a highly-opinionated selection of things happening around town, and sometimes out of town. this month's page here.
mon. feb. 4 jean rouch on the gold coast 8:30 PM @ redcat beasts of the southern wild 2:30 4:30 7:00 PM @ downtown independent tue. feb. 5 taxi driver, mean streets @ aero play misty for me @ silent movie theater cosmonauts @ the echo lore FREE 7 PM @ usc ray stark harvey 1 PM @ lacma beasts of the southern wild 2:30 4:30 PM @ downtown independent wed. feb. 6 the roaring road, excuse my dust! @ the silent treatment @ silent movie theater lost & found film club 10:30 PM @ silent movie theater beasts of the southern wild 2:30 7:00 9:00 PM @ downtown independent thu. feb. 7 personal ethnographies FREE @ beyond baroque the apartment @ arclight hollywood far out angels 11:15 PM @ silent movie theater big search, bart davenport @ satellite vanishing point @ lacma broken lullaby FREE 5 PM @ ucla james bridges sound city FREE @ laemmle noho 7 ross lipman personal ethnographies FREE @ 7 dudley cinema @ beyond baroque beasts of the southern wild 2:30 4:30 7:00 9:00 PM @ downtown independent fri. feb. 8 holy motors MIDNIGHT @ nuart dirt dress, corners @ x marks the spot point blank (1967), the killers @ aero secret ceremony 10 PM @ silent movie theater the brood MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater the naked city, kiss of death @ lacma the flytraps @ redwood young turks 8:00 10:00 PM @ downtown independent allah-las FREE (RSVP) @ sonos studio sat. feb. 9 back to the future @ electric dusk drive-in rose melberg (8:00), seapony (10:00) @ los globos the young girls of rochefort, five days in june @ aero full circle @ silent movie theater miami connection 10 PM @ silent movie theater clara bow rarities, the wild party @ ucla film archive i&i sound system @ turning the tide 25th anniversary benefit party @ jewel's catch one young turks 7:00 9:00 PM @ downtown independent sun. feb. 10 moonbeams, cosmonauts @ my bloody valentine nite @ the echo kick-in 7 PM, her wedding night @ ucla film archive twin peaks episode 1.4 2:30 PM, episode 1.5, episode 1.6, episode 1.7, episode 1.8 FREE @ twin peaks retrospective @ usc norris cinema sneakpeek FREE @ satellite young turks 8:00 PM @ downtown independent a streetcar named desire 5 PM @ arclight hollywood mon. feb. 11 kubrick's odyssey ii FREE 6 PM @ documental @ unurban it happened one night @ arclight hollywood annie hall @ greg proops film club @ silent movie theater cotillon @ pehrspace nancy buchanan: lines of enquiry 8:30 PM @ redcat young turks 5:00 7:00 PM @ downtown independent tue. feb. 12 inherit the wind FREE 1:30 PM @ skirball center beak> @ echoplex jung bouquet, maston @ the smell twin peaks: fire walk with me 8 PM @ silent movie theater red onions @ the echo the radiant 8:30 PM @ redcat young turks 5:00 7:00 PM @ downtown independent inherit the wind FREE 1:30 PM @ skirball ecstasy of the angels FREE @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges wed. feb. 13 the central park five FREE 7 PM @ usc ray stark young turks 5:00 7:00 PM @ downtown independent some like it hot @ arclight hollywood blacula 9 PM @ chinese 6 theater thu. feb. 14 casablanca @ silent movie theater dead meadow @ troubadour breakfast at tiffany's @ egyptian casablanca @ aero history is made at night, secrets @ ucla film archive no FREE 7 PM @ usc ray stark gloria FREE (RSVP) @ film independent @ lacma slattery's hurricane FREE 5 PM @ ucla james bridges young turks 5:00 7:00 PM @ downtown independent gap dream @ alex's bar stolen kisses FREE @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges fri. feb. 15 liberte egalite fraternite et puis apres @ ucla film archive sunrise: a song of two humans @ aero out of the blue 7:20 9:45 PM @ silent movie theater d.c. cab MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater where the sidewalk ends, the thief @ lacma a riot of our own 8 PM @ we hate everything including this film series @ epfc the flytraps @ redwood floating world animation fest FREE 9 PM @ synchronicity space bed and board FREE @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges sat. feb. 16 sea lions @ the smell hepcat @ house of blues some like it hot 2 PM @ alex theatre sunset boulevard 8 PM @ alex theatre cat ballou, the man who shot liberty valance @ egyptian chuck jones centennial celebration day one 4 PM @ silent movie theater out of the blue @ silent movie theater geteven 10:30 PM @ silent movie theater little fugitive, the window @ lacma spokenest FREE 6 PM @ permanent records sun. feb. 17 om @ constellation room (santa ana) l.a. zine fest @ ukrainian cultural center twin peaks episode 2.1 2:30 PM, episode 2.2, episode 2.3, episode 2.4, episode 2.5 FREE @ twin peaks retrospective @ usc norris cinema baraka (70mm), samsara @ egyptian band of outsiders, the thomas crown affair (1968) @ aero chuck jones centennial celebration day two 4 PM @ silent movie theater out of the blue 7:45 PM @ silent movie theater jean rouch: breaking the ice @ filmforum @ spielberg @ egyptian mon. feb. 18 om @ center for the arts eagle rock looney tunes-a-palooza 1 PM @ silent movie theater out of the blue 7:45 PM @ silent movie theater tue. feb. 19 blues control @ human resources the outside man, the swimming pool @ aero born innocent 10 PM @ silent movie theater out of the blue @ silent movie theater dirt dress @ the echo shanghai express 1 PM @ lacma wed. feb. 20 corners, brannigan's law @ the smell laura @ egyptian kinshasa kids @ aero primer @ silent movie theater out of the blue 10:30 PM @ silent movie theater thu. feb. 21 dead meadow @ alex's bar hell in the pacific, the professionals @ egyptian breakfast with curtis @ aero bestiaire 5:15 PM @ silent movie theater der fan @ silent movie theater out of the blue 10:30 PM @ silent movie theater come back to the five and dime jimmy dean jimmy dean FREE 5 PM @ ucla james bridges fri. feb. 22 cocorico monsieur poulet, petit a petit @ ucla film archive pink floyd: the wall MIDNIGHT @ nuart pangea, audacity @ the smell blues control @ center for the arts eagle rock daniel bachman and meg baird @ velaslavasay panorama the terminator @ aero bestiaire @ silent movie theater next of kin 9:40 PM @ silent movie theater let's scare jessica to death MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater on the waterfront @ lacma jon brion @ largo sat. feb. 23 la pyramide humaine @ ucla film archive dirt dress @ the smell invisible art visible artists 10:30 AM @ egyptian lawrence of arabia @ aero bestiaire 4:45 PM @ silent movie theater mademoiselle 7 PM @ silent movie theater next of kin 9:45 PM @ silent movie theater ezra buchla @ pehrspace killer's kiss, the glass wall @ lacma new works salon 8 PM @ epfc sun. feb. 24 blue velvet @ arclight hollywood bestiaire 9:45 PM @ silent movie theater mon. feb. 25 residents @ el rey bestiaire 10 PM @ silent movie theater ben russell: altered states 8:30 PM @ redcat tue. feb. 26 cleo from 5 to 7, summer of '42 @ aero next of kin 10 PM @ silent movie theater bestiaire 7:45 PM @ silent movie theater audacity @ the echo war don don FREE 7 PM @ usc ray stark the birds 1 PM @ lacma wed. feb. 27 audacity, pangea @ the smell bestiaire 5:15 PM @ silent movie theater the mafu cage MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater charley one-eye, django unchained @ new beverly war witch FREE 6:15 PM @ usc ray stark beyond the hills FREE 8:15 PM @ usc ray stark dead meadow, psychic ills @ think tank gallery thu. feb. 28 bell gardens @ el cid crimes & misdemeanors 8 PM @ silent movie theater la air: huckleberry lain FREE 8 PM @ epfc turn back the clock FREE 5 PM @ ucla james bridges in search of uiq 8:30 PM @ redcat radar bros. @ satellite charley one-eye, django unchained @ new beverly upstream color (sneak preview) 7:15 PM @ sundance sunset cinema breaking away 10:30 PM @ silent movie theater fri. mar. 1 blazing saddles MIDNIGHT @ nuart allah-las @ first fridays @ natural history museum bouquet, plateaus @ the smell dr. strangelove @ silent movie theater 2001: a space odyssey (70mm) @ lacma back to the future 10:15 PM @ silent movie theater vampira art show opening 8-10 PM @ monster a go go beyond the hills FREE @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges mandingo, django unchained @ new beverly sat. mar. 2 raising arizona @ silent movie theater the dirty dozen 10:15 PM @ silent movie theater willow @ aero celebrating laurel & hardy 4 PM @ ucla film archive w-h-i-t-e @ pehrspace small poetry: recent highlights of the chicago 8 film festival 8 PM @ epfc corners, cotillon, etc @ what cheer? music festival @ overpass mandingo 6 PM, django unchained @ new beverly sun. mar. 3 twin peaks episode 2.6 (time TBA), episode 2.7, episode 2.8, episode 2.9 FREE @ twin peaks retrospective @ usc norris cinema the good the bad and the ugly @ arclight cinerama dome two-lane blacktop @ aero primer 7:45 PM @ silent movie theater heart of darkness 10 PM @ silent movie theater why we fight: the battle of russia 7 PM @ ucla film archive p-047 FREE 7 PM @ reel grit @ afi queimada 5 PM, django unchained @ new beverly mon. mar. 4 bachsung @ pehrspace wed. mar. 6 lost & found film club 10 PM @ silent movie theater thu. mar. 7 harry's hip hop film nite FREE @ 7 dudley cinema @ beyond baroque fri. mar. 8 the thing (1982) MIDNIGHT @ nuart brannigans law @ the smell bell gardens @ taix sat. mar. 9 maston @ pehrspace kevin jerome everson: ten five in the grass & other shorts 8:30 PM @ redcat blazing saddles @ electric dusk drive-in sun. mar. 10 twin peaks episode 2.10 (time TBA), episode 2.11, episode 2.12, episode 2.13, episode 2.14 FREE @ twin peaks retrospective @ usc norris cinema raging bull 5 PM @ arclight cinerama dome mon. mar. 11 tales of urban fascination FREE 6 PM @ documental @ unurban wed. mar. 13 somebody up there likes me FREE 7 PM @ usc ray stark aliens 8 PM @ arclight cinerama dome thu. mar. 