LA UPCOMING STUFF - SEPTEMBER 2010

a highly-opinionated selection of things happening around town, and sometimes out of town. this month's page here.

tue. aug. 31

ciao manhattan 8 PM @ silent movie theatre


wed. sept. 1

workers' republic FREE 7 PM @ echo park film center
upstream @ ampas samuel goldwyn
ty segall @ spaceland
valley of the dolls, beyond the valley of the dolls @ egyptian theatre
city lights 8 PM, the idle class @ silent movie theatre


thu. sept. 2

cinecon @ egyptian theatre
live and let die, the man with the golden arm @ aero theatre
suspiria, deep red @ new beverly
the circus 8 PM, parade @ silent movie theatre
upsilon acrux @ the sex
some american landscapes 8 PM @ echo park film center
brent weinbach @ the improv


fri. sept. 3

the pope @ the sex
american psycho MIDNIGHT @ nuart
media blitz @ pehrspace
cinecon @ egyptian theatre
richard pryor live on the sunset strip, richard pryor here and now @ aero theatre
suspiria, deep red @ new beverly
playtime 8 PM, modern times @ silent movie theatre
the american astronaut MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theatre
mary lynn rajskub @ steve allen theater
useless keys @ hear gallery @ 5 star bar
louis ck @ the improv


sat. sept. 4

sleep, etc @ fyf fest @ la historic state park
cinecon @ egyptian theatre
los angeles plays itself @ aero theatre
suspiria 3:35 7:30, deep red 5:30 9:25 @ new beverly
the great dictator 2 PM @ silent movie theatre
the gold rush, jour-de-fête @ silent movie theatre
the warriors MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theatre
mary lynn rajskub @ steve allen theater
out of the past @ cinespia @ hollywood forever
robocop MIDNIGHT @ bruin village


sun. sept. 5

boom chick @ echo curio
the gories @ spaceland
cinecon @ egyptian theatre
los angeles plays itself @ aero theatre
raising arizona @ cinespia @ hollywood forever
greg ashley @ 5 stars bar


mon. sept. 6

okie dokie @ pehrspace
cinecon @ egyptian theatre
greg ashley @ the continental (fullerton)


tue. sept. 7

3d rarities: from 1900 and beyond @ ampas linwood dunn


wed. sept. 8

the gories @ the echo
daylong valleys of the nile @ silverlake lounge
paths of glory, the killing @ egyptian theatre
on her majesty's secret service @ aero theatre
the gold rush 8 PM, pay day @ silent movie theatre
okie dokie @ redwood bar


thu. sept. 9

camper van beethoven @ echoplex
beak> 7 PM @ amoeba
useless keys @ spaceland
dr. strangelove, lolita @ egyptian theatre
pepe le moko, quai des orfevres @ aero theatre
the loved one 8 PM, renegade @ silent movie theatre


fri. sept. 10

terminator 2 MIDNIGHT @ nuart
vehicle blues, kevin greenspon @ echo curio
2001 (70mm) @ egyptian theatre
the swimming pool, one deadly summer @ aero theatre
chung antique @ pehrspace
jour-de-fête 8 PM, tati shorts @ silent movie theatre
persona @ lacma
cries and whispers 9 PM @ lacma
enamorada @ ucla film archive
mary lynn rajskub @ steve allen theater
beak>, foot village @ troubadour


sat. sept. 11

the clientele @ echoplex
raiders of the lost ark @ devil's night drive in
a clockwork orange, full metal jacket @ egyptian theatre
crooks in clover, serie noir @ aero theatre
how i got into college MIDNIGHT @ new beverly
limelight 2 PM @ silent movie theatre
catfish 7 PM @ silent movie theatre
l.a. streetfighters 10 PM @ silent movie theatre
the magic flute 4 PM @ lacma
hour of the wolf @ lacma
the magician 9:10 PM @ lacma
viva villa! @ ucla film archive
mary lynn rajskub @ steve allen theater
bedazzled (1967) @ cinespia @ hollywood forever
la story @ outdoor movies @ barnsdall park
raiders of the lost ark @ devil's night drive-in


sun. sept. 12

george eastman's attic shorts, fear and desire @ egyptian theatre
psychomania 5:30 PM, stone @ silent movie theatre


mon. sept. 13

vehicle blues, kevin greenspon @ pehrspace
the maltese falcon 7 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn
from the life of the marionettes 7 PM @ goethe-institut


tue. sept. 14

shesaw, tremellow @ silverlake lounge
moulin rouge (1952) FREE 1:30 PM @ skirball center


wed. sept. 15

melvins @ troubadour
the circus 8 PM, sunnyside @ silent movie theatre


thu. sept. 16

up died sound @ echo curio
family plot, rope @ aero theatre
the mirror 8 PM, the naked ape @ silent movie theatre
the touch @ lacma
viva zapata! FREE @ ucla film archive
dash jacket @ the black triangle


fri. sept. 17

cheech & chong's nice dreams MIDNIGHT @ nuart
dead meadow @ clean air clean stars fest @ pappy & harriet's (pioneertown)
escape from new york, escape from l.a. @ egyptian theatre
north by northwest, to catch a thief @ aero theatre
sorry wrong number, witness to murder @ new beverly
trafic 8 PM, parade @ silent movie theatre
the seventh seal @ lacma
the silence 9:15 PM @ lacma
mary lynn rajskub @ steve allen theater


sat. sept. 18

autolux @ el rey
they live, big trouble in little china @ egyptian theatre
rear window, the man who knew too much @ aero theatre
sorry wrong number 3:55 7:30, witness to murder 5:45 9:20 @ new beverly
a king in new york 2 PM @ silent movie theatre
lovers of hate 7 PM @ silent movie theatre
power kids 10 PM @ silent movie theatre
but film is my mistress FREE 4 PM @ lacma
fanny and alexander @ lacma
the strange one @ ucla film archive
mary lynn rajskub @ steve allen theater
night of the living dead (1968) @ cinespia @ hollywood forever
la confidential @ outdoor movies @ barnsdall park
radar bros. 6 PM FREE @ origami vinyl


sun. sept. 19

dunes, tamaryn @ the echo
the thing, halloween @ egyptian theatre
the birds, marnie @ aero theatre
valhalla rising 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
something wild 7 PM @ ucla film archive
tremellow @ vine bar


mon. sept. 20

richard leacock - documentary pioneer 6 PM @ 7 dudley cinema
narwhalz of sound @ pehrspace
autumn sonata 7 PM @ goethe-institut


tue. sept. 21

red white & blue 8 PM @ silent movie theatre


wed. sept. 22

cleopatra @ egyptian theatre
a prophet, read my lips @ new beverly
city lights 8 PM, the pilgrim @ silent movie theatre
china's unnatural disaster 7 PM, the cove FREE @ ampas linwood dunn


thu. sept. 23

starship troopers @ aero theatre
a prophet, read my lips @ new beverly
sweetie 8 PM, miracle mile @ silent movie theatre
the woggles @ the juke joint (anaheim)


fri. sept. 24

enter the void MIDNIGHT @ nuart
jon brion @ largo
earthless @ spaceland
manhattan, l.a. story @ aero theatre
mr. hulot's holiday 8 PM, mon oncle @ silent movie theatre
project a MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theatre
mary lynn rajskub @ steve allen theater


sat. sept. 25

enter the void MIDNIGHT @ nuart
the woggles @ haunted house au-go-go @ bordello
burma VJ 7 PM FREE @ getty center
patton oswalt @ largo
frankie rose and the outs @ the smell
chasing mummies episode five 3 PM, the mummy @ aero theatre
repo man, searchers 2.0 @ aero theatre
the quiet americans @ pehrspace
monsieur verdoux 2 PM @ silent movie theatre
deadbeat at dawn 8 PM, the manson family @ silent movie theatre
duck you sucker @ ucla film archive
mary lynn rajskub @ steve allen theater
glow festival @ santa monica pier
valley girl @ devil's night drive-in


sun. sept. 26

streetwise 3 PM @ getty center
frankie rose @ the echo
neil hamburger @ spaceland
pedro paramo 7 PM, la soldadera @ ucla film archive
sleepy sun @ the viper room


mon. sept. 27

francoiz breut @ soda bar (SD)
scenes from a marriage 7 PM @ goethe-institut
bride of frankenstein FREE @ ucla film archive
caddyshack 8 PM @ arclight hollywood


tue. sept. 28

francoiz breut @ steynberg gallery (SLO)
mysterious skin, bury me in kern county @ new beverly
sun araw @ the echo
okie dokie @ women


wed. sept. 29

a woman of paris 8 PM @ silent movie theatre


thu. sept. 30

sonic youth, no age @ hollywood bowl
john cale @ ucla royce hall
the player, the rapture @ aero theatre
shanks 8 PM, shout @ silent movie theatre


fri. oct. 1

audacity @ the smell
twentieth century, midnight @ new beverly
fists in the pocket @ lacma
china is near 9:30 PM @ lacma
super fly, sweet sweetback's baadasssss song @ ucla film archive
mary lynn rajskub @ steve allen theater
the karate kid (1984) FREE @ santa monica pier


sat. oct. 2

eagle rock music festival
twentieth century 3:45 7:30, midnight 5:35 9:20 @ new beverly
the devil in the flesh @ lacma
the nanny 9:40 PM @ lacma
claudine, aaron loves angela @ ucla film archive
mary lynn rajskub @ steve allen theater
psychic handbook @ the smell


sun. oct. 3

belle & sebastian @ palladium
cloak & dagger 3:15 7:30, wargames 5:15 9:30 @ new beverly
gerrymandering FREE 7 PM @ ucla film archivej
dead meadow @ echoplex


mon. oct. 4

guided by voices @ wiltern
cloak & dagger, wargames @ new beverly


tue. oct. 5

francoiz breut @ echo curio
back to the future the ride 7 PM @ origami vinyl


wed. oct. 6

poisoned paradise: the forbidden story of monte carlo 8 PM @ silent movie theatre


thu. oct. 7

the like @ detroit bar
tremellow @ little joy


fri. oct. 8

chapterhouse @ troubadour
back to the future the ride @ the smell


sat. oct. 9

twelve hour horror marathon (films TBA) @ new beverly


sun. oct. 10

the pope @ the smell


mon. oct. 11

radar bros. @ el rey


wed. oct. 13

the kid 8 PM, a dog's life @ silent movie theatre


thu. oct. 14

the yes men @ ucla royce hall


fri. oct. 15

rosemary's baby, chinatown @ new beverly
cotton comes to harlem, shaft @ ucla film archive


sat. oct. 16

rosemary's baby 7 PM, chinatown 4:30 9:40 @ new beverly


sun. oct. 17

man on the flying trapeze 4:00 8:40, never give a sucker an even break 5:30, monkey business 7:00 @ new beverly
coffy 7 PM, cleopatra jones @ ucla film archive


mon. oct. 18

never give a sucker an even break, monkey business, man on the flying trapeze @ new beverly
akran FREE @ ucla film archive
stingray sam 7:15, the american astronaut @ 7 dudley cinema


tue. oct. 19

demon lover diary 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
arsenic and old lace 1 PM @ lacma


wed. oct. 20

modern times 8 PM @ silent movie theatre


fri. oct. 22

emma mae, the human tornado @ ucla film archive


sat. oct. 23

abbott and costello's hold that ghost 2:00 8:00 PM @ alex theatre
halloween and mourning movie night (TBA) @ heritage square
the sentinel MIDNIGHT @ new beverly
gordon's war, willie dynamite @ ucla film archive


sun. oct. 24

thomasine & bushrod, buck and the preacher @ ucla film archive


mon. oct. 25

lonesome @ ucla james bridges
revelations of the everyday 8:30 PM @ redcat


tue. oct. 26

dr. jekyll and mr. hyde (1932) 1 PM @ lacma
reigning sound @ the echo
thrones @ spaceland


wed. oct. 27

reigning sound @ spaceland
jason simon 7 PM FREE @ vacation vinyl


thu. oct. 28

films by cameron jamie FREE 7 PM @ hammer museum


fri. oct. 29

amazing grace, cooley high @ ucla film archive


sat. oct. 30

phantom of the opera @ royce hall organ & silent film @ ucla royce hall
baby doll @ ucla film archive


sun. oct. 31

dr. jekyll and mr. hyde (w/ live organ accompaniment) @ walt disney concert hall
the wolf man (1941) 4:00 7:00, the invisible man (1933) 5:30 8:30 @ new beverly
ganja & hess 7 PM, blacula @ ucla film archive


mon. nov. 1

the wolf man, the invisible man @ new beverly
spectacles of light 8:30 PM @ redcat


wed. nov. 3

ornette coleman @ ucla royce hall


sat. nov. 6

kevin greenspon @ the smell


sun. nov. 7

expo '70 @ echo curio


mon. nov. 8

expo '70 FREE 7 PM @ origami vinyl


thu. nov. 11

dean wareham plays galaxie 500 @ troubadour


mon. nov. 15

southern california landscapes via experimental film 7 PM @ 7 dudley cinema


sat. nov. 20

the loons, clinic @ troubadour


mon. nov. 22

thom andersen: out of the car and into the music of the streets 8:30 PM @ redcat


wed. nov. 24

black angels @ el rey


sat. nov. 27

three stooges films 2:00 8:00 PM @ alex theatre


thu. dec. 2

louis ck @ gibson amphitheatre


sun. dec. 5

pharoah sanders, nels cline, han bennink, etc @ ucla royce hall


mon. dec. 20

celestial celluloid 6 PM @ 7 dudley cinema




WHAT IT IS:




AARON LOVES ANGELA
(1975) Directed by Gordon Parks Jr.
Aaron (Hooks) is a black teen searching for his identity, independent of what adults tell him he should be. He loves Angela (Cara), a young Puerto Rican woman who also loves Aaron, even though her family is against it. An inter-racial romance, a Blaxploitation version of Romeo and Juliet, this film marked the borders between Harlem and Spanish Harlem, African Americans and Puerto Ricans. Like many other titles, the film makes use of its grim 1970s New York locations, North of 96th Street, adding a degree of realism off set by Gordon Parks Jr.'s narratively absurd fantasy ending. Certainly, the most underrated of the late director's blaxpoitation cycle films, this one also attempted more serious content.
Columbia Pictures. Producer: Robert J. Anderson. Screenplay: Gerald Sanford. Cinematographer: Richard C. Kratina. Cast: Kevin Hooks, Moses Gunn, Irene Cara, Robert Hooks. 35mm, 99 min. 


