a highly-opinionated selection of things happening around town, and sometimes out of town. this month's page here.
sat. oct. 1 essene 4 PM @ silent movie theater king of new york 7:15 PM @ silent movie theater angelo de augustine @ bootleg personal & the pizzas @ alex's bar journey to the center of the earth 2 PM @ new beverly alien: the director's cut MIDNIGHT @ new beverly high cameras @ frog spot forbidden area, the dark side of the earth FREE @ ucla film archive sun. oct. 2 fellini satyricon 5:30 PM @ cinefamily @ barnsdall park pharoah sanders quartet @ angel city jazz festival @ ford theatre journey to the center of the earth 2 PM @ new beverly cat people 2 PM @ silent movie theater king of new york 10:30 PM @ silent movie theater old man 7 PM, journey to the day FREE @ ucla film archive tue. oct. 4 freaks 8 PM @ cinefamily @ bob baker marionette theater wed. oct. 5 young frankenstein 5:00 PM @ fathom events @ la live 14, cinemark 18, burbank 16 thu. oct. 6 survive @ echoplex globelamp @ redwood fri. oct. 7 mystic braves (10:45), the creation factory (9:15) @ troubadour union station FREE 8 PM @ union station a clockwork orange MIDNIGHT @ vista the legend of sleepy hollow @ cinefamily @ bob baker marionette theater sat. oct. 8 allah-las @ regent aliens @ frights feast film @ eagle rock rec center juvenile court 4 PM @ silent movie theater the phantom carriage (w/ live score) 7 PM @ hm157 mad monster party 2 PM @ new beverly all-night horror show (films TBA) @ new beverly a clockwork orange MIDNIGHT @ vista the legend of sleepy hollow 2:30 PM @ cinefamily @ bob baker marionette theater audition 10:30 PM @ silent movie theater sun. oct. 9 budos band @ echoplex shark toys, flat worms @ ham and eggs mad monster party 2 PM @ new beverly mon. oct. 10 fred and toody @ bootleg shark toys @ the griffin blue jay @ silent movie theater sky ladder: the art of cai guo-qiang FREE @ ucla james bridges tue. oct. 11 lee noble @ heavy gel paranoia, a quiet place to kill (16mm) @ new beverly something wicked this way comes 8 PM @ cinefamily @ bob baker marionette theater freaks 10:30 PM @ cinefamily @ bob baker marionette theater wed. oct. 12 this is england 8 PM @ frog spot thu. oct. 13 tobacco @ echoplex triptides, temples @ teragram itasca @ resident big search, ryley walker @ echo visual acoustics: the modernism of julius shulman FREE 7 PM @ brand library the amazing world of ghosts @ silent movie theater fri. oct. 14 temples, sonics, mind meld, etc @ desert daze the julie ruin @ roxy true widow @ echo paris texas 8:30 PM @ palace theater itasca (5:00) @ numero group pop-up shop burial ground 8 PM @ hyperion tavern another evil @ silent movie theater tharlo @ ucla film archive sat. oct. 15 thee oh sees, black angels, godspeed you black emperor, wand, audacity, l.a. witch, etc @ desert daze flickers from the silver screen FREE 1:15 PM @ gordon r howard museum the julie ruin @ roxy bride of frankenstein, creature from the black lagoon @ frights feast film @ eagle rock rec center primate 4 PM @ silent movie theater crawdaddys @ redwood invaders from mars 2 PM @ new beverly alien: the director's cut MIDNIGHT @ new beverly psycho 8 PM @ street food cinema @ brand library park trivisa @ ucla film archive sun. oct. 16 television, white fence, survive, dead meadow, brian jonestown massacre, meatbodies, etc @ desert daze invaders from mars 2 PM @ new beverly horror of dracula 6:30 PM, dracula (1979) @ new beverly night and fog 8 PM, lbj, l'ambassade FREE @ veggie cloud the innocents 2 PM @ silent movie theater judgment at nuremberg 7 PM, in the presence of mine enemies FREE @ ucla film archive mon. oct. 17 horror of dracula, dracula (1979) @ new beverly uncle boonmee who can recall his past lives @ silent movie theater behemoth @ ucla film archive tue. oct. 18 winter, ducktails @ bootleg the conqueror worm, jack the ripper (1976) @ new beverly santa sangre 8:00 10:30 PM @ cinefamily @ bob baker marionette theater the omen (1976; w/ q&a) @ laemmle fine arts wed. oct. 19 dr jekyll and mr hyde (1931), dr black mr hyde @ new beverly cemetery of splendour @ silent movie theater stage sisters, the hedonists @ ucla james bridges thu. oct. 20 dr jekyll and mr hyde (1931), dr black mr hyde @ new beverly levitation room @ hi hat fri. oct. 21 rosemary's baby 6:30 PM, the mephisto waltz @ new beverly from dusk til dawn