters. Railroaded! (1947) Directed by Anthony Mann An innocent man is framed for the murder of a policeman, and police corruption works against the innocent victim of the system, after a crooked nightclub owner and his girlfriend botch the robbery of her own bookie joint. Mann’s low budget treatment features high key lighting and John Ireland and Sheila Ryan as the despicable villains, while police detective Chubb is portrayed as a vicious sadist. Eagle-Lion Films Inc. Producer: Charles F. Riesner. Screenwriter: John C. Higgins, based on a story by Gertrude Walker. Cinematographer: Guy Roe. Editor: Louis H. Sackin. Cast: John Ireland, Sheila Ryan, Hugh Beaumont, Jane Randolph, Ed Kelly. 35mm, b/w, 72 min. A Retrospective of D.W. Griffith's Biograph Films, Part 1 Presented by Retro Format Films on 8mm These rare silents star Florence Lawrence, Arthur Johnson, and many more. Films will include “The Adventures of Dollie” (1908, 12 min.), “The Curtain Pole” (1909, 13 min.) and “Resurrection” (1909, 12 min., based on Tolstoy's novel). With live piano accompaniment by Cliff Retallick. 150 min. THE ROARING TWENTIES 1939, Warner Bros., 106 min, USA, Dir: Raoul Walsh Raoul Walsh burst onto the screen in his first Warner Bros. directorial outing with this sensational gangster tale starring James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart as World War I vets who return to an unwelcoming American society and head straight for the criminal life in a world of bootlegging and shady nightclubs. With a script from crackerjack Warner Bros. writing team Jerry Wald and Richard Macauley, and produced by the incorrigible erstwhile journalist Mark Hellinger, this picture bristles with suspense, smart-aleck humor and Walsh's great comic and dramatic timing. The triple threat of Cagney, Bogey and Walsh make for nonstop action and fun. A terrific round-up and look-back at the great Warner Bros. gangster yarns of the 1930s, this film says it all about how the studio kept in touch with the hard-knock life of the times. Also starring the inimitable Gladys George as Cagney's saloon-owning friend and Pricilla Lane as the woman who just can't love Cagney the way he wants. A blast of energy that is pure Walsh! The Sandwich Man (Taiwan, 1983) Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien, Wan Jen, Jong Cheung-Tsang Based on short stories by the nativist writer Huang Chunming, the three episodes in this film explore the local and everyday effects of distant modernizing forces in Taiwan during the 1960s. One of the seminal films of the Taiwan New Cinema, The Sandwich Man launched the careers of its three young directors and shaped Taiwan’s onscreen image for years. Producer: Ming Ji. Screenwriter: Wu Nien-chen. Cinematographer: Chen Kun Hao. Editor: Liao Ching-song. Cast: Chen Bo Jeng, Cho Sheng-li, Chiang Hsia, Jing Ding, Yang Li-Yin. Digital video, color, in Mandarin and Taiwanese with English subtitles, 102 min. SCAVENGER HUNT After our own years-long search, we’ve finally located a 35mm print of this rollicking not-on-DVD, not-to-be-missed rarity! It’s a rib-tickling shot to the funny bone, as a mind-boggling, all-star cast competes against each other in a $200 million race against time. The will of the dearly-departed eccentric game inventor Milton Parker (Vincent Price) is specific: his fifteen would-be heirs are to participate in a highly unusual scavenger hunt, winner take all. Filled to the brim with that-guys and what’s-’er-names, Scavenger Hunt is a veritable clown car of crazed character actors, legendary stars and those long forgotten — all in a barrage of kooky cameos: Richard Benjamin, Scatman Crothers, Ruth Gordon, Cloris Leachman, Cleavon Little, Roddy McDowall, Tony Randall, a young Arnold Schwarzenegger and many, many more. Plus, it’s a wild dash through the San Diego Zoo, the streets of Hollywood and the mad, mad, mad, mad world of Southern California, as the film highlights an amazing batch of our own Southland locales. Did we mention that it’s also from Michael Schultz — the director of Car Wash, The Last Dragon and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band?! Dir. Michael Schultz, 1979, 35mm, 116 min. THE SEARCH FOR EMAK BAKIA The phrase “a love letter to cinema” is in heavy use these days — but The Search For Emak Bakia truly lives up to