A DOG'S LIFE
Also screening is A Dog's Life, the 1918 short that the presages The Kid, and features the Tramp's sweet misadventures in the company of a young pup, who happily watches by as Chaplin hides from the cops, taunts hard-faced gangster types, and tries to get the girl! Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1918, 35mm, 33 min. 


A KING IN NEW YORK
(1957, 110 mins.): Charles Chaplin's last starring role casts him as an overthrown monarch who arrives penniless in New York. Persuaded to appear in some television commercials, he finds his celebrity rewarded to an absurd degree while a child he befriends is persecuted because of the political leanings of his parents. Chaplin, who had plenty of problems with the U.S. government, mocks the paranoia of 1950s America in this witty satire. (new 35mm print!)


AKRAN
(1969) Directed by Richard Myers
Ohio-based avant-garde filmmaker Richard Myers calls his work "dream films," and so it is with this his first feature film. A collage of images of restless youth, landscapes of alienation, the Vietnam War, consumer civilization and overt racism, Akran is non-narrative but deeply connected to our collective unconsciousness. Amos Vogel described it as "a Joyce-like, dense and somber mosaic of memory and sensory impressions, a texture instead of a plot, a dream-like flow of visually-induced associations." Writing in 1969, Roger Ebert effused that Akran "is the single most important event of this year's Chicago Film Festival, Akran is so good, so inventive, so radically original, that it may even be flatly rejected by the audience... It is beyond our previous experience.'' The problems of restoring such a heterogeneous work are manifold.
Screenplay: Richard Myers. Cast: Robert Ohlrich, Pat Myers, Jake Leed. 16mm, B/W, 118 min.
IN PERSON: Mark Toscano, preservationist, Academy Film Archive.


AMAZING GRACE
(1974) Directed by Stan Lathan
The old lady in the neighborhood whips an establishment candidate for mayor into a true candidate for the people. This Blaxploitation comedy stars Jackie "Moms" Mabley, a normally foul-mouthed black stand-up comedian who slogged away on the "Chitlin' Circuit" for decades. Born Loretta Mary Aiken in North Carolina in 1894, she ran away from home after two rapes, two children and one awful older husband to become a comedy fixture in segregated comedy clubs, earning $10,000 a week at Harlem's famed Apollo. She appeared uncredited in Emperor Jones (1933) and a couple of late 1940s films, as well as on TV's "Bill Cosby Show" before she passed in 1975. Tyler Perry's Medea is, of course, a child of Moms.
United Artists. Producer: Matt Robinson. Screenplay: Matt Robinson. Cast: Moms Mabley, Slappy White, Rosalind Cash, Moses Gunn, James Karen. 35mm, 99 min. 


The American Astronaut
Some of our staff’s picks for this series are based upon fond childhood memories, and some are simply high points in their respective genres -- but staff member Kat’s pick is a film that drew her a new personal cinematic roadmap: the highly unique “Forbidden Zone-by-way-of-Eraserhead-and-Cormac-McCarthy” early Twenty-First century musical The American Astronaut, directed by Cory McAbee and with music by his own uncategorizable band, The Billy Nayer Show. Kat says: “Years ago, my friend J.J. Giddings (from Tuscon, AZ’s Cinefamily counterpart The Loft) gave me this film on DVD, promising that it would be my new favorite. Not believing myself to be a fan of outer-space cowboy musicals, it was shelved unwatched for a long time. Eventually, J.J. forcibly sat me down and watched it with me. It blew my brain apart -- it made me realize that the perception of genre boundaries and classifications are more or less arbitrary. This film is so much more than it seems. The music is catchy and cool. It’s weird and wonderful. It’s going to be fun.”
Dir. Corey McAbee, 2001, 35mm, 94 min. 


AUTUMN SONATA
Ingmar Bergman's intense chamber drama was Ingrid Bergman's first Swedish film in almost 40 years and also her last. She plays a famed international concert pianist whose reunion with her daughter (Liv Ullmann) quickly deteriorates from euphoria into recriminations over the past. Rivalry, longing and guilt threaten to destroy the bonds that join a mother and her daughter. With Erland Josephson and Gunnar Bjornstrand. Ingmar Bergman---Sweden---1978---97 mins. 


A Woman Of Paris
(new 35mm print!)
Chaplin as actor: a body dancing through space, deftly expressive, indelibly iconic; and eyes, eyes filled with tenderness, flashing with anger, ennobled by suffering, closed in near-prayer. Chaplin as director: sometimes harder to visualize when irresistably diverted by his powerful presence onscreen. In one of the very few dramatic features he ever made, and one of only two in which he did not act, Chaplin as director looms large over it all, providing untrammelled insight into the workings of the mind that animated it all and created such rich worlds. Hidden beneath the ravishingly innocent Victorian tale of a country girl tarnished by the rich life, is the truth about A Woman of Paris -- it is the record and swang song of Chaplin’s feelings for its star, Edna Purviance. Discovered at a San Francisco cafe while Chaplin was at Essenay, she appears in 33 of his films and was his first great cinematic love; she retired from the screen in 1927, two films after this, crafted precisely to display her talents as a dramatic actress, but he kept her on his payroll until her untimely death in 1958. It is to Edna that the Little Tramp owes his development from rowdy cad to deeply sympathetic Everyman, and in this lyrical love poem of a film, she is amply repaid.
Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1923, 35mm, 93 min. 


BABY DOLL
(1956) Directed by Elia Kazan
Baby Doll centers on Archie Lee Meighan (Malden), the middle-aged owner of a dilapidated cotton gin, and his young bride, Baby Doll (Baker). Archie Lee promised the girl's dying father that he would not deflower her until she reached the age of twenty. But on the eve of her twentieth birthday, his hopes of consummating the marriage are dashed by a series of comic events, setting off a tense game of manipulation and revenge with his competitor, the smooth talking Silva Vacarro (Wallach). Featuring superb performances and a crackling script by Tennessee Williams, Baby Doll is a bitingly funny and playfully perverse Southern Gothic farce.
Warner Bros.. Based on the play "27 Wagons Full of Cotton" by Tennessee Williams. Producer: Elia Kazan. Screenplay: Tennessee Williams. Cinematographer: Boris Kaufman. Editor: Gene Milford. Cast: Karl Malden, Carroll Baker, Eli Wallach, Mildred Dunnock. 35mm, 114 min. 


BLACULA
(1972) Directed by William Crain
One of the finest of filmic Dracula adaptations, Blacula combines social satire, political commentary and campy extravagance in revising and transgressing the horror genre. As Mamuwalde, an African prince cursed by Count Dracula in 1780 and awoken in 1972 Los Angeles, William Marshall conveys the pathos and dignity of the title role and refuses stereotypical representation. Also notable is the stunning opening credit sequence by Sandy Dvore.
American International Pictures. Producer: Joseph T. Naar. Screenplay: Raymond Koenig, Joan Torres. Cinematographer: John M. Stevens. Cast: William Marshall, Vonetta McGee, Denise Nicholas, Thalmus Rasulala. 35mm, 92 min. 


BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN
(1935) Directed by James Whale
Many critics consider Bride of Frankenstein superior to Frankenstein. In the sequel, it's revealed that not only did Dr. Frankenstein and his creation survive the flames, but also that another mad scientist is blackmailing Frankenstein to produce a mate for his monster. A prize possession in Universal's catalogue, this title has been repeatedly accessed, making a new preservation necessary.
Universal Pictures. Producer: Carl Laemmle, Jr.. Screenplay: William Hurlbut. Cinematographer: John J. Mescall. Editor: Ted Kent. Cast: Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Valerie Hobson, Ernest Thesiger, Elsa Lanchester. 35mm, B/W, 80 min.
IN PERSON: Bob O'Neil, Universal Studios


BUCK AND THE PREACHER
(1972) Directed by Sidney Poitier
Marking his directorial debut, Sidney Poitier stars with Harry Belafonte in this historical epic Western set in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. Poitier's Buck is a trail guide leading emancipated slaves westward in search of homestead opportunities and protecting them from vicious bounty hunters. Belafonte delivers one of his finest performances as a charlatan preacher along for the ride.
Columbia Pictures. Producer: Joel Glickman, Sidney Poitier. Screenplay: Ernest Kinoy. Cinematographer: Alex Phillips Jr.. Cast: Sidney Poitier, Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee, Cameron Mitchell. 35mm, 102 min. 


BURMA VJ
Directed by Anders Ostergaard
(2009, 84 min., Digibeta, not rated)
The military junta rules Burma, and undercover video journalists must undertake a dangerous reportage: to document events and smuggle out images for the rest of the world to see, risking torture and life imprisonment. Equipped with hidden handicams and a compulsive instinct to shoot what they witness, in 2007 the VJs filmed the dramatic protests by Buddhist monks in Rangoon. The Burma VJ is an everyman, but he is also an accidental hero - a freedom fighter armed with a camera. Oscar nominated, 2010


BURY ME IN KERN COUNTY
(from IMDB)
A "Cops"-styled TV show tapes the arrest of a man charged with selling home made speed. His mother, seeing the broadcast, dies of a heart attack on the spot. His wife then decides to join with her drug addled sister to rob a convenience store to get the money for the bond and for the funeral expenses. Events follow that place the two sisters at odds with each other...  Dir. Julien Nitzberg, 1998, 90 min.  Writer/director Julien Nitzberg (The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia) and actress Mary Lynn Rajskub in person!


But Film is My Mistress
2010/color/66 min. | Scr/dir: Stig Björkman.
This new documentary which premiered at the Cannes Festival last May features interviews with Woody Allen, Bernardo Bertolucci, Olivier Assayas, Martin Scorsese, Arnaud Desplechin, Lars von Trier and Liv Ullmann.
In person: Stig Björkman


Catfish
The filmmakers of Catfish -- the most buzzed about film at Sundance this year -- urge you not to say what the film’s about, and we agree. In fact, we urge you to resist Googling it, resist looking it up on Yahoo -- don’t even ask Jeeves! Catfish is a film that people can ruin for you, either by “spoilers”, or more importantly, the strength of their opinions -- part of the fun of the film is putting together your own point of view. We’re very excited to have a sneak preview of Catfish before its wide theatrical release, in order for you to be included in a small band of lucky Cinefamily folk that gets to make up their own mind before everyone else spoils the surprise. Be on the front line of the zeitgeist, and ask the director (in person!) your burning questions -- for you will have questions. Here’s your chance to walk into this incredible film knowing as little as possible, and be taken on a journey as strange, haunting, thought-provoking, discomforting, moving -- and yet familiar as modern life itself. Co-directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, star Nev Schulman and editor Zachary Stuart-Pontier will all be here for a Q&A after the screening!
Dirs. Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman, 2010, 35mm, 94 min. 