14 cotillon @ the echo we're (still) living 7 PM @ moca grand ave. fri. mar. 15 mulholland drive MIDNIGHT @ nuart sun. mar. 17 crass tribute night @ part time punks @ the echo mon. mar. 18 the thermals @ echoplex tue. mar. 19 grass widow, chelsea light moving @ echoplex touch of evil 1 PM @ lacma fri. mar. 22 fuzz, bleached, black lips, nick waterhouse, pangea, audacity, etc @ burgarama ii day 1 @ the observatory (santa ana) sat. mar. 23 gap dream, white fence, king tuff, allah-las, cosmonauts, etc @ burgarama ii day 2 @ the observatory (santa ana) clockwork orange @ electric dusk drive-in sun. mar. 24 twin peaks episode 2.15 (time TBA), episode 2.16, episode 2.17, episode 2.18, episode 2.19 FREE @ twin peaks retrospective @ usc norris cinema back to the future 5 PM @ arclight cinerama dome the house i live in 4 PM @ the broad tue. mar. 26 topaz 1 PM @ lacma wed. mar. 27 say anything 8 PM @ arclight cinerama dome fri. mar. 29 rantouls, teutonics, ogres, etc @ the blowout @ viva cantina sat. mar. 30 dukes of hamburg, thee cormans, rock n roll adventure kids, etc @ the blowout @ viva cantina sun. mar. 31 the mallard @ echoplex chuckleberries, thee tee pees, etc @ the blowout @ viva cantina tue. apr. 2 low @ troubadour thu. apr. 4 bell gardens @ harvard & stone mon. apr. 8 essay films FREE 6 PM @ documental @ unurban experiences in transformative time: new work by leighton pierce 8:30 PM @ redcat sat. apr. 13 untamed youth, loons, thee cormans, haunted george, deke dickerson's frat & garage band, etc @ norton records benefit show @ the echo sun. apr. 14 twin peaks episode 2.20 (time TBA), episode 2.21, episode 2.22 FREE @ twin peaks retrospective @ usc norris cinema mon. apr. 15 cauleen smith: black utopia lp (for sun ra) 8:30 PM @ redcat tue. apr. 16 king khan & bbq show @ troubadour tyondai braxton @ disney hall sun. apr. 21 fuxa @ the echo mon. apr. 29 cabinets of wonder: films and a performance by charlotte pryce 8:30 PM @ redcat mon. may 20 the elegaic visions of phil solomon 8:30 PM @ redcat tue. may 21 black angels @ mayan WHAT IT IS: BED AND BOARD Directed by: Francois Truffaut, Country: France Released: 1970, Runtime: 97 minutes The fourth installment in François Truffaut’s chronicle of the ardent, anachronistic Antoine Doinel, Bed and Board plunges his hapless creation once again into crisis. Expecting his first child and still struggling to find steady employment, Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) involves himself in a relationship with a beautiful Japanese woman that threatens to destroy his marriage. Lightly comic, with a touch of the burlesque, Bed and Board is a bittersweet look at the travails of young married life and the fine line between adolescence and adulthood. BEN RUSSELL: ALTERED STATES This program, a slightly modified version of one shown at the Centre Pompidou last fall, presents a selection of films from Ben Russell’s ongoing TRYPPS series, including River Rites, Black And White Trypps Number Three, Ponce de León, Trypps #6 and Trypps #7. Shot mostly in 16mm, though formally quite distinct, these short films “enunciate a ‘psychedelic ethnography’—in which the trip is both the means and the end,” Russell writes, noting that his films have “expanded their formal and critical language to include the various poles of action painting, avant-garde cinema, portraiture, stand-up comedy, global capitalism, and trance-dance à la Jean Rouch.” The evening concludes with the two-projector performance of The Black and the White Gods. Russell was listed among the “50 Best Filmmakers Under 50” by Cinema Scope. In person: Ben Russell BESTIAIRE (from IMDB) Denis Côté's latest provocation takes its title and inspiration from medieval books pairing fanciful images of beasts with moral lessons. A masterfully composed film essay in the guise of a fly-on-the-wall documentary, Bestiaire questions what we see when we look at animals. The film opens with eyes intently observing an object off-screen, which we gradually discern to be a stuffed deer, the assigned subject of a class of art students. From this glassy-eyed product of taxidermy, we are transported to a Montreal safari park in the winter off-season, where we view exotic animals in snowbound enclosures and restrictive holding pens as they return our gaze with watchful eyes. Eventually we meet very strange and noisy animals, the humans who keep watch over the beasts, feed them, and clean up after them. A symphony of images and sound ensues, building to a climax of noise worthy of San Quentin (1937). Faded pinup girls and animal heads segue to an interlude in a taxidermy workshop, where we witness a grisly transformative craft by which a duck carcass is crushed, skinned, stuffed and posed into a simulacrum of the living animal. The safari park in summer is a Babel of wordless voices and clumsy interactions of tourist families with animals, in which the beasts display a dignity somehow lacking in their human observers. A baby elephant takes a stroll alone, and credits roll over the sound of sketching. A film to see with the eyes of a child, or an animal. Dir. Denis Côté, 2012, digital presentation, 72 min. BEYOND THE HILLS In an isolated Orthodox convent in Romania, Alina has just been reunited with Voichita after spending several years in Germany. The two young women have supported and loved each other since meeting as children in an orphanage. Alina wants Voichita to leave and return with her to Germany, but Voichita has found refuge in faith and a family in the nuns and their priest, and refuses. Alina cannot understand her friend’s choice. In her attempt to win back Voichita’s affection, she challenges the priest. She is taken to hospital and the people of the monastery start to suspect that she is possessed. When the doctors send her back, Alina is included in the monastic routine in the hope that she will find peace. But her condition worsens and they finally have to tie her to a wooden plank to prevent her from hurting herself. After ruling out all other options, the priest and nuns decide to read her prayers to deliver those possessed by the Evil One. They perform an exorcism, but the result is not what they had hoped, and Voichita begins to doubt the religious choice she has made. She decides to free Alina - but her decision comes too late. Inspired by the non-fiction novels of Tatiana Niculescu Bran. Running time: 150 minutes. In Romanian, with English subtitles. BORN INNOCENT Born Innocent, originally telecast September 9, 1974, concerns the plight of a teenaged reform-school inmate, played by Linda Blair in her first important post-Exorcist role. Committed for being a habitual runaway, Blair is, for all her surface toughness, unworldly and naïve. All this changes in the reformatory, with Blair rapidly becoming as hard, callous, and irredeemable as her fellow detentionees. Even upon her probationary release, she shows no sign of being "cured" by her incarceration. Dir. Donald Wrye, 1974, 16mm, 98 min. BREAKFAST WITH CURTIS 2012, ZiaFilm7, 84 min, USA, Dir: Laura Colella Withdrawn teen Curtis (Jonah Parker) doesn’t know quite what to think when oddball-next-door Syd (Theo Green) asks for help doing business on the Internet - the bookseller had once blown up at him, causing a longstanding rift between the two households. But Curtis agrees, and comes to relish his role as online videographer, bringing a thaw in tensions among the neighbors. Writer-director Laura Colella shot this amiably quirky indie in her own Rhode Island neighborhood, drawing most of the cast from its residents. Independent Spirit Award nominee for the John Cassavetes Award. Paul Thomas Anderson & Filmmaker Laura Colella In Person! BROKEN LULLABY (1932) a.k.a. THE MAN I KILLED, its original title - marks renowned romantic comedy mastermind Ernst Lubitsch’s most enigmatic entry to his lengthy filmography. This powerful anti-war film follows a young French veteran, Paul Renard (Phillips Holmes), whose guilt guides him to meet the family of a German soldier he killed in the trenches during World War I. Also featuring Academy Award winner Lionel Barrymore, this gorgeous 35mm print comes courtesy of the UCLA Film and Television Archive and is not to be missed. “Lubitsch’s searing anti-war message - far removed from the lightness of his musical comedies – is relayed through skillful and precise interplay of sound and image.” -Pasquale Iannone, Senses of Cinema “It’s Lubitsch’s only ‘serious’ film of the sound period, and in relation to his work in general it is one of the most revelatory films he ever made.” -James Harvey, Romantic Comedy in Hollywood “Further evidence of Mr. Lubitsch’s genius, for, while it is tearful, its story is unfurled in a poetic fashion.” -Mordaunt Hall, New York Times CABINETS OF WONDER: FILMS AND A PERFORMANCE BY CHARLOTTE PRYCE Charlotte Pryce’s exquisitely detailed and evocatively structured short films suggest an alert daydreaming in which the documented and the imagined are juxtaposed. Her films offer fleeting illuminations at the periphery of vision, calling into question the “mechanical eye” of the lens and the chemical composition of the celluloid. The films use 16mm “chrome” stocks—now-extinct reversal color—which are hand-processed and optically reprinted. “Like the items in a Cabinet of Wonder, my subjects are specimens of philosophical musing: rootless plants, mysterious insects and curious glasses,” says Pryce. The program includes Concerning Flight: Five Illuminations in Miniature, Discoveries on the Forest Floor, The Parable of the Tulip Painter and the Fly, Curious Light, Looking Glass Insects, A Study in Natural Magic, and a live magic lantern show. In person: Charlotte Pryce CAULEEN SMITH: BLACK UTOPIA LP (FOR SUN RA) Premiered at Chicago’s threewalls artspace, Black Utopia LP is a deeply original off-shoot of the years of research artist and filmmaker