the notion, unraveling a decades-old mystery in the process and highlighting the legacy of Man Ray: the surrealist pioneer who emerged as one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. In 1926, Man Ray directed Emak-Bakia, the landmark cinépoéme utilizing avant-garde techniques the filmmaker would become famous for, such as soft focus, multiple exposures and the “Rayograph” (which involves photographic exposure without the aid of a camera!) Modern filmmaker Oskar Alegria, yearning to locate the Basque house in which Emak-Bakia was filmed, finds himself in a bind: only three views of the mansion exist in the film, there are no archival listings, and today no one remembers the house. Abandoning traditional journalistic approaches, Oskar instead embarks on a psycho-geographical journey which has him following a glove floating in a breeze, lying in a pigsty, and contacting a musician whose CD he found on Man Ray’s grave. It’s a beautiful, humorous work that playfully illuminates and expands our notions of cinema, language, and meaning. Dir. Oskar Alegria, 2012, digital presentation, 83 min. SICK BIRDS DIE EASY 2013, Gravitas Ventures, 100 min, USA, Dir: Nicholas Fackler A drug-addled conspiracy theorist, a love-drunk musician, and an American film crew head deep into the jungles of Western Africa searching for Iboga, an extremely potent psychedelic plant said to have the ability to heal drug addiction; what initially begins as a trip towards enlightenment then becomes a desperate attempt at maintaining sanity. Director Nicholas Fackler provides a mad mix of compellingly hilarious characters and an array of expertly wielded lo-fi and hi-fi cameras to explode the fiction/non-fiction divide in this mind-bending social experiment. Discussion follows with director Nicholas Fackler. Side Street (1950) Directed by Anthony Mann A hard-up postman with a baby on the way impulsively steals an envelope of cash, but his ill-considered moment of weakness leads him on a fatalistic descent into a seamy underworld of gangsters, call girls, and unlucky corpses. The starkly photographed architectural jungle of director Anthony Mann’s isolating, imposing Manhattan presages the forbidding mountain ranges of his later Westerns. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp. Producer: Sam Zimbalist. Screenwriter: Sydney Boehm. Cinematographer: Joseph Ruttenberg. Editor: Conrad A. Nervig. Cast: Farley Granger, Cathy O’Donnell, James Craig, Paul Kelly, Jean Hagen. 35mm, b/w, 83 min. Sidewalk Stories 1989, 97 min, black and white, digital Written by Charles Lane; directed by Charles Lane; with Charles Lane, Nicole Alysia, Sandye Wilson, Darnell Williams, and Trula Hoosier. Includes a conversation with writer/director Charles Lane. Twenty-five years ago, writer/director Charles Lane created a unique film experience for African Americans: he chose to create a modern-day tableau that harkened back to the silent era, using the oeuvre of Charlie Chaplin as his inspiration. In Sidewalk Stories, presented by Film Independent at LACMA, Lane stars as the Artist, a down-on-his-luck talent who scourges the pavement of late-’80s Manhattan to make a living while pursuing his dream as an illustrator. His dream hits a pothole when he’s forced to take care of a two-year-old toddler. Lane uses the film to entertainingly plumb the soundings of the era; the medium becomes a playground for his ideas. He gets likable support from Sandye Wilson as the single shop owner he awkwardly courts, and two-year-old Nicole Alysia as his lovable burden. Lane will be in attendance for a conversation after the film. SILENT COUNTRY Germany, 1992, 98 min., German with English subtitles, digital. Starring Thorsten Merten, Jeanette Arndt, Kurt Böwe. Kai, a recent drama school graduate, moves to a small East German town to direct an audacious reworking of Waiting for Godot. Passionate about his production, Kai soon becomes frustrated with his actors, who clearly have their minds elsewhere. It’s the fall of 1989, and the entire theater company is understandably engrossed in the imminent changes sweeping over the country. They would rather study the marching in the streets than the script in front of them. Dresen’s debut as a film director offers a humorous take on well-documented events. The characters in Silent