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

thu. apr. 1

okie dokie @ five stars bar
kolovos/silberman duo @ echo curio
assemble head in sunburst sound @ spaceland
remember my name, choose me @ new beverly theatre
nothing lasts forever @ egyptian theatre
donnie darko, slaughterhouse five @ aero


fri. apr. 2

cry danger, tight spot @ egyptian
the princess bride MIDNIGHT @ nuart theatre
tales from the golden age @ ucla film archive
rififi, touchez pas au grisbi @ new beverly theatre
robocop 8 PM, robocop 2, robocop 3 @ silent movie theatre
solaris (1972) @ aero
tremellow @ the echo
inland empire MIDNIGHT @ downtown independent


sat. apr. 3

red light, johnny angel @ egyptian
the ghastly ones @ haunted house a-go-go @ bordello
boogie @ ucla film archive
nana @ lacma
rififi 3:10 7:30, touchez pas au grisbi 5:35 9:55 @ new beverly theatre
dressed to kill MIDNIGHT @ new beverly theatre
bell gardens @ bootleg theater
forbidden zone 10:30 PM @ silent movie theatre
bugs bunny cartoon shorts 4 PM @ aero


sun. apr. 4

hollywood story, undertow (1949) @ egyptian
the prisoner of zenda 3:10 7:30, the prince and the pauper 5:10 9:30 @ new beverly theatre


mon. apr. 5

light echoes dark: the films of julie murray 8:30 PM @ redcat
the big sleep @ ucla film archive
night of the comet 9:30 @ downtown independent
the prisoner of zenda, the prince and the pauper @ new beverly theatre


tue. apr. 6

st. louis blues 1:30 FREE @ skirball center
girls on the road, crypt of dark secrets @ grindhouse film fest @ new beverly theatre


wed. apr. 7

julie, blueprint for murder @ egyptian
twin peaks: fire walk with me, mulholland dr. @ new beverly theatre
the way of the strong 8 PM, so this is love? @ silent movie theatre


thu. apr. 8

so evil my love, experiment perilous @ egyptian
pee-wee's big adventure 7 PM FREE @ bike night @ hammer museum
gems from the archives of russ harden iii 8 PM @ echo park film center
mulholland dr., twin peaks: fire walk with me @ new beverly theatre
tremellow @ little joy
seaspin @ spaceland


fri. apr. 9

the locket, bodyguard (1948) @ egyptian
the warriors MIDNIGHT @ nuart theatre
cold waves, children of the decree @ ucla film archive
boudu saved from drowning, the testament of doctor cordelier @ lacma
mulholland dr., twin peaks: fire walk with me @ new beverly theatre
lady for a day 8 PM, american madness @ silent movie theatre
birdemic: shock and terror MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theatre
brewster mccloud, o.c. and stiggs @ aero


sat. apr. 10

new york confidential, human desire @ egyptian
royce hall organ & silent film - bernard hermann and alfred hitchcock 8 PM @ ucla royce hall
a day at the races 2:00 8:00 PM @ alex theatre
key largo @ ucla film archive
a clockwork orange @ devil's night drive-in
a day in the country, the rules of the game @ lacma
stellar om source @ show cave
the ancient world in silent cinema 1 PM @ getty villa
folk night: les blank meets 1921A @ echo park film center
dirt dress @ sync space
close-up @ silent movie theatre
mash, california split @ aero


sun. apr. 11

drive a crooked road, walk a crooked mile @ egyptian
the rest is silence 7 PM @ ucla film archive
meet john doe 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
julie murray: slight movements @ spielberg @ egyptian
the living sisters 5 PM FREE @ amoeba
neil hamburger @ spaceland


mon. apr. 12

junior bonner, jackie brown @ new beverly theatre


tue. apr. 13

psychedelic horseshit @ echo curio
the landlord 1:30 FREE @ skirball
junior bonner, jackie brown @ new beverly theatre


wed. apr. 14

eve's necklace @ egyptian
blast phemy three 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
david copperfield, a tale of two cities @ aero
holly golightly and the brokeoffs @ spaceland


thu. apr. 15

among the living, dark waters @ egyptian
autolux @ detroit bar
ezra buchla @ echo curio
the sacrifice 8 PM, directed by andrei tarkovsky @ silent movie theatre
the untouchables (70mm) @ aero


fri. apr. 16

crashout, cry vengeance @ egyptian
elevator to the gallows, le cercle rouge @ new beverly theatre
autolux @ bootleg theater
the bitter tea of general yen 8 PM, the miracle woman @ silent movie theatre
me and my gal @ lacma
band of outsiders 9:10 PM @ lacma
butch cassidy and the sundance kid, tell them willie boy is here @ aero
mark sultan, dirt dress, black apples @ spaceland


sat. apr. 17

the power of the whistler, voice of the whistler @ egyptian
elevator to the gallows, le cercle rouge @ new beverly theatre
10 to midnight MIDNIGHT @ new beverly theatre
dum dum girls, one am radio, missingmen @ origami vinyl
radar bros, timonium @ echo curio
smashing pumpkins @ space 1520
beaver trilogy @ silent movie theatre
wavelength 5 PM @ lacma
routine pleasures 9 PM @ lacma
the emerald forest, tombstone @ aero


sun. apr. 18

strange fascination, the come on @ egyptian
california dreamin' 7 PM @ ucla film archive
death rides a horse 3:05 7:30, sabata 5:20 9:45 @ new beverly theatre
dum dum girls @ echo curio
stephanie barber: little presents @ spielberg @ egyptian
dunes @ the smell
mr. deeds goes to town, mr. smith goes to washington @ silent movie theatre
alice in wonderland (1933), alice @ aero


mon. apr. 19

4 months 3 weeks 2 days @ ucla film archive
death rides a horse, sabata @ new beverly theatre


tue. apr. 20

california e.a.r. unit presents lou reed's metal machine music 8:30 PM @ redcat
earth @ echoplex
fast times at ridgemont high @ arclight sherman oaks
tba @ grindhouse film fest @ new beverly theatre


wed. apr. 21

stan douglas lecture 7 PM FREE @ hammer museum
the strong man 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
tremellow @ echo curio


thu. apr. 22

nobunny @ echoplex
tcm classic film festival
earth (1930) 8 PM @ echo park film center
the idiots 8 PM, the humiliated @ silent movie theatre
baraka (70mm) @ aero


fri. apr. 23

titans of the graphic novel: harvey pekar and alison bechdel 8 PM @ ucla royce hall
tcm classic film festival
christmas in july @ lacma
the exterminating angel 8:45 @ lacma
welcome to l.a., nashville @ aero


sat. apr. 24

portrait of the poet as james broughton part one, robert frost: a lover's quarrel with the world @ ucla film archive
tcm classic film festival
celestial navigations: the short films of al jarnow @ silent movie theatre
india song 5 PM FREE @ lacma
scarface (1932) @ lacma
the mystery of kaspar hauser 9:15 @ lacma
the godfather @ aero


sun. apr. 25

intersections: poetry/film - shorts program 7 PM @ ucla film archive
tcm classic film festival
gone with the wind 4 PM @ new beverly theatre
the purified 8 PM, the exhibited @ silent movie theatre
the godfather part ii @ aero


mon. apr. 26

radar bros @ the echo
smile pinki, man on wire FREE @ ampas linwood dunn
gone with the wind 8 PM @ new beverly theatre


tue. apr. 27

peter kolovos @ echo curio
gone with the wind 8 PM @ new beverly theatre


wed. apr. 28

the matinee idol 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
tremellow @ mcworld


thu. apr. 29

ezra buchla, foot village @ the smell
his name is alive @ bootleg theater
burden of dreams 8 PM, fitzcarraldo @ silent movie theatre
planet of the apes (1968), escape from the planet of the apes @ egyptian
at close range, dream lover @ aero


fri. apr. 30

my man godfrey, easy living @ new beverly theatre
voyage to italy @ lacma
on dangerous ground 9:15 @ lacma
terminator two 9:30 @ egyptian
the last wave @ aero


sat. may 1

no age @ eagle rock center for the arts
my man godfrey 3:45 7:30, easy living 5:40 9:25 @ new beverly theatre
back to the future 5 PM, back to the future part ii, back to the future part iii @ egyptian
petulia @ aero


sun. may 2

the time machine, beyond the time barrier @ egyptian
lust for life @ aero


mon. may 3

the lost reels of pancho villa 8:30, the vengeance of pancho villa @ redcat
ezra buchla @ synchronicity
music by prudence, the cove FREE @ ampas linwood dunn


thu. may 6

the company of wolves 8 PM, freeway @ silent movie theatre


sat. may 8

up in smoke @ devil's night drive-in
raw meat MIDNIGHT @ new beverly theatre
the mighty kegsmen @ redwood
strange boys, abe vigoda, audacity @ the glasshouse


sun. may 9

psycho, psycho 2, psycho 3 @ silent movie theatre


mon. may 10

the maltese falcon 7 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn


thu. may 13

black moon 8 PM, valerie and her week of wonders @ silent movie theatre


fri. may 14

daniel clowes @ skylight books
infra-man 8 PM, godzilla vs. megalon @ silent movie theatre


sun. may 16

alice in wonderland (1933), TBA @ new beverly theatre


mon. may 17

alice in wonderland (1933), TBA @ new beverly theatre
shadow of a doubt 7 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn


tue. may 18

jonathan richman @ the smell
roky erickson @ mayan theatre
the oath 8 PM @ silent movie theatre


thu. may 20

desperate living 8 PM, wild at heart @ silent movie theatre


fri. may 21

timonium @ pehrspace
foot village @ synchronicity


sat. may 22

night of the living dead (1968) MIDNIGHT @ new beverly theatre
mellodrama 7 PM @ silent movie theatre


mon. may 24

laura 7 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn
dunes @ the smell


wed. may 26

blast phemy five 8 PM @ silent movie theatre
the exiles 7 PM @ hammer
how to succeed in business without really trying @ last remaining seats @ los angeles theatre


thu. may 27

what? 8 PM @ silent movie theatre


fri. may 28

pufnstuf 8 PM @ mondo krofft-o @ silent movie theatre


sat. may 29

99 and 44/100% dead MIDNIGHT @ new beverly theatre
flooding with love for the kid @ silent movie theatre
hawk jones 10:30 PM @ silent movie theatre


wed. june 2

strangers on a train @ last remaining seats @ million dollar theatre


thu. june 3

dunes @ the smell


mon. june 7

double indemnity 7 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn


wed. june 9

american graffiti @ last remaining seats @ orpheum theatre


fri. june 11

ed wood MIDNIGHT @ nuart


mon. june 14

mildred pierce 7 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn


wed. june 16

the graduate @ last remaining seats @ los angeles theatre


mon. june 21

the killers 7 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn


sat. june 26

sharon jones & the dap-kings @ wiltern
salome (1923) 3 PM @ getty center
cleopatra (1934) 7 PM @ getty center


sun. june 27

mata hari (1932) 3 PM @ getty center


mon. june 28

the strange love of martha ivers 7 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn


mon. jul. 12

the dark mirror 7 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn


mon. jul. 19

the blue dahlia 7 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn


mon. jul. 26

the stanger 7 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn


mon. aug. 2

body and soul 7 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn


mon. aug. 9

crossfire 7 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn


sat. aug. 14

ema & the ghosts @ pehrspace


mon. aug. 16

a double life 7 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn


mon. aug. 23

the kiss of death 7 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn


mon. aug. 30

white heat 7 PM @ ampas samuel goldwyn




WHAT IT IS:



ALICE, (NECO Z ALENKY), 1988, First Run, 84 min. Director Jan Svankmajer’s first feature uses Lewis Carroll’s famous story as a framework for a nightmarish journey into a world of childhood terrors, populated with stuffed rabbits, sock worms, Victorian dollhouses and more. In Czech with English subtitles.