CELESTIAL CELLULOID
Film historians John Cannizzaro & Gerorge Russell screen 16mm films (some with live music accompaniment) from the early 20th century. Classic comedy, drama and avant-garde cinema on the big screen with the hypnotic projector hum expand the viewing experience.


China is Near
1968/b&w/108 min. | Scr: Elda Tattoli, Marco Bellocchio; dir: Marco Bellocchio; w/ Glauco Mauri, Elda Tattoli, Paolo Graziosi
This biting satire about sex, religion and politics, that ranges in tone from farce to dead earnest, "concerns a rather doltish Italian aristocrat, a professor of political science who has been, by his own account, a member of 'all four parties of the Italian center-left', and a young Maoist, a student who is having an affair with the professor's secretary, and a leading candidate for the local Socialist Council. But because the professor is rich, the Socialists nominate the professor, who in turn hires the cynical student as a campaign assistant. While touring tour the countryside, where they address sparse groups of toothless and old men and packs of delinquent boys, they are set upon by Stalinists, and nearly blown up by a time bomb placed in their headquarters by the Maoists… The student begins an affair with the professor's sister; the student's former girlfriend becomes involved with the professor. And the two young people on the left, having grown more fond of money and social position than of each other, resolve to marry the two aristocrats."—Renata Adler, The New York Times


Ciao Manhattan
Both Bob Dylan and Lou Reed wrote songs about her, and Andy Warhol dubbed her a Superstar, making film after film with her at the center. Edie Sedgwick was the "it" girl of the Factory, the tragic beauty of the '60s -- and there is no more perfect entry into Edie's world (and by association, Warhol's Factory) than David Weisman and John Palmer's experimental fiction/documentary fusion Ciao Manhattan. In this unusual take on the biographical film, Edie plays a thinly-veiled version of herself, Suzie Superstar, whose mod Manhattan exploits are recounted from her mother's Malibu swimming pool, where Suzie now lives in a makeshift tent. The NYC flashbacks are made up of gorgeous 1967 footage Weisman and Palmer shot for an unfinished film, paired with audio of candid true memories Edie recorded years later in a more dissipated state. Co-director David Weisman will be in person, along with co-stars Wesley Hayes and Jeff Briggs to share their memories -- and this special screening will be accompanied by the monstrously cool, very rare 30-minute documentary Edie: Girl On Fire, made up of outtakes, rare audio recordings, photographs, and more! 


THE CIRCUS
“It is Chaplin's great elegy to the lost art of music-hall pantomime and, for that matter, the soon-to-be lost art of silent-film comedy.” - Christian Baluvelt, Slant Magazine
After the epic venture of The Gold Rush made him an even bigger star than he previously was, Chaplin focused the subject matter of his Gold Rush follow-up inward, turning the spotlight on the act of comedy-making itself. The Circus finds The Tramp running afoul of the law and hiding out within the confines of a travelling three-ring operation; accidentally barging in during the middle of a performance, the Tramp inadvertently displays astounding comic skills on the stage, and becomes the circus’s new hottest act. The film’s deceptively simple set-up gives Chaplin one of his greatest possibility-laden canvases, one onto which he projects an fantastic run of iconic, beautifully executed comic setpieces: the funhouse hall of mirrors chase, the monkey-laden tightrope walk, and his perilous, hilarious stint stuck in the lion cage. As well, The Circus’s core romance, between Chaplin and co-star Merna Kennedy, is possibly his most realistic and bittersweet, lending a fittingly somber farewell to what Chaplin had, in the end, falsely assumed would be his final silent. Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1928, 35mm, 70 min.


CITY LIGHTS
As the sound era dawned, everyone wanted to hear the Tramp speak -- everyone, that is, except Chaplin himself. Feeling that words in the Tramp’s mouth would evaporate the universality of the character, Chaplin pushed ahead with City Lights, easily his most focused, shining effort, and a rare silent film produced after the 1920s had closed. In it, the Tramp befriends a blind girl (Virginia Cherrill) who believes he’s a millionaire, and he tries his hand at a variety of odd jobs to pay for her eye operation; meanwhile, a real-life alcoholic millionaire (a fantastically kooky Harry Myers) befriends the Tramp, expect for when he repeatedly tries to get the Tramp arrested after sobering. Seriously funny and deeply moving (especially in its devastating final scene, which will leave no audience member unmoved), City Lights  is a marvel for being such a tightly wound, densely plotted work born out of Chaplin’s obsessive on-the-fly scripting while his film was in production -- and it feels light as air to boot. Chaplin’s phenomenal strength as a performer always made his comic timing, his pantomime and his human warmth seem completely effortless -- but this legacy was secretly built upon a rigorous and unorthodox work ethic, and City Lights is the apex of that mammoth effort. Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1931, 35mm, 87 min.


CLAUDINE
(1974) Directed by John Berry
James Earl Jones plays a garbage collector who loves Claudine but is afraid of the emotional commitment that comes with raising a family. Oscar-nominated for a role originally written for cancer victim Diana Sands, Diahann Carroll made the plight of a working class black woman who alone must provide for her five children more than a welfare statistic. After decades on the blacklist, director John Berry returned to mainstream Hollywood with this serious black drama, which does not fit the mold of Blaxploitation, but would have never been produced, were it not for the success of the genre. And while the film attempts a realistic portrayal of working class black life, it is caters to Hollywood sentimentality.
20th Century Fox Film Corp.. Producer: Hannah Weinstein. Screenplay: Lester Pine, Tina Pine. Cinematographer: Gayne Rescher. Editor: Luis San Andres. Cast: Diahann Carroll, James Earl Jones, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Tamu . 35mm, 92 min. 


CLEOPATRA, 1934, Paramount (Universal), 100 min. Mogul and architect of epics, Cecil B. DeMille weaves a historical tapestry poised somewhere between high camp and outlandish spectacle, directing the scintillating Claudette Colbert in her youthful prime as the wily Egyptian queen. A naughty pre-Code product, the film boasts an array of scandalous costumes. With Warren William as Julius Caesar and Henry Wilcoxon as Marc Antony. Discussion following with renowned biographer Scott Eyman, moderated by film critic Leonard Maltin.


COOLEY HIGH
(1975) Directed by Michael Schultz
Four high school friends in the Class of '64 try to survive their senior year and graduate from an inner city high school in Chicago, back when the city was racially segregated, but also featured a large African-American middle class. At moments sweet and funny, this was also a serious attempt to portray African American life in terms less shrill than Blaxploitation allowed. Princeton-educated black director Michael Schultz consciously constructs a low-budget African American version of American Graffiti, financed by American International Pictures that took in millions, despite its bleaker vision. The film featured a cast of mostly amateurs, some of whom, like Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs went on to long Hollywood careers.
American International Pictures. Producer: Steve Krantz. Screenplay: Eric Monte. Cinematographer: Paul Vombrack. Cast: Glynn Turman, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Garrett Morris, Cynthia Davis. 35mm, 107 min. 


COTTON COMES TO HARLEM
(1970) Directed by Ossie Davis
Ossie Davis marked his directorial debut with an adaptation of Chester Himes' Harlem detective novel. New York City police detectives "Grave Digger" Jones and "Coffin" Ed Johnson investigate an opportunistic preacher they suspect is exploiting the community with a back-to-Africa scheme. Combining action, drama, humor and satire, Cotton Comes to Harlem features a varied cast of characters, elaborate chase scenes and vivid on-location shooting.
United Artists. Based on a novel by Chester Himes. Producer: Samuel Goldwyn Jr.. Screenplay: Ossie Davis, Arnold Perl. Cinematographer: Gerald Hirschfeld. Cast: Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St. Jacques, Calvin Lockhart, Judy Pace, Redd Foxx. 35mm, 97 min. 


Cries and Whispers
1972/color/91 min. | Scr/dir; Ingmar Bergman; w/ Harriet Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, Liv Ullmann.
In a turn of the century villa, Bergman lays bare the souls of four women: Agnes who is dying of tuberculosis, her two emotionally distant sisters-Karin, a hate-filled, cold person, and Maria, a narcissistic, childish one-and the family maid, who is the only one able to deal with the mortality that they are all forced to confront. The concluding scene, depicting the moment when one can confront death and achieve grace, is both shattering and comforting. Evoking the paintings of Edvard Munch and the plays of August Strindberg, Cries and Whispers is one of Bergman's most provocative and intimate films: the dialogue is precise yet restrained, the music of Bach and Chopin is used sparingly but to overwhelming effect, and the cinematography, in shades of crimson, won Bergman's longtime collaborator Sven Nykvist an Academy Award.


CROOKS IN CLOVER (aka LES TONTONS FLINGUEURS aka MONSIEUR GANGSTER) 1963, Gaumont, 105 min. Director Georges Lautner (ICY BREASTS) helmed this deliciously funny, but dark gangster spoof with Lino Ventura (SECOND BREATH) as a former mobster lured back into the business by a dying friend’s last request. Obligated to tie up some "loose ends" as well as look after the dead man’s soon-to-be-married daughter, Ventura abruptly finds himself running afoul of gangster hardcase, Bernard Blier. But Ventura is not to be trifled with, and responds in equal measure. Soon, a string of killings erupt and bodies pile up as the two men go at it. One of the classics.


DEADBEAT AT DAWN
(from IMDB)
After one too many encounters with The Spiders (a rival gang), The Ravens' leader's girlfriend tells him to quit the gang or it's Splitsville. He does so, but the leader of The Spiders is hellbent on revenge and arranges the murder of the girlfriend. That ticks off the boyfriend, who wreaks havoc with the two gangs, who have joined forces in order to pull off a security truck heist. Dir. Jim Van Bebber, 1988, 80 min.


DEEP RED
Dario Argento's account of a man drawn into a sadistic killer's lair when he witnesses a murder and initiates an investigation with the help of a beautiful journalist. Aficionados consider this one of the director's best. Also known as The Hatchet Murders. With David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi and Macha Meril.  Dario Argento---Italy---1975---126 mins. 


Demon Lover Diary
Young cameraman Jeff Kreines found himself in the center of a moviemaking maelstrom in 1975, when he was hired by brash, self-obsessed first-time filmmakers Donald Jackson and Jerry Younkins to serve on their first chaotic venture into production: the no-budget, regional trash-horror juggernaut Demon Lover (aka The Devil Master). Krienes' filmmaker girlfriend Joel DeMott had the right instinct to point her own 16mm camera on the whole tension-laden tumultuous affair -- and the legendary Demon Lover Diary was the result. With a shaggy older-brother nod to Chris Smith’s unforgettable American Movie, this crude and biting saga chronicles fifteen days in the lives of Demon Lover’s cast and crew: their passions, their frailties, and ultimately, their frightening capability for emotionally savaging each other. With only a brief theatrical run in 1980 and no home video release, Demon Lover Diary stands as one of the most significant "lost" documentaries; its power lies not only within its novelty (an unrivaled peek into the making of an ultra-obscure 1970s trash film,) but also with its blunt, unfiltered snapshot of human obsession. Prepare to be haunted by this glorious hybrid of the Maysles at their most affecting and gutter-horror at its most sublime.
Dir. Joel DeMott, 1980, 16mm, 90 min.


The Devil in the Flesh
1987/color/114 min.  | Scr: Enrico Palandri, Ennio De Concini, Marco Bellocchio; dir: Marco Bellocchio; w/ Maruschka Detmers, Federico Pitzalis, Anita Laurenzi
"Raymond Radiguet began his masterpiece—the romantic novel Le Diable au Corps—when he was 17 or 18 and published it in 1923, the year he died of typhoid fever at the age of 20. Helped no doubt by Radiguet's liaison with Jean Cocteau, Le Diable au Corps was an instant success. It's also been an enduring one, at least in France: a classic to be discovered by youthful readers with the same kind of excitement that American college students come upon Ernest Hemingway, J. D. Salinger and Kurt Vonnegut. Its World War I story, about the passionate affair of an adolescent boy and an older woman married to a French soldier at the front, is no longer as shocking as it once was.  However, its cynicism (early critics found it unpatriotic) continues to speak to successive generations of restless young people at odds with inherited tradition. In 1947, Claude Autant-Lara directed the definitive film version (starring newcomer Gérard Philipe), but Marco Bellocchio has made no attempt to adapt the Radiguet original. Instead, he uses it loosely, more or less as inspiration for a contemporary romantic drama in which he once again explores his favorite themes- family relationships and the individual's relationship to the society that represses him. Photographed in bright, shiny, primary colors, which (intentionally, I suspect) give everything, even the characters, the look of plastic, it is also more studiously erotic than anything Radiguet (or Autant-Lara) would have dared. "—Vincent Canby, The New York Times 


ENAMORADA
(1946, Mexico) Directed by Emilio Fernández
A nimble fusion of tearjerker, screwball comedy and national foundation myth, Enamorada transposes The Taming of the Shrew to a rural town during the Revolution where the liberal General Reyes (Armendáriz) falls head over heels for Beatriz (Maria Félix), the hotheaded daughter of the town's wealthiest reactionary. Enamorada is a work of astonishing visual intricacy, thanks to the cinematography Gabriel Figueroa, as Fernández mobilizes the Revolution for a mythic reformulation of national gender archetypes.
Producer: Benito Alazraki. Screenplay: Iñigo de Martino, Benito Alazraki, Emilio Fernández. Cinematographer: Gabriel Figueroa. Cast: Maria Félix, Pedro Armendáriz, Fernando Fernández, José Morcillo. Presented in Spanish dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, B/W, 99 min. 