MIDNIGHT @ new beverly the molochs (11:30), numb.er (9:30) @ non plus ultra a million more lights program 1 & 2 @ ucla film archive sat. oct. 22 the thing (1982) @ frights feast film @ eagle rock rec center welfare 4 PM @ silent movie theater invasion of the neptune men 2 PM @ new beverly rosemary's baby 6:30 PM, the mephisto waltz @ new beverly alien: the director's cut MIDNIGHT @ new beverly a million more lights program 3 & 4 6:30 PM @ ucla film archive post life, noyes @ dame sun. oct. 23 jowe head, sex stains, shark toys @ part time punks @ echo the shining 2:00 7:00 PM @ fathom events @ chinese 6, cinemark 18, north hollywood 8, burbank 16 invasion of the neptune men 2 PM @ new beverly king kong (1933) 6:30 PM, supernatural (1933) @ new beverly don't touch the white woman FREE 8 PM @ veggie cloud black sea & ham & eggs mon. oct. 24 king kong (1933), supernatural (1933) @ new beverly tue. oct. 25 walter @ bootleg i walked with a zombie @ greg proops film club @ silent movie theater vampire circus 8 PM @ cinefamily @ bob baker marionette theater wed. oct. 26 the shining 2:00 7:00 PM @ fathom events @ chinese 6, cinemark 18, north hollywood 8, burbank 16 the phantom of the opera (1925), phantom of the paradise @ new beverly from dusk til dawn MIDNIGHT @ new beverly gal pals @ smell the bride of frankenstein @ silent movie theater thu. oct. 27 the phantom of the opera (1925), phantom of the paradise @ new beverly bob roberts (w/ q&a) @ vidiots the rise and fall of michael rimmer FREE 8 PM @ veggie cloud fri. oct. 28 jon brion @ largo young frankenstein 7 PM, the man with two brains @ new beverly her @ ampas linwood dunn vertigo 5:30 PM @ norton simon post life @ hi hat badlands @ fat city sat. oct. 29 meat 4 PM @ silent movie theater all night horrorthon (films TBA) @ aero nosferatu (w/ live score) 8 PM @ ace hotel theater young frankenstein 2 PM, the man with two brains 4:15 PM @ new beverly love at first bite 8 PM, an american werewolf in london, beetlejuice, modern problems (16mm), the fearless vampire killers @ horror comedy all-nighter @ new beverly sun. oct. 30 neil hamburger @ satellite the haunting 2 PM @ silent movie theater the tingler (in percepto) 6:30 9:00 PM @ silent movie theater death lens @ the safari mon. oct. 31 nosferatu (w/ live score) 8 PM @ ace hotel theater jerry beck's cartoon spooktacular @ silent movie theater tue. nov. 1 king khan & bbq show @ el rey wed. nov. 2 evolution @ silent movie theater amarcord 8 PM @ cinefamily @ bob baker marionette theater tashaki miyaki FREE @ 751 crenshaw fri. nov. 4 criss cross FREE 8 PM @ union station touchez pas au grisbi 5:30 PM @ norton simon ty segall, king tuff @ hollywood forever sat. nov. 5 sunrise (w/ live score by rococo jet) 9 PM @ hm157 ty segall, king tuff @ hollywood forever the warriors MIDNIGHT @ vista tue. nov. 8 mind meld @ resident wed. nov. 9 bouquet @ bootleg arrival FREE (RSVP) @ silent movie theater i clowns 8 PM @ cinefamily @ bob baker marionette theater thu. nov. 10 afi fest the love song of r buckminster fuller (w/ live score) 8 PM @ cinefamily @ skirball fri. nov. 11 afi fest lisa prank @ bootleg rififi 5:30 PM @ norton simon umberto @ werk sat. nov. 12 afi fest om @ casbah (SD) pandoras, loons, love revisited, premiers, creation factory, bombon @ echoplex qui @ smell sun. nov. 13 afi fest om, m geddes gengras @ regent mon. nov. 14 afi fest tue. nov. 15 afi fest wed. nov. 16 afi fest and the ship sails on 8 PM @ cinefamily @ bob baker marionette theater thu. nov. 17 afi fest body/head @ hollywood forever fri. nov. 18 jon brion @ largo elevator to the gallows 5:30 PM @ norton simon sat. nov. 19 young people, amps for christ, sharp ease, centimeters, w.a.c.o., devon williams @ smell mon. nov. 21 colleen green FREE (RSVP) @ multiply tue. nov. 22 molochs @ bootleg wed. nov. 23 city of women 8 PM @ cinefamily @ bob baker marionette theater sun. nov. 27 neil hamburger @ satellite wed. nov. 30 cory hanson @ highland park ebell ginger and fred 8 PM @ cinefamily @ bob baker marionette theater thu. dec. 1 lee fields & the expressions @ el rey fri. dec. 2 too late for tears FREE 8 PM @ union station shoot the piano player 5:30 PM @ norton simon sat. dec. 3 gonn, ugly beats, loons @ the hideout (SD) fri. dec. 9 2001: a space odyssey (70mm) @ egyptian fri. dec. 16 jon brion @ largo thu. dec. 29 neil hamburger @ satellite