American Madness
American Madness is the great forgotten Capra movie that stands amongst his many high-profile greats. Using rapid and overlapping dialogue, swift editing and a ticking clock (the whole film takes place in a day!), Capra has fashioned a real fast-paced, necktie-loosening crackerjack piece of entertainement. In constant motion and racing against time, our hero Walter Huston sweats, pleads, plans, negotiates, and bargains to save his lending institution from a "bank run" (a wild mob of customers trying to withdraw their money at once), all the while dealing with sinful infidelities, bank robberies, corporate rivals, and police interrogations. With a near-perfect script by frequent collaborator Robert Riskin, American Madness sets the template for many of Capra's best films; Walter Huston's goodhearted Rooseveltian banker is particularly reminiscent of George Bailey and his good ol' Savings & Loan. Essential viewing for Capra fans.
Dir. Frank Capra, 1932, 35mm, 75 min.


AMONG THE LIVING, 1941, Universal, 67 min. Dir. Stuart Heisler. Albert Dekker stars as identical twins who stir up a Gothic whirlwind of insanity, family skeletons and murder in a small town paralyzed by fear. Penned by Lester Cole of Hollywood Ten notoriety and costarring a youthfully lush Susan Hayward, venerable Harry Carey and pre-tragedy Frances Farmer. 


The Ancient World in Silent Cinema
In the earliest days of cinema, more than 800 films were made which drew their inspiration from the ancient Mediterranean. Classical scholars Pantelis Michelakis and Maria Wyke screen a selection of rare silent films set in Ancient Greece and Rome, which survive in the British National Film Archive and are rarely seen. 


BARAKA, 1992, Magidson Films, 96 min. Inspired by the Sufi word meaning "breath of life," BARAKA is a mind-expanding, spiritual journey around the globe -- shot in 24 countries on five continents -- from director-cinematographer Ron Fricke (who photographed the earlier KOYAANISQATSI) and producer Mark Magidson (the Imax film CHRONOS). Filmed entirely without dialogue in a stunning cascade of crystalline, time-lapse 70mm images, BARAKA is quite simply breathtaking. Discussion following with producer Mark Magidson and director Ron Fricke (schedule permitting).


Beaver Trilogy
We're proud to present this rare theatrical screening of the legendary omnibus by Salt Lake City auteur Trent Harris, the man behind the cult fave Crispin Glover vehicle Rubin & Ed! Life. Art. Obsession. Olivia-Newton John. For a far-out glimpse into how all these alchemic elements collide, look no further than Beaver Trilogy. In 1979, a chance meeting between "Groovin' Gary", an eccentric surfer dude-type, and Harris, who worked for a local TV station, resulted in The Beaver Kid, a captivating short doc about Gary's other life as an awkward, yet impassioned Olivia-styled female impersonator. Obsessively driven to the subject matter as much as Gary was driven to "be" Olivia, Harris years later refashioned the story into two separate fiction shorts -- with one crudely shot on video starring a young, pre-Fast Times Sean Penn -- and the other starring the inimitable Crispin Glover -- with both actors giving their performances all they have to give. Viewed as a whole, Beaver Trilogy is an experience so distinct, layered, and brazenly raw that it eludes an appropriate cinematic analogy. As a film, it's mesmerizing. As an extract of human psyche, it's astonishing. Please don’t keep it waiting. 


BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER, 1960, MGM/UA, 75 min. Dir. Edgar G. Ulmer. High-testosterone pilot Robert Clarke pushes his jet past 5,000 mph -- and finds himself catapulted into a crumbling, plague-ridden Utopia of Tomorrow. Shot at a futuristic exhibit at the Texas State Fairgrounds (along with THE AMAZING TRANSPARENT MAN), TIME BARRIER co-stars Ulmer’s daughter, Arianne Ulmer, as the villainous Markova. "The mutants were basically rubber bathing caps on these poor people’s heads!" - Arianne Ulmer.


Birdemic: Shock And Terror
The demand has been so great that we're bringing back Birdemic one more time, for all those who missed it the first time around! The most discussed and anticipated avian-based disaster film since the The Birds, Birdemic is equal parts epochal tale and cinematic warning shot. It tells the story of a couple unexpectedly and unforgettably caught in the eye of a feather-based storm -- an apocalyptic attack winging down from the skies in a twisted morass of feathers, talons and blood-soaked claws. And the man that fired the shot across the diegetic bow of cineastes everywhere? That would be writer/director/dream factory foreman James Nguyen. One of cinema's most persistent imagineers, Nguyen (legally trademarked as "The Master of the Romantic Thriller"™) funded his masterwork with savings accrued from his day job as a Silicon Valley software salesman. No less than five years in the making, Birdemic stands as a testament to Nguyen's dark, enduring vision. Director James Nguyen will be here at the Cinefamily to give the crowd an introduction to the film before the show!
Dir. James Nguyen, 2009, digital presentation, 90 min.


The Bitter Tea of General Yen
Capra's first bid for Oscar glory was this exotic Josef Von Sternberg-like romance, set against the backdrop of a Chinese civil war. Showing a side of Capra you rarely see, The Bitter Tea of General Yen is directed with a capital "D" -- full of masterfully handled and spectacular crowd scenes, camera trickery, and even a steamy erotic fever dream that seems straight out of German Expressionism. It was the first film to ever play at the world famous Radio City Music Hall, but was yanked from the screen after only eight days when audiences and critics couldn't handle the the interracial romance between Barbara Stanwyck and the Chinese warlord (played by Nils Asther in "yellowface"). Shot with exalted visuals and glowing lighting by Joseph Walker, The Bitter Tea of General Yen stands now as a sumptous and erotic fantasy sure to carry you away to a far off land in your mind.
Dir. Frank Capra, 1933, 35mm, 88 min. 


Black Moon
Every big-name internationally adored director, after years of critical acclaim, is bound to craft an off-the cliff piece of one-for-the-ages capriciousness -- and Louis Malle’s turn came with this seldom-seen, magically insane '70s fable. Drawing inspiration from Lewis Carroll, the story follows a lost English girl through a woodland landscape of the future, where men and women have declared war with one another and people can communicate with animals. She falls in with Joe Dallesandro and his incestuous sister, which leads to even more surreal developments (and some very uncomfortable nudity) leading up to a poetic finale involving a unicorn. Beautifully shot by the great Sven Nykvist at Malle’s own French home at the time, this stream-of-consciousness reverie remains unavailable in America after an aborted U.S. theatrical release by Fox, so come experience this love-it-or-hate-it brainblaster on the big screen while you can.
Dir. Louis Malle, 1975, 35mm, 100 min. 


Blast Phemy! 3
Our third show in the ongoing Blast Phemy! series features outstanding musical soloists performing new, cutting-edge works seamlessly melded with a spectrum of media styles, including video montage, 3D animation and multi-projector 8mm film! We've got a collaboration between 8mm gunslinger Rick Bahto (who's exhibited at venues like MoMA, the San Francisco Cinematheque and Director's Lounge in Berlin) and composer/performer Luciano Chessa (who's an expert at both the Vietnamese dan bau and the musical saw.) Another of the evening's collaborations is a meeting of the minds between video artist Anne Bray and postminimalist composer Eve Beglarian, with a live performance by harpist Susie Allen -- and finally, we also have a live collision between animation and banjo(!), delivered by psychedelic specialist Jim Ovelmen.


Blast Phemy! 5
(feat. live film scores by Lucky Dragons)
Tonight, our Blast Phemy! residency draws to a dynamic close. First, experience the contemplative mastery of "visual music" maestro James Whitney’s exquisite abstract experimentations Yantra and Lapis (presented in new digital transfers supervised by the Whitney Estate and the Academy Film Archive), wedded to the award-winning percussive sounds of the legendary Gregg Johnson in a rare SoCal appearance. Then, witness the multimedia magic of local underground duo Lucky Dragons, whose song-based explorations with home-made synthesizer, vocal virtuosity and found object percussion meld seamlessly with experimental film projections. We conclude with Transvalue, the prodigious brainbaby of trombonist/composer Michael Vlatkovich, percussionist David Crigger and spoken word artist Chuck Britt, melding virtuosic musical settings for L.A.’s finest jazz musicians supporting, surrounding and interacting with Mr.Britt’s growling, hissing, warbling and verbal dances, all graced with the visual explosions of Steve Shoffner. A show never again to be replicated anywhere on the planet! 


The Blue Dahlia
(96 mins.)
Novelist Raymond Chandler penned this original screenplay which reteamed Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, as a veteran accused of murder and the woman who comes to his aid.


BLUEPRINT FOR MURDER, 1953, 20th Century Fox, 77 min. Dir. Andrew L. Stone. When his niece dies, Whitney Cameron (Joseph Cotten) suspects the widow (Jean Peters) of his late brother is bumping off family members for financial gain. A deadly cat-and-mouse game ensues, climaxing with all the players on an ocean liner.


Body and Soul
(104 mins.)
John Garfield was nominated for his powerful performance as a boxer embroiled in the underworld in this drama from writer Abraham Polonsky (“Force of Evil”) and director Robert Rossen (“The Hustler”).