ENTER THE VOID
Gaspar Noe is a visually trippy director, and “Enter the Void” shows why. The son of famed Argentine painter Luis Felipe Noe, his movies play out like color-draped dreams, sometimes with out-of-sequence scenes, sometimes with flashbacks and flashforwards.
“Enter the Void” plays with experimental storytelling by centering its narrative in the head of a young man, Oscar, who has been killed during a petty drug deal. Oscar’s spirit isn’t free to move on because he promised his sister Linda, a nightclub stripper, that he would never leave her. So he watches from above and prowls the neon-filled city of Tokyo, where they live.


FEAR AND DESIRE, 1953, 72 min. Numerous rumors surround the creation (and near disappearance) of director Stanley Kubrick’s first feature film - some true, some less so. Often thought to be a student film, it was later disavowed and destroyed by its director, but not before it played in a few art house cinemas at the time of its release. A forgotten film in its day, this 35mm print from the George Eastman House collection offers a rare opportunity to see a young, self-educated filmmaker’s first foray into heavy themes - war, gender politics and more. Look for writer-actor-director Paul Mazursky making his screen debut in this film! Discussion following with Paul Mazursky.


Films by Cameron Jamie
Cameron Jamie makes enigmatic and captivating documentary films exploring American and European vernacular cultures and their rituals. For this special event, we will be screening Jamie’s trilogy of films BB (1998–2000), Spook House (2002–2003) and Kranky Klaus (2002–2003), along with his latest film (making its American debut and Los Angeles premiere), Massage the History (2007–2009). These films all explore the idea of the home: from haunted houses, to suburban backyards, to domestic holiday rituals, to living room dancing. Together the four films create a hallucinatory and poetic vision of what goes on behind closed doors and also what is right in front of our eyes that we don’t seem to acknowledge.


Fists in the Pocket
1965/b&w/105 min. | Scr/dir: Marco Bellocchio; w/ Lou Castel, Paola Pitagora
Belloccio's debut feature is an audacious portrait of dysfunctional upper class family whose crazed, epileptic teenage son plots to kill his mother and brother. "From the moment Lou Castel literally falls from the sky into the film, one knows that one has signed up for one darn crazy ride… This [film] spells y-o-u-t-h with the greatest virulence. It captures its never abetted sense of social claustrophobia and, its consequence, its recurrent fantasies of murder and mayhem. For anyone, anywhere, at any time, who uttered, 'Families, I hate you!' this film should be the Bible. Nervy, hilarious, and bleaker than bleak, it manages to make you believe the impossible, namely that a filmmaker could take a trip on the Rimbaud side of the street and not come out looking ridiculous. And, as an added bonus, for those who want to understand the sixties beyond the banalities that are ritually uttered about them, every scene of Fists in the Pocket, with the convulsive beauty of its framing and composition, amply proves how much this period was made by people so steeped in classical culture that they fantasized it could be solid beyond its fragility, shaking it to the core and ultimately ushering in a world they could themselves hardly live in."—Jean-Pierre Gorin 


FROM THE LIFE OF THE MARIONETTES
Made during Bergman's tax-related exile in Germany, the film continues the story of Katarina and Peter Egermann, the feuding, childless, professional couple who appear in one episode of "Scenes From A Marriage." After Peter perpetrates a horrendous crime in its first scene, the rest of the film consists of a non-linear examination of his motivations, incorporating a police psychological investigation, scenes from the Egermanns' married life, and dream sequences. Dir. Ingmar Bergman, 1980, 104 min.


GANJA & HESS
(1973) Directed by Bill Gunn
Bill Gunn wrote and directed this complexly layered, highly allegorical and lusciously photographed iteration of vampire mythology. Lauded at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, Ganja & Hess dramatizes the psychology of addiction and engages with the tensions between European and African diasporic culture and religion, all while exploring "otherness" in its myriad forms. This not-to-be-missed experience is one of the masterpieces of American art cinema.
IN PERSON: Marlene Clark.
Producer: Chiz Schultz. Screenplay: Bill Gunn. Cinematographer: James E. Hinton. Cast: Marlene Clark, Duane Jones, Bill Gunn, Sam Waymon, Leonard Jackson. 35mm, 113 min. 


George Eastman’s Attic SHORTS
"The Skipping Cheeses" (aka "Les Fromages Automobiles") (1907, 5 min.) Directed by Georges Méliès and featuring the director’s trademark special effects, this short offers an early 20th century warning to anyone boarding French public transport who might be sensitive to smell.
"A Western Girl" (1911, 10 min.) Starring director John Ford’s influential older brother, Francis Ford, this film is one of the few surviving films from the lesser-known American outpost of Méliès’ Star Film Company in San Antonio, Texas.
"Early 28mm Animation" (1918, 5 min.) A product of a pioneering animation company, the Bray Studios, this short features a young character who, as is the case in many cartoons, spends most of his time inciting havoc and chaos in his neighborhood.


GERRYMANDERING
(2010) Directed by Jeff Reichert
In recent years America has seen a surge in "gerrymandering," the re-drawing of electoral boundaries to influence elections. Jeff Reichert's penetrating documentary explores how this tool disenfranchises communities and consolidates partisan power. Illuminating graphics and animation, along with testimony by numerous experts (notably California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger) round out this exposé of one of the most insidious forces in politics.
HDcam, 81 min.
IN PERSON: Director Jeff Reichert and Former Governor Gray Davis. 


THE GOLD RUSH
The Gold Rush is simply one of the towering giants of 1920s silent film, and stands alongside Buster Keaton’s The General  as the largest-scale epic comedy event of its time, packed full of astounding visual gags, a tender romance full of heartbreak and butterflies in the stomach, truly suspenseful peril, and the perfect balance of slapstick to pathos (a delicate mixture of which Chaplin was the undisputed king.) Partly inspired by the real-life Donner Party(!), the film finds Chaplin as a Klondike gold prospector; while trapped in a tiny frozen cabin with no food during an intense winter, the Tramp performs some of his all-time most famous bits: Walking Against The Wind, the Chicken Suit, and Eating His Shoe. These satisfying, energizing sequences are matched by the film’s second half, with The Tramp falling in love from a distance with Alaskan beauty Georgia Hale, giving us our hero’s most tender act: the Dance of the Dinner Rolls, a indelible moment that so perfect that only a virtuoso like Chaplin could’ve mastered it. Charlie often claimed that The Gold Rush was the one film he wished to be remembered by -- and rightly so, as this enduring classic richly deserves the title. NOTE: our screenings of The Gold Rush come from the 1942 re-release version that features Chaplin’s narration (the only currently available restored 35mm version of the film.) Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1925, 35mm, 69 min.


GORDON'S WAR
(1973) Directed by Ossie Davis
Ossie Davis directs this engaging and politically charged tale of a Vietnam vet who returns to his Harlem home to find it overrun with drugs and corruption. Using combat tactics he learned in the army, he joins forces with other veterans to fight an inner-city war on drugs. Gordon's War offers a social critique of systematic urban disenfranchisement in a highly dramatic and poignant film.
20th Century Fox Film Corp.. Producer: Robert L. Schaffel. Screenplay: Howard Friedlander, Ed Spielman. Cinematographer: Victor J. Kemper. Cast: Paul Winfield, Carl Lee, David Downing. 35mm, 90 min. 


The Great Dictator
(new 35mm print!)
“Speak -- it is our only hope.” - Commander Schultz, The Great Dictator
After holding out on making talkies longer than any other filmmaker, ironically the first film in which Chaplin spoke turned out to be one of his greatest and most beloved successes, one that still captivates audiences up to this day with its blend of heartfelt humanist intentions and the captivating physical comedy that Chaplin had so rigorously perfected. Inspired in part by a bizarre twist of fate that lead to both himself and the rising fascist dictator of Germany to sport the same tiny moustache, The Great Dictator finds Charlie in the dual roles of the wound-up, gibberish-spewing “Adenoid Hynkel” (leader of the fictional dictatorship Tomania) -- and The Tramp as a heroic Jewish barber who, after a Rip Van Winkle-like hospitalization, ruffles the goverment’s feathers. Featuring the famous “balloon ballet” sequence, along with countless other classic mirthful setpieces and an outstanding turn by beautiful co-star Paulette Goddard, The Great Dictator is “an impassioned plea for peace, tolerance, and humanity” (Allmovie).
Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1940, 35mm, 124 min. 


Hour of the Wolf
1967/b&w/89 min. | Scr/ dir: Ingmar Bergman; w/ Liv Ullmann, Max von Sydow, Erland Josephson
Bergman plunders the iconography of classic horror films like Nosferatu, Vampyr and Dracula to find a visual correlative for the demons—real and fantastical—that visit Johan Borg, an artist who has moved with his wife Alma to an island in order to paint. Plagued by insomnia, Johan waits in terror nightly for the "hour of the wolf'—the hour just before dawn when most babies are born and most people die—as his hallucinations, shared by Alma, pour forth. But as his diary reveals, worse was to come: nocturnal visits to a castle populated by demons and ghosts where a sinister count oversees evenings of debauchery and violence. Made at a time of personal stress, Hour of the Wolf is clearly Bergman's most extreme depiction of the struggles an artist must endure when giving birth to his art. "A dazzling flow of surrealism, expressionism and full-blooded Gothic horror."—The Observer


THE HUMAN TORNADO
(1976) Directed by Cliff Roquemore
Rudy Ray Moore stars as Dolemite, a pimp who is overweight, slow-moving, rhyming and the image of uncool, yet seems to be blissfully ignorant of these deficits. In this hugely successful sequel to Dolemite (1975), our hero helps his friend Queen Bee save her night club from a group of white Mafia types; but forget the silly plot, which is as ludicrous as the hero's outrageous pimpwear, i.e. no more than a series of set pieces that allow the hero to do his thing. Watch instead Rudy Ray Moore, a true African American original, the godfather of rap, part toaster, part trickster, a womanizer with a paunch, a Kung Fu fighter with two left feet.
Producer: Rudy Ray Moore. Screenplay: Jerry Jones. Cinematographer: Fred Conde, Bob Wilson. Cast: Rudy Ray Moore, Lady Reed, Jimmy Lynch, Howard Jackson, Gloria Delaney. 35mm, 98 min. 


THE IDLE CLASS
Showing before City Lights is The Idle Class, in which the Tramp is mistaken for a high society drunk! Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1921, 35mm, 32 min. 


Jour-de-fête
Inaugurating one of the great careers in comedic filmmaking, Jour-de-fête is itself a cause for celebration. Jacques Tati filmed this joyful 1948 debut feature in the remote French village of Sainte-Severe-sur-Indre, where he and screenwriter Henri Marquet spent the WWII years avoiding German recruitment. At first, plot takes a back seat to the whimsical elaboration of sight gags and comic scenes of village life; things kick in to high gear when a sensationalized newsreel on American postal methods persuades Tati’s bumbling-yet-beloved mailman Francois to streamline his delivery service. The gradual accumulation of character and detail pays off in the delightfully frantic finale, which follows Tati on a calamitous bicycle chase through the carousels, bars, butcher shops, bell towers and hay bales of this seemingly sleepy hamlet. Tati’s inimitable style is amply in evidence even this early on, as he deftly updates the classic techniques of silent comedy with stunningly confident sound design; every frame is stamped with the incalculable craftsmanship, warm humanistic sentiment and the miraculous control of space and movement which are Tati’s stock in trade.
Dir. Jacques Tati 1949, 35mm, 79 min. 


THE KID
"But it was in The Kid that Chaplin seemed to realize, at last, precisely what was required." - Walter Kerr, The Silent Clowns
In this milestone early Chaplin feature, the Tramp adopts an abandoned toddler (Jackie Coogan) whom he discovers in an alley, and raises him to become his sidekick in a variety of schemes and cons. Chaplin's first feature-length directorial effort, The Kid is a moving and hilarious portrait of paternal love, or as the film's first intertitle says, "A picture with a smile, and perhaps a tear..." As well, it's the landmark work of genius in which Charlie the jester metamorphasized into Charlie the full-blooded actor, whose iconic dignity in the face of comic adversity made him one of our greatest cinematic treasures. Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1921, 35mm, 68 min.