Cauleen Smith devoted to Afrofuturism—a cultural movement that mixes science fiction, fantasy, non-Western religion and Afrocentrism. Chicago legend Sun Ra (1914–93) and his Arkestra were a key figures in this movement. Smith produced over 800 35mm slides: images of objects found in archives, recorded in contemporary Chicago or appropriated from occult, astronomical, and historical sources. The slides are projected in a 90-minute performance to the sounds of both sides of an LP Smith recorded—a collage of lectures, rehearsals and live performances by Sun Ra, mundane ephemera, as well as commissioned contributions from Chicago artists Krista Franklin and Avery R. Young. In person: Cauleen Smith THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem were arrested and later convicted of brutally beating and raping a white woman in New York City’s Central Park. New York Mayor Ed Koch called it the “crime of the century” and it remains to date one of the biggest media stories of our time. The five each spent between six and 13 years in prison before a serial rapist confessed that he alone had committed the crime, resulting in their convictions being overturned. Set against a backdrop of a decaying city beset by violence and racial tension, THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE tells the story of that horrific crime, the rush to judgment by the police, a media clamoring for sensational stories, an outraged public, and the five lives upended by this miscarriage of justice. Running time: 119 minutes. Written, Directed & Produced by Ken Burns, David McMahon, and Sarah Burns. Followed by a special discussion with Yusef Salaam, Korey Wise, and Kevin Richardson, 3 members of the Central Park Five CHUCK JONES CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION DAY ONE The afternoon features a panel discussion on the work of Chuck Jones (moderated by animation historian Jerry Beck), a screening of the 1973 TV special A Cricket In Times Square, and the following classic Chuck Jones-directed Looney Tunes shorts on 35mm: - What’s Opera, Doc? - One Froggy Evening - Duck Amuck - From A to ZZZZ - Bully for Bugs - Duck Dodgers in the 24th 1/2 Century - Feed The Kitty - Rabbit Seasoning CHUCK JONES CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION DAY TWO A double feature of collaborations between Chuck Jones and author Norton Juster: the 1970 feature film The Phantom Tollbooth and the 1965 short The Dot And The Line: A Romance In Lower Mathematics. Plus, the afternoon features opening remarks by animation historian Jerry Beck! Clara Bow Rarities UCLA Film & Television Archive holds a trove of unique fragmentary material on Clara Bow. This special presentation includes trailers from lost feature films, newsreels, recently discovered Technicolor outtakes, and Bow singing "True to the Navy" in the 1930 all-star revue Paramount on Parade. Don’t miss it! Various formats, b/w and color, TRT: 30 min. CLEO FROM 5 TO 7 Cléo de 5 à 7 1951, Janus Films, 90 min, France, Dir: Agnes Varda Agnes Varda’s breakthrough film examines two hours in the life of a hopelessly pretty pop singer (Corrine Marchand), who may or may not be dying of cancer. CLEO ranks with BREATHLESS and THE 400 BLOWS as one of the seminal works of the French New Wave. "The streets of Paris are filmed like they have never again been filmed." – Telerama. In French with English subtitles. Cocorico Monsieur Poulet (1974) Directed by Dalarou (Damouré Zika, Lam Dia, Jean Rouch) Another collaboration with Damouré Zika and Lam Ibrahim Dia, this picaresque story follows three poultry sellers on a trip across the bush, attempting to deliver a load of chickens to a market in Niamey. Based on Dia’s own experience as a poultry seller, and meant to depict the lives of marginal Africans, the film’s whimsical, absurdist plot is driven by uniquely African references, including the influence of magic. Cast: D. Zika, L. Dia, Tallou Mouzourane. 35mm, color, 90 min. COME BACK TO THE FIVE & DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN (1982, United States) Directed by Robert Altman Robert Altman’s screen adaptation of the Ed Graczyk’s play (which Altman also directed on Broadway) relates the twenty-year reunion of a James Dean fan club at a Woolworth's in a small Texas town. Older and wiser, club members, all of them women, recount their aspirations and failures, illuminating feminist themes of sexuality and power. While boasting a stellar ensemble cast, the film proved a breakthrough for Cher, in particular. Screenplay: Ed Graczyk. Cast: Sandy Dennis, Cher, Karen Black, Kathy Bates. 35mm, Color, 108 min. DER FAN (from IMDB) The hero-worship that Simone has for a pop singer is built to a crescendo until she passes out when she finally sees him up-close in a crowd of fans pushing him for autographs. She is later shocked when he lets her know that he does not love her. In an instant, she is caught "in a trance" and feels a murderous urge that is bigger than the both of them. Director Eckhart Schmidt will be here in person for a Q&A after the film! Dir. Echkart Schmidt, 1982, digital presentation, 92 min. ECSTASY OF THE ANGELS Directed by: Koji Wakamatsu, Country: Japan Released: 1972, Runtime: 79 minutes Originally created in 1961 to distribute European art films, Japan's Art Theater Guild (or ATG) began producing their own independent films in 1967, and soon unleashed a string of experimental, innovative, and highly controversial works that would challenge not only postwar Japanese society, but cinema itself. ATG captured the pulse of Japan's blistering underground movements and cultural schisms, tackling everything from queer pride to the after-effects of World War II, communist radicalism to Situationist theater, pornography to politics. “We are going to war! Smash it all!” cries a revolutionary in Koji Wakamatsu's incendiary cine-assault, Ecstasy of the Angels; ATG aimed to do just that, with film as its main weapon. This film is the creation of Director Koji Wakamatsu who, after filming the Japanese Red Army in the Palestinian territories, became a target of both the Japanese government and Interpol, and was blacklisted by the American government, unable to leave Japan. "Maverick auteur Koji Wakamatsu once again marries softcore porn with radical politics with this trippy tale about a member of a militant group coming apart at the seams as it plans its latest strike against society. The members of the group, who all go by code names based on the days of the week, labor under the "Autumn" branch of the organization. Following a late-night weapons raid on a U.S. Army base that turns bloody, members of the "Spring" branch attack, torture, and rape Saturday and Friday, demanding the weapons cache. This betrayal echoes throughout the group, turning friend against friend, as one and all descend into paranoia and sexual decadence. Some go crazy, as others grow ever more revolutionary. Evidentially, a splinter group unleashes a wave of bomb attacks upon the unsuspecting bourgeois of Tokyo." --Jonathan Crow THE ELEGAIC VISIONS OF PHIL SOLOMON Since 1975, Phil Solomon has been making films that magically penetrate the surface of images and reveal depths of new poetic meaning. Solomon’s 16mm films imbue prerecorded imagery with fantastical sensual and dimensional qualities. His recent work extends these concerns into the digital realm, creating haunting landscapes that reawaken the mysteries of life and death, and of physical reality and alternative states. Solomon presents two masterful films, What's Out Tonight is Lost (1983) and Psalm I: “The Lateness of the Hour” (1999), and four digital works, Innocence and Despair (2002), his tribute to 9/11, and In Memoriam (2005–09), a trilogy in memory of filmmaker Mark LaPore that mystically transforms backgrounds from the video game series Grand Theft Auto. In person: Phil Solomon EXCUSE MY DUST Adored during his meteoric tenure as Tinseltown’s most wholesome heartthrob, Wallace Reid starred in over 200 films — before falling victim to a scandalous demise at the hands of his own morphine addiction at age 32, which helped to solidify the Gothic reputation of 1920s Hollywood. Tonight’s double feature presents two of Reid’s most fun and suspenseful vehicle vehicles (he appeared in a slew of racing pictures, at the height of their popularity), and a dashing dose of his athletic acting style. The Roaring Road was quickly followed by the equally thrilling sequel Excuse My Dust!, which picks up exactly where The Roaring Road sped off. Reid’s legacy dimmed in direct proportion to the number of his films destroyed or lost after the Silent Era — and tonight’s show is an incredibly rare chance to peer into the same portal that dazzled ‘20s audiences, and set Jazz Age hearts aflutter with so much breezy charm. Dir. Sam Wood, 1920, 35mm, approx. 