BODYGUARD, 1948, Warner Bros., 62 min. Dir. Richard Fleischer. Lawrence Tierney is an insubordinate copper who gets framed, turns in his badge and goes undercover to expose corruption and murder in the meat-packing industry. Helping him is beautiful Priscilla Lane. This early Richard Fleischer programmer boasts a breakneck pace and a screenplay by Robert Altman! NOT ON DVD


BOOGIE
(2008, Romania) Directed by Radu Muntean
Director Radu Muntean brings an assured touch to this naturalist study of the complications of marriage. While on holiday with his wife and son, Bogdan (a.k.a. "Boogie") runs into two estranged friends from high school. After a fight with his wife, he retreats from domestic security to spend a boozy night out with the boys, prompting him to reevaluate his and his friends' lives.
Screenplay: Radu Muntean, Alex Baciu, Razvan Radulescu. Cinematographer: Tudor Lucaciu. Editor: Alexandru Radu. Cast: Dragos Bucur, Anamaria Marinca, Mimi Branescu, Adrian Vancica. Presented in Romanian dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 102 min. 


Boudu Saved from Drowning
1932/b&w/85 min. | Scr/dir: Jean Renoir; w/ Michel Simon, Marcelle Hainia, Charles Granval
Michel Simon gives one of the most memorable performances in screen history as Boudu, a Parisian tramp who takes a suicidal plunge into the Seine and is rescued by a well-to-do bookseller, Edouard Lestingois (Charles Granval). The Lestingois family decides to take in the irrepressible bum, and he shows his gratitude by shaking the household to its foundations. With Boudu Saved from Drowning, Renoir takes advantage of a host of Parisian locations and the anarchic charms of his lead actor to create an effervescent satire of the bourgeoisie. "Boudu is a simple shaggy-man story told in an open way and it is the openness to the beauty of landscape and weather and to the variety of human folly that is Renoir's artistry. He lets a movie breathe... Renoir went out of the studio and so Boudu provides a photographic record of an earlier France that moved to a different rhythm, and because of the photographic equipment, is seen in a softly different light. The shop fronts look like Atget; the houses might have modeled for Bonnard."—Pauline Kael.


BREWSTER MCCLOUD, 1970, Warner Bros., 105 min. Director Robert Altman’s achingly funny fantasy/satire on contemporary life features Bud Cort as budding man-child Brewster McCloud, living in a forgotten corner of the Houston Astrodome. He has a dream to fly and is constantly making efforts to that end, all under the protective tutelage of guardian angel Sally Kellerman. However, life has a habit of intruding on Brewster’s dreams, both in pleasant (becoming smitten with Shelley Duvall) and not so pleasant ways (the influx of lawmen and bureaucrats who want to bring him down).


Burden of Dreams
A fascinating, chilling account of the making of Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo, a project beset by a series of disasters while shooting in   the jungle. Filmmaker Les Blank has made a compelling film about obsessed  genius and the creative process.  Les Blank---USA---1982---94 mins.


CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'
(2007, Romania) Directed by Cristian Nemescu
Inspired by events during the Kosovo war, the film satirizes Romanian corruption and geopolitical power in this tale of how a train of U.S. marines gets sidetracked in a remote village when they can't come up with the proper paperwork. Completed after the talented young director's death, the film garnered the Prix Un Certain Regard at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.
Producer: Andrei Boncea. Screenplay: Tudor Voican, Cristian Nemescu, Catherine Linstrum. Cinematographer: Liviu Marghidan. Editor: Catalin Cristutiu. Cast: Armand Assante, Razvan Vasilescu, Jamie Elman, Maria Dinulescu, Ion Sapdaru. Presented in English, Romanian, Spanish, and Italian dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, color & B/W, 155 min. 


CALIFORNIA SPLIT, 1974, Sony Repertory, 108 min. Director Robert Altman’s portrait of interwoven lives in Las Vegas stands as one of his most rewarding movies. Elliott Gould as the consequences-be-damned free spirit and George Segal as the desperate, hard-luck loser head a sterling cast that also features Ann Prentiss, Gwen Welles and Jeff Goldblum. Discussion in between films with actor Elliott Gould. 


Celestial Navigations: The Short Films Of Al Jarnow
As we curled up on our couches in the early morning, with bowls of Sugar Pops at our feet, filmmaker Al Jarnow touched our lives and changed the way we look at the world without us ever knowing. Jarnow presented the world of secret mathematics, sacred geometries and life's scientific minutiae with such clarity and beauty that the child watching his works on Sesame Street could derive almost the same pleasure as the beatnik experimental film buff viewing them at New York's Anthology Film Archives -- for Jarnow's films played in both places! Coupling time-lapse, stop motion, and cel animation with simple found objects from everyday life, Jarnow deconstructed the world for an entire generation with his timeless shorts which, thirty years later, have lost none of their vitality or impact. Come celebrate with us this visionary artist, as we present a full program of his most astounding films, as well as the new documentary short Asymmetric Cycles, which details Al's entire creative process. Al Jarnow will be here at the Cinefamily in-person for a Q&A after the show!


CHOOSE ME
Keith Carradine, Genevieve Bujold and Lesley Ann Warren star in one of Alan Rudolph's best films--a stylish and sexy romance that explores the quirky, ambiguous truths of intimate relationships. "An L.A.  flower, a neon orchid--hip, outrageous, beautiful. It's a romance--music at its heart and farce around its edges--for those afraid to be in love" (Sheila Benson, Los Angeles Times). With Rae Dawn Chong, Patrick Bauchau and John Larroquette. Alan Rudolph---USA---1984---106 mins. 


Christmas in July
1940/b&w/67 min. | Scr/dir: Preston Sturges; w/ Dick Powell, Ellen Drew, Raymond Walburn, Alexander Carr, William Demarest
When lowly clerk Dick Powell submits a jingle to the Maxford Coffee Contest—"If you can't sleep at night, it's not the coffee, it's the bunk"—he winds up the subject of a practical joke that sends him on a dizzying rollercoaster of fame, fortune and reckless spending. With its ensemble of oddball characters and wisecracking script, Preston Sturges's succinct and inventive second feature is a madcap send-up of American materialism. The writer/director was a Farber favorite: "The most spectacular manipulator of sheer humor since Mark Twain… a very modern artist or entertainer, difficult to classify because of the intense effort he made to keep his work outside conventional categories. The high-muzzle velocity of his films is due to the anarchic energy generated as they constantly shake themselves free of attitudes that threaten to slow them down."


Close-Up
If a documentary that relies on recreation goes beyond just recreating -- then what exactly is Close-Up? Famed Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami attempts to solve this mystery with remarkable precision, and yet tantalizingly raises more questions than answers with this unique and fascinating film. The stranger-than-fiction narrative follows a lowly grifter who cons an entire family into thinking he's Mohsen Makhmalbaf (another famous director); after he cheats them out of the "budget for his next film", he lands in jail and catches the attention of Kiarostami, who appears in the film as himself to recreate the true story -- using the real people whom it happened to. Cast in the finespun neo-realism that has garnered Kiarostami such international reverence, Close-Up's dizzying layers of meta manage to make the film also be its own making-of, guiding the viewer through all the mirrored, tortured chambers of a soul caught by cinema. We proudly present Close-Up in a brand-new restored 35mm print!
Dir. Abbas Kiarostami, 1990, 35mm, 100 min. 


COLD WAVES
(2007, Romania/Germany/Luxembourg) Directed by Alexandru Solomon and Catalin Cristutiu
One of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's most feared enemies was Radio Free Europe, the U.S.-sponsored broadcaster that transmitted music and pro-democracy propaganda across the Iron Curtain. Filmmaker Ada Solomon deftly mixes interviews and stylized re-enactments to portray Ceausescu's secret war against a medium he could not control and a time when even listening to the radio became a subversive act.
Producer: Ada Solomon, Elvira Geppert, Paul Thiltges. Editor: Catalin Cristutiu. Presented in Romanian dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 108 min. 


THE COME ON, 1956, Paramount, 83 min. Dir. Russell Birdwell. Anne Baxter pulls out all the stops in her performance as a fetching grifter tying chump Sterling Hayden into knots in a complex affair involving her abusive "husband," the suave but scary John Hoyt. NOT ON DVD  Discussion between films with actress Karen Sharpe Kramer (STRANGE FASCINATION).


The Company of Wolves
Little Red Riding Hood gets a gorgeous, horrific makeover in this dreamlike breakthrough classic from Neil Jordan. In a fantasy world imagined by young girl Rosaleen, a stern granny (Angela Lansbury) lectures her about the dangers of straying from the path and encountering hairy men harboring slavering wolves inside them. Spinning off into a series of breathtaking set pieces, this visual feast was initially lost in the ‘80s tumble when distributors tried to pass this off as another werewolf flick, sort of The Howling for the English lit crowd. The late English writer Angela Carter adapts her own stories to craft an unforgettable twilight journey through the forbidding depths of female adolescence, where a dash of lipstick is enough to unleash any number of hairy beasts hiding in the woods.
Dir. Neil Jordan, 1984, 35mm, 95 min.


CRASHOUT, 1955, Paramount, 89 min. Dir. Lewis R. Foster. William Bendix, Arthur Kennedy, Luther Adler, Gene Evans, Marshall Thompson and William Talman (as a knife-chucking religious fanatic) break out of the pen in pursuit of a stashed robbery payroll. Distracting from their quest are leggy farm girl Beverly Michaels, wholesome Gloria Talbott and noir favorite Percy Helton. NOT ON DVD


Crossfire
(86 mins.)
Richard Brooks’s novel The Brick Foxhole became a powerful thriller about murder among World War II veterans, directed by Edward Dmytryk from a screenplay by John Paxton.


CRY DANGER, 1951, Paramount, 79 min. Dir. Robert Parrish. One of the most wicked and witty revenge yarns of the original film noir era is also an amazing tour of mid-century downtown Los Angeles. Screenplay by Bill Bowers, based on Jerome Cady's story. A new restoration courtesy of the Film Noir Foundation and the UCLA Film and Television Archive. NOT ON DVD


CRYPT OF DARK SECRETS
(from IMDB)
Army Ranger Ted Watkins, returning from his last tour of duty in Vietnam, decides to abandon society and take up residence in a remote corner of the Louisiana swamps. Thinking Watkins has a stash of loot hidden away in his cabin, three thieves sneak into his cabin and murder the man in cold blood. Before they can get away, however, a swamp witch named Damballa performs a voodoo rite to bring Watkins' body back to life and take revenge on the men who killed him.  Dir. Jack Weis, 1976, 71 mins.


CRY VENGEANCE, 1954, Paramount, 82 min. Mark Stevens (THE DARK CORNER) stars in and directs this brutal revenge melodrama in which a psychically and physically scarred ex-cop (Stevens) hunts the killer of his family to the wilds of Ketchikan, Alaska. NOT ON DVD


The Dark Mirror
(85 mins.)
Olivia de Havilland plays twin sisters suspected of murder in this 1946 romantic thriller with a screenplay by Nunnally Johnson and directed by Robert Siodmak, who was Oscar-nominated the same year for directing “The Killers.”