LA SOLDADERA
(The Female Soldier)
(1966, Mexico) Directed by José Bolaños
The Spanish term "soldaderas" refers to the women who followed men into combat during the Revolution, many of them wives of soldiers on the front lines. Sergei Eisenstein had planned to include a section devoted to the "soldaderas" in his ill-fated production, Que Viva Mexico, but the scenario was never shot. Under the Russian's seminal influence, director José Bolaños crafts a fitting portrait of the women of the Revolution through the story of Lázara (played by frequent Buñuel collaborator Silvia Pinal) who faces the trials and tribulations of war with stoic grace.
Screenplay: José Bolaños. Cinematographer: Alex Phillips. Editor: Rafael Ceballos. Cast: Silvia Pinal, Narcisco Busquets, Pedro Armendáriz, Jr., Sonia Infante. Presented in Spanish dialogue with English subtitles. 16mm, B/W, 88 min. 


L.A. Streetfighters
“Watching this movie is like seeing the world through the eyes of a delusional psychotic who's high on peyote.” - Matt Singer, IFC.com
The trailer voiceover says it all: “The one movie that breaks all the rules, defies all the conventions. The movie that kicks you in the FACE!” All of the above words are 1,000,000% true. This movie does break all the rules, like that rule that said all high school students have to be under the age of 35: SHATTERED! The rule that states when you’ve got slow motion, the voices shouldn’t be at normal speed: DEMOLISHED! You know that other dumb rule about how characters in a film should act and speak like actual human beings: REVOKED! Aging Tae Kwon Do instructor-turned-actor Jun Chong leads a cast of similarly middle-aged “teenagers” in this psyche-warping tale of high kicks, drunken mothers, rival gangs with equally preposterous racist chants, idiotic altruism, toga parties, sentence fragments, pitchfork fighting and emotional outbursts! A Korean-made chop-socky chock full of gawkin’ at L.A. locales, including Fairfax High School (across the street from Cinefamily!), L.A. Streetfighters is an HFS gem that, like Lost In The Desert and Ninja III before it, is blissfully unaware of its own pure insanity.
Dir. Woo-sang Park, 1985, 35mm, 85 min. 


LIMELIGHT
Chaplin blends comedy and tragedy in the story of an aging music hall comic who's convinced he can no longer move people to laughter. Chaplin labored on this deeply personal project for more than three years, and its semi-autobiographical elements make it fascinating viewing. With Chaplin, Claire Bloom, and the great Buster Keaton. Charles Chaplin---USA---1952---141 mins.


LONESOME
(1929) Directed by Paul Fejos
Lonesome is one of those late silents that was re-released with talking sequences in the transition period to sound. Today it is considered a masterpiece for its simple story, breath-taking cinematography and stencil color. Fejos was a true independent who soon returned to Europe where he became an anthropologist, but with this film he left his mark.
Universal Pictures. Screenplay: Edward T. Lowe Jr., Mann Page, Tom Reed. Cinematographer: Gilbert Warrenton. Cast: Barbara Kent, Glenn Tryon, Fay Holderness, Andy Devine. 35mm, 69 min.
IN PERSON: Caroline Frick, Senior Curator, George Eastman House.  


THE LOVED ONE
Robinson, one of our two regular projectionists, was emphatic: “The Loved One  is a perennial favorite that I must see once a year if I’m ever to retain my sanity, good humor and tolerance of mankind in modern society.” Fresh from a legendary gig scripting parts of Dr. Strangelove  for Kubrick, writer Terry Southern took novelist Eveyln Waugh’s black comedy aimed at both the funeral industry and the movie business, superbly matched Strangelove’s exquisite level of character exaggeration, and also included hilarious jabs at advice columnists, religious institutions and society at large! Robinson says: “Characters are blown-up to delightful extremes with nearly an entire lot of familiar faces that couldn’t have been more perfectly cast. Liberace as a coffin salesman, Robert Morley and John Gielgud being very, very British, 23-year-old future tunesmith Paul Williams as 13-year-old boy genius, and the always amazing Rod Steiger in the you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it role of head embalmer Mr. Joyboy.” On top of these awesome performances, Tony Richardson’s crisp direction, future auteur Hal Ashby’s editing and Haskell Wexler’s ace cinematography all add up to one of the great underseen films of the '60s.
Dir. Tony Richardson, 1965, 35mm, 122 min.


Lovers Of Hate
Amongst the past few years’ worth of micro-indie cinema, Lovers of Hate stands out as one of the creepiest and most realistic films we’ve seen in quite a while. In this haunting tale of deceit and sibling rivalry, Rudy and Paul are two very different adult brothers whose long-standing tense relationship embodies their polar-opposite life paths: effortless success and blunt loserdom. Younger brother Paul is a gainful author of childrens’ novels, while Rudy, Paul’s childhood collaborator on the stories, drifts from job to job, unable to kickstart his own long-gestating book. They do share one thing, however: their love for Rudy’s soon-to-be ex-wife -- and when opportunistic Paul whisks her away to a romantic mountain chalet, the lovers have no idea that a sabotage-hungry Rudy has made it there first. A testament to three star-making performances and a tightly constructed script, director Bryan Poyser’s brilliantly executed game of cat and mouse delicately balances humor and despair while pushing characters to painful and hilarious extremes. There are no clear winners in this savage comedy about curdled love, but it is one thrilling ride. Bryan Poyser will be here in person for a Q&A after the screening! 


The Magic Flute
1975/color/135 min. | Scr/ dir: Ingmar Bergman; w/ Josef Köstlinger, Irma Urrila, Håkan Hagegård,
The themes of Mozart's comic opera—in which Tamino must overcome the forces of darkness to find true love with the princess Pamina—infuse much of Bergman's work; an excerpt even appears as a demonic puppet show in Hour of the Wolf.  Bergman finally realized his dream of filming the opera when this enchanting and idiosyncratic production, commissioned by Swedish television and made on a modest budget, was released into theaters. Shooting on sets that replicated the intimate Drotningsteater in Stockholm, whose scale is in keeping with the probable first production, Bergman captures the excitement of live theater by pointing his camera both backstage and into the audience. Twenty-five years after its first appearance, it is still considered the finest screen version of an opera ever produced. "By reminding us that The Magic Flute is a fairy tale whose 'childish magic and exalted mystery' can appeal to spectators of all ages, Bergman neither betrayed nor merely reproduced Mozart's magic; rather, it is filtered through the Swedish maestro's own metaphysical vision in a remarkable act of homage."—Peter Cowie.


The Magician
1958/b&w/100 min. | Scr/ dir: Ingmar Bergman; w/ Max von Sydow, Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand
Sweden, 1846. Vogler's Magnetic Health Theater, a travelling show led by the charismatic and mute magician Albert Vogler arrives in a small town to give a performance. But the local authorities have heard of the troupe's dubious reputation and are determined to prove that Vogler and associates are charlatans. The magic of theater versus the forces of rationalism is Bergman's theme in this darkly humorous film in which Vogler, a sexually charismatic von Sydow, turns the tables on the petit bourgeoisie that are persecuting him in a tour de force finale derived from horror movie conventions.  "Widely underrated, probably because of its strong comic elements, Bergman's chilling exploration of charlatanism is in fact one of his most genuinely enjoyable films."—Time Out 


MIDNIGHT
Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, and John Barrymore star in this delightful comedy written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett. Colbert is a gold-digger unsatisfied with her cabbie boyfriend (Ameche). To her delight, a French aristocrat asks her to pose as a Hungarian Countess in order to distract his wife's latest love interest. Mitchell Leisen---USA---1939---94 mins.


MIRACLE MILE
Casey’s pick, Miracle Mile, has haunted more than one Cinefamily staff member with its intense and altogether familiar telling of its end-of-the-world scenario -- especially since it takes place right down the street, at the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax! Casey says: “Miracle Mile is my absolute favorite 'guy running around the city all night trying to figure it all out' movie. Drenched in neon paranoia with an ever-present pulsating score by Tangerine Dream, Miracle Mile  both terrified me and enthralled me as a kid living under the very real threat of Nuclear War. What you think is a quirky love story immediately turns into a mad journey of survival against some of the most surreal Los Angeles imagery, all sparked by perhaps the most chilling phone call in cinema history. Anthony Edwards is perfect as the protagonist, left wondering what is real and what is not, all the while chasing and warning every one he can of the possible impending doom. Bleak and unsettling, Miracle Mile will leave you stunned and breathless by the end."
Dir. Steve de Jarnatt, 1988, 35mm, 87 min.  


THE MIRROR
Staff member Alex says: “There is a place between waking and sleeping that has always laid heavily upon me, causing me to toss and turn beneath its weight. That place where the events and concerns of the present, the spectres of memory, and incoming fragments of dream collide, all intermingling. My restlessness stems from my inability to capture this collage of the conscious and subconscious -- but it’s precisely this collage that Andrei Tarkovsky so deftly captures in The Mirror. Weaving dreams, memories, news footage, the poems of his father, and autobiographical recreations, Tarkovsky creates an impressionistic self-portrait like none other. Breathtakingly beautiful, delicately quiet, and lyrically paced, it is a film that demands to be experienced large, on 35mm, where the viewer can be properly immersed. An important film to me and an important film, period, Tarkovsky’s The Mirror transcends the boundaries of the medium to create a singular viewing experience.”
Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975, 35mm, 106 min.


MODERN TIMES
Charlie Chaplin's silent homage to the human spirit, in which Chaplin is the victim of industrial boom. He plays a factory worker gone looney by the assembly line, who falls in love with a down-and-out young lady and tries through various and eccentric means to find a bit of financial peace. A great comedy, and a great film.  Charles Chaplin---USA---1936---87 mins. 


Mon Oncle
Tati hinted at the themes of industrialization and modernization in Jour-de-féte and Mr. Hulot’s Holiday, but it was not until Mon Oncle that the director found, in the perfectly de-personalized spaces of modern Parisian homes and factories, the great muse of his satirical vision. From his quaint, stone-brick old neighborhood, Hulot travels to visit his adoring nephew in a nightmarishly mod suburban development, where Arpel, his wealthy industrialist brother-in-law, schemes to find gainful employment and suitable companionship for our hero. The perfectly functional furniture, fountains and kitchenware of the immaculate Villa Arpel soon fall victim to Hulot’s tempestuous civility, and the rigid geometrical lines of the Plastac factory become the ideal counterpoint to Tati’s fluid physical comedic business. Though Playtime would refine and expand on many of its elements, Mon Oncle is distinguished by an unrivalled simplicity and clarity -- it’s also perhaps the greatest vehicle for Hulot himself, who would become but a background player amongst the hustle and bustle of Tati’s next masterpiece.
Dir. Jacques Tati, 1958, 35mm, 120 min.  (brand-new 35mm print!)


MONSIEUR VERDOUX
Henri Verdoux is the bank teller who marries and subsequently murders wealthy women in order to support his own wife and child. Chaplin's dark comedy was a commercial failure, rejected by a popular audience not ready to see the "Little Tramp" take on the role of a suave serial killer. Yet it may be the best film from the latter part of Chaplin's career. Wickedly witty, especially the scenes involving Martha Raye as an intended victim who comically evades her new husband's lethal traps. Charles Chaplin---USA---1947---124 mins. 


MOULIN ROUGE (1952, 119 min. No MPAA rating.)
What are the costs of being an artist? José Ferrer stars in the fictionalized account of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, the famously hard-living illustrator who documented the performers of the Moulin Rouge. Though born into nobility, Lautrec falls in love with a streetwalker, making it increasingly difficult to balance his personal life, his artistry, and social expectations. Directed by John Huston. 


THE MUMMY, 1932, Universal, 73 min. Dir. Karl Freund. Boris Karloff gives one of his finest performances as the 3000-year-old Egyptian who returns from the dead to reclaim reincarnated love Zita Johann, in cinematographer-turned-director Karl Freund’s marvelously atmospheric chiller - easily the best of many mummy films to come. Lecture and discussion between films with archaeologist David Cheetham.  


MYSTERIOUS SKIN
Gregg Araki (Doom Generation) floored critics with his challenging and visceral drama about childhood friends who discover a shared secret from their past. As kids, Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Brian (Brady Corbet) both played baseball on the same Kansas little league team. But after eighteen years, both men have taken drastically different life paths, with Neil hustling for cash on the streets of New York and Brian clinging to the belief that he's been abducted by aliens. As their lives draw closer once again, both men unravel a shared past wrapped in mystery and scalded by tragedy. "This is like Almodovar with a tarnished American flag in his hand: controversial, illuminating, deeply affecting and highly recommended" (Rex Reed) Gregg Araki---USA---2005---99 mins.  Writer/director Gregg Araki and actress Mary Lynn Rajskub in person!