50 min. EXPERIENCES IN TRANSFORMATIVE TIME: NEW WORK BY LEIGHTON PIERCE Leighton Pierce’s cinema transforms ordinary sounds and visual impressions into ecstatic experiences filled with new kinds of movements and sensory rediscoveries of the world. Often hovering between definition and abstraction, and between gestural implication and narrative meaning, his musical eye and ear find beauty and magic in everyday places and situations. Pierce’s work has been shown widely at festivals and museums, and this screening features two early 16mm films along with nine recent digital pieces, including Viscera, described by filmmaker Jon Jost as “an astonishing piece on the recreation of a presence through remnants of their being, memories of their gestures, as molded in the impressionistic contours of light. A film built upon cascading refractions. The film dissolves in the memory as one watches it…” In person: Leighton Pierce FAR OUT ANGELS Premiere of the brand-new 16mm music documentary featuring Diva, Nora Keyes (Fancy Space People, The Centimeters) and White Magic! Plus, the evening features live performances by the participants in the film, and a back patio reception! FLOATING WORLD ANIMATION FEST DMTV2 is a collection of experimental and psychedelic animation from around the world. The emphasis is on non-commercial, personal work. We seek pure vision. Some of the films push visual noise and glitch to the limit while others reach a peak of ambient degaussed bliss. Highlights include David O’Reilly’s latest award winning film, The External World, and new films from James Mercer, Jacob Ciocci, Yoshi Sodeoka and Mirai Mizue. FULL CIRCLE Within the first five minutes of Full Circle, Mia Farrow has already accidentally killed her daughter and been committed for psychological observation — how’s that for express service! This undeservedly obscure third entry in Farrow’s “spooky lady trilogy” (along with Secret Ceremony [also screening in this series], and Rosemary’s Baby) is a gracefully understated and meditative super-slow-mo burn. After her hospital release, the post-traumatic Julia severs all ties to her former life, leaving behind uptight husband Keir Dullea and moving into a creepy old townhouse — one which she may or may not be sharing with a spectral housemate. Glazed with beautiful soft-focus cinematography, an incredible synth-drenched score and a persistent atmosphere of muted terror, Farrow’s investigation of the haunting smartly takes the heavily psychological “Don’t Look Now” route, as Full Circle uses the lingering presence of the ghost as a chilling metaphor for Farrow’s unresolved guilt. A sterling example of the type of eerie mood piece they just don’t make anymore, and that’s a FACT. Dir. Richard Loncraine, 1977, DigiBeta, 98 min. GETEVEN In 1993, trial lawyer John De Hart traded his suit and tie for a pair of sweatpants and a machine gun, as he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in this unbelievable piece of work. De Hart plays Rick, a cool cop who likes his shirts tucked in and his women turned loose. After Rick and his partner (Wings Hauser!) are betrayed by the maniacal Normad (William Smith!), we go on a rollercoaster ride of unfiltered insanity: drug deals, gunfights, Shakespeare quoting, Huckleberry Finn-inspired cults, Satanism, soapy baths, baby sacrificing and more! We could go on and on about everything we just wrote, but that would spoil the surprise — the surprise being this entire fucking movie. Fans of Wings Hauser will be blown away by his ability to appear to be on both coke and ‘ludes at the same time. And we GUARANTEE you will want “The Shimmy Slide” to be the song played at your funeral. Geteven is a gift straight from the heavens. Bow before it. Director/star John De Hart in person! Dirs. John De Hart & James Paradise, 1993, analog presentation, 90 min. The Glass Wall 1953/b&w/80 min. Scr: Ivan Tors, Maxwell Shane; dir: Maxwell Shane; w/ Vittorio Gassman, Gloria Grahame, Ann Robinson, Douglas Spencer, Joe Turkel Femme fatale Gloria Grahame is cast against type as a good Samaritan helping an Auschwitz survivor (Vittorio Gassman, in his U.S. debut) as he wanders Manhattan evading a manhunt. He’s stowed away from his native Hungary in hopes of being granted refugee status thanks to a new UN decree that gives sanctuary to foreign nationals who aided Allied forces during the war. But in order to find the American parachutist that can vouch for him, Gassman must go on the lam. With police and immigration officers on his tail, Gassman wanders through New York after hours—from Times Square jazz joints to all-night cafeterias, from Central Park to burlesque parlors, all seen through the lens of cinematographer Joseph F. Biroc (Forty Guns, Hush . . . Hush Sweet Charlotte, China Gate). Gassman’s manic nocturnal odyssey even lands him in the apartment of a Hungarian family in which the man-of-the-house is a slick hothead played by future Kubrick regular Joe Turkel (The Killing, Paths of Glory, The Shining). Boldly expressing the still-raw trauma of war and the camps, Maxwell Shane’s picture is a striking blend of neorealist soulfulness and noir doom. GLORIA 1980/color/123 min. Scr/dir: John Cassavetes; w/ Gena Rowlands, Buck Henry, Julie Carmen, John Adames. In 1980, naturalist filmmaker John Cassavetes broke from his turf of yearning family drama to create what was, in effect, a new sub-genre the raw power of which is as inspirational as anything else he ever did. Gloria may be the first feminist noir in cinema history, and Gena Rowlands uncorked her reserves of movie-star sizzle and stoniness as the title character, the former mob mistress who takes it on the lam with Phil (John Adames), a six-year-old who carries a vital piece of information the mobsters want. Gloria departed from feminine archetypes by making its protagonist tough, able, and uncomfortable around kids; at no point does she request audience sympathy. Cassavetes, it has been said, knocked out the script as a cynical exercise to generate some cash. Rowlands made him direct it; he injected it with his requisite, angsty grit, and she got an Oscar nomination in the bargain. Sean Baker (Starlet) and Ava DuVernay (Middle of Nowhere) nominated for the 2013 Film Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award will be on hand to discuss their films before the screening. HARRY’S HIP HOP FILM NITE Extraordinaire dancer Harry Weston’s pops, locks, breaks & b-boys street dance history with rare film clips & live demonstration: West African, Gene Kelly, Michael Jackson, Pina Bausch & James Brown. HELL IN THE PACIFIC 1968, Buena Vista Pictures, 103 min, USA, Dir: John Boorman “They hunted each other as enemies…they tormented each other as savages…they faced each other as men!” This tense World War II drama stars two real-life veterans of that conflict, Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune, as soldiers stranded on a Pacific island who must learn to cooperate in order to survive. With minimal reliance on dialogue, director John Boorman’s third feature (and second with Marvin) benefits enormously from Conrad Hall’s cinematography and Lalo Schifrin’s music. History Is Made at Night (1937) Directed by Frank Borzage A swooning mash-up of comedy, melodrama, farce and tragedy, History Is Made at Night defies narrative logic to emerge, in Andrew Sarris’ words, “a profound expression of Borzage’s commitment to love over probability.” After an unhappily married American woman (Arthur) meets a debonair Parisian maitre d’ (Boyer), not her murderously jealous husband, a bad bouillabaisse, or an iceberg in the Atlantic, could keep them apart. Love means never having to apologize for impossible plot twists! Walter Wanger Productions, Inc. Screenwriter: Gene Towne. Cinematographer: David Abel, Gregg Toland. Editor: Margaret Clancey. Cast: Charles Boyer, Jean Arthur, Leo Carrillo, Colin Clive, Ivan Lebedeff. 35mm, b/w, 97 min. The House I Live In “FEARLESS! A model of the ambitious, vitalizing activist work that exists to stir the sleeping to wake.” – The New York Times The War on Drugs has incarcerated millions, and cost one trillion—yet forty years later, drugs are more easily available than ever. Recognizing drug abuse as a public health issue, The House I Live In demonstrates the incentivized failure of drug policy and enforcement, the brunt of which is born by poor and minority communities. From acclaimed director Eugene Jarecki, with executive producers Danny Glover and Brad Pitt. IN SEARCH OF UIQ World Premiere Following the publication of A Thousand Plateaus, a work that marked a highpoint in his creative partnership with Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari began working on a screenplay for a science-fiction film, Un amour d’UIQ. This script, which preoccupied Guattari’s attention for seven years, represented a blueprint for a subversive popular cinema through an imagined hyper-intelligent infra-cellular life substance—“UIQ” (Universe Infra-quark)—capable of controlling global communications networks and plugging into the “desiring machines” of a community of squatters. After discovering the unpublished script, Paris-based artists and filmmakers Silvia Maglioni and Graeme Thomson initiated a multiform research project that culminates in their film essay In Search of UIQ, which takes on Guattari’s central quandary: how to give shape to a bodiless entity, seemingly without spatial or temporal limits. In person: Silvia Maglioni and Graeme Thomson 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. Jean Rouch: Breaking the Ice Tonight we not only feature on of his late shorts, but we also finally get to hear from Rouch himself, via an hour-long show he did with Robert Gardner in Boston in the 1970s, which includes excerpts from other films. BATEAU-GIVRE (Ice Ship)(1987, 35 min, 35mm-to-video.) Sound recording and editing: Patrick Genet; Music: Luc Ferrari Far removed from his habitual landscapes, Bateau-Givre was Rouch's section of a collaborative work (other contributors included Luc Ferrari and Raoul Ruiz) that explored the Swedish icebreaker Frej. The resulting short is one of his most beautiful and contemplative films. SCREENING ROOM WITH ROBERT GARDNER: JEAN ROUCH (1980, video, 64 minutes) Source: Studio7Arts Jean Rouch appeared on Screening Room in July, 1980, and screened Les Maîtres Fous as well as several film excerpts including Rhythm of Work and Death of a Priest. Over a period of five decades Jean Rouch made many films about the Songhay and Dogon of West Africa. Regarded as one of the fathers of "Direct Cinema" and considered one of the most influential documentary makers of the twentieth century, his films are very difficult to find, particularly in North America. JEAN ROUCH ON THE GOLD COAST Jaguar (shot 1954–55, premiered 1967) preceded by Les Maîtres fous (The Mad Masters, 1955) These two films compose