Country are not active participants in the nearby revolution, but people on the periphery, passive observers of a movement they know cannot possibly bring all the changes they’ve been promised. The Skeleton of Mrs. Morales (El Esqueleto de la Señora Morales) (Mexico, 1959) Directed by Rogelio A. González Taxidermist Pablo is locked in a hellish marriage with long-suffering and extremely religious Gloria. After the shrewish wife has manipulated her husband into contributing to her church (personified here by a boorish clergy and a mindless, hypocritical laity), Pablo snaps. Actor Arturo de Córdova proves a rival to the likes of Vincent Price, straddling the demands of Grand Guignol and mordant social commentary in this blackest of comedies. Producer: Sergio Kogan, Armando Espinosa. Screenwriter: Luis Alcoriza, based on the novel The Mystery of Islington by Arthur Machen. Cinematographer: Victor Herrera. Editor: Jorge Bustos. Cast: Arturo de Córdova, Amparo Rivelles, Elda Peralta, Guillermo Orea, Rosenda Monteros. 35mm, b/w, in Spanish with English subtitles, 92 min. STOPPED ON TRACK Germany, 2011, 110 min., German with English subtitles. Starring Milan Peschel, Steffi Kühnert, Inka Friedrich This intelligent and startlingly raw drama portrays a German postal worker's small window of time between the diagnosis of a terminal brain tumor and death. After Frank learns of his suddenly truncated future, he and wife Simone must wrestle with breaking the news to their children, and with Frank's increasingly erratic - even hostile - behavior. Trenchant observations and true-ringing moments emerge from the cast's entirely improvised dialogue Strange Impersonation (1946) Directed by Anthony Mann Medical researcher Nora Goodrich is inventing a new form of anesthesia. Her female lab assistant has designs on her fiancé and stages an accident, which disfigures the heroine. Thanks to another accident, Nora assumes the identity of a dead woman and exacts her revenge. The wacky and frenzied plot mirrors the heroine, whose film noir character conforms to director Anthony Mann’s typically overreaching and morally ambiguous hero. Republic Pictures Corp. Producer: William Wilder. Screenwriter: Mindret Lord, from a story by Anne Wigton and Lewis Herman. Cinematographer: Robert W. Pittack. Editor: John F. Link. Cast: Brenda Marshall, William Gargan, Hillary Brooke, George Chandler, Ruth Ford. 35mm, b/w, 68 min. Strangers in the Night (1944) Directed by Anthony Mann The inky noir style and fatalist themes that would later emerge full force in T-Men (1947) and Border Incident (1949) take shape in director Anthony Mann’s sixth feature, an early gothic thriller about a veteran lured into a deadly psychological nightmare by the promise of love. Strangers in the Night displays Mann’s deft facility for squeezing the most from a tight budget. Republic Pictures Corp. Screenwriter: Bryant Ford, Paul Gangelin. Cinematographer: Reggie Lanning. Editor: Arthur Roberts. Cast: William Terry, Virginia Grey, Helene Thimig, Edith Barrett, Anne O’Neal. 35mm, b/w, 56 min. Street of Crocodiles 1986, 21 min. Terry Gilliam rates this Brothers Quay classic as one of the 10 best animated films of all time. Based on a short story by Polish writer Bruno Schulz. A museum attendant spits into an old viewing Kinetoscope, which activates the nightmarish Schulzian theatre, a bizzare puppet underworld amidst rust and filth. In English and Polish with English subtitles. SUMMER IN BERLIN Germany, 2005, 98 min., German with English subtitles. Starring Nadja Uhl, Inka Friedrich, Andreas Schmidt Summer in Berlin is a portrait of the resilient bond between best friends Nike, a home-care nurse, and Katrin, an unemployed single mother. Neighbors in Berlin, the two often meet for drinks on Nike’s balcony to discuss their daily frustrations. It’s not long before truck driver Ronald enters the scene, threatening the women‘s intimate friendship. Ronald and Nike begin an unhealthy relationship that is defined by his need to control her. Fragile Katrin, on her way to becoming an alcoholic, starts to unravel. When condescending Ronald makes a pass at Katrin just to start trouble, her pent up anger over his relationship with her friend can no longer be contained. Aided immeasurably by the actresses’ seamless performances, Dresen’s film offers an unflinching look into these women’s lives. The Tall Target (1951) Directed by Anthony Mann A terse historical thriller in which hard-boiled New York City cop Dick Powell operates outside the law to thwart a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln as he travels to his inauguration. Paranoia and suspicion permeate the shadowy confines of the train as the broodingly relentless Powell strives to identify the conspirators and expose their machinations. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corp. Producer: Richard Goldstone. Screenwriter: George Worthing Yates, Art Cohn. Cinematographer: Paul C. Vogel. Editor: Newell P. Kimlin. Cast: Dick Powell, Paula Raymond, Adolphe Menjou, Marshall Thompson, Ruby Dee. 35mm, b/w, 78 min. Terms and Conditions May Apply This quietly blistering documentary should rile even the most passive viewer. —Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times What are you really agreeing to when you click “I accept”? Interviews with technology thought leaders and futurists—including Google chief engineer Ray Kurzweil and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg—brilliantly demonstrate how we unknowingly—click by click—generate a cloud of data that records our every online move. (2013, Dir. C. Hoback, 79 min.) A Q&A with Rainey Reitman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation follows the screening. This Strange Passion (Él) (Mexico, 1953) Directed by Luis Buñuel A masterpiece of psychological deconstruction, Luis Buñuel’s portrait of an insanely jealous husband calls upon actor Arturo de Córdova’s extraordinary depths of perception, as what should have been a man’s happy marriage is rent asunder by his insecurity and mad suspicion. Ably portraying an unusually tortured and conflicted man, de Córdova manages to imply in his rage and remorse that all romance boils down to this. Producer: Óscar Dancigers. Screenwriter: Luis Buñuel, Luis Alcoriza, based on the novel by Mercedes Pinto. Cinematographer: Gabriel Figueroa. Editor: Carlos Savage. Cast: Arturo de Córdova, Delia Garcés, Aurora Walker, Carlos Martinez Baena, Manuel Dondé. 35mm, b/w, in Spanish with English subtitles, 91 min. THOM ANDERSEN AND NOEL BURCH: RED HOLLYWOOD Remastered and re-edited 17 years after its original release, Thom Andersen and Noël Burch’s insightful essay film Red Hollywood (1996/2013, digital video, 114 min.) still offers a radically different perspective on a key period in the history of American cinema. “The victims of the Hollywood blacklist have been canonized as martyrs, but their film work in Hollywood is still largely denigrated or ignored,” Andersen and Burch noted in 1996. “Red Hollywood considers this work to demonstrate how the Communists of Hollywood were sometimes able to express their ideas in the films they wrote and directed.” The work draws on extensive original research, interviews with blacklisted artists, and clips from 53 films that span numerous genres and raise questions about war, race relations, class solidarity, women’s labor and the studio system itself. In person: Thom Andersen The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada 2005, 121 minutes, Rated R Dir: Tommy Lee Jones; screenplay by Guillermo Arriaga; with Tommy Lee Jones, Dwight Yoakam, Barry Pepper, and Julio César Cedillo Inspired by true events, Tommy Lee Jones’s directorial debut weaves a fractured tale of murder, injustice, and redemption at the Texas-Mexico border. When innocent ranch hand (and illegal immigrant) Melquiades Estrada is gunned down by border patrol, Estrada’s best friend Pete Perkins turns to vigilantism. Seeking a proper burial, Perkins kidnaps the patrolman and, with corpse in tow, journeys to Estrada’s hometown of Jiménez, Mexico. A deft story of honor, loyalty, and forgiveness, Three Burials touches on contemporary issues felt on both sides of the border. ALSO SCREENING: The Horse 1973, 14 minutes, rated PG-13 Directed by Charles Burnett A lyrical coming-of-age tale about a boy tending to a hemorrhaging horse. By dusk, the horse will be euthanized by gunshot. The Tin Star (1957) Directed by Anthony Mann A bounty hunter (Henry Fonda), once a lawman, finds it necessary to don the “tin star” once again, to support a local sheriff (Anthony Perkins) in keeping civic order and tamping down mob rule. Hardly more lawful than the murderous outlaws they pursue, the townspeople figure here as the real narrative problem: manifesting the threat of violence as a danger that lurks not without, but within. Pearlsea Co., Paramount Pictures Corp. Producer: William Perlberg, George Seaton. Screenwriter: Dudley Nichols, based on a story by Barney Slater. Cinematographer: Loyal Griggs. Editor: Alma Macrorie. Cast: Henry Fonda, Anthony Perkins, Betsy Palmer, Michel Ray, Neville Brand. 