THE NAKED APE
Mya, our Director of Development, says: "The Naked Ape is an adaptation of a great hippie-era popular science book my parents had, that I read when I was a kid. Written by British zoologist Desmond Morris, “The Naked Ape” was a huge, shocking bestseller in 1967 because it dared to point out that humans are a species of animal, and therefore not essentially that different from other animals; Morris was among the first to describe how physiological responses and basic adaptations influence our so-called civilized behavior. I've never actually seen the movie -- it's impossible to find, and I asked Hadrian to track it down primarily out of curiosity -- but, according to programmer Tom, who’s seen it, and loves it, this beautifully objective, groundbreaking scientific work was made into some kind of '70s soft-core Jimmy-Webb-scored Victoria Principal vehicle, complete with groovy animated interludes -- and financed by Playboy. I think nothing could possibly prove the point of “The Naked Ape” better than that."
Dir. Donald Driver, 1973, 35mm, 85 min. 


The Nanny
1999/color/106 min. | Scr: Daniela Ceselli, Marco Bellocchio; dir: Marco Bellocchio; w/ Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Maya Sansa
A Pirandello adaptation set in pre-World War I Rome, The Nanny examines the subject of motherhood, a theme that runs throughout Bellocchio's work. A fraught relationship develops when a stern psychiatrist and his estranged wife hire a wet nurse to care for their new-born child. The matriarch is dejected; she is incapable of bonding with her baby, even less feed it. But the illiterate, country girl who's usurped her has abandoned her own infant son in order to take the job. All around them the bourgeois order of Rome is collapsing amid proletarian riots, red flags and Socialist strikes. "This time Bellocchio is not encumbered by auto-biographical concerns and is free to take advantage of more opportunities. In a dramatic birth scene, the 'mother figure' is dismantled into a series of characters, of different gender and social class. Although inspired by the text of Luigi Pirandello, The Nanny is not particularly Pirandellian. The Sicilian writer is more cynical and his short story features a greater dose of evil and pessimism. Bellocchio's characters have been softened through greater complexity; there is more room given to the contrast between the world of men and women, wealth and poverty, origins and culture. Non-Italians will also enjoy the brilliance with which Bellocchio reveal aspects of Sicilian culture that have heretofore remained mysterious."—Alessandro Bruno 


PARADE
“[A] sublime and awesome coda to the career of one of this century's greatest artists.” - Jonathan Rosenbaum
After both Playtime and Trafic failed to connect with audiences and critics alike,, Jacques Tati graced the screen one final time with Parade, a seemingly simple, yet densely layered videotaped spectacle made for Swedish television, and a work that harkens back to the master filmmaker’s roots in the music halls of 1930s France. Extensively interweaving documentary technique, Tati presents for us an effervescent series of circus acts performed in front of an arena audience: acrobats, jugglers, trained animals, clowns and the like, with the performances bookended by Tati himself performing sublime pantomimes, such as a brilliant “slo-mo” tennis match, with a expert grace that belies his advanced age. While on the surface Parade appears to be merely a filmed record of a stage show, it in fact effortlessly blurs the lines between “real” and “staged”, from the intermingling of Tati’s handpicked actors and extras amongst “real” patrons, to those “real” patrons interacting with the “real” performers as audience and performance become one. To quote Fernando Croce of Cinepassion.org, Parade is “[a] distillation not of Jacques Tati per se, but of communal spectacle and creation -- cinema.”
Dir. Jacques Tati, 1974, 89 min. 


PAY DAY
Showing before the feature is Chaplin's final short film, Pay Day (1922), which uncharacteristically has the Tramp as a well-to-do construction worker! Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1918, 35mm, 28 min. 


PEDRO PÁRAMO
(1966, Mexico) Directed by Carlos Velo
Adapted from the influential novel by Juan Rulfo, Pedro Páramo tells the haunted personal journey of an estranged son confronting the brutality of his father, the film's title character, a notorious scoundrel and ruthless landowner who epitomizes the insatiable greed of the ruling classes of the Diaz regime. The ghosts of myth and history abound and even the Revolution appears corruptible and powerless amid director Velo's ambiguous narrative structure.
Based on the novel by Juan Rulfo. Producer: Manuel Barbachano Ponce. Screenplay: Manuel Barbachano Ponce, Carlos Velo, Carlos Fuentes. Cinematographer: Gabriel Figueroa. Editor: Gloria Schoemann. Cast: John Gavin, Ignacio López Tarso, Narcisco Busquets, Pilar Pellicer. Presented in Spanish dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, B/W, 108 min. 


PEPE LE MOKO
A milestone of French cinema with a superior performance by Jean Gabin as Pepe le Moko, a Parisian gangster hiding out in the Algerian Casbah. He is safe from the police until passion tempts him to risk leaving the confining sanctuary. "...one of the most exciting and moving films I can remember seeing," said the great writer Graham Greene in The Spectator. "...I cannot remember one which has succeeded so admirably in raising the thriller to a poetic level." Julien Duvivier---France---1936---95 mins. 


Persona
1966/b&w/81 min. | Scr/dir; Ingmar Bergman; w/ Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann
Blessed with two extraordinary actresses whose faces in close-up reveal the subtlest of emotions, Bergman's most audacious and enigmatic film focuses on two women—Elizabeth, a traumatized actress who has lost the ability to speak, and her extraverted but insecure nurse Alma—whose relationship evolves from affection and intimacy into resentment and hostility over the course of one summer. In this exploration of identity and representation, Bergman moved beyond psychology dissolving the line between reality and fantasy, and challenging the relationship between the spectator and the filmmaker: at the moment that Alma's emotions spill over into violence, the film we are watching "burns" in the projector. On release, Persona was acclaimed for its austere beauty and modernist ambitions, and recognized as a new chapter in Bergman's career, but few could agree on which scenes were real, or define the meaning. Some saw Elizabeth and Alma as two halves of the same personality; others read the relationship as that of a psychoanalyst and his patient. Susan Sontag called it "a masterpiece" and cautioned against the urge to interpret the film when she wrote: "The Latin word persona, from which the English 'person' derives, means the mask worn by an actor. To be a person then is to possess a mask; and in Persona, both women wear masks. Elizabeth's mask is her muteness. Alma's mask is her health, her optimism, her normal life. In the course of the film, both masks crack." 


THE PILGRIM
Also showing is The Pilgrim, in which the Tramp is an escaped prisoner mistaken for a local priest! Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1923, 35mm, 59 min. 


PLAYTIME
Jacques Tati’s Playtime is an essential experience in theatrical viewing -- and reviewing, and reviewing; it begs to be seen on the big screen. It is not just a brilliant and graceful observational comedy about “modern living”, but one the most massive undertakings in film history (shot over two years, with a total of 365 days of shooting, and edited for another year). Tati invested every penny he had, and then borrowed more, in order to create the ultimate movie set as playpen, constructing on the outskirts of Paris a “Tati-ville” for Mr. Hulot to wander around in: a complete futurist office building and its surrounding urban environment were built exactly to his specifications. The results are spectacular in a way that no other film accomplishes; it blows you away not with titillation, suspense or pathos, but rather with the pure perfection of its audio-visual ballet. And this heavenly dance requires repeat viewings; Tati made it his goal to fill every piece of the frame with activity and action, in an effort to “democratize the gag”. Every actor, every single extra is doing something funny, whimsical or interesting at all times -- so that you, the viewer, can choose how you are entertained, and no choice is wrong.
Dir. Jacques Tati, 1967, 35mm, 155 min.


Poisoned Paradise: The Forbidden Story of Monte Carlo
Romantic Monte Carlo. Apparently, a forbidden place. A place where deadly-yet-fun sins, such as greed and lust, are the dealers in the house of Passionate Melodrama -- and the house always wins. The perfect setting for a radiantly young, still-developing Clara Bow, in one of her earliest leading roles, to teethe on the scenery -- and for the audience to watch, enraptured, as she learns before our eyes to demolish it completely with trademark wit and sparkle. See! Clara as an independent gamblin’ lady! Look! As she loses it all and goes to live “like brother and sister” with a handsome young artist! Hey! That’s not what brothers and sisters ought to do! Lustrously photographed by Karl Struss, later the cinematographer of Sunrise and the 1925 version of Ben-Hur, it’s one of Clara’s three collaborations with director Louis J. Gasnier, a man who knew serious European sophistication (probably owing to his native French-ness.)
Dir. Louis J. Gasiner, 1924, 35mm, 70 min.


Power Kids
The pure joy of Power Kids is simple: it’s got adults and children mutually administering beatings to each other far beyond any sane person’s acceptable level of violence in a childrens’ film. But if watching a terrorist thug stepping on one kid’s neck while kicking another child in her chest, only for him to be acrobatically knee-punched in the jaw seconds later and thrown out the window by a flying four-foot-tall eleven-year-old is wrong -- then we don’t ever wanna be right! Features the stylings of Muy Thai fighting theatrics you’ve learned to love from films like Ong-Bak, The Protector and Chocolate, but with a “gang” made up of five murderous moppets (they start ‘em young in Thailand). Together they must foil a terrorist plot to take over the hospital housing the donor heart organ to be transplanted into their youngest, cutest and most maudlin member. Made for children, but not suitable for children, Power Kids is both a sweetly sentimental kids’ film, as well as a bloody, bone-crunching fist-pumper.
Dir. Krissanapong Rachata, 2010, 35mm. 


Project A
Here in the U.S., Jackie Chan’s incredible talent has been contained to that of a mere “action star” -- agile, talented and charming, sure, but did you know he’s also as agile behind the camera as well? Those who’ve only seen his American films have only experienced one dimension of this multi-dimensional film artist. Staff member Pat says: “To me, Chan should be best known for his roles in movies like Project A, where he’s not only the star, but also the killer director and writer as well. Here, Chan executed the best fight/action sequences I've ever seen, while never missing an opportunity to seamlessly throw in some great slapstick comedy, including his jaw-dropping homage to Harold Lloyd's infamous clock tower scene from Safety Last! And, Jackie Chan has never been better than when he appeared in an onscreen trio with Sammo Hung and Yuen Biao in the ‘80s. Of the handful of films they did together, Project A is the best!” Dir. Jackie Chan, 1983, 35mm, 106 min. 


Psychomania
A crowd warm-up for the main attraction of Stone, this exhumed 16mm print is perhaps the greatest undead British biker gang shlock-horror movie ever! Meet the Living Dead, a co-ed biker gang terrorizing a small English village by chasing cars off the road, buzzing pedestrians, and sporting atrocious haircuts -- until its longhair leader discovers the secret of eternal life under the guidance of his frog-worshipping occultist mum! Willingly commit suicide in the belief that you'll come back from the dead -- and once zombified, nothing can kill you. With character names like Hatchet and Chopped Meat, spectacularly shlocky effects, and a groovy, ghoulish ambient psych score (complete with a biker funeral folk interlude!), Psychomania delivers the goods.
Dir. Don Sharp, 1973, 16mm, 85 min.


QUAI DES ORFEVRES
A fabulous thriller. Suzy Delair plays a music hall girl who believes that she has killed a mean old man. Her husband (Bernard Blier) wanted to kill him, but finds him already dead when he arrives. Each hides their experience from the other, and the husband becomes the suspect. Louis Jouvet is brilliant in his role as the world-weary, wise cop. Clouzot creates a brooding atmosphere and etches indelible psychological portraits of trapped, frail human beings. "A gorgeous, extremely noir thriller" (The New York Times). Henri-Georges Clouzot---France---1947---105 mins. 


THE RAPTURE, 1991, Fine Line Features, 100 min. Dir. Michael Tolkin. Sharon (Mimi Rogers), a bored telephone operator, spends her evenings out with her boyfriend and picking up couples for casual group sex. When a collection of strange occurrences all seem to add up to the existence of a higher power, Sharon becomes a full-on born-again Christian. But she soon finds that God can be lost as quickly as found. Discussion between films with writer/director Michael Tolkin moderated by Larry Karaszewski. 


READ MY LIPS
A gripping and compelling thriller from director Jacques Audiard. Emmanuelle Devos (Esther Kahn) stars as a lonely, near-deaf, hard-working employee of a property development company. Needing an assistant, she hires a thief (Vincent Cassel, Brotherhood of the Wolf) just out of prison with no business experience. Frustrated and resentful, the two use each other's talents in order to launch a scheme of their own. "A brilliant Hitchcockian thriller" (Stephen Holden, New York Times).  Jacques Audiard---France---2001---115 mins. 