DARK WATERS, 1944, Films Around the World, 90 min. Dir. Andre de Toth. Travel down a dark Southern road of perversity as a distraught shipwreck survivor (Merle Oberon) returns to her family’s estate near the Big Easy. Can she trust the earnest doctor (Franchot Tone) who tries to shield her from some exceedingly strange relatives (Fay Bainter, Thomas Mitchell and Elisha Cook Jr.)?


A Day in the Country
1936/b&w/40 min. | Scr/dir: Jean Renoir; w/ Sylvia Bataille, Georges D'Arnoux, Jeanne Marken, Jean Renoir
On a Sunday in 1880, a Parisian businessman takes his wife, his daughter, and the daughter's fiancé to the countryside for a picnic on the banks of the Seine, where two passing oarsmen stop and flirt with the mother and daughter; when their men go fishing, the two women accept the offer of a boat ride, and their afternoon on the river becomes a interlude they will always remember. Adapted from a story by de Maupassant. Renoir's film was shot near the town of Marlotte, where Cezanne lived, and captures like no other film the landscape, fashions, and atmosphere of impressionist painting. "The love scene on the island is one of the most beautiful in all of cinema. It owes its effectiveness to a couple of gestures and a look from Sylvie Bataille that have a wrenching emotional realism. In the space of a few frames she expresses all the disenchantment, the pathetic sadness that follows the act of love... Renoir manages to transcribe this feeling visually by use of the superb storm sequence."—André Bazin.


DEATH RIDES A HORSE
A vintage "spaghetti western" with one of the genre's greatest stars, Lee Van Cleef. John Phillip Law plays a gunslinger who has grown up hungry for revenge against the outlaws that murdered his parents. He rides with the tough-as-leather cowboy Ryan (Van Cleef), not knowing that his ally is one of the killers he seeks. A.k.a. Man to Man.  Giulio Petroni---Italy---1968---112 mins. 


Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky
It's already a true mental strain to field-marshal a feature film, what with the attendant chaos, misfires, endless questions and minute-by-minute logistical shifts -- but can you imagine undertaking such a thing while also succumbing to cancer? That's what faced the poet laureate of Russian cinema, Andrei Tarkovsky, as he made his final work, The Sacrifice. That film's editor, Michal Leszczykowski, shot this emotional peek into the creative process of a filmmaker seldom documented on film himself. As we gaze upon Tarkovsky's unending obsession with translating his every last visionary detail onto the screen, we also hear narrated excerpts of his massively influential book on film theory, "Sculpting In Time", deeply empathize with his physical condition -- and feel the crushing heartbreak of exactly what happens when a director must scrape to shoot for a second time his one-chance-and-that's-it ten-minute single-take finale. An intense look at an even more intense film artist. Dir. Michal Leszczylowski, 1988, 35mm, 102 min. 


A Double Life
(104 mins.)
Ronald Colman won the Best Actor Oscar for his change-of-pace role as an actor whose performance as Othello starts to affect his personal life in this psychological drama from director George Cukor and writers Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin.


DREAM LOVER, 1993, MGM Repertory, 103 min. Dir. Nicholas Kazan. Architect James Spader finds love with a gorgeous, mysterious woman (Madchen Amick), only to find that her enigmatic nature conceals a very complicated past. Discussion between films with Nicholas Kazan. 


DRESSED TO KILL
Maybe more than any of his other films, this is the Brian De Palma film that divides people into camps of admirers or detractors. The director's most severe critics see this as a blatant thievery of Hitchcock, while his fans hail it as an ingenious stylistic homage to the master. The only witness to a  murder becomes the police's prime suspect and must join forces with the victim's son to track down the real killer. "One of the most sheerly enjoyable films of recent years...permeated with the distilled essence of impure thoughts" (Pauline Kael, The New Yorker). Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen, Keith Gordon and Dennis Franz star. Brian De Palma---USA---1980---105 mins.


DRIVE A CROOKED ROAD, 1954, Sony Repertory, 83 min. Dir. Richard Quine. Mickey Rooney is cast against type as a car mechanic whose craving for fast cars and faster women steers him into a blind alley in which there are no pit stops. Blake Edwards’ crackerjack script is given vivid life by Rooney’s compelling characterization and a stellar supporting cast (Dianne Foster, Kevin McCarthy, Jack Kelly). NOT ON DVD


EARTH: A FILM BY ALEXANDER DOVZHENKO
In honor of Earth Day, we present Earth, the 1930 Soviet classic by Alexander Dovzhenko. “One of the undisputed masterpieces of the cinema, no single viewing of Earth will ever reveal all of its poetic brilliance… The story itself is secondary to the visually stunning and incredibly moving images that Dovzhenko creates. His love for the Ukrainian people and land intoxicates the viewer with the sensual splendors that fill the screen.” – Kino International.


EASY LIVING
When a sable coat lands on secretary Jean Arthur's head, it kicks off a series of madcap misadventures in this stylish, screwball, romantic comedy written by Preston Sturges. With Edward Arnold and Ray Milland.  Mitchell Leisen---USA---1937---88 mins. 


EVE'S NECKLACE, 2009, Erickson Films, 80 min. Film noir is a road regularly traveled by filmmakers, but never has a film noir exclusively starred... mannequins! Director Daniel Erickson made the highly unusual and cost-effective decision to shoot the film, originally conceived as live-action, with store-front "dummies," for which he held an extensive e-Bay casting call. As dread builds in the film, the impressive feat is achieved of turning an all-mannequin cast into a sympathetic group of characters. "A killer bizarre mannequin film noir movie...one of the strangest movies you’ll ever have the likelihood of ever seeing... a fascinating experiment gone right." - Harry Knowles, Ain’t it Cool News. Discussion following with director Daniel Erickson. 


The Exhibited
The Exhibited, a rare peek at Von Trier's brilliant art installation "Psychomobile 1 - The World Clock". Von Trier's complicated "script" involved 54 actors improvising an ongoing story in a 19-room theatrical space, in which their characters' moods and behaviors alter according to the changing colored lights in each room -- determined at random halfway around the world by the freshly-dug paths inside an anthill in New Mexico! Impossible as it is to capture the whole sprawling narrative, Jargil wisely chooses to tell the story of those actors most emotionally pummeled by their distant chaotic "god", as he exploring issues both theological and dramaturgical -- making this a fascinating document of an even more fascinating theatrical experiment.  Dir. Jesper Jargil, 2000, digital presentation, 81 min. 


EXPERIMENT PERILOUS, 1944, Warner Bros., 91 min. Dir. Jacques Tourneur. Fresh off his stunning work for Val Lewton, Tourneur (I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, CAT PEOPLE) directed this challenging tale of a woman (the incandescent Hedy Lamarr) who believes her husband (Paul Lukas) is plotting to drive her mad.


The Exterminating Angel
1967/b&w/91 min. | Scr/dir: Luis Buñuel; w/ Silvia Pinal, Enrique Rambal, Lucy Gallardo, Claudio Brook
A group of high-society friends are invited to a mansion for dinner. But after the meal is finished, the servants mysteriously disappear, a planned performance involving sheep and a trained bear cancelled, and the assembled guests find themselves unable to leave. As the hours and days pass, the idle rich enter survival mode as anarchy slowly starts to creep in. Luis Buñuel's spellbinding takedown of the mores and dependencies of the frivolous upper classes, elegantly shot by Gabriel Figueroa, is a pageant of deadpan absurdities and sharply mordant imagery.


Fitzcarraldo
Werner Herzog's grand saga of an impresario's obsession to bring his own opera boat up the Amazon River and over a mountain into Peru where he will have Caruso sing. Klaus Kinski and Claudia Cardinale star in this legendary production made against nearly impossible odds that were well documented in Les Blank's Burden of Dreams. One of Herzog's most ambitious and impressive works.  Werner Herzog---West Germany---1982---157 mins.


Flooding With Love For The Kid
Rambo fetishists, a new day of rejoicing has come! Flooding With Love for the Kid, the new adaptation of David Morell's 1972 source material novel "First Blood", was just completed by actor/writer/director/cameraman/stylist/caterer Zachary Oberzan -- with one video camera in one 220-square-foot NYC apartment for $96, all by his lonesome. Eschewing Stallone-style spectacle for a YouTube-esque zen, this feature-length no-fi epic ambitiously re-imagines the novel as a ludicrous, exhibitionist fever dream. Imagine if a Max Fischer play from Rushmore was imbued with Jean-Luc Godard’s penchant for sardonic realism, only to be filtered through a grade-schooler’s "Let’s build a fort!" sincerity. Sound crazy? It is -- wonderfully so. Yet, the impressive, good-humored gusto with which Oberzan presents himself (playing every single part, including, but not limited to Rambo, an elderly woman, and three bloodhounds) surprisingly makes the film gel into an affecting, emotional whole. Either that, or a demented peek into the mind of a part-time nut. After witnessing Oberzan urinate on himself via the magic of jump cuts, you can be the judge. Zachary Oberzan will be here in-person after the screening for a Q&A session!
Dir. Zachary Oberzan, 2009, digital presentation, 90 min. 


FOLK NIGHT: LES BLANK MEETS 1921A
Join us for a very special evening as we rummage through the archive to bring you a double header of experimental folk music and films. Our journey will travel through the depths of Centerville, Texas to the heart of Los Angeles in 1967, exploring strange portraits of American musicians, moments of joyful discoveries, and stories about the blues.
Come for short films by Les Blank (Gap Toothed Women, Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers) and stay for the music, with a live set from The 1921A


Forbidden Zone
(30th Anniversary screening, w/ director in person!)
If you've never seen it before, or if you've never seen it before on the big screen in 35mm, now is the time to catch this key early-'80s midnight movie classic! Forbidden Zone loosely follows the dysfunctional Hercules Family and their uncovering of the gateway to the Sixth Dimension, conveniently posted inside their ramshackle new house. A plot synopsis really can't quite capture the delirious experience of watching the film, which contains a frogman in a tuxedo, a human chandelier over the royal table, hordes of topless concubines, two bald henchmen in jockstraps, and future composer Danny Elfman as a singing and dancing Satan with a chorus line of ghouls. Featuring a fantastic fixation with retro Fleischer visuals, stark black and white cinematography, freaky star turns by Susan Tyrell (Fat City) and pint-sized Herve Villechaize, a catchy and frantic clutch of Oingo Boingo songs, and a Dennis Potter-style propensity for characters bursting out in lip-synched unison to vintage tunes, Forbidden Zone is always best seen with a crowd, so come on down to join in the festivities! Director Richard Elfman will be here in-person for a Q&A after the screening!
Dir. Richard Elfman, 1980, 35mm, 74 min. 