thu. jan. 12 cate le bon @ highland park ebell fri. jan. 13 tim presley @ highland park ebell fri. jan. 27 sleep, melvins @ fonda sat. jan. 28 sleep, melvins @ fonda tue. feb. 14 angel olsen @ wiltern WHAT IT IS: THE AMAZING WORLD OF GHOSTS Is it accidental surrealism, an arthouse hoax—or both? The Amazing World of Ghosts holds a special place in our hearts as the single strangest entry in the ‘70s Phenome-con sweepstakes. Comprised of piles of seemingly unrelated stock footage, glued together with a rambling, Joycean stream-of-consciousness voice-over, the film is a schizo treatise loosely linking the universe’s colorful rainbow of ghosts: Bigfoot ghosts, space alien ghosts, voodoo ghosts, Loch Ness ghosts, wild child ghosts, goat herder ghosts, Chilean earthquake ghosts, bicycle-riding ghosts, and more. Like a fuzzy transmission from the heart of the Fourth Dimension, drenched in raw, harsh zonked-out Moog blurps and library record funk cuts, the demented results of this enigmatic oddity make your average paranormal doc look positively—uh, normal! Dir. Wheeler Winston Dixon, 1978, 16mm, 91 min. Plus bonus 16mm pseudoscience shorts! ANOTHER EVIL Let’s take everything we know about the haunted vacation house story (hip couple retreats toward luxe isolation, eschewing high-demand jobs for pine-soaked serenity and the presence of lingering dead, yada yada), and throw it out the damn(ed) window. There’s nothing that could prepare us for first-time feature writer/director Carson D. Mell’s what-the-fuckomedy Another Evil, as architectural photography and literary wit wear away to reveal a taut and disturbing nexus of fear; and when Dan (Steve Zissis) and his arty nuclear family employ a decorated “ghost assassin” to purify their mountain hideaway from pesky spooks, Dan soon finds he may be beholden to more than just what goes bump in the night. Dir. Carson D. Mell, 2016, DCP, 90 min. Director Carson D. Mell & Mike Judge in person! BEHEMOTH Independent documentarian Zhao Liang presents a stunning vision of the natural and human disaster unfolding across China as strip mines and iron works transform a landscape and a people into a living version of Dante’s Hell. Indeed, Zhao directly references the Divine Comedy in the film’s poetic structure and its mythological meditation on the environmental devastation it captures. DCP, color, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 94 min. DIR: Zhao Liang. (China, 2015) In-person: Zhao Liang. BLUE JAY A black-and-white meander through a nostalgic evening, punctuated by welcome jabs of sarcasm, Blue Jay is a treat for the daydreaming teenager and miserable adult in all of us. For two former high-school sweethearts, Jim (Mark Duplass) and Amanda (Sarah Paulson), what begins as a chance encounter in their small hometown grocery store, evolves into a night of reminiscences. Semi-improvised and co-written by an intimate crew, this understated film sees two formidable actors at their most organic and magnetic. Paulson charms even the most unyielding of love-skeptics, while Duplass exudes an authenticity that is at once painful and touching. Spiraling gracefully from moment to moment, the deeply relatable characters invite you to indulge in the simple pleasure of watching interesting people talk, debate, laugh, cry and exist in real time. Their playful excavation of a rose-colored past begs the straightforward question: by dissecting the past, can you make sense of the present? Dir. Alexandre Lehmann, 2016, DCP, 80 min. CEMETERY OF SPLENDOUR A waking dream set in Khon Kaen, the lush stomping grounds of director Apichatpong Weerasethakul childhood, Cemetery of Splendour is a subtle fantasy focused on a group of former soldiers stricken by a debilitating “sleeping sickness” and housed in a clinic that rests atop a rumored burial ground for past kings of Thailand. Despite its urgent and quietly devastating nature, the soliders’ narcolepsy-esque disorder never seems quite clinical; the dream lives of the patients are of the utmost importance to their caretakers, managed by the glow of colored light therapy lamps. A crippled woman named Jenjira (long time Weerasethakul collaborator Jenjira Pongpas Widner) and a medium who acts as an envoy between the slumbering men and their family members, emerge as the most significant of these caretakers, forming a strong and uniquely communicative bond with one of the men. A crystalline and meditative work of slow cinema, punctuated by the luminescence of the lamps in cool blue and blood red, Cemetery of Splendour delicately toes the line between a cinema of quiet intimacy and broader political allegory—with the haunting and touching image of the silenced men laid out above the bodies of silenced Kings. Dir. Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2015, DCP, 122 min. Apichatpong Weerasethakul in person! THE DARK SIDE OF THE EARTH Playhouse 90: “The Dark Side of the Earth” - CBS, 09/19/1957 The Hungarian Uprising of 1956 is the setting for Rod Serling's meditation on the extreme capacities of human cruelty and courage. Airing a year after the actual revolt, the daring character study concerns a Soviet commander (Heflin) struggling with his conscience amid the brutal tyranny that is his charge and the bravery of the Hungarian Freedom Fighters that include his son. Digital video (from 16mm Kinescope), b/w, 90 min. Directed by Arthur Penn. Written by Rod Serling. With: Van Heflin, Earl Holliman, Dean Jagger, Kim Hunter. Program introduced by Ernie Kovacs. DON’T TOUCH THE WHITE WOMAN Coming off his surprise gross-out hit La Grande Bouffe—a sort of barf-bag riff on The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie—Marco Ferreri found that the world was his oyster. He planned to make a version of The Three Musketeers with the cream of the crop of European acting talent—too bad Richard Lester cut him off at the pass. Instead, Ferreri mounted Don’t Touch The White Woman, a MAD Magazine-style biopic of General George Armstrong Custer (a perfectly if atypically cast Marcello Mastroianni) that makes Robert Altman's Buffalo Bill and the Indians look like hidebound realism. With Catherine Deneuve as a dainty damsel in distress, and the casts of several Chabrol and Bunuel movies twirling their moustaches as cowboys and Indians, the film is Old Europe thumbing its nose at Nixon America—and maybe, via ESP, at First Term Trump? 1974, Dir: Marco Ferreri, 108 min. Presented and introduced by writer and director Matthew Wilder! ESSENE Named after the ascetic community purported to have scribed the Dead Sea Scrolls, Essene finds Wiseman immersed in a Benedictine monastery in rural Michigan, whose members struggle to reconcile their individual idiosyncrasies with the community’s collective needs. He films the brethren in prayer, at study, holding mass, and maintaining the grounds, granted access even to private counseling sessions. In a departure from earlier works, he returns to a few subjects, allowing them to become characters in their own right, including one monk on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Wiseman’s presence is all but invisible here, including one virtuosic 360-degree handheld shot around the abbot in the middle of a mass service. Dir. Frederick Wiseman, 1972, 16mm, 86 min. EVOLUTION The long-anticipated second feature from Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Evolution is an eerie, sparse companion piece to 2004’s Innocence. While Innocence took place in a forest-world filled with young girls with ribbons in their hair, this new film is devoid of them, set on an island populated only by women and young boys. What happens to the young boys when they are no longer young boys becomes the film’s immediate and most urgent question, as its quiet, oceanic world of surreal horror builds to a climax. With stunning underwater and nighttime cinematography set to a score that evokes water moving and whales’ songs, this haunting, enigmatic provocation speculates about birth–by and of la mer and la mère. Dir. Lucile Hadzihalilovic, 2015, DCP, 81 min. FLICKERS FROM THE SILVER SCREEN Annual vintage horror show with silent films, talkies, theater slides, and music, going back to the 1890s. FORBIDDEN AREA Playhouse 90: “Forbidden Area” - CBS, 10/04/1956 Live from CBS Television City, a tuxedo-clad Jack Palance introduces this premiere installment of Playhouse 90 with a proclamation befitting of the occasion, "Tonight, television takes the giant step..." For the series debut, Rod Serling's tense teleplay launches deep into the omnipresent anxieties of the day with a tale of Soviet saboteurs penetrating the U.S. military to facilitate an atomic attack. Digital video (from 16mm