RED WHITE & BLUE
“Engrossing, moving and terrifying by turns, Simon Rumley's fifth feature is a fantastically atmospheric slice of Americana, a beautifully scripted character drama, a horrifying revenge thriller and ultimately even a profoundly affecting love story.” - Eight Rooks, Twitch.com
The lives of three young, damaged people fatefully and tragically intertwine as they head down a rocky, violent road to heart-rending oblivion in Red White & Blue, the latest incendiary feature from acclaimed British director Simon Rumley (The Living And The Dead). Filmed in Austin, Texas, this tale of an emotionally withdrawn nympho (Amanda Fuller), a mysterious shady Iraq War vet (Noah Taylor) and a vengeful young rock musician (Marc Senter) deftly balances densely-shaded storytelling and explosive, firey carnage, as the film’s unpredictable swirl of fearlessly frank romance and its merciless exploration of the futility of violence collide. Using well-known local landmarks such as Emo’s, Cucarachas, The Broken Spoke and The Austin Diner, Rumley has fashioned the “slacker revenge flick” from hell, a highly realistic descent into the heart of bizarro Linklater-land.
Dir. Simon Rumley, 2010, DigiBeta, 102 min.


RENEGADE
Staff member Zena always seems to have a hankering for cinematic shakra-fryers, and she’s delivering the goods: “Gorgeously animated psychedelic drug-induced mind-battles -- old-timey wild Western romance, debauchery, and lawlessness -- some of the most abstract (and visually appealing) use of CGI you’ll ever see -- not to mention an extremely naked (and not computer generated) Juliette Lewis -- all come together in this exquisitely unique imagining of the all-American "cowboys and indians" genre. Ultra-loosely based on the graphic novel by Jean "Moebius" Giraud and Jean-Michel Charlier, and all but completely ignored in the U.S. at the time of its release, Blueberry (retitled Renegade  for the English-language version) tells the story of a small town marshal (Vincent Cassel, *sigh*) caught between two cultures, trying to bring law, equality, and a hearty spoonful of good ol' fashion revenge to an ungovernable realm of esoteric tea-brewing natives, gun-slingin' criminals, sweaty whores, and Eddie Izzard. Come see what you've been missing.”
Dir. Jean Kounen, 2004, digital presentation, 124 min. 


Revelations of the Everyday: Films and Videos by Vincent Grenier
Vincent Grenier, a native of Québec City, Canada, has lived in New York City and Ithaca, New York, since the 1970s and over the past four decades has produced one of the most significant bodies of experimental films and videos of his generation. “My works directly confront the ideas of spatiality and temporality as a continuum and unsettle the notion of a universal human experience,” Grenier writes. “These films and videos move towards fracturing space and time in order to release how the everyday, and the specific, hold within them ineffable, untranslatable, revelations of light, color, form, and composition.” His work has been shown at The Museum of Modern Art, New York Film Festival, the Whitney Museum, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and Media City Film Festival, Ontario. His films are included in the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada, The Donnell Library Center, and other institutions in Canada and the United States. Program includes Tabula Rasa, Here, Surface Tension #2, North Southernly, While Revolved, Armoire, Burning Bush, and others.
In person: Vincent Grenier 


RICHARD LEACOCK - DOCUMENTARY PIONEER
Ishan Shapiro & Marija Coneva (in person) screen rare films by Ricky Leacock, who spawned Direct Cinema & Cinema Verite, and worked with Robert Flaherty, DA Pennebaker, Shirley Clarke, Jean-Luc Godard, Bob Dylan, Igor Starvinsky and many more. He was the head of MIT's Film School for 20 years. His JFK doc Primary was praised as a revolutionary step and breaking point in the recording of reality in cinema having caught the scenes of real life with unprecedented authenticity, immediacy and truth. Henri Langlois called it "the most important documentary since the brothers Lumiere." Ishan & Marija mentored under Leacock for several months in Paris recently and will share some of their understandings on the importance of his work. They will discus Leacock's essays on our relationship as creators of media and his point of view on the democratization of the tools to create media - a lifelong struggle for him. They are helping him publish his autobiography currently.


SEARCHERS 2.0, 2007, Helltown Pictures, 96 min. Dir. Alex Cox. When washed-up Western actors Mel and Fred (Del Zamora and Ed Pansullo) hear that a notorious director from their past will attend a screening in Arizona, the two decide to drive out to the desert and exact revenge on the evil auteur. Mel's daughter (Jaclyn Jonet) grudgingly lends her car to the delusional duo and tags along on a darkly comic road trip. Discussion between films with director Alex Cox.


SERIE NOIRE. 1979, Tamasa, 111 min. Director Alain Corneau expertly adapts one of Jim Thompson’s most twisted pulp masterworks, A Hell of a Woman. Patrick Dewaere stars as Frank Poupart, a human ferret scurrying around the bleak edges of Nowhere, trying to sell cheap trinkets door-to-door and collect on small mob debts. When he stumbles across a gorgeous teenager (Marie Trintignant) with a rich and repulsive aunt, Dewaere gets sucked into the blackest vacuum of all. With Bernard Blier. "Definitely the best movie made from a Jim Thompson novel to date…Patrick Dewaere as demented thief/murderer/ child molester is as close to a real Jim Thompson character as an actor could get." – Barry Gifford 


SHANKS
Our silent film accompanist Cliff Retallick is not only a crackerjack musician, but also a deep appreciator of film technique, so it was no surprise he picked the truly offbeat, final directorial effort from the infamous producer/director William Castle. Cliff says: “Devoid of Tingler-era theatrics altogether, Shanks  relies on the pairing of Marcel Marceau, one of the most brilliant mimes of the Twentieth century, with a twisted fairy tale that hinges on an innocent, mute puppeteer's relationship with an old scientist and subsequent penchant for reanimation when the old scientist dies. Here Marceau plays a dual role, and performs some extraordinary feats of movement that oddly disturb more than the plot points of the macabre storyline. In many ways, Shanks celebrates silent film technique in a latter day setting as much as a Tati piece -- and Marceau always treats the subject matter seriously, no matter how absurd. Who knew that horror and mime were such a strange and potent cocktail?”
Dir. William Castle, 1974, 35mm, 93 min.


The Silence
1963/b&w/90 min. | Scr/ dir: Ingmar Bergman; w/ Ingrid Thulin, Gunnel Lindblom
Bergman's search for the presence of God in The Seventh Seal reached its bleak conclusion is The Silence, the third in a trilogy comprised of Through a Glass Darkly and Winter Light. Two sisters—Ester an intellectual and a translator, with a pathological need to control and Anna, younger, sensual and instinctive—are travelling with Anna's son Johan by train through a strange war-torn country during a heat wave when they are forced to disembark due to Ester's illness. Trapped in an old hotel, unable to speak the language, each character expresses loneliness in starkly different ways: Ester, bickering with Anna, drowns her despair in alcohol; Anna, restless, neglects her son to seek out anonymous sex in a local bar; while Johan prowls the hotel encountering an anachronistic old porter and a troupe of circus dwarves. Reflecting the inner angst of the characters in a series of striking images-the long empty corridors down which the camera tracks, the tanks rolling through the streets at night, the claustrophobic room with its baroque ceiling and ornate metal beds, the probing close-ups of the women's faces and bodies-Bergman created one of his most disturbing films, and one that would leave a mark on the future films of Kubrick and Lynch. "This harrowing study is Bergman's definitive allegory on human isolation and the absence of God."—J. Hoberman, The Village Voice. 


SOME AMERICAN LANDSCAPES
The American landscape is examined in distinct ways in these recent films. Jeremy Menzies’ Between the Lines uses time lapse and night photography to observe the human-built environment in a series of exquisitely composed takes. Rick Bahto’s Still Life depicts an arrangement of potted plants situated in locations around their native environment that have been transformed by human activity. John Palmer explores real and imagined fragments of the California landscape through a variety of alternative techniques in his Landscape Quartet. Finally, Shauna McGarry and Lorna Turner present alternate views of the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles in short Super 8 portraits. FILMMAKERS IN ATTENDANCE! 


SOMETHING WILD
(1961) Directed by Jack Garfein
Garfein's second feature stars his then-wife Carroll Baker as a young woman whose life unravels after a brutal rape. Mortified and ashamed, her despair leads her to the brink of suicide. Rescued by Mike (Meeker), a kindly garage mechanic, Mary Ann seems to have found a safe harbor, until she realizes she has become a prisoner in Mike's apartment.
Screenplay: Jack Garfein, Alex Karmel. Cast: Carroll Baker, Ralph Meeker, Mildred Dunnock. 35mm, B/W, 112 min.
IN PERSON: Jack Garfein


SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA LANDSCAPES VIA EXPERIMENTAL FILM
Filmed over the course of two years near the town of Moreno Valley, Vera Brunner-Sung's (in person) COMMON GROUND ('08, 27m) documents the demolition of military family homes and the erection of a business park in their stead. A clear-eyed look at destruction for the sake of progress, this examination of land use and social history offers the audience a journey into both the past and the future.  “… a trip into Southern California, a land whose cyclical process of abandonment, decay, demolition and reconstruction is a sign of how the economy is making a mark on the land.” – Torino Film Festival. Moving from east to west and back, Alexandra Cuesta's (in person) PIENSA EN MI ('09, 15m) offers a portrait of urban landscape in motion from the intimate perspective of public transport in our city. Over the course of the day, images of riders, textures of light and fragments of bodies in space are woven together to create an unexpected, visually arresting poem. Winner of The Map of Time Award, 48th Ann Arbor Film Festival. Madison Brookshire's (in person) OPENING ('07, 25m) reveals the city in the landscape and the landscape in the city. Many of the images come from overlooked, “in-between” spaces, such as off-ramps and back alleys. Shown with its original live score. “…a quiet but grand record of the contemporary American landscape” – Andy Ditzler. “[OPENING] is attentive to small movements—cars in the distance, a herd of sheep. Austere but intensely focused compositions suggest that mindful observation can render ordinary sights meaningful.” – Fred Camper, Chicago Reader. Brookshire’s BONK PIFF BOP ('05, 25m) is both a documentary and a comedy. It stars two brothers—one is 2 years old and the other 7—and documents their phenomenological relationship to the video camera. It is sweet and funny, but also full of dark humor. It is a portrait of a family as well as a rare window into the mind of a particularly precocious and verbal 2 year old.


Spectacles of Light: Films and Videos by Peter Rose
“[The Man Who Could Not See Far Enough is] a powerfully formal, analytic inquiry into the very nature of vision and cinema.” –The Village Voice
Since 1968, Peter Rose has made more than 30 films, tapes, performances, and installations. Many early works raise intriguing questions about the nature of time, space, light, and perception, and draw upon his background in mathematics. His subsequent interest in language as subject, and video as a medium, has generated a substantial body of work that plays with the feel and form of sense, concrete texts, political satire, oddball performance, and a kind of intellectual comedy. Rose’s recent installations return to an examination of landscape, time, and vision, and works on this program propose an annotated, nocturnal portrait of a vanished culture. Rose’s work has been widely exhibited in venues such as The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Biennial, the Centre Pompidou, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, and the Rotterdam International Film Festival.
In person: Peter Rose


STINGRAY SAM ('09, 62m)  A dangerous mission reunites STINGRAY SAM with his long lost accomplice, The Quasar Kid. Follow these two space-convicts as they earn their freedom in exchange for the rescue of a young girl who is being held captive by the genetically designed figurehead of a very wealthy planet.
"Few films have me chuckling from beginning till end, but this one managed to do it. Well, except when I was laughing. McAbee's 'Stingray Sam' is a cleverly made loving tribute to the serials of old and a darn funny one too."


Stone
It triggered Australia’s exploitation explosion, and remains one of the most infamous biker movies in genre history! Never before screened in Los Angeles, Stone is the full-throttle saga of an undercover cop (Ken Shorter) who infiltrates the outlaw Grave Diggers (led by producer/director/co-writer Sandy Harbutt), a vicious clan with vengeance in their hearts, violence on their minds, and 150 horsepower of screaming steel between their legs as they thrash down the highway on a one-way trip to hell. This fantastically whacked-out biker parade, featuring a host of recognizable faces from Mad Max, Picnic At Hanging Rock and The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert co-starring with members of the Sydney chapter of the Hell’s Angels, is highlighted by a host of top-notch psychedelic touches: slo-mo bike accidents, hallucinogenic trips, death-defying freefall cliff stunts -- and a soundtrack full of lysergic swamp-funk rhythm section work, electronic percussion, didgeridoo and treated keyboards all intermingling to create an insane orgy for the ears, one equal to the killer brawls and falls in this ultimate Down Under classic! Our screening of Stone comes from a brand-new 35mm print, courtesy of director Sandy Harbutt!
Dir. Sandy Harbutt, 1974, 35mm, 103 min.