4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS, 2 DAYS
(2007, Romania) Directed by Cristian Mungiu
Following two college roommates as they try to obtain an illegal abortion, Cristian Mungiu's film masterfully captures the daily bartering and sacrifices required in the waning days of the Soviet bloc. With bravura long takes and performances, this long day's journey into night won the Palme d'Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and remains one of the best films of the aughts.
Producer: Oleg Mutu, Cristian Mungiu. Screenplay: Cristian Mungiu. Cinematographer: Oleg Mutu. Cast: Anamaria Marinca, Laura Vasiliu, Vlad Ivanov, Alexandru Potocean, Luminita Gheorghiu. Presented in Romanian dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 113 min. 


Freeway
"Mix together one cup of Natural Born Killers with a half-cup of Los Olvidados, sprinkle liberally with freeze-dried bile and bake for 98 minutes...[Matthew] Bright, mercifully, is an allegorist who consistently prefers projectiles to platitudes." - Allan Ulrich, San Francisco Chronicle.
Reese Witherspoon struts her stuff in what is easily one of her best performances, as a jailbait Red Riding Hood named Vanessa tearing down the I-5 to see her granny, all the while being stalked by cunning, murderous pervert/child shrink Bob Wolverton (Kiefer Sutherland). This clever, hilarious genre mishmash marked the directorial debut for former Oingo Boingo member Matthew Bright (who co-wrote Forbidden Zone) and is just as wild as you’d expect, in addition to offering a surprisingly effective parable about the corrosion of the American justice system! Don’t miss this rare opportunity to experience this disturbing and weirdly uplifting gem in a theater the way the movie gods intended.
Dir. Matthew Bright, 1996, 35mm, 110 min. 


GEMS FROM THE ARCHIVES OF RUSS HARDEN III
Film collector Russell Harnden is back with another screening of GEMS FROM THE ARCHIVES, a film series devoted to obscure and outdated ephemeral films drawn from his personal collection of cartoons, educational, and industrial films. A sampling of these wonderful films from the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s will be pulled from the vault and screened during an evening that’s sure to stimulate your mind and make you chuckle at the same time.
Join us and watch as an entire community tries to “get along” underground (‘OCCUPYING A PUBLIC SHELTER”), a kid with an attitude searches for gainful employment (“HOW TO KEEP A JOB”), and you’ll be amazed at how the future of telecommunications is boldly predicted (“TALKING OF TOMORROW”). There will be many more great titles as well. Taken VERY seriously when these films were made, today they now serve as campy, nostalgic reminders of a simpler time. So be sure to join us for a fun and “educational” evening!


GIRLS ON THE ROAD
(from IMDB)
Two girls who have just graduated from high school take a trip out to the California beach. After causing an accident by flashing a passing motorist and getting rousted by the police, they pick up a hitch-hiker (Michael Ontkean) who is suffering from traumatic flashbacks caused by his time in Vietnam. The hitchhiker brings them to a commune headed by a guru (played by the guy who went on to become TV's "Papa Walton")and a drug-addled crazy who calls himself "the Creator". Meanwhile, someone is going around strangling young women...  Dir. Thomas J. Schmidt, 1973, 80 mins.


Godzilla vs. Megalon
"It's been a remarkable transformation of character...the dragon has become St. George." -- Vincent Canby, New York Times.
Godzilla vs. Megalon, the thirteenth Toho Studios film to feature Godzilla, is the Superman III of this big goofy monster franchise -- it's about as far afield as you can get from the original Godzilla, yet still proudly stands tall as a wacky, entertaining treat with moves to spare. Originally intended as a vehicle for the new size-shifting good guy robot character "Jet Jaguar", Toho decided to retool the enterprise and throw in a few Godzilla appearances for good measure, resulting in the Big Green Dude batting for the human team(!) as he squares off against Megalon, the god beast of the Atlantis-like kingdom Seatopia (plus a few other behemoth critters for good measure.) Strap yourself in for caucasian undersea villians, monsters "talking" to each other in sign language, and a legendary Godzilla wrestling move never attempted since.
Dir. Jun Fukuda, 1973, 35mm, 78 min. 


Hawk Jones
Bugsy Malone may have won the Golden Palm in 1976, but the real deal, the true gem in kids-masquerading-in-adult-clothes-and-shooting-each-other films is Hawk Jones -- think Serpico on training wheels! When a local gangster turns our fair city into one of blood feuds and despicable violence, the only shred of light in the darkness is not unlike Shaft, John McClane and the kid from Cop And A Half all rolled into one tough nine-year-old package, one who won't stop until the mobster's head is served to him on a cafeteria tray, with a Capri Sun to wash it down. To make matters worse, he's teamed up with the most vile of creatures -- a cootie-coated dame! This unlikely pair have no choice but to sweep through this rat cage of spoiled brats, young ruffians and floozies (acting just a little too sexy for comfort) until it's left spotless, so be prepared to watch a whole bunch of kid gangsters die graphic, yet adorable deaths. Whether you're a fan of cop movies, kids' films, or just young at heart, Hawk Jones will leave you crying for your mommy, begging for a Dum-Dum. Director Richard Lowry will be at the Cinefamily in-person for a Q&A after the screening!
Dir. Richard Lowry, 1986, digital presentation, 88 min. 


HOLLYWOOD STORY, 1951, Universal, 76 min. Dir. William Castle. Richard Conte plays a wannabe independent producer who buys a vacant studio lot and gets embroiled in the mystery of a film director murdered there many years before. NOT ON DVD


HUMAN DESIRE, 1954, Sony Repertory, 91 min. Dir. Fritz Lang. You can’t really call this a re-do of THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE because it’s based on Emile Zola’s 1890 novel La Bete Humaine - but then, tales of tortured lovers tempted to commit murder are timeless, aren’t they? Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame rekindle their flame from Lang’s 1953 smash THE BIG HEAT, and Broderick Crawford plays the loutish cuckold they want to be rid of. Do we need to note that things don’t go according to plan? Burnett Guffey supplies the wonderfully atmospheric cinematography. NOT ON DVD 


The Humiliated
Rarely is a making-of doc so perfectly matched in tone or storyline as the subject of its gaze, but The Idiots and The Humiliated are furiously intertwined, in a mindgame kind of way that seems quite -- Von Trier-ian? Filmmaker Jesper Jargil accepted an Assistant Director post on The Idiots under the condition that he be allowed to make his own film about the film, and the result is as personal and scarring as Von Trier's masterwork. Using the same DV cameras that Von Trier simultaneously used, Jargil covers the actors and director living in the same communal space (much as the film's characters do), and as Lars pushes his actors to the brink of emotional endurance, he himself goes bonkers in a paranoid, hypochondriachal fit -- and the viewer is left feeling as if the whole production is the brainchild of a semi-mad cult leader intent on instantly capturing on tape every neurosis he wishes to purge in the real world. Unprecedented and ultra-rare, The Humiliated is an intimate meta thrill ride.
Dir. Jesper Jargil, 1998, digital presentation, 79 min.


The Idiots
The Idiots is an incredibly provocative film that works on the basest and purest of emotional levels. While reactions to the film vary from extreme disgust to warm empathy, it is hard to imagine any audience member not being cataclysmically affected by watching Lars Von Trier's legendary X-rated contribution to the Dogme 95 filmmaking movement. The story examines an radical commune of formerly bourgeoisie Danes whose primary group activity is "spazzing": going out in public and pretending to be mentally retarded. By using their "spazzing" game as an excuse to cast off the emotional constraints of living like an adult, these "idiots" demand responses from us, ranging from exhilaration, hilarity, discomfort, fear and even grief. Von Trier's directing -- in accordance with his own cult-like shot-on-video Dogme 95 manifesto -- also creates a loss of control and deep intimacy that make these themes and situations as confrontational as imaginable. Formerly only released in the U.S. with the X-rated portions censored, The Cinefamily is proud to present the original version in all its shocking power.
Dir. Lars von Trier, 1998, digital presentation, 117 min. 


India Song
1975/color/120 min. | Scr/dir: Marguerite Duras; w/ Delphine Seyrig, Michel Lonsdale, Mathieu Carriere
Farber characterized the work of novelist-turned-filmmaker Marguerite Duras as "cryptic movies of beautiful people trapped in rituals." India Song is literally just that. Ambassador's wife Delphine Seyrig whiles away Calcutta's summer monsoon in a mesmerizing ballroom dance with various suitors that defies space and time. Steering away from direct sound in favor of a ravishing sonic mosaic, this avant-garde period film screened continuously in Paris for nearly four years. "One wonders about the importance of elegantly held cigarettes, a Venetian-red gown which is possibly held in place by adhesive tape, and the over-dosage of a Thirties fox-trot, 'Blue Skies,' re-phased and played 300 choruses."—Manny Farber.


Infra-Man
"Within the first four mintues of Infra-Man, (a) a giant flying lizard attacks a school bus, (b) the Earth cracks open, (c) Hong Kong is destroyed by flames, (d) mountains disintegrate to reveal the forms of reptilian monsters with blinking yellow eyes, (e) the Professor announces that a twenty-million-year-old woman is unleashing the hibernating monsters upon civilization, (f) the Science Headquarters is shaken by a second quake, (g) the Mutants awake, and (h) the Professor, obviously shaken, informs a secret meeting of world leaders, 'This situation is so bad that it is the worst that ever has been!'" - Roger Ebert
Japan's hugely successful live-action superhero franchises (Ultraman, Kamen Rider, and its "henshin" ilk) inspired both "Yo Gabba Gabba!" and this blatant but beautiful tribute from Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers studio. This isn't a cheap Turkish-style rip-off -- this is a seriously ass-kicking, giant-robots-and-monsters-battling, bionic superman kung-fu-fighting, slickly-produced action-packed rip-off! Come prepared for the kind of mad, over-the-top genius that will leave you breathless.
Dir. Shan Hua, 1975, 35mm, 88 min.


INTERSECTIONS: POETRY/FILM SHORTS PROGRAM
In the 20th century, avant-garde and documentary filmmakers searching for new cinematic forms frequently turned to poetry as a source of inspiration and to poets themselves as collaborators. By the 1960s and ‘70s, particularly with respect to the Beat poets, it was clear that poetry and avant-garde film—both together and in parallel—had achieved a major evolution of visual and written language which continues to fuel popular and artistic culture today. As the UCLA campus welcomes the 2010 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the Archive presents two nights of films exploring the intersection of mid-century poets and filmmakers and the casual, humorous and often rigorous cross-pollinization between these artists of the page and screen.