a fascinating portrait of the dislocation created by colonialism in Africa. Once controversial, but now an anthropological classic, Les Maîtres fous (28 mins.) documents a Hauka possession ceremony, during which the participants mimic figures of the colonial power. With Jaguar (90 mins.), Rouch invented ciné-fiction, a mix of ethnology and improvised narrative. A gallant public writer, a shepherd and a fisherman—portrayed respectively by non-professional actors Damouré Zika, Lam Ibrahim Dia and Illo Gaoudel—leave their village to try their luck on the fabled Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana). In Accra, Damouré becomes a “jaguar”—a city slicker. As sync sound was not available then, the three buddies jovially comment on the action after the fact, observing that the Brits royally conned Africa out of its gold. KEVIN JEROME EVERSON: TEN FIVE IN THE GRASS & OTHER SHORTS With six feature-length films and more than 70 shorts, Alpert Award recipient Kevin Jerome Everson has explored the multiple facets of African American life via a variety of formal approaches. Whether through his signature long shots, collage of archival sources or the re-enactment of fictional material that echoes the lives of his performers, Everson favors a strategy that interrupts the documentary impulse, abstracting everyday actions and statements into theatrical gestures. His work plays with the ambivalent relationships between art and narrative, fact and fiction. This screening includes a selection of shorts, from the Lumière-inspired Workers Leaving the Job Site (2013), to a dark, witty, homage to Chester Himes, Early Riser (2012), to an exploration of the world of black cowboys, Ten Five in the Grass (2012). In person: Kevin Jerome Everson Kick-In (1931) Directed by Richard Wallace Bow plays Molly, the strong-willed wife of an ex-con (Toomey) struggling to go straight. When her husband becomes unwittingly mired in a jewel heist gone wrong, Molly plunges into the underworld to save him and their marriage. A gritty, full-throttle crime drama, Kick-In was Bow’s first film after the trial of her former personal assistant Daisy DeVoe on charges of blackmail and embezzlement. Paramount Publix Corp. Screenwriter: Adaptation Bartlett Cormack. Cinematographer: Victor Milner. Cast: Clara Bow, Regis Toomey, Wynne Gibson, Leslie Fenton, Donald Crisp. 35mm, b/w, 75 min. Killer’s Kiss 1955/b&w/64 min. Scr: Howard O. Sackler; dir: Stanley Kubrick; w/ Frank Silvera, Jamie Smith, Irene Kane, Jerry Jarret; In Kubrick’s first film noir, he weds the moody urban milieu of his debut documentary Day of the Fight with the narrative experimentation that he would explore further in his subsequent crime thriller, The Killing. Fading boxer Jamie Smith falls for the girl next door, or in this case, the girl on the other side of his flophouse courtyard: Irene Kane, a taxi dancer who works for lecherous Frank Silvera at Pleasureland, a midtown dive. With his hired guns in tow, Silvera pursues Smith through the sordid underbelly of New York. Shot on location throughout the Big Apple, Killer’s Kiss prominently features the old Penn Station, Times Square, and a chase across the vast rooftops that overlook the industrial expanse now known as DUMBO. Disowning his debut feature Fear and Desire and blocking it from ever being screened after its original release in 1953, Kubrick preferred to have his fiction filmography begin here. KINSHASA KIDS 2012, Wajnbrosse Productions, 85 min, Belgium, Dir: Marc-Henri Wajnberg Tens of thousands of children in Congo’s capital live on its streets, expelled from their families for being “witches,” and writer-director Marc-Henri Wajnberg drew on their stories to create this uplifting, music-filled drama. Little Jose (Jose Mawanda) is one of a small group of orphans who form a makeshift band that is taken under the wing of an eccentric rapper (Bebson Elemba). Costarring Rachel Mwanza (REBELLE), the film never loses sight of the sobering reality confronting its subjects, but its high spirits will surely have you rooting for these KINSHASA KIDS. “Poised between documentary and fiction, KINSHASA KIDS benefits greatly from both.” - Ronnie Scheib, Variety. In French with English subtitles. Belgian beer reception following the screening. Kubrick's Odyssey II: Secrets Hidden in the Films of Stanley Kubrick Part Two: Beyond the Infinite In this deeply provocative examination of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, filmmaker and researcher Jay Weidner reveals that besides being a great science fiction movie, 2001 is also a multi-layered revelation concerning the human condition and our place in the universe. Weidner unveils new insights into this most mysterious of films and shows us that Kubrick was telling us another story underneath the story we are watching on the screen. In this secret story we can see that 2001: A Space Odyssey is a actually a work of alchemy; a film that initiates the viewer into a higher consciousness and opens the mind and heart to new vistas for the entire human race. Kubrick uses powerful symbols in 2001 that were designed on purpose to reveal the secret of transformation and the path to our spiritual evolution. Discover the truth behind the blockbuster Hollywood classic and see why 2001: A Space Odyssey has captivated audiences since it’s release in 1968. Plus interview with Weidner and more Kubrick docs. LA AIR: HUCKLEBERRY LAIN LA AIR is a new artist-in-residence program that invites Los Angeles filmmakers to utilize EPFC resources in creating a new work over a four-week period. Studying under numerous undergrounds legends such as Mike Kuchar, Christine Panushka, Larry Cuba and Marie Losier, Huckleberry Lain has created a library of films from Super 8 experiments to motion-capture avant-garde tales. In this current project Huckleberry will cross the old technologies of Fuji's Single-8 film with new digital animation in order to reconstruct some of the downtown LA movie palaces that are slowly being erased from our history. Only a few relics remain of the dozens of cinema palaces that premiered some of the world's biggest movies from the Golden Age of cinema. Downtown Los Angeles was a sea of flashing neon where now only a dim flicker of light remains on a couple of buildings. This is a project on architectural restoration and a love letter to some of the most beautiful buildings in the United States. Music will be by Alejandro Cohen of the LA bands Languis and Pharaohs. La pyramide humaine (The Human Pyramid) (1961) Directed by Jean Rouch Observing racial segregation at the Lycée Français of Abidjan, Ivory Coast, Rouch worked with students there who willingly enacted a story about the arrival of a new white girl, and her effect on the interactions of black and white students. Fomenting a dramatic situation instead of repeating one, Rouch extended the experiments he had undertaken in Chronique d’un Été, including having on-camera student participants view rushes of the film midway through the story. Cast: Nadine Ballot, Denise Alain. 16mm, color, 88 min. Preceded by: Les veuves de 15 ans (The 15-Year-Old Widows) (1966) Directed by Jean Rouch Two young women deal with the existential strain of a vacuous existence among their peers in a well-to-do Parisian set. Always one to experiment, Rouch switched the actresses’ roles before production began. The film features a rare cameo appearance by director Maurice Pialat. Cast: Véronique Duval, Marie-France de Chabaneix, Nadine Ballot. 35mm, b/w, 24 min. LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH One of the great creepfests to indelibly burn itself into the brains of all insomniacs who watched late-night creature feature television in the ‘70s and ‘80s, John Hancock’s unheralded gem uses post-Sixties malaise to brilliant effect. An “unreliable narrator” tale a la Polanski’s Repulsion, the film concerns itself with the re-unraveling of an ex-mental patient (Zohra Lampert) when she, her husband and his hippy friend buy an isolated New England home in an effort to “live off the land”. Once they’re introduced to a free-loving stranger (the supremely sexy and spooky Mariclaire Costello) who brings with her lust, terror and death — the burn gets turned up to 11! Wisely foregoing onscreen violence in favor of some outstanding dread, this master class in hippie burnout horror is made extra-palpable by its positioning in the aftermath of the “free love” era, as our terrified heroine is not only spooked by what could possibly be zombies/vampires, but also the consequences of amorphous sexual pairings. Let’s Scare Jessica To Death rarely screens in public; don’t miss your chance to be supremely skeezed-out in glorious 16mm! Dir. John D. Hancock, 1971, 16mm, 89 min. Liberté, égalité, fraternité et puis après (Freedom, Equality, Fraternity--And Then What?) (1990) Directed by Jean Rouch This later work from Rouch’s oeuvre takes up themes of historical memory and cross-cultural understanding with surprising results. On the occasion of the bicentenary of the French Revolution, a group of Haitians in Paris undertake a voodoo ritual in front of Les Invalides, to reconcile the spirits of Napoleon Bonaparte and Toussaint L’Overture, the Haitian revolutionary who died as a prisoner of the French Emperor. 16mm, color, 95 min. Preceded by: Makwayela (1977) Directed by Jean Rouch A group of factory workers in post-independence Mozambique performs a ritual of song describing their work in South African gold mines, and decrying the evils of apartheid. 