35mm, b/w, 93 min. To Live 1994, 125 minutes, Not Rated, Mandarin, with English subtitles Dir: Zhang Yimou; with Gong Li, Ge You, and Ben Niu “All I ask is a quiet life together.” These are lines spoken by wife Jiazhen, who, with her husband Fugui, survive the sweep of history in the decades before and during the Cultural Revolution. Embodying both hero and heroine, the couple adapt to ever-changing political realities and reversals of fortune, all while holding down a family. Told with wit and tenderness, this epic melodrama features a powerhouse cast and is directed by one of China’s greatest living directors. A TOUCH OF SIN “The Beijing Olympics opened with a dazzling, pyrotechnic ceremony that showed us China as its leaders would like us to see it — a prosperous, unified, modern country that is able to do anything. There is, of course, another, less glamorous China, and that’s the one you see in the work of Jia Zhangke, who may well be the most important filmmaker working in the world today.” — John Powers, NPR An efficient, narratively explosive polemic from China’s most politically engaged filmmaker — and one so rich with big-screen possibilities that we thought it a crying shame it was slipping away into the night, theatrically speaking. Jia Zhangke, who, up until now, was known for more meditative and languorous work (such as Platform, Unknown Pleasures and Still Life), brings a formal intelligence and patience to a canvas requiring merely half the outrage and bombast that he actually maintains for the film’s dazzling two-and-a-quarter hours. Four unrelated vignettes forcefully dramatize straight-from-the-headlines “bafflements” in which the “little guy” acts out, serving to illustrate the recent epidemic of violence plaguing China in the wake of its transformation from Maoist state into a teeming capitalist free-for-all. It’s steely, clinical, structurally loose, and sometimes ambitious beyond its reach, but it’s also the most invigorating and uncompromising piece of political cinema to emerge in years (let alone from China, where the film remains currently banned!) Dir. Jia Zhangke, 2013, DCP, 133 min. TOWHEADS Towheads is the surprising and playful first feature-length work by talented NYC gallery artist/experimental filmmaker Shannon Plumb. Somewhere between the works of Buster Keaton and Cindy Sherman, Plumb's new film focuses on the misadventures of a bored housewife, whose desire for exploration leads her to adopt a series of alternate personas -- ones harsh and humorous, strange and affecting. This is a special new movie, and we completely understand how it got selected for the Sundance Artist Selects program, so check it out with us! Dir. Shannon Plumb, 2013, digital presentation, 85 min. TRANSMISSION: PART I 5790projects and Center for the Arts Eagle Rock are proud to present its first pop-up group exhibition for 2014, TRANSMISSION, featuring five LA-based artists largely focused on performance and video. In tandem with an artist talk, the exhibition will be on view for one night only at two separate venues; debuting at the Center for the Arts, Eagle Rock, then traveling to the Orange County Museum of Art. The artists featured in TRANSMISSION use video as a way of navigating perceived, assumed, and projected identities. By assuming or presenting exaggerated modes of selfhood, each artist delves into the constructs that shape abstract and popular notions of individuality. From Deanna Erdmann’s portrayal of the embattled self, to Tyler Matthew Oyer’s vulnerable self, many of these videos create discomfort and tension in the mind of the viewer as our protagonists struggle to find a definitive persona. Conversely, Danial Nord’s work addresses the fluidity of a manipulated personality, while Elana Mann investigates the mediation of our modern collective