JOHNNY ANGEL, 1945, Warner Bros., 79 min. Dir. Edwin L. Marin. Ship captain Raft plays straight man to a cast of colorful actors - Claire Trevor, Signe Hasso, Hoagy Carmichael, Marvin Miller and Margaret Wycherly – as he pursues his father’s killer through a backlot New Orleans demimonde cunningly photographed by Harry Wild. NOT ON DVD


JULIE, 1956, Warner Bros., 99 min. Dir. Andrew L. Stone. The husband-and-wife team of Andrew and Virginia Stone created this suspenseful 1950s version of GASLIGHT as a vehicle for Doris Day. Here, the vehicle is a jet airliner in which stewardess Day is trapped by her psychotic husband (a truly scary Louis Jourdan). A wild "woman in jeopardy" film, nominated for an "Original Screenplay" Oscar! NOT ON DVD


Julie Murray: Slight Movements
One of the highlights of 2004 for us was our evening with Julie Murray, thrilling us with the delicate experiments and natural wonders of her films and videos, astonishing at every turn.  They sustain with a meticulous interweaving of found and original footage and dynamic cinematic manipulations.  Filmforum is delighted to host again one of the finest filmmakers of today.  Julie Murray in person!  *NOTE* Julie Murray will be screening at REDCAT with a substantially different program on Monday April 5


The Killers
(103 mins.)
Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner gave breakthrough performances in this gripping drama from a screenplay by Anthony Veiller that expanded Ernest Hemingway’s classic short story about a man who makes no effort to escape from the men hired to kill him.


The Kiss of Death
(98 mins.)
Richard Widmark made a memorable screen debut as Tommy Udo, one of the all-time great villains of film noir, in this tense drama starring Victor Mature and Brian Donlevy, directed by Henry Hathaway from a screenplay by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer.


Lady For A Day
A delightful fable of super-slangy gangsters, slick guys and dizzy dolls, apple-sellin' beggars, and hyper-verbal lowlifes of stripes -- that's right, it's Damon Runyon territory. But though Lady For A Day was based on Runyon's short story "Madame La Gimp", it stretches beyond the charms of its slight source material into something genuinely moving and knee-slappingly funny, succeeding as both a tear-jearker and a farce of the highest order. Screenwriter Robert Riskin's loose adaptation was so excellent that Runyon himself extolled its virtues as being superior to his original story, and Capra's surehanded direction led to the first of his many Oscar nominations. With an awesome cast of scene-stealing character actors and a wonderful turn by the incredible May Robson (who, at 75 years young, held the record for "oldest Oscar nominee" for many decades), Lady For a Day is the first great Capra film, and a must-see!
Dir. Frank Capra, 1933, 35mm, 96 min. 


THE LAST WAVE, 1977, Janus Films, 106 min. Director Peter Weir's haunting supernatural parable stars Richard Chamberlain as a lawyer hired to defend an Aboriginal man accused of murder. As he delves deeper into the case, Chamberlain starts experiencing hallucinatory dreams and premonitions of a terrible impending disaster in which he plays a pivotal role. Discussion following with actor Richard Chamberlain. 


Light Echoes Dark: The Films of Julie Murray
“A masterful editor and visionary filmmaker.” Chris Gehman, Cinematheque Ontario
Irish-born, New York-based filmmaker Julie Murray combines found and original footage to conjure strange and paradoxical universes resonant with ambiguous meanings. Mystery and menace lurk equally amid the eloquence of her visual rhymes and word associations—whether in repeated images of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and the Heimlich maneuver (Conscious, 1993, 10 min.), shots of trees growing among crumbled brick ruins (Orchard, 2004, 9 min.), views from an aerial tram leaving Manhattan (If You Stand With Your Back to the Slowing of the Speed of Light in Water, 1997, 18 min.), or captioned excerpts from an instructional movie for the deaf (I Began to Wish, 2003, 5 min.). Comprising all 16mm films, this program features Murray’s latest work, ELEMENTs (2008, 7 min.)


THE LOCKET, 1946, Warner Bros., 85 min. Dir. John Brahm. On his wedding day, a groom (Brian Aherne) is told stunning tales regarding the troubled past of his bride-to-be (Laraine Day), including her destructive affair with a tortured artist (Robert Mitchum). This dazzling and dizzying psychodrama uses a web of interlocking flashbacks to show how a woman’s childhood obsession with a prized locket dictates the course of her life. NOT ON DVD


Lost Reels of Pancho Villa
“Movie-history enthusiasts, among others, will be intrigued by Lost Reels’ quest for a cinematic ‘Holy Grail.’” Variety
Gregorio Rocha’s award-winning documentary Los rollos perdidos de Pancho Villa (Mexico/Canada/USA, 2003, 49 min., b/w and color) recounts his painstaking intercontinental search for one of film history’s most intriguing lost works: Raoul Walsh’s The Life of General Villa, a quasi-factual 1914 biography commissioned by the Mexican revolutionary strongman (in which Villa allowed cameramen to follow him into actual combat). While sleuthing in countless archives, vaults and institutional back rooms, the Mexico City-based filmmaker and media archivist uncovers a wider, decidedly conflicted legacy of how the general was depicted in the newsreels and movies of the silent film era—and locates in the process the heretofore little-known origins of border cinema. In person: Gregorio Rocha


LUST FOR LIFE, 1956, MGM, 122 min. Director Vincente Minnelli, screenwriter Norman Corwin, and star Kirk Douglas team up for one of the greatest bio-pics ever made in this story of the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh. Using a color scheme based on Van Gogh's own work, the filmmakers create a delirious, deeply subjective portrait of an artist.  Discussion with Norman Corwin following the film.


The Maltese Falcon
(100 mins.)
The third film version of Dashiell Hammett’s novel became iconic in the hands of writer-director John Huston with Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre creating indelible portraits of film noir characters. Huston’s screenplay received an Oscar nomination.  Introduced by Lawrence Kasdan (“Body Heat,” “The Bodyguard”).


The Matinee Idol
In the wake of The Jazz Singer's success, every studio wanted a similar feelgood Jolson-like project in the pipeline, and so Columbia tapped Capra to helm 1928's The Matinee Idol. Famous theater star Don Wilson (Johnnie Walker) heads out of town to escape his adoring public and, on a lark, joins a ragtag stock troupe putting on a goofy Civil War drama because he's "amused" by them -- and he's attracted to their troupe leader (Bessie Love). After bringing the group to the Broadway stage to exploit their backwoods nature for laughs, Don sees the error of his ways, but is it too late to save his romance? The Matinee Idol has the nascent germ of everything Capra applied to many of his later classic crowd-pleasing works: the working class tensions, the emotional peaks and valleys, the deft handling of tasteful sexuality, and the adroit balance of comedy which never fails to warm you and win you over.
Dir. Frank Capra, 1928, 35mm, 56 min. 


Me and My Gal
1932/b&w/80 min. | Scr: Arthur Kober; dir: Raoul Walsh; w/ Spencer Tracy, Joan Bennett, Marion Burns.
Prolific, one-eyed auteur Raoul Walsh's best film, per Farber, stars Spencer Tracy ("buoyant…combining outrageous swagger with a self-mocking he enjoys to the hilt") as a harbor cop who falls for Joan Bennett's chowder house waitress ("a Harlow-ish sass machine" and "a slinky, don't push me around toughie"). The pair gets mixed up with a mobster, a paralyzed vet who blinks in Morse-code and an imminent bank robbery. "A portrait of a neighborhood, the feeling of human bonds in a guileless community, a lyrical approximation of Lower East Side and its uneducated, spirited stevedore-clerk-shopkeeper cast. There is psychological rightness in the scale relationships of actors to locale, and this, coupled with liberated acting, make an exhilarating poetry about a brash-cocky-exuberant provincial. Walsh, in this lunatically original, festive dance, is nothing less than a poet of the American immigrant."—Manny Farber.


Meet John Doe
When Frank Capra and Robert Riskin (his frequent collaborator) left Columbia to form their own company, their first project was their most artistically ambitious movie: the flawed but undeniably powerful Meet John Doe, which is usually remembered as a gee-whiz treatise on the power of grass roots politics, but in reality is nearly the opposite. Capra, himself a master at orchestrating audience emotions, delivers a case study about about how easily manipulated the public can be, and and the emotional turmoil it causes for one far-from-perfect man with the puppet strings suddenly thrust upon him. With a "screwball nihilism" tone that feels like an antecedent to the Coen Brothers, and with a tireless plot logic that proceeds so inexorably into darkness, Capra -- trying desperately to stay positive -- had to shoot five different endings to find a way to wriggle out of it. The most self-critical (and perhaps the most mature) film in Capra's career, Meet John Doe is an incredible piece of entertainment that is sure to reshape your idea of what "Capra-esque" really means.
Dir. Frank Capra, 1941, 35mm, 122 min. 


Mellodrama
A synth fetishist's utter delight! From a California workshop to Royal Albert Hall, Mellodrama tells the story of the first sampling keyboards -- the Chamberlin (U.S.) and the Mellotron (U.K.) -- and how their haunting sound changed the production and texture of popular music — from the Beatles' "Strawberry Fields Forever" and the Moody Blues' "Nights in White Satin" to Radiohead's album "OK Computer" and Kanye West's "Gold Digger." These two sister instruments' storied history is told through a wealth of select rare footage from the past several decades, plus heartfelt tributes from Brian Wilson, Italian film composer Fabio Frizzi, Goblin member Claudio Simonetti, Yes keyboardist Patrick Moraz (duetting with a glowing Stormtrooper helmet!), Brian Kehew of the legendary vintage synth tribute The Moog Cookbook, members of Genesis and King Crimson, and more! The screening is followed by a Q&A with director Dianna Dilworth, and a live Mellotron performance by Brian Kehew of The Moog Cookbook!
Dir. Dianna Dilworth, 2008, digital presentation, 75 min. 


Mildred Pierce
(109 mins.)
Joan Crawford earned her only Academy Award for her memorable portrayal of a businesswoman coping with a conniving daughter and an unfaithful lover in this film version of the James M. Cain novel with a screenplay by Ranald MacDougall, directed by Michael Curtiz.


The Miracle Woman
Shockingly sacreligcious and startlingly sexy -- unless female preachers wearing diaphanous nighties delivering the Good Word from inside tiger cages was a lot more common in the 1930's -- The Miracle Woman is Capra's out-there take on the kind of ritual-to-riches story that's been a perennial of the American spiritual landscape since at least Mark Twain's time. Young Barbara Stanwyck's electric and emotional performance lends sympathy to her portrayal of an Aimee Semple Macpherson-esque con artist running the biggest grift there is, the 'ol God scam. In the mode of Elmer Gantry or "Geek Love", The Miracle Woman is a blistering satire of religion as showbiz, exposing the thin line between the spectacle of an ecstatic revival tent and a big top circus, showcasing a barrelful of carny huckster tropes from fake freaks to blind men wielding ventriloquist dummies -- and then gleefully burning the mother down in an orgy of atonement.
Dir. Frank Capra, 1931, 35mm, 90 min. 