16mm, color, 20 min. Little Fugitive 1953/b&w/80 min. Scr/dir: Morris Engel, Ruth Orkin, Ray Ashley; w/ Richie Andrusco, Ricky Brewster. Double-crossed by a brother who’s just faked his own death, Joey Norton hops a train out of the big city and hides out amid the hordes of Coney Island. In fairness, Joey is a seven-year-old Brooklyn kid. His brother Lennie is sick of having him tagging along. So with a little bit of ketchup and help from his pals, Lennie pranks Joey into believing that he’s been shot dead. Over the course of a blistering summer day and night, Joey wanders through the swarming masses and takes in the sights, smells, and other sensations the boardwalk has to offer, all the while accompanied by Eddy Manson’s wraithlike harmonica score. As captured by famed street photographer and native Brooklynite Morris Engel with a customized 35mm camera—admired by Stanley Kubrick and Jean-Luc Godard alike—Little Fugitive offers an electrifying, palpably real portrait of a Coney Island now long gone. Bridging the gap between genre cinema, neorealism, and the American and European independent scenes to come in its wake, Little Fugitive is a landmark at the crossroads of film history. Another Kubrick connection: after Engel’s film won the Silver Lion in Venice, it was picked up for U.S. distribution by Joseph Burstyn, who the same year released Kubrick’s debut feature Fear and Desire. “Our New Wave would never have come into being if it hadn’t been for Morris Engel’s fine movie. It showed us the way.”—François Truffaut. New 35mm print. LOONEY TUNES-A-PALOOZA What’s up, Doc? A 6-hour marathon of animation historian Jerry Beck’s favorite Looney Tunes shorts, rarities, odds n’ ends and ephemera, that’s what! LORE The year is 1945. Left to fend for herself when her SS officer father and mother, a staunch Nazi believer, are interred by the victorious Allies at the end of World War II, Lore, a fourteen-year-old German girl (striking newcomer Saskia Rosendahl), must lead her four siblings on a harrowing journey across a devastated country. When she meets the charismatic and mysterious young refugee Thomas, (Kai Malina, The White Ribbon,) Lore soon finds her world shattered by feelings of hatred and desire as she must put her trust in the very person she was always taught to hate in order to survive. Running time: 108 minutes. Directed by Cate Shortland. Written by Cate Shortland and Robin Mukherjee. Based on “The Dark Room” by Rachel Seiffert. MADEMOISELLE Tony Richardson's film about sexual obsession is based on a screenplay by Jean Genet and Marguerite Duras. Set in a remote French village, the mayor, chief of police and a virginal school teacher played by Jeanne Moreau are unsettled by the appearance of an Italian guest worker and his teenage son. Moreau's sexual longing for the stranger sets in motion a dark menage of betrayal. With Ettore Manni, Keith Skinner and Umberto Orsini. The film was shot in both French and English versions. Dir. Tony Richardson, 1966, 35mm, 105 min. THE MAFU CAGE (from IMDB) Two strange sisters live in a crumbling mansion, where they keep a pet ape, which belonged to their late father, locked in a cage. While one of the sisters seems to be keeping her head on straight, as it were, the other appears to be sinking further and further into barbarism and insanity. Dir. Karen Arthur, 1978, 102 min. MIAMI CONNECTION The year is 1987. Motorcycle ninjas tighten their grip on Florida’s narcotics trade, viciously annihilating anyone who dares move in on their turf. Multi-national martial arts rock band Dragon Sound have had enough, and embark on a roundhouse wreck-wave of crime-crushing justice in the streets of Orlando, Florida. Directed by 9th-degree black belt philosopher/author/inspirational speaker Grandmaster Y.K. Kim, Miami Connection is pretty much the most entertaining film you will ever see. EVER. Be there. Dir. Richard Park, 1987, 90 min. The Naked City 1948/b&w/96 min. Scr: Albert Maltz, Malvin Wald; dir: Jules Dassin; w/ Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, Don Taylor, Frank Conroy, Ted de Corsia. | Print courtesy of the Constellation Center Collection at the Academy Film Archive. Inspired by Weegee’s seminal warts-and-all 1945 tabloid pictorial on life and death on the streets of the Big Apple, similarly titled Naked City, Jules Dassin’s policier is a bravura portrait of his native New York rendered with the crispness and authenticity of a newsreel. When a woman’s body is found in the bathtub of her West 83rd Street apartment, the Tenth Precinct’s Lt. Dan Muldoon (Barry Fitzgerald) and sidekick Jimmy Halloran (Don Taylor) pursue multiple leads from Park Avenue to the Lower East Side and ultimately to a thrilling chase down Delancey Street that climaxes atop the Williamsburg Bridge with a stunning panorama of the East River below. A thundering score by Miklos Rozsa (Double Indemnity, The Asphalt Jungle), Oscar-winning cinematography by William Daniels (Garbo’s favorite lenser), a brief cameo by Weegee himself, a tight script co-written by Albert Maltz (who was arrested during production by the House Un-American Activities Committee), and the use of more than a hundred individual locations secures The Naked City’s place in the pantheon of classic New York noirs. NANCY BUCHANAN: LINES OF ENQUIRY Since the early 1970s, Nancy Buchanan’s work in video has been marked by her consistent exploration of the spaces between political essay, poetry and performance. This screening presents an overview of her remarkable career, starting with early videos that disrupt representational stereotypes through feminist critique, such as Primary and Secondary Spectres (1989), to her polemics of the 1980s and 1990s that address such issues as real estate speculation and U.S. interventionism in Latin America, including Sightlines (1989) and American Dream #7 (1991). Other pieces combine political awareness with dry humor (Pursed, 2003–4, with Cynthia Maughan; Horses, 2009), as well as insightful explorations of cultures at times of momentous changes, such as her collaboration with Sanda Agalidi, Windows and Mirrors (1995), shot in Romania. In person: Nancy Buchanan NEW WORKS SALON Several local and visiting artists will present in-progress or recently completed works. Bay Area based artist Valerie Soe presents her experimental documentary The Chinese Gardens, which looks at the lost Chinese community in Port Townsend, WA, examining racism against the Chinese in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1800s, from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 through various lynchings, beatings, and murders, drawing connections between past and present race relations in the U.S. Brigid McCaffrey will show her work Innisfree, in which a geologist traces a range of formations with the Mojave Desert, considering a full retreat into remoteness and the company of the rocks. Also, Chloe Reyes will show a new 8mm film. NEXT OF KIN (from IMDB) In a rest home for elderly people, a daughter reads her mother's diary. Soon events that are mentioned in the mother's diary begin to happen to the daughter. Archival 35mm print flown in all the way from Australia! Dir. Tony Williams, 1982, 35mm, 89 min. NO In 1988, Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet, due to international pressure, is forced to call a plebiscite on his presidency. The country will vote YES or NO to Pinochet extending his rule for another eight years. Opposition leaders for the NO persuade a brash young advertising executive, Rene Saavedra (Gael Garcia Bernal), to spearhead their campaign. Against all odds, with scant resources and under scrutiny by the despot’s minions, Saavedra and his team devise an audacious plan to win the election and set Chile free. Running time: 110 minutes. In Spanish, with English subtitles. Directed by Pablo Larrain. Screenplay by Pedro Peirano. Produced by Juan de Dios Larrain and Daniel Dreifuss. Based on the play "The Referendum" by Antonio Skarmeta OUT OF THE BLUE “One of the unsung treasures of independent films” – Roger Ebert After staying away from the director’s chair for almost the entirety of the ’70s, Dennis Hopper took up the reins again to helm this devastating character study, in what’s possibly his greatest auteurial effort. Linda Manz will chill your soul as Cebe, a disaffected, punk-worshipping teenager whose dad (Hopper) is in prison for a school bus accident (brought to life in the nightmarish opening scene), and whose mom is a hopeless junkie. Manz’s portrayal of Cebe matches the iconic vibrancy of her legendary turn in Days Of Heaven — but here, it’s also accompanied by a steep slide into a fantasy world of her own creation, as her home life crumbles around her, and she’s forced to embody the very essence of detached, deadpan fuck-you punk attitude in order to cope. The closest cinematic equivalent to a Sex Pistols song (despite lifting its title from Neil Young’s haunting “My My, Hey Hey,” which plays often on the soundtrack), this harsh look at the ultimate dysfunctional family remains an unsung classic with a jolting ending that still packs an incredible punch. New 35mm print! Dir. Dennis Hopper, 1980, 35mm, 94 min. THE OUTSIDE MAN (UN HOMME EST MORT) 1972, Park Circus/MGM, 104 min, France/USA, Dir: Jacques Deray Hit man Jean-Louis Trintignant (recently seen in Michael Haneke’s AMOUR) is sent to L.A. to whack a mob boss. Once the job's done, he's trapped in a nightmare of strip clubs, Jesus freaks and "Star Trek" reruns, chased by assassin Roy Scheider and helped by go-go girl Ann-Margret. Plenty of bygone Los Angeles landmarks! Original uncut, uncensored, English-language version. Personal Ethnographies Film portraits of or by Lipman, Wendy & Shirley Clarke, Andy Lampert, Jonas Mekas, subCacophony Society, and the cast of Killer of Sheep. Informal glimpses and rare documents of LA’s cultural landscape. ROSS LIPMAN IN PERSON Petit à petit (Little by Little) (1969) Directed by Jean Rouch In this whimsical comedy, Rouch collaborators Damouré Zika and Lam Ibrahim Dia extend characters they had earlier developed in the film Jaguar. Having established a small but successful import-export business in Niger, they see