psyche. A common thread between each work, the communication and vernacular of a shifting culture – as captured in Emily Mast’s piece – largely shapes how we orient ourselves within a greater social topography. These concepts, as well as how the medium of video uniquely contributes to them, will be expounded upon during each exhibition’s artist talk. 5790projects focuses on providing a pop-up exhibition platform for emerging artists based in Los Angeles. The artists included in TRANSMISSION encompass a diverse miscellany of practice and exhibition history. All of the artists live and work in Los Angeles. TROUBLE EVERY DAY Two strangers share a strange and terrible bond in this stylish horror tale that juggles sex and graphic bloodshed. Shane Brown (Vincent Gallo) is a strange man with a forbidding nature who has just married lovely but nervous June (Tricia Vessey), and they've decided to go to Paris for their honeymoon. In the City of Lights, a beautiful but dangerous woman named Core (Beatrice Dalle) has been leaving a trail of dead bodies in her wake when she's captured by Leo Semeneau (Alex Descas), a mysterious scientist who spirits her away to his estate. As Core is placed under guard, Semeneau leaves to return to the city for an unnamed assignment; we soon learn that one of Shane's reasons for coming to Paris was to find him and retrieve some important information. In time, we also discover that Shane and Core have something rather unusual in common -- both are murderous cannibals who regularly feast on the flesh of their victims, and Semeneau's information may hold the key to the secret behind their deadly appetite. 2001, France/Germany/Japan, 101 minutes. New 35mm print! Directed by Claire Denis; written by Jean-Pol Fargeau and Claire Denis; starring Vincent Gallo, Tricia Vessey, Béatrice Dalle; original music composed by Tindersticks; in French with English subtitles Twilight (Crepúsculo) (Mexico, 1945) Written and directed by Julio Bracho Esteemed surgeon Alejandro (Arturo de Córdova) is tormented by his failure to save the life of his friend in surgery. Meeting and falling in love with artist’s model Lucia, he returns from a voyage to find that she has married his brother, setting up a second emotional vortex. Plot and character all flow to a generalized mood of dread and longing, with de Córdova brilliantly positioned at the heart of this nexus. Producer: Mauricio de la Serna. Cinematographer: Alex Phillips. Editor: Jorge Bustos. Cast: Arturo de Córdova, Gloria Marín, Julio Villareal, Manuel Arvide, Octavio Martínez. 35mm, b/w, in Spanish with English subtitles, 108 min. VENICE WEST AND THE LA SCENE Director MARY KERR presents her documentary on the underground artists and poets who dominated the arts scene in the 1950s Venice Beach, California. Clips from the film, as well as segments from bonus material on the DVD, will be screened. The director will be present to talk about the film with special guests. VOTE FOR HENRYK Germany, 2003, 78 min., German with English subtitles, digital. Starring Henryk Wichmann In a region dominated by Social Democrats (SPD), the idealistic 25 year old Henryk Wichmann, a member of the conservative Christian Democratic Party (CDU) is on the election trail, campaigning in the rural eastern German district of Uckermark/Oberbarnim. Armed with an arsenal of ballpoint pens, postcards, matchboxes, posters and the slogan “a fresh breeze will give politics new impetus,” Wichmann’s goal is to defeat the SPD incumbent Markus Meckel. Though he has a rough road ahead, Mr. Wichmann is ready to fight for his political vision. Andreas Dresen spent one month accompanying this Bundestag candidate on his tour through the constituency. The result is a film about the absurd, sometimes wearying nature of a political campaign fought in Germany’s small towns and villages, but also a film about the difficulties politicians have in facing up to the realities of a disillusioned society. WARRIORS OF THE RAINBOW: SEEDIQ BALE: PART I: SUN FLAG Directed by Wei Te-sheng Taiwan’s highest-grossing domestic film ever tells of the indigenous Seediq people, split into rival clans, who must find a way to overcome history and fight as one people against occupying Japan, during that nation’s colonial rule. Mona Rudao, one of the Seediq clan chiefs, finally