MY MAN GODFREY
One of the most enduring and popular American film comedies of all time, a masterpiece of sophisticated wit and screwball antics. Carole Lombard is the madcap heiress who finds a gentleman-bum (William Powell) on a garbage heap and brings him home to become the butler. The result is a wonderful, eccentric satire of the idle rich as Godfrey tries to bring sanity into their lives. Selected for the National Film Registry in 1999.  Gregory La Cava---USA---1936---93 mins.


The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser (aka Every Man for Himself and God Against All)
1974/color/110 min. | Scr/dir: Werner Herzog; w/ Bruno S., Walter Ladengast, Brigitte Mira
Werner Herzog's award-winning 1974 film recasts the enigmatic true story of a man who turns up in nineteenth-century Nuremberg claiming to have been raised in solitary confinement. Portrayed here by a real-life schizophrenic with "the clarity and stark innocence of a Rousseau portrait," Kaspar Hauser is incapable of speech, reason or even memory. With literally no concept of society, this full-grown wild child, perhaps of aristocratic descent, soon grows terrified of so-called civilization. In 1977 Farber published his final film article. That same year, he submitted an application for a Guggenheim Fellowship to fund Munich Films, 1967-1977: Ten Years that Shook the Film World. Farber received the grant and set to work on researching this book which would cover a new generation of filmmakers "whose particular concern is the weave of formalist inventions with political dimensions." Though Farber's book was neither finished nor published, he spent the years leading up to it covering this "German phenomenon." For him, Herzog stood out as "a self-propelled artist who'll never give up" and "a filmmaker still on the prowl, making an exploratory work each time out."


Nana
1926/b&w/150 min. | Scr: Pierre Lestringuez; dir: Jean Renoir; w/ Catherine Hessling, Jean Angelo, Werner Krauss, Claude Autant-Lara
Nana, the ninth novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume Les Rougon-Macquart series, which includes La bete humaine, tells the story of Nana Coupeau, a streetwalker and music hall performer. Rising to high-class cocotte, she destroys a string of wealthy lovers—among them Count Muffat, whose faithfulness earns him humiliation after humiliation—before dying a horrible death from smallpox. In Renoir's ambitious adaptation, Nana is played by Catherine Hessling, Renoir's wife and a former painter's model for Auguste, and Werner Krauss of Caligari fame plays the count. The film cost a million dollars to make and was a commercial failure due mainly (according to Renoir) to the public's inability to accept Hessling's extreme performance: "She was not a woman at all but a marionette... I restricted Catherine's makeup to a thick white base; her eyes and mouth were completely black. She became a kind of puppet-a puppet of genius." François Truffaut writes, "There are various characteristic themes here: the love of spectacle, the woman who chooses the wrong vocation, the actress trying to find herself, the lover who dies of his sincerity, the showman. It is the first of Renoir's films in which acting took precedence over the story and the plastic elements. It was made under the influence of Foolish Wives which explains why Nana is one of only two Renoir films in which money plays an important role."
Live musical accompaniment.


NEW YORK CONFIDENTIAL, 1955, Kit Parker Films, 87 min. Dir. Russell Rouse. A mob kingpin (Broderick Crawford) runs the syndicate from a Manhattan high-rise, assisted by a crew of plug-uglies (J. Carrol Naish, Onslow Stevens, Barry Kelley and Mike Mazurki). Complicating matters: a newly imported hit man (Richard Conte), a restless mistress (Marilyn Maxwell) and Brod’s beautifully fragile daughter (Anne Bancroft). NOT ON DVD


99 AND 44/100% DEAD
(from IMDB)
Uncle Frank Kelly calls on Harry Crown to help him in a gang war. The war becomes personal when Harry's new girlfriend is kidnapped by Uncle Frank's enemy, Big Eddie.  Sociological Gangster satire for the pop-art age.  Dir. John Frankenheimer, 1974, 98 mins.


NOTHING LASTS FOREVER,  1984, Warner Bros., 82 min. Dir. Tom Schiller. Aspiring Manhattan artist Zach Galligan is working at a crummy job with an unstable boss when he learns that an underground network of tramps is controlling the world's cities. His discovery sends him on an unusual journey that includes a trip to the moon and finding true love. "Saturday Night Live" veteran Tom Schiller wrote and directed this lost masterpiece, which stars his "SNL" collaborators Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd along with Lauren Tom and Mort Sahl.  SCHILLER’S REEL, (1978-1980), 2010, 31 min. A collection of Tom Schiller’s classic "Saturday Night Live" shorts featuring "Schillervision Theatre," "Sushi by the Pool," "Perchance to Dream," "The Acid Generation: Where Are They Now?," "Don’t Look Back In Anger," "Arrivederci Roman," "La Dolce Gilda," "Java Junkie," "Love is a Dream" and "Schillervision Hidden Camera." Featuring John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Phil Hartman, Chris Farley and many more! Discussion between films with Tom Schiller; other guests to be announced.


The Oath
A spectacularly gripping documentary that unspools like a great political thriller, The Oath, from Oscar-nominated director Laura Poitras (My Country, My Country) is the cross-cut tale of two men whose fateful meeting propelled them on divergent courses with Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, 9/11, Guantanamo Bay Prison and the U.S. Supreme Court. Abu Jandal is a taxi driver in Sana’a, Yemen; his brother-in-law Salim Hamdan is a Guantanamo prisoner and the first man to face the controversial military tribunals. Their intertwined personal trajectories — how they became bin Laden’s bodyguard and driver, respectively —act as prisms that serve to explore and contextualize a world which has confounded Western media. Winner of Best Documentary Cinematography at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, The Oath offers a rare window into a realm too long misunderstood — and the international impact of the U.S. "war on terror."


O.C. AND STIGGS, 1985, MGM, 109 min. Dir. Robert Altman. Two bored, mischievous teenagers (Daniel Jenkins and Neill Barry) torment a wealthy family headed by insurance mogul Paul Dooley in Robert Altman's riff on the teen comedy genre. Ray Walston costars. Guest to be announced.


On Dangerous Ground
1952/b&w/82 min. | Scr: A. I. Bezzerides; dir: Nicholas Ray; w/ Ida Lupino, Robert Ryan, Ward Bond
Robert Ryan plays an embittered big city detective sent upstate in pursuit of a murderer. In the midst of the snowbound open country, he falls for Ida Lupino, the killer's blind sister.  With its sonorous Bernard Hermann score, whose motives reappear in 1958's North by Northwest, Nicholas Ray's underrated film shifts from hard-edged noir to a lyrical melodrama. Farber describes the film as "a treadmill of stumbling, fumbling, smooching, hurtling movement… [a] fascinating jumble of action that results when two awkward, determined characters try to outclaw  each other at the job of detecting."


PETULIA, 1968, Warner Bros., 105 min. Dir. Richard Lester. George C. Scott is a middle-aged physician who finds himself drawn into the mad, idealistic and desperately sad whirlwind life of Julie Christie, who is unhappily married to Richard Chamberlain (in one of his best early performances), at the height of San Francisco's Summer of Love. Beautifully photographed by Nicolas Roeg, and featuring brief, ultra-rare appearances in their prime by Janis Joplin (with Big Brother & The Holding Company) and The Grateful Dead. 


PORTRAIT OF THE POET AS JAMES BROUGHTON, PART ONE
Directed by John Luther Schofill
Initially intended as a simple portrait of poet-filmmaker James Broughton, John Luther Schofill's magnum opus became a six-year undertaking, employing a dense array of layered imagery and sound in an inspired study of Broughton's vision, words and spirit.
16mm, 1974-80, 40 min. 


THE POWER OF THE WHISTLER, 1945, Sony Repertory, 66 min. Dir. Lew Landers. From radio to the silver screen and then television, The Whistler was the only episodic mystery series that can accurately be labeled as film noir. Richard Dix stars as a man suffering noir’s version of the common cold: amnesia. NOT ON DVD


THE PRISONER OF ZENDA
A classic adaptation of Anthony Hope's adventure novel, John Cromwell's swashbuckling costume drama mounting of Prisoner of Zenda stars Ronald Colman as a commoner forced to substitute for his look-alike cousin and ends up falling in love with Madeleine Carroll. Douglas  Fairbanks, Jr. plays Rupert of Hentzau.  John Cromwell---USA---1937--- 101 mins.


Pufnstuf
Mondo Kroftt-O
(feat. Pufnstuf)
"Land of The Lost". "Lidsville". "The Bugaloos" and more! With their day-glo landscapes, cardboard set pieces, and colorful cavalry of life-size puppet creatures, the loveably warped works of Sid and Marty Krofft are a picture window onto a bygone era of adventurous American children's programming. From a land lost in time to a land inhabited by walking, talking hats, to a kiddy show starring (yes, really) Richard Pryor and his foam-formed friends, part of the joy of revisiting the Kroffts' wacky high-concept, low-budget universe is marveling at a time when shows like these were not only green-lit but widely successful. Armed with a contagious sense of childlike make-believe, these shows never fail to warm the most hardened heart -- so take a trip with us, as we guide you to our favorite locales in the Krofft cornucopia, capped off by a 35mm show of Pufnstuf, the rarely-screened 1970 feature version of perhaps their most influential and mind-blowing creation, "H.R. Pufnstuf".
Pufnstuf   Dir. Hollingsworth Morse, 1970, 35mm, 98 min. 


The Purified
Infamous, inflammatory, and insane -- few directors have stimulated more arguments, divided more opinions, or inspired more fervent fans and vitriolic haters than that great Dane, Lars Von Trier. These two docs by his fellow countryman Jasper Jargil capture Von Trier at the point of his career when he was dominating the international film spotlight, and generating the greatest discussion among film buffs.
First we have The Purified, the chronicle Von Trier and three fellow Danish directors launching the Dogme 95 movement, complete with manifesto and "vow of chasity" in which filmmakers were required to make films following ten "commandments" requiring them to give up key tools of modern filmmaking (lighting equipment, post-produced sound, etc.) See the behind-the-scenes discussions before, during, and after the first four Dogme films, as well as hilarious irrasicible critiques by their film school professor, and footage of Von Trier throwing pamphlets to an audience at Cannes like a mad revolutionary. Dir. Jesper Jargil, 2002, digital presentation, 74 min.