THE STRANGE ONE
(1957) Directed by Jack Garfein
A psychological drama with fascist and homoerotic overtones, The Strange One features Ben Gazzara in his screen debut as a sadistic bully in a Southern military school who manipulates fellow students and even adult officers into subservience. The film features fascinating performances by a raft of Actors Studio members, including George Peppard (also in his first film).
Columbia Pictures. Producer: Sam Spiegel. Screenplay: Calder Willingham. Cinematographer: Burnett Guffey. Cast: Ben Gazzara, Pat Hingle, George Peppard, Mark Richman. 35mm, B/W, 100 min. 


Streetwise
Directed by Martin Bell
(1984, 91 min., HDCAM, not rated)
This unflinching vérité documentary tracks nine teenagers living on the streets of Seattle in the 1980s, and was produced in conjunction with Mary Ellen Mark's photographic project of the same name. 


SUNNYSIDE
Also showing is Sunnyside, the Tramp's charming love triangle comedy set amongst the rural countryside, co-starring Chaplin ensemble player Edna Purviance! Dir. Charles Chaplin, 1919, 35mm, 34 min.


SWEETIE
Our other projectionist, Gariana, has a serious jones for checking out the latest cutting-edge Hollywood fare -- but also has an equal love for the small, delicate independent pictures that too often slip under everyone’s radar. Here, she’s chosen to highlight Sweetie, a emotional hot-button tale of Australian female sibling rivalry, and the debut feature from Jane Campion (The Piano, Holy Smoke). Garianne says: “I love Sweetie  because it was one of my first personal major art-house discoveries. A film that touched and enthralled me, but felt like a secret because so many people had never even heard of it. It also has a mind blowing and criminally underrated/underseen performance by Genevieve Lemon, who’s still only really known Down Under. I also like that whenever people start yammering about how underrated women directors are you can always shut them up by saying ‘Jane Campion’.”
Dir. Jane Campion, 1989, 35mm, 97 min.


Thom Andersen: Out of the Car and into the Music of the Streets
“Andersen’s film frees images from the yoke of instrumentality, revealing the city for what it is and allowing us to see what we otherwise cannot. It is at once theory and practice; not content to simply describe the new cinema, it embodies it… It teaches us how to see. ” –Bright Lights Film Journal
These three sad, funny, beautiful works take you through Los Angeles, 2009, and Munich, 1967/1968. Thom Andersen’s new film Get Out of the Car (2010, 34 min., 16mm) responds to his award-winning documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself by recording the city’s most evanescent signs, memorializing some of its vanished monuments and musical history. Get Out of the Car is screened with two 1960s shorts that served as points of inspiration and departure: The Bridegroom, the Actress, and the Pimp, (1968, 23 min., 35 mm) by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, with music by Johann Sebastian Bach and dialogue by Saint John of the Cross in a radical condensation of Ferdinand Bruckner’s three-act play Sickness of Youth; and The Little Chaos (1967, 10 min., 16mm) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, a mordant commentary on the sickness of contemporary German youth, with music by Richard Wagner and the Troggs.
In person: Thom Andersen


THOMASINE & BUSHROD
(1974) Directed by Gordon Parks Jr.
A young couple rob banks in 1911 New Mexico in this Blaxploitation Western, which also riffs on Bonnie & Clyde. Playing against gender stereotype, she is an ex-bounty hunter, while he is a good-natured horse whisperer. They give their money to "Mexicans, Indians, poor whites…" Naturally, they are chased by a mean white lawman, dedicated to protecting big capital, and must therefore meet a violent end. Like it's model, this is also a love story with funny, tender moments between the principals. Slightly off beat and low budget, this film featured the late Vonetta McGee, who was one of the unsung stars of the genre, here playing opposite Max Julien, who also wrote the script.
Columbia Pictures. Producer: Harvey Bernhard, Max Julien. Screenplay: Max Julien. Cinematographer: Lucien Ballard. Cast: Max Julien, Vonetta McGee, George Murdock, Glynn Turman. 35mm, 95 min. 


3D Rarities: From 1900 And Beyond
Attempts at three-dimensional motion picture presentation began almost with the invention of movies themselves.
It’s a common motion picture legend that the Lumière brothers’ first films such as “Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat” (1896) had audiences fleeing from their chairs as the train approached the station, threatening to run directly off the screen into the auditorium. Few know, however, that the Lumière brothers re-shot the arrival of a train in 3D, and organized a technically improved screening of it and other 3D shorts in 1935.
Serge Bromberg, an internationally recognized film historian, will present this and other rarities by Georges Méliès, Norman McLaren, Charley Bowers and the Disney Studios in the 3D edition of his “Retour de Flamme (Saved from the Flames)” show which highlights archival rediscoveries and features his own commentary and live piano accompaniment.


The Touch
1970/color/113 min. | Scr/ dir: Ingmar Bergman; w/ Elliott Gould, Bibi Andersson, Max von Sydow
In this low-key, intimate drama set on the island of Gotland, just south of the filmmaker's home in Fårö, Karin, a Swedish housewife lives quietly with her husband. a surgeon.  Into her harmonious life comes an impetuous and engaging Jewish American archaeologist with whom Karin, perhaps affected by the recent death of her mother, begins an affair. And this new passion with which she is 'touched', like the medieval statue of Mary unearthed by the archaeologist, self-destructs from within. Bergman's first film in English reflects a larger world—touching on the holocaust—and Gould, cast as the "intruder", paints a vivid portrait of an uncompromising man tormented by inner contradictions and compulsions. "Andersson creates a finely tuned portrayal of a woman facing a midlife crisis, and the sparsely lit, claustrophobic interiors and subdued autumnal exteriors are beautifully photographed by cinematographer Sven Nykvist"—Jon Wengström
NOTE: The Touch, a Swedish-U.S. coproduction, was shot and released in two versions: one with Swedish and English dialogue, and one entirely in English. The original bilingual version—the version released in Sweden—is presented in this series in a restored print courtesy of the Swedish Film Institute. 
In person: Elliott Gould 


TRAFIC
Stinging from the mystifying critical and commercial failure of his chef-d’oevre, Playtime, Tati bounded back with this simpler, more practical feature. Trafic  brings Hulot back front and center in a rollicking road-comedy satire of automotive mischief: our hero is now a beleaguered auto inventor, traveling across Europe to showcase his absurdly feature-rich new camper at an auto show. Between the anemic efforts of his American fashion-plate PR woman, the constant mechanical failures of his truck and the absurd border beaurocracies he encounters, it’s clear that car culture is less the target than the vehicle for this satire on modernity; an alternate title could have been Breakdown, considering how communication (in at least three languages!) and civility fall apart as much as engines in Trafic’s brisk 96 minutes. Despite the scaled-back nature of the production, Tati’s production design is brilliant, especially in its gorgeous use of color. As well, his way with large-scale physical comedy reaches an apex in what may be the funniest car crash sequence ever. Certainly the most underrated of Tati’s features, Trafic provides an unobstructed view of Tati’s genius, and provides a fitting bon-voyage to the beloved Mr. Hulot.
Dir. Jacques Tati, 1971, 35mm, 96 min.


UPSTREAM
“Upstream” (1927) is one of 75 American films recently found in the New Zealand Film Archive that no longer existed in the United States. The films were discovered when Brian Meacham, an archivist for the Academy, dropped in on colleagues at the New Zealand Archive while on vacation. These “lost” films will be preserved over the next three years at five major American archives, including the Academy’s, in collaboration with the National Film Preservation Foundation.
Although Ford was already known in 1927 for his direction of westerns, “Upstream” is a backstage drama that focuses on a love triangle involving an egotistical actor and a young couple who partner in a vaudeville knife-throwing act. The film is from an interesting chapter in the career of Ford, as he admitted that during this time he was strongly influenced and impressed by the work of German director F.W. Murnau, who had immigrated to the United States to make films for the Fox studios, enabling Ford to study his working methods first hand.
The evening’s presentation will include live musical accompaniment by Michael Mortilla, as well as an advertising trailer which contains the only known surviving footage of the John Ford film “Strong Boy” (1929).


Valhalla Rising:
Nicolas Winding Refn (director of Bronson and the Pusher trilogy) will appear in person at the Cinefamily to present his latest film, Valhalla Rising, one of the year's most psychedelically charged and fiercely original features! This intense metaphysical Middle Ages science fiction work, bewitchingly shot in the remote highlands of Scotland, is far from your standard action epic; drawing from such diverse and dense influences as Leone, Tarkovsky, Jodorowsky and Kenneth Anger, Refn has fashioned a completely unique take on the “historical film”, as we follow One-Eye (Mads Mikkelsen, Casino Royale), a physically towering mute Pagan warrior trapped on a hellride to the New World alongside a ragtag band of Crusading zealots. Nearly dialogue-free, Valhalla Rising’s fantastical lysergic departures lead you on an epic journey into the heart of the eternal mythological conflict between Nature vs. Man, and will burn in your brain for weeks afterwards.
Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn, 2009, 35mm, 90 min. 


VIVA VILLA!
(1934) Directed by Jack Conway
A Hollywood epic fashioned from an epically troubled production that was almost expelled from Mexico after actor Lee Tracy, subsequently fired, insulted a soldier in the Mexican Cadet Corps, Viva Villa! announces from the outset that it's a "fiction woven out of truth." Beery plays Pancho Villa, for all the violence of his tactics, with a child-like innocence in a performance that Richard Slotkin argues "became the standard Hollywood interpretation not only of Villa, but of Mexican revolutionaries in general."
MGM. Producer: David O. Selznick. Screenplay: Ben Hecht. Cinematographer: James Wong Howe, Charles G. Clarke. Editor: Robert J. Kern. Cast: Wallace Beery, Fay Wray, Stuart Erwin, Leo Carrillo. 35mm, B/W, 108 min. 


VIVA ZAPATA!
(1952) Directed by Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan's sweeping bio-pic follows Emiliano Zapata Salazar's life from his reluctant advocacy for peasant land rights, to his role as one of the most legendary generals of the Revolution and his tragic assassination. Brando's intense performance as Zapata and Kazan's powerful direction act as weighty correctives to Hollywood's typical portrayal of the Revolution.
20th Century Fox Film Corp.. Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck. Screenplay: John Steinbeck. Cinematographer: Joe MacDonald. Editor: Barbara McLean. Cast: Marlon Brando, Jean Peters, Anthony Quinn. 35mm, B/W, 113 min. 


WILLIE DYNAMITE
(1974) Directed by Gilbert Moses
Willie Dynamite is the second most important pimp in New York, but he wants to be Number 1, so like Avis he sets about rationalizing his production line, expanding his stable of "hoes" and otherwise enforcing capitalist methods of exploitation. With The Mack and Super Fly, Willie makes a trilogy of pimp films, which today appear outlandish enough to qualify as camp, what with their neon colored 70s fashions, exaggerated misogyny, pimp mobiles, and non-stop, barely motivated action. Attitude is all. Roscoe Orman, so beloved as Gordon on "Sesame Street" plays against type a mean pimp who deserves all he gets. African American director Gilbert Moses moved from a Tony Award on Broadway to Hollywood for this film, his only work in the genre.
Universal Pictures. Screenplay: Ron Cutler. Cinematographer: Frank Stanley. Cast: Roscoe Orman, Diana Sands, Thalmus Rasulala, Joyce Walker. 35mm, 102 min. 


WITNESS TO MURDER
(from IMDB)
Barbara Stanwyck sees a murder through her bedroom window, but no one will believe her. She is stalked by a suave killer who first takes steps to convince the police she is crazy, but she has an ally in a sympathetic policeman.  Dir. Roy Rowland, 1954, 83 min.


WORKERS’ REPUBLIC
Workers' Republic is a 60-minute documentary that chronicles one of the most important labor victories in recent memory. Three weeks before Christmas 2008, in the depths of the economic crisis, Chicago company Republic Windows and Doors announced the factory's closure, with no pay for the workers, no severance and no insurance. What those ordinary people did next reminded the working class it possesses a power long forgotten.
In a move that harkened back to the sit-down strikes of the 1930s, they occupied the factory, declaring they would not leave until they were given what their employer owed them. Filmmaker Andrew Friend has assembled the accounts of several of the main fighters in the Republic struggle, including front line workers, the organizers of their small union, and a few of the thousand people that supported them through small acts of solidarity. In our turbulent times of economic strife, Workers' Republic is an anthem of future possibility and opportunity. Discussion will follow the film. Sponsored by Los Angeles International Socialist Organization.

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