launches an armed rebellion at Wushe in 1930. Based on a true story and richly detailed. Producer: John Woo, Terence Chang, Huang Chih-ming. Screenwriter: Wei Te-sheng. Cinematographer: Chin Ting-chang. Editor: Chen Po-wen, Milk Su. Cast: Lin Ching-tai, Umin Boya, Masanobu Andô. Digital video, color, in Seediq, Japanese and Taiwanese with English subtitles, 144 min. WARRIORS OF THE RAINBOW: SEEDIQ BALE: PART II: RAINBOW BRIDGE Directed by Wei Te-sheng After the initial uprising at Wushe, Mona Rudao faces an unwinnable guerrilla war against the militarily superior Japanese plus fierce rival Seediq clans. He and his followers must fight not just for their lives but for their dignity and honor—so that they can truly be “Seediq Bale” or “real men.” Producer: John Woo, Terence Chang, Jimmy Huang. Screenwriter: Wei Te-sheng. Cinematographer: Chin Ting-chang. Editor: Chen Po-wen, Milk Su. Cast: Lin Ching-tai, Umin Boya, Masanobu Andô. Digital video, color, Seediq, Japanese and Taiwanese with English subtitles, 131 min. Washington Merry-Go-Round (1932) Directed by James Cruze A letter from a dead man tips off idealistic newly-elected congressman Button Gwinnett Brown (Lee Tracy) to corruption in Washington, but when he’s outmaneuvered in Congress, Brown enlists the help of an influential senator’s streetwise granddaughter (Constance Cummings) and veterans from the Bonus Army to bring down a crooked senator’s political machine. Columbia Pictures Corp. Screenwriter: Jo Swerling, based on the book by Robert Sharon Allen and Drew Pearson. Cinematographer: Ira Morgan, Teddy Tetzlaff. Editor: Richard Cahoon. Cast: Lee Tracy, Constance Cummings, Walter Connolly, Alan Dinehart, Arthur Vinton. 35mm, b/w, 79 min. WHAT TIME IS IT THERE? Directed by Tsai Ming-liang For two decades the Malaysian-Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang has explored spatial, temporal, and psychological displacement in the global city. Here Tsai’s perennial leading man Hsiao-Kang sells his dual time wristwatch to a young woman about to leave Taipei for Paris. Despite the earthly time zones that separate them, they find a connection via memory, ghosts, and—thanks to Truffaut alter ego Jean-Pierre Léaud—the cinema itself. Producer: Bruno Pesery. Screenwriter: Tsai Ming-liang, Yang Pi-ying. Cinematographer: Benoît Delhomme. Editor: Chen Sheng-chang. Cast: Lee Kang-sheng, Chen Shiang-chyi, Lu Yi-ching, Miao Tien, Jean-Pierre Léaud. 35mm, color, in Mandarin, Taiwanese and French with English subtitles, 116 min. WILLENBROCK Germany, 2005, 115 min., German with English subtitles. Starring Axel Prahl, Inka Friedrich Bernd Willenbrock is a successful used car salesman with a devoted wife, an accommodating mistress, a house in the suburbs, and a cottage in the country. One day, seemingly out of nowhere, several cars are stolen from the lot. Bernd hires a night watchman, Fritz, partly to protect his business, and partly to get closer to Fritz’s attractive daughter, Anna. Bernd’s situation continues to get worse, however, when he and his wife are robbed in their cottage in the middle of the night. Soon after, Bernd’s life begins to fall apart as the women in his life decide to leave him. Willenbrock marks Dresen’s first time directing adapted material, leading to a more formally constructed narrative compared to his usual improvised scripts. He also sets aside his customary hand-held digital camera work in favor of nicely framed shots done on 35mm. The result is an engaging film, part thriller, and part character study, with superb performances from all. Winchester '73 (1950) Directed by Anthony Mann Cowboy Lin McAdam wins a prized Winchester rifle in a contest, only to have it stolen by a rival. Unbeknownst to McAdam, the rival is actually a long lost brother who had murdered their father, setting off an epic, Cain-and-Abel struggle between good and evil. Winchester ’73 helped kick off a tidal wave of complex, adult Westerns in the 1950s that eschewed the genre’s previously black and white morality. Universal-International Pictures Co., Inc. Producer: Aaron Rosenberg. Screenwriter: Robert L. Richards, Borden Chase. Cinematographer: William Daniels. Editor: Edward Curtiss. Cast: James Stewart, Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea, Stephen McNally, Rock Hudson. 35mm, b/w, 92 min.