the next step clearly: to take on the trappings of capitalistic status, including that most prized symbol, a tall building. A research trip to Paris reveals their folly, as First World practices and values only provoke new troubles. Cast: Damouré Zika, Lam Ibrahim Dia, Illo Goudal. Digital video from 16mm, color, 92 min. PLAY MISTY FOR ME Hold onto your hats, as well as your shoes, socks and any other loose items of clothing that could potentially fly off your body, for the outrageous awesomeness of Clint Eastwood’s directorial debut Play Misty For Me packs the mighty punch of a Mack truck — one bundled out with an ultimate load of crazy. The potent antecedent to later stalker slashers like Fatal Attraction, this noir-ish potboiler transposed to the smooth Seventies confines of Carmel, CA centers on the lopsided obsessive relationship between Clint Eastwood as a Rod McKuen-esque jazz radio DJ/ladykiller, and Arrested Development’s Jessica Walter as a rapidly obsessive Clint Eastwood killer. In a fantastically juicy, shriek-laden, zero-to-six-thousand portrayal of total madness, Walter is easily one of the most bat-shit insane of all the Psychotic Women in this series, and her character’s hazy navigation of the era’s swingin’ sexual mores is a joy to behold. As well, Eastwood’s iconic tight-lipped gruffness makes his Don Juan the perfect victim, as he never diffuses each deadly situation by actually speaking his mind. A meticulous powderkeg with an unending well of fuzzy period detail, Play Misty For Me is a great time out at the movies. “House of Psychotic Women” author Kier-La Janisse in person! Dir. Clint Eastwood, 1971, 35mm, 102 min. POINT BLANK 1967, Warner Bros., 92 min, USA, Dir: John Boorman Director John Boorman's neo-noir is also a brain-twisting deconstruction that changed the look of action films. Lee Marvin, seemingly back from the dead, is out for payback. With John Vernon, Angie Dickinson. Discussion between films with actor Clu Gulager, Lee Marvin’s son Christopher Marvin and author Dwayne Epstein. PRIMER Self-taught filmmaker Shane Carruth made this sci-fi thriller on a shoestring budget of $7,000, but its ingenuity and originality are light-years ahead of the big-budget competition. The film stars Carruth and David Sullivan as a pair of inventors who stumble onto a device that can alter the space-time continuum. The moral and philosophical implications of their breakthrough are spun-out in a highly complex puzzle of a narrative. Knotty and difficult, the film is also dramatized in such a thrilling way that it encourages the level of mental focus needed to scratch its surface. "[Primer's] analog-egghead approach may be the freshest thing the genre has seen since 2001" (Dennis Lim, Village Voice). Filmmaker/star Shane Carruth will be here in person for a Q&A after the film! Dir. Shane Carruth, 2004, 35mm, 77 min. THE PROFESSIONALS 1966, Sony Repertory, 117 min, USA, Dir: Richard Brooks Writer-director Richard Brooks earned a pair of Oscar nominations for this vastly underrated film. A Texas rancher enlists a team of mercenaries to rescue his wife, who has been kidnapped by a Mexican bandit. But the hired guns - Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin, Robert Ryan and Woody Strode – soon learn that their employer hasn’t told them the whole story (the outstanding cast also includes Ralph Bellamy, Claudia Cardinale and Jack Palance). Beautifully shot by Conrad Hall, THE PROFESSIONALS is an irresistible mix of action, intrigue and humor that ranks among the very best Westerns of the 1960s. THE RADIANT U.S. premiere Commissioned as part of dOCUMENTA (13), The Radiant explores the aftermath of the March 11, 2011, when the Tohoku earthquake triggered a tsunami that killed many thousands and caused the partial meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on the east coast of Japan. A film essay burdened by the difficult task of representing the invisible aftermath of nuclear fallout, The Radiant travels through time and space to invoke the historical promises of nuclear energy and the threats of radiation that converge in Japan’s illuminated cities and evacuated villages in the months immediately following the disasters. The Otolith Group’s cinematic document offers glimpses into the shape and presence of an unseen entity and its abstract manifestation through visual phenomena. In person: Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar A RIOT OF OUR OWN Once in a lifetime chance to see the performances from 2 of the most famous Los Angeles Punk Rock riots with someone who was there, punk icon Alice Bag. Alice will read from her book Violence Girl about the Bags Troubador show in 1978 with the infamous Tom Waits fight and riot and then we will watch that Bags performance on video. She will also read about the famous Elks Lodge Riot from 1979 and we will watch the footage of the Go-Go's and The Plugz from that show since they were the only 2 bands to play before a swarm of cops shut the gig down and cracked some skulls in the process. This is a special once in a lifetime screening that has been granted by the filmmakers, Michael Friend who put on the show and the generosity of Alice Bag. Miss it and you will never get a second chance! THE ROARING ROAD Adored during his meteoric tenure as Tinseltown’s most wholesome heartthrob, Wallace Reid starred in over 200 films — before falling victim to a scandalous demise at the hands of his own morphine addiction at age 32, which helped to solidify the Gothic reputation of 1920s Hollywood. Tonight’s double feature presents two of Reid’s most fun and suspenseful vehicle vehicles (he appeared in a slew of racing pictures, at the height of their popularity), and a dashing dose of his athletic acting style. The Roaring Road is a snappy, fast-paced comic gem that pits speed-crazy racecar driver Reid against his hot-tempered boss, whose comely daughter Reid sets his heart on wooing. The film was a knockout hit. Dir. James Cruze, 1919, 35mm, 58 min. Ross Lipman Personal Ethnographies Film portraits of or by Lipman, Wendy & Shirley Clarke, Andy Lampert, Jonas Mekas, subCacophony Society, and the cast of Killer of Sheep. Informal glimpses and rare documents of LA’s cultural landscape. IN PERSON: Ross Lipman. Secrets (1933) Directed by Frank Borzage Borzage’s remake of his 1924 silent adaptation of the Besier-Edington play marked the final screen appearance of America’s sweetheart, Mary Pickford. As the daughter of a 19th century New England shipping magnate, Pickford, in bows and curls, elopes with Leslie Howard’s office clerk, who whisks her away to California to make his fortune. From a fairytale opening to the realism of the frontier, Borzage strikes a number of registers as he explores the perseverance of love from first bloom to old age. The Pickford Corp. Screenwriter: Frances Marion, Salisbury Field, Leonard Praskins. Cinematographer: Ray June. Editor: Hugh Bennett. Cast: Mary Pickford, Leslie Howard, C. Aubrey Smith, Blanche Friderici, Doris Lloyd. 35mm, b/w, 85 min. Shanghai Express 1932/b&w/ 84 min. Scr: Jules Furthman; dir: Josef von Sternberg; w/ Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook, Anna May Wong, Warner Oland A beautiful temptress rekindles an old romance while trying to escape her past during a tension-packed train journey. SLATTERY'S HURRICANE Ex-navy pilot Slattery (Richard Widmark) works for a dope-smuggling ring. When he's not in the air, Slattery is making time with Dolores (Veronica Lake), the somewhat put-upon secretary of the ring's leader. Only upon meeting Aggie (Linda Darnell), the wife of his old navy buddy Hobson (John Russell), does Slattery entertain thoughts of changing his ways. Based on a story by Herman Wouk, Slattery's Hurricane was largely shot on location in Florida. The film represented a comeback attempt by Veronica Lake, who was then married to director Andre de Toth. SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME DIRECTOR Bob Byington, 76 MIN A deadpan fable about thirty-five years in the life of Max, his best friend Sal and a woman they both adore. STOLEN KISSES Directed by: Francois Truffaut, Country: France Released: 1968, Runtime: 90 minutes Jean-Pierre Léaud returns in the delightful Stolen Kisses, the third installment in the Antoine Doinel series. It is now 1968, and the mischievous and perpetually love-struck Doinel has been dishonorably discharged from the army and released onto the streets of Paris, where he stumbles into the unlikely profession of private detective and embarks on a series of misadventures. Whimsical, nostalgic, and irrepressibly romantic, Stolen Kisses is Truffaut’s timeless ode to the passion and impetuosity of youth. THE SWIMMING POOL (LA PISCINE) 1969, SNC, 120 min, France, Dir: Jacques Deray St. Tropez lovers Alain Delon and Romy Schneider are visited by Schneider's former flame, Maurice Ronet, and daughter Jane Birkin. Sparks fly and one of them ends up dead. Now the three survivors must get their stories straight before the police arrive. In French with English subtitles. TALES OF URBAN FASCINATION Urban wanderings inspire these six experimental films -- from a collage of movie trailers found outside a Brooklyn theater, to an evocation of an Uruguayan poet's life as a bookkeeper, to a compendium of vox populi interviews gleaned from city streets. Created over 10 years, this collection reveals the urban experience with verve and insight. " Mark Street combines the strengths of the city symphony, the essay-film, and the experimental film in one tender, dazzling package which conveys the weirdness and fresh humanity of daily life”. - Phillip Lopate, Author, Film Critic. “ The globe is Mark Street’s cinematic canvas onto which he impresses shimmering reflections and lyric montage sequences”. - Jon Gartenberg, Tribeca Film Festival. "This second volume of Street’s work ends