RAW MEAT
This long-forgotten, low-budget British horror film counts amongst its many fans director Guillermo del Toro (Chronos), who championed the film at a   2002 Lincoln Center screening. A young couple has a deadly run-in with the descendent of tunnel workers who were trapped and abandoned in the London Underground at the turn of the century. Deranged after years of isolation and  cannibalism, he ventures into the subway to prey upon humans for food. Very creepy and gory. Stars Sharon Gurney, David Ladd, Donald Pleasence and Christopher Lee in a brief cameo. Originally released as Deathline.  Gary Sherman---Great Britain---1973---87 mins. 


RED LIGHT, 1949, Warner Bros., 83 min. Dir. Roy Del Ruth. San Francisco truck company owner Johnny Torno (George Raft) seeks revenge on the killers of his priest brother, who left a clue to the culprit’s identity in a missing Bible. NOT ON DVD


REMEMBER MY NAME
(from IMDB)
Just released from prison, a young woman arrives in town to "start a new life", but soon begins stalking a married construction worker for no apparent reason, turning his life inside out and eventually terrorizing him and his wife.  Dir. Alan Rudolph, 1978, 94 mins.


THE REST IS SILENCE
(2007, Romania) Directed by Nae Caranfil
Inspired by the making of Romania' first feature-length film in 1911, the film follows failed actor Grigore, who sets out to make an epic about the Romanian struggle to win independence from the Ottoman Empire. Director Nae Caranfil, a key figure in the Romanian film renaissance, crafts an intelligent period piece that pays homage to Romania's first major filmmaker while celebrating cinematic history.
Producer: Cristian Comeaga. Screenplay: Nae Caranfil. Cinematographer: Marius Panduru. Editor: Dan Nanoveanu. Cast: Marius Florea Vizante, Ovidiu Niculescu, Mirela Zeta, Ioana Bulca. Presented in Romanian, French, and German dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 140 min. 


ROBERT FROST: A LOVER'S QUARREL WITH THE WORLD
(1963) Directed by Shirley Clarke
Shirley Clarke's Academy Award–winning portrait of Robert Frost captures the warmth and humor of the incomparable American poet through a verité cinematic language that rises to meet the colloquial power of his work. Whether sharing his philosophy to an audience at Sarah Lawrence College or reflecting on his career at home in Ripton, Vermont, Frost exudes a captivating love of life and art.
35mm, B/W, 52 min. 


Routine Pleasures
1986/color/81 min./digital | Scr: Jean-Pierre Gorin, Patrick Amos; dir: Jean-Pierre Gorin.
Dedicated to Chuck Jones and Gustave Flaubert, Gorin's essay film is also a fitting tribute to Farber. Intercutting between the activities of a group of model-train hobbyists burrowed in a Del Mar hangar and Farber at work on his still-life canvases, Gorin's film explores imaginary landscapes, ideas of scale, work methods, Howard Hawks and the impact of childhood. Though he largely stopped publishing in the late 70s, Farber penned a short tribute to Gorin and his "investigations of anonymity in innocuous places" for the 2004 Vienalle: "he's something, with crescendos of wild, inventive wit… an uncompromising critical predator, he will circle his subject until he nails it."


ROYCE HALL ORGAN & SILENT FILM - BERNARD HERMANN AND ALFRED HITCHCOCK
This UCLA Live-only event honors two cinematic geniuses: director Alfred Hitchcock and film composer Bernard Herrmann. Their fruitful collaboration from 1955 to 1964 included “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” “Vertigo” and “Psycho.” (Hermann even served as sound consultant on the music-less film “The Birds,” creating the creature’s noises.) Acclaimed organist Stephan Tharp – a composer and champion of new organ music – opens the program with adaptations of those films’ scores. Then UCLA’s own organist Christoph Bull – creator of the eclectic Organica concert series – provides a live improvised score to the early Hitchcock silent film, “The Lodger.”


The Rules of the Game
1939/b&w/110 min. | Scr: Jean Renoir, Carl Koch; dir: Jean Renoir; w/ Nora Gregor, Marcel Dalio, Jean Renoir, Paulette Dubost, Gaston Modot
Buoyed by the success of Grand Illusion and La bête humaine, Renoir formed his own production company to make a film constructed around a group, in his words, "to depict a class… to show a rich, complex society where, to use an historic phrase, we are dancing on a volcano." In conceiving a film about the dangers facing contemporary European society, he cloaked his criticism in "the form of eighteenth-century French comedy," allowing him to populate his scenario with masters and servants, scheming aristocrats, saucy maids, and cuckolded husbands, all of whom are caught up in an intricate plot driven by gossip, jealousy, and mistaken identity. Into this game, set in a chateau owned by the Marquis de la Chesnaye where his sophisticated guests have assembled for a weekend of hunting and parties, comes an outsider who does not respect the rules and in so doing brings the comedy to a tragic conclusion. Using deep-focus photography that captures both background and foreground action, and long takes that allow the camera to follow the narrative from room to room, Renoir moves invisibly among the characters, whose romantic intrigues, social rivalries, and human foibles are observed by an unblinking eye that refuses to judge. In viewing this multilayered masterpiece today, one is struck by the film's audacious blend of farce and realism, the lightness in Renoir's touch, the deftness and speed of the storytelling, the tour de force editing of the hunting sequence, the brilliance of the acting, the wit of the dialogue, the individuality of the characters and the timelessness of their concerns. As a work of art it is both modern and classic; it is a film about history and it became part of history. To add to the complexity, Renoir cast himself as the character Octave who, like his off-screen counterpart, "directs" the onscreen action. Though far from omnipotent or faultless, he connects with all the major characters in the film—he's the only character comfortable hanging out with the servants—and very often "guides" them with his enthusiasm or advice. Octave is the movie's glue.


SABATA
(from IMDB)
Several pillars of society have robbed an Army safe containing $100,000 so they can buy the land upon which the coming railroad will be built. But they haven't reckoned on the presence of the master gunslinger, Sabata (Lee Van Cleef). Dir Gianfranco Parolini, 1969, 111 mins.


The Sacrifice
Andrei Tarkovsky's final film is yet another of his beautifully absorbing and hypnotic portraits of madness. As aging philopsopher Alexander meets with friends at his house on the misty plains of rural Sweden, the radio announces WWIII is at hand. As an appeasement to God, Alex offers his own voice and sanity (among his other possessions) in exchange for sparing life on Earth -- and when the Bomb doesn't drop, what is he to do? Show-stopping cinematography from frequent Bergman collaborator Sven Nykvist (including the most incredible realistic "sun-lit" soundstage interiors since Kubrick's The Shining) and epic sound design here take a remarkable backseat to Tarkovsky's masterful deployment of near-imperceptible legerdemain: once life continues as "normal", every subtle re-placement of items and people in the frame throws into question, a la Solaris, the rapidly crumbling sanity of an old soul already given to questioning the world around him. Containing a stylistic summation of all his auteurly ideals, hopes and dreams up to that point, The Sacrifice is Tarkovsky's graceful swan song, painfully hinting at the remainder of a career that was not to be.
Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky, 1986, 35mm, 149 min. 


St. Louis Blues
Nat "King" Cole stars as W.C. Handy, with Pearl Bailey, Cab Calloway, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, Ruby Dee, and Mahalia Jackson taking star turns in the biography of the jazz legend. Featuring arrangements by both Nelson Riddle and Handy himself, the film traces Handy's life from his childhood in a church-going family to finding his place as one of America's true musical giants. Then eighty-five, W. C. Handy served as a consultant during the making of this film. Directed by Allen Reisner. (1958,105 min. No MPAA rating.)


Scarface
1932/b&w/99 min. | Scr: Ben Hecht; dir: Howard Hawks; w/ Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Karen Morley
Another of Farber's exemplary male action directors, Howard Hawks is at his darkest in this gangster masterpiece. Paul Muni plays the title character, a maniacal thug who tommy-guns his way to the top of Chicago's criminal underworld. Reveling in the brutal fun of Muni's psychopathic rampages while lingering slyly on his domineering relationship with Ann Dvorak, his fast-talking little sister and possibly the prototype for the tough, prickly-tongued women in the director's subsequent films, Scarface is rife with pre-Code cynicism.  "A passionate, strong, archaic photographic miracle…a damp black neighbor to the black art in Walker Evans's subway shots or the Highway 90 photographic shot at dawn by Robert Frank."—Manny Farber.


SO EVIL MY LOVE, 1948, Universal, 112 min. Dir. Lewis Allen. A widowed missionary (Ann Todd) is befriended aboard-ship by a charming rogue (Ray Milland) whom she takes in as a boarder. Gorgeous Geraldine Fitzgerald costars in this perverse and disturbing melodrama of mind-control and madness. NOT ON DVD


So This Is Love?
So This Is Love?, released in the same year, is a smaller affair, set almost entirely on one backlot street. Shirley Mason is the "delicatessen girl whose infatuation with a prizefighter forces her timid dress-designer boyfriend to battle him in the ring. Mocking the traditional macho code throughout the film, Capra directed [this] David-and-Goliath tale in the breezy, offhand style" (Joseph McBride, The Catastrophe of Success) that would later establish him as one of the kings of 1930s screwball comedy.  Dir. Frank Capra, 1928, 35mm, 60 min.


Stephanie Barber: Little Presents
Laden and light, with ideas and technology and analogy and analogue essences, whimsical manipulations of time and text, suffused with the emotional heft needed for these heart-wrenching, media mad times, the works of Stephanie Barber are among the most unique and delightful being produced these days.  We’ve lucky to have her in Los Angeles for a night of a West Coast jaunt from Baltimore.  Don’t miss this rare opportunity to explore these films and converse with the artist about them… or let them play in your dreams for the weeks to follow.  “Stephanie Barber . . . has one of the most original visions to emerge recently from the diverse experimental film scene. Deceptively simple at first, her work is unique in the way it alters and even suspends time.” – The Chicago Reader


STRANGE FASCINATION,1952, Sony Repertory, 80 min. The first of seven features produced, written and directed by low-rent auteur Hugo Haas stars his fatale muse Cleo Moore. Haas plays a concert pianist led down the road to perdition by bad girl Moore, with typically painful results. NOT ON DVD.


The Strange Love of Martha Ivers
(117 mins.)
Kirk Douglas made his film debut as an ambitious D.A. and Robert Rossen wrote the screenplay for this romantic thriller starring Barbara Stanwyck in the title role of a woman made wealthy by a murder she committed in her youth.


The Stranger
(95 mins.)
Orson Welles directed and played the villain in this topical thriller about the hunt for a Nazi war criminal in suburban America, from a screenplay by Anthony Veiller.


The Strong Man
Capra's 1926 feature debut is the crown jewel in the career of Harry Langdon, the often-overlooked fourth great silent clown (alongside Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd.) Capra once wrote of Langdon that he was "the man-child whose only ally was God -- his art approached genius", for indeed this comedian, whose hapless, helpless persona is today echoed in today