Kinescope), b/w, 90 min. Directed by John Frankenheimer. Based on the novel by Pat Frank; Adapted for Playhouse 90 by Rod Serling. With: Charlton Heston, Tab Hunter, Diana Lynn, Vincent Price, Victor Jory, Charles Bickford. Program introduced by Jack Palance. THE HAUNTING Inspired by Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House, filmmaker Robert Wise and writer Nelson Gidding’s (I Want to Live!, The Andromeda Strain) take the traditional haunted house yarn and weave it into a profoundly disturbing portrayal of one woman’s mounting hysteria. Evidence of the power of pure suggestion, The Haunting creeps into our psyche without traditional horror tropes: no monsters, no ghosts, no gore, just production designer Elliot Scott’s (Labyrinth) claustrophobic, Rococo interiors, shot on an early 30mm anamorphic, wide-angle lens. Leaving viewers as confounded as the fragile Eleanor (Julie Harris), and focused as much on the confusion of physical interiors as the imbroglio that is our brittle mental interiority, this early entry in the House of Psychotic Women canon explores how, when we presume to invade a house, it might also invade us. Dir. Robert Wise, 1963, 35mm, 112 min. The Hedonists Critically acclaimed director and new member to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Jia Zhangke and his longtime muse Zhao Tao craft a drily absurdist tale of three laid-off coal factory workers retraining to be performers at a new cultural theme park. DCP, color, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 26 min. DIR: Jia Zhangke. (China, 2016) THE INNOCENTS A Freudian, intensified take on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw—adapted with the help of Truman Capote—Jack Clayton’s The Innocents is a genuinely terrifying meditation on repressed sexuality and the inevitability of children’s loss of innocence. Directed with elegance, nuance (rare for a film in the “evil child” canon), and a remarkable handle of atmosphere, mood, and setting, The Innocents carries the torch of James’s trademark evocative (and sometimes terror-inducing) ambiguity—so far, in fact, that the final scene resulted in an X-rating upon release in 1961. Dir. Jack Clayton, 1961, DCP, 100 min. IN THE PRESENCE OF MINE ENEMIES Playhouse 90: “In the Presence of Mine Enemies” - CBS, 05/18/1960 One of the last beacons of the Golden Age of Television dimmed with this broadcast, the final original production of Playhouse 90. Rod Serling's controversial, humanist tale concerning a Rabbi (Laughton) and Nazi brutality in the Warsaw Ghetto was almost never produced at all, as program sponsors indicated to CBS that declining ratings for the series warranted moving away from "depressing themes." Digital video (from 2" videotape master), b/w, 90 min. Written by Rod Serling. With: Charles Laughton, Arthur Kennedy, Susan Kohner, Oskar Homolka, George Macready, Sam Jaffe, Robert Redford. JERRY BECK'S CARTOON SPOOKTACULAR Animation historian Jerry Beck screams — err, screens a selection of strange, creepy Halloween-related cartoons using vintage prints in 16mm and 35mm that range from ghoulishly red Eastmancolor to gorgeously garish Technicolor. Prepare to be dazzled by animated witches, warlocks, goblins, pumpkin-heads, black cats and everyone from Koko The Clown to Casper the Friendly Ghost, as classic cartoon characters Oswald Rabbit, Flip The Frog and Popeye meet all the famous monsters of filmland. This selection of hellish tricks and horrific treats will more than satisfy your animated sweet tooth (err, fangs.) Be prepared, foolish mortals! JOURNEY TO THE DAY Playhouse 90: “Journey to the Day” - CBS, 04/22/1960 Best known for bringing visual and technological virtuosity to Playhouse 90, here John Frankenheimer tackles a confined character piece that includes a rare dramatic television performance by legendary comedian, and (future) stage and film director Mike Nichols (The Graduate). Set in a state mental hospital, the progressive ensemble play concerns the then emerging and still controversial practice of group therapy. Digital video (from 16mm Kinescope), b/w, 90 min. Directed by John Frankenheimer. Written especially for Playhouse 90 by Roger O. Hirson. With: Mary Astor, Mike Nichols, Steven Hill, James Gregory, Janice Rule, James Dunn. Program introduced by Agnes Moorehead. JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG Playhouse 90: “Judgment at Nuremberg” - CBS, 04/16/1959 Later adapted into Stanley Kramer's acclaimed motion picture of 1961, this live docudrama expanded Playhouse 90's studio canvas to powerful effect through the integration of archival footage, including images of Nazi atrocities. Austrian-born Maximilian Schell would go on to win an Oscar for Best Actor in the feature film version for reprising the critical role he originated here as a German defense attorney. Adding the episode’s authenticity, the program is introduced by Telford Taylor, former Brigadier General and Chief Counsel for the prosecution at the Nuremberg war-crimes trials. Digital video (from 2" videotape master), b/w, 90 min. With: Claude Rains, Paul Lukas, Maximilian Schell, Martin Milner, Melvyn Douglas. JUVENILE COURT An attentive and non-judgemental look at the youth courts system in Memphis, Juvenile Court showcases Wiseman’s inimitable observational abilities. Dealing with cases concerning everything from armed robbery and sexual assault to drug addiction, abuse, and foster care, Wiseman approaches each moment with his trademark respect for his chosen subject. Imbued with remarkably instinctual cinematography, rife with poignant imagery–a piece of tissue sticking to a young girl’s eye as she attempts to wipe the tears away, a badly burned young boy’s pained whisper as he tries to answer sensitive questions–and expertly crafted, Juvenile Court is a captivating document of the devastatingly human turmoil and confusion that finds its home in the supposedly ordered courtroom. Dir. Frederick Wiseman, 1973, 16mm, 144 min. A MILLION MORE LIGHTS PROGRAM 1 Featuring A Letter to Uncle Boonmee (2009), the short precursor to director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Palme d’Or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), this program comprises a selection of shorts produced in a wide variety of formats ranging from early mobile phone cameras to super 8 to digital to 35mm, and all seeming to speak in one way or another to the bewitching mystery of unfamiliar spaces and our desire to record and describe the ineffable. All films presented digitally and directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul: * Empire (Thailand/Austria, 2010) Color, 2 min. * Nokia Short (Thailand, 2003) Color, 2 min. * M Hotel (2011) Color, 12 min. CAST: Nitipong Thinthupthai, Chaisiri Jiwarangsan, Chalermrat Kaweewattana. * Luminous People (Thailand/Portugal, 2007) Color, 15 min. CAST: Sakda Kaewbuadee, Jenjira Pongpas, Nophakraw Ngawvichai. * Monsoon (2011) Color, 3 min. CAST: Peerapong Chalermyothin, Chaisiri Jiwarangsan. * Vampire (Sud Vikal) (Thailand/France, 2008) Color, 19 min. * Nimit (Thailand, 2008) Color, 19 min. * Ghost of Asia (Thailand/France, 2005) Color, 9 min. SCR: Jantrakansorn Sukkrajang, Sakda Poka, Nantawat Poonpeum. CAST: Sakda Kaewbuadee. * A Letter to Uncle Boonmee (2009) Color, 18 min. CAST: Kumgieng Jittamaat, Miti Jittamaat, Phetmongkol Chantawong. Total running time of Program 1: approx. 99 min. In-person: Apichatpong Weerasethakul. A MILLION MORE LIGHTS PROGRAM 2 These seven films spanning director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s entire filmmaking career explore themes of intimacy, distance and inscribed or mediated memory, often through our relationship to the technologies that connect and enfold us. From the formalist avant-garde approach of 0116643225059 (1994) through the TV recreations of Haunted Houses (2001) to the eerie, atmospheric minimalism of Vapour (2015), these are films which explore activated spaces, often revealing media and technology as both the bridges and distorting lenses through which we see and experience our realities and ourselves. All films presented digitally and directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul: * 0116643225059 (Thailand/U.S., 1994) B/w, 5 min. * My Mother's Garden (Thailand/France, 2007) Color, 7 min. SCR: Sakda Kaewbuadee, Jenjira Pongpas. * Sakda (Rousseau) (2012) Color, in Thai with English subtitles, 6 min. CAST: Sakda Kaewbuadee, Chai Bhatana, Chatchai Suban. * Vapour (Thailand/Korea/China, 2015) B/w, 21 min. * Haunted Houses (Thailand, 2001) Color, 60 min. CAST: Toy Luangjan, Suriyon Luangjan, Pratom Buranrom. * Mobile Men (2008) Color, 3 min. CAST: Jaai Loongsu, Nitipong Thinthupthai. * Morakot (Emerald) (Thailand/Japan, 2007) Color, 11 min. CAST: Jenjira Pongpas, Sakda Kaewbuadee, Nitipong Thinthupthai. Total running time of Program 2: approx. 113 min. In-person: Apichatpong Weerasethakul. A MILLION MORE LIGHTS PROGRAM 3 The short feature Mekong Hotel (2012) is a fascinatingly eccentric work which de- and reconstructs an abandoned ghost story film project, unfolding dreamily as cinematic fiction intertwines with the production process. Accompanying Mekong Hotel are Malee and the Boy (1999), a formally inventive collaboration with a curious 10-year-old; This and a Million More Lights (2003), director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s entry in the Give 1 Minute of Art to AIDS project; and Ashes (2012), a visually arresting and intimate film shot almost entirely on a 35mm Lomokino camera. All films presented digitally and directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul: * Mekong Hotel (Thailand/UK, 2012) Color, 56 min. * This and a Million More Lights (2003) Color, silent, 1 min. * Malee and the Boy (Thailand, 1999) Color, 27 min. * Ashes (2012) Color, 20 min. Total running time of Program 3: approx. 104 min. In-person: Apichatpong Weerasethakul. A MILLION MORE LIGHTS PROGRAM 4 This program brings together a number of director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s more experimental short works, including two of his early projects from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Following The Anthem (2006), a fabulous “purification service” to bless the theater, five other remarkable films explore the deep seduction of the recorded image and the narrativization of our worldly experiences. All films presented digitally and directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul: * The Anthem (Thailand/UK, 2006) Color, 5 min. CAST: Donruedee Chana, Garuna Luktoomtong, Jenjira Pongpas. * Like the Relentless Fury of the Pounding Waves (Thailand/U.S., 1994) B/w, 23 min. CAST: Piyaporn Tananupappisal, Juthamanee Tananupappisal, Noppadol Tungsakul. * Windows (Thailand, 1999) Color, silent, 12 min. * Thirdworld (Goh Gayasit) (Thailand/U.S., 1997) B/w, 17 min. CAST: Chumnan Boonyaputhipong, Paisit Phanpruksachat, Apichatpong Weerasethakul. * Cactus River (Khong Lang Nam) (2012) B/w & color, 10 min. * Worldly Desires (Thailand/South Korea, 2005) Color, 43 min. Total running time of Program 4: approx 110 min. In-person: Apichatpong Weerasethakul. OLD MAN Playhouse 90: “Old Man” - CBS, 09/05/1961 (re-broadcast of a program originally aired on 11/20/1958) John Frankenheimer and crew miraculously transformed CBS Television City into an angry Mississippi River and pioneered nascent videotape editing to bring Horton Foote's moving adaptation of William Faulkner's literary masterpiece to the small screen. As an unlikely pair bound together against immovable forces of nature and society, Sterling Hayden and Geraldine Page deliver transcendent performances on par with the program's technological heights. Digital video (from 2" videotape master), b/w, 90 min. Directed by John Frankenheimer. Television play by Horton Foote. From the novel by William Faulkner. With: Sterling Hayden; Geraldine Page, Milton Selzer, James Westerfield. Program introduced by Richard Boone. PARANOIA Kathryn West, a glamorous American widow, arrives in Italy several weeks after the death of her older, extremely wealthy husband. With the help of Brian, her lawyer, Kathryn moves into a luxurious villa and proceeds to lead a lonely, uneventful existence until one day, a handsome young man named Peter Donovan shows up at the front gate, looking for tools so he can fix his sports car. Kathryn lets him stay the night, and the next thing she knows, she's madly making love to him in the shower. Peter eventually moves in, and is soon joined by a free spirit he introduces as Eva, his sister. Kathryn enjoys their company and partying with them - until she begins to suspect that Peter and Eva aren't what they seem to be... Dir. Umberto Lenzi, 1969, 91 mins. PRIMATE Wiseman’s visit to the Yerkes National Primate Research Center is a meticulous study of the processes used to test and document the behavior of various apes, including orangutans, chimps, and gorillas. Equal parts interspecies anthropological study and a slow-cooking horror-show, you’re just as likely to smile at nurses giving baby chimps little milk bottles and changing their diapers as you are to gasp at the harvesting of a gibbon’s brain. Wiseman balances long takes of surgery and observation with quick close-ups of the various instruments and machines used, representing increasingly experimental (think mad-scientist) procedures in excruciating detail, without sacrificing the sense of elapsed time. Dir. Frederick Wiseman, 1974, 16mm, 105 min. A QUIET PLACE TO KILL A race-car driver who's down on her luck is invited by her ex-husband's wife to stay at their plush villa. The two women form a bond, and it's not long before their mutual dislike for the husband culminates into a plan to kill him. As it turns out, though, they're not alone in plotting murder... Dir. Umberto Lenzi, 1970, 94 mins. THE RISE AND FALL OF MICHAEL RIMMER Straight out of the “Scenarios that used to be Outrageous Parody but are Now Real” file comes Kevin Billington’s The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer. Scripted by Billington, Peter Cook, John Cleese, and Graham Chapman, this darkly comic 1970 gem charts the sociopathic ascendancy of the titular ad man (Cook at peak cuteness) from assistant to the office of Primer Minister. Boasting cameos by Cleese, Chapman, Denholm Elliot, Ronnie Corbett, and Harold Pinter (as a TV anchor who monitors the “swingometer”), the film lampoons the commodification of 60s progressive movements, racism, polling, insufferable upper class British people who like horseback riding, and AM radio. 1970, Dir: Kevin Billington, 94 min. Presented and introduced (via Skype) by film critic Violet Lucca! Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald chronicles the making of the rip-across-the-sky fireworks of world-renowned contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang. This portrait of an artist’s process fuses family and history to Cai’s spectacularly expressive art of gunpowder pyrotechnics. DCP, color, in English and Mandarin with English subtitles, 76 min. DIR: Kevin Macdonald. (China, 2016) Stage Sisters In this lush backstage drama set in the decades leading up to 1949, two Chinese opera actresses sing their way from the countryside to the city and back. Caught up in the Cultural Revolution, veteran director Xie Jin’s portrait of female solidarity and awakening political consciousness was banned but revived in the 1980s as a masterpiece of Chinese filmmaking and is now newly released in this magnificent 4K digital restoration. 4K DCP, color, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 112 min. DIR: Xie Jin. (China, 1964) THARLO Tibetan sheepherder Tharlo (Shide Nyima) journeys from his remote village to get a photo ID in the nearest town of Qinghai province where he meets a city woman (Yangshik Tso) whose romantic intentions may not be what they first seem. Tibetan filmmaker Pema Tseden tells this age-old tale in black-and-white, richly capturing contrasts of geography and tone as a naive romance turns into something darker. DCP, color, in Tibetan with English subtitles, 123 min. DIR/SCR: Pema Tseden. (China, 2015) In-person: cinematographer Gu Changwei, art curator John Kong. TRIVISA A chance encounter between three gangsters plying the border between Hong Kong and China just before the 1997 handover sets the stage for this intricate tale filmed by three young directors mentored by Johnnie To. Trivisa interweaves plans gone awry, missed opportunities, and dead ends, reimagining not just the end of an era but the explosive beginnings of 21st-century Hong Kong. DCP, color, in Cantonese, Mandarin and Thai with English subtitles, 96 min. DIR: Jevons Au, Frank Hui, Vicky Wong. (Hong Kong/China, 2016) VAMPIRE CIRCUS A slice-of-sleaze from the untapped late-period of Hammer, Vampire Circus—although light on character development and logical plotting—is an erotic, atmospheric dive into early 70s vampiric obscurity. In a19th century European village, the Circus of Nights has rolled into town to assist—unbeknownst to the townspeople—local Count Mitterhaus execute his years-gestating plan of revenge. Toss in a plague for good measure, a couple missing children, a circus freak or two, and some of the greatest over-long fang close-ups around and settle in for an overlooked gem from across the pond. Dir. Robert Young, 1972, Digital Presentation, 87 min.