up being symbolic of the current preoccupation with the death of film. ...Yet, the vitality of his use of film is so life-affirming that it would appear that this art form will no doubt evolve and only disappear when Kodak shuts down operations." IN PERSON: Mark Street The Thief 1952/b&w/86 min./16mm Scr: Clarence Greene, Russell Rouse; dir: Russell Rouse; w/ Ray Milland, Martin Gabel, Rita Gam In a tour-de-force performance, Ray Milland plays as an American nuclear physicist caught up in a spy ring smuggling top-secret U.S. schematics straight from Washington, D.C., to unknown whereabouts overseas. But when one of his couriers is hit by a New York taxi and found to be carrying microfilm with confidential information, the heat, quietly but surely, comes down on Milland and his conspirators. Entirely devoid of dialogue, The Thief is a sinuous pas-de-deux between cinematographer Sam Leavitt (Carmen Jones, The Crimson Kimono) and Milland, already an expert in portraying desperate isolation thanks to The Lost Weekend a few years earlier. The film’s first half—set in the nondescript offices, stately government buildings, and seemingly abandoned streets of the capital—has a Kafkaesque dimension. But when Milland splits for New York in the hopes of boarding an ocean liner, the film basks in the city’s congested immensity. When not sequestered in his grimy flophouse—where the smoldering femme fatale down the hall (Rita Gam) won’t stop making eyes at him—Milland drifts through the city: from Central Park to neon-soaked Times Square to the observation deck of a high-rise for a fateful showdown. Reuniting the team behind the Los Angeles crime classic D.O.A.—Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene—this singular cold war curio is a whirlpool of surrealist delirium in noir garb. Twin Peaks Retrospective Over the course of the Spring 2013 semester, the USC School of Cinematic Arts will host a complete series retrospective of ABC's landmark 1990 prime-time drama, Twin Peaks, created by David Lynch & Mark Frost. Each week, episodes of the series will be followed by in-depth Q&As with key cast & crew from the production. Guests will include Mark Frost, Duwayne Dunham, Ron Garcia, Grace Zabriskie, Mädchen Amick, Dana Ashbrook, Robert Engels, Peggy Lipton, Johanna Ray, Charlotte Stewart, Richard Hoover, Philip D. Segal, Carel Struycken, and Lenny Von Dohlen. Coffee and pie and/or donuts will be served at intermission. A 35mm screening of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me will take place in May 2013. Vanishing Point 1971/color/99 min. Scr: Guillermo Cabrera Infante; dir: Richard C. Sarafian; w/ Barry Newman, Cleavon Little, Dean Jagger, Victoria Medlin. Laconic and nervy, director Richard C. Sarafian's 1971 road drama may be the most philosophical action film ever made. Guillermo Cabrera Infante's script is wry, spare, and heightened by strategic use of flashback. Barry Newman stars as Kowalski, whose job to deliver a gleaming white Dodge Challenger is subsumed by his own personal demands and a desire for freedom. Sarafian was wise enough to surround Newman with a likable, quicksilver group of singers and improv comedy performers; Cleavon Little tops them all as the blind DJ who comments on Kowalski's quest and keeps the film's throaty roar humid and alive. Though a box-office failure upon its original release, Vanishing Point gained a vast and impressive group of admirers over the decades, from Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino (who uses the same model Dodge in Deathproof) to a young man who would fall in love with the film and leave Poland to find freedom himself, making movies along the way—Oscar-winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski. Kaminski will participate in a Q&A after the screening. WAR DON DON After ten years of violent civil war, Sierra Leoneans were relieved in 2002 when the brutal war was over (exclaimed as 'war don don' in the Krio language), but the painful memories of murder, systematic rape and dismemberment remained. War Don Don, directed by first-time filmmaker Rebecca Richman Cohen, follows the war crimes trial of Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel leader Issa Sesay, exploring the complex relationship between individual accountability, collective reconciliation and the limits of international justice. From 1991 to 2001, the RUF fought to overthrow the ruling government of Sierra Leone. In 2003, after the end of the war, the United Nations and the government of Sierra Leone spent more than $200 million building a Special Court to seek justice and reconciliation, setting up the world's first international war crimes 'hybrid tribunal.' Three years in the making, War Don Don draws on unprecedented access to the inner workings of the defense and prosecution in Issa Sesay's trial, including access to Sesay himself, exploring the contradictions of a man who dealt in blood diamonds, commanded child soldiers and was blamed for mass atrocities against civilians, while also being credited by some with single-handedly ending the war. Directed & Produced by Rebecca Richman Cohen. Produced & Edited by Francisco Bello. WE'RE (STILL) LIVING Los Angeles Filmforum at MOCA presents an evening of new work by Rick Bahto, Mark So and Julia Holter. Working at the intersection of art, experimental music, and projector performance, these three artists come together for a unique event in which their distinct, yet related practices share time and space. Relying heavily on chance and the tensions that arise as media combines in real time, the work pays homage to composers such as John Cage, and yet looks, sounds, and feels like nothing else. In their words: there is no picture. there are things going on in the world. it wouldn't cross your mind to improvise. in place of realizing a blueprint, something more like gardening. do we want to make a new kind of pumpkin pie, or do we want to plant pumpkin seeds and pay attention, really see what happens? Where the Sidewalk Ends 1950/b&w/95 min. Scr: Ben Hecht; dir: Otto Preminger; w/ Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Gary Merril Bert Freed, Tom Tully, Karl Malden Otto Preminger reunites Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney, his Laura leading couple, for a bitter noir about a hardened detective who cannot control his violent impulses. Demoted for his aggressive interrogation methods, Andrews ends up assigned to investigate a gangland murder in a gaming joint. But while questioning an obstinate suspect, Dixon accidentally kills him—a scene rendered in a single tense take by cinematographer Joseph LaShelle (The Apartment, Laura). Dixon resists his immediate and ethical impulse to report the incident to his superiors, deciding instead to hide the body and frame it as a hit by Gary Merrill’s mob. Trying to negate his crime while investigating the very case he’s just become embroiled in, Andrews slowly comes apart at the seams. Scriptwriter par-excellence Ben Hecht—who cut his teeth on classics of the 1920s and 1930s (Scarface, Underworld, which won the first Oscar for best original story) and finished his career with a screenplay for Henry Hathaway’s Kiss of Death—gives Andrews a psychological complexity clearly relished by Preminger. Looking like he was born in a fedora and overcoat, Andrews’s rugged good looks and chiseled jaw provide a sharp contrast to the oily Merrill—who has a bizarre fixation with a nasal inhaler—and his hired goons (Neville Brand, Herbert Lytton). Preminger’s final film for Fox blends location work (including a standoff in an amusement park, which was sadly cut at the behest of Daryl Zanuck) with studio shots. The film plays in perpetual night across New York’s side streets, dark alleys, and back rooms where nothing is quite as it appears. The Wild Party (1929) Directed by Dorothy Arzner Paramount's first sound feature, The Wild Party was conceived as a vehicle for silent superstar Clara Bow. A light-hearted comedy set at an exclusive women's college, the film features Bow as the most popular party girl in a dorm full of high-spirited flapper coeds. Critically acclaimed and a box office success, The Wild Party also helped establish director Dorothy Arzner in the sound era. Paramount Famous Lasky Corp. Screenwriter: Warner Fabian. Cinematographer: Victor Milner. Editor: Otto Lovering. Cast: Clara Bow, Fredric March, Marceline Day, Shirley O'Hara, Adrienne Doré. 35mm, b/w, 77 min. YOUNG TURKS Art critic Hunter Drohojowska, writing about Stephen Seemayer‘s “Young Turks” in the L.A. Weekly in 1981, called the rough-cut verson “a kaleidoscopic melange of Hollywood’s B-movie corn, bizarre underground existence and a few naked truths.” “Artists are portrayed earnestly explaining their work in one scene,” Drohojowska wrote, “and participating in some hallucinogenic madness in the next.” While the film about art and life in downtown L.A. circa 1980 has been fully digitized and reedited by Pamela Wilson, the filmmakers have attempted to maintain the energetic quality noted by Drohojowska while giving some structure to the “inherent irony and absurd juxtapositions.” “It’s a rare art movie that can keep me awake for two hours, but this one manages,” Drohojowska wrote, citing the original rough-cut’s length. (The newly edited version is a fast-paced 95 minutes.) “For one thing, the editing is riotous, crowded with consciously trite, humorous special-effects techniques. … All of this is entertaining and decorative, so if the movie is somewhat self-indulgent, at least it isn’t dull.” “Everything about ‘Young Turks’ strikes me as something of an L.A. phenomenon,” Drohojowska wrote. “It’s an extremely personal work, more about a lifestyle than art. It remains, nonetheless, a valid document, because it shows how the art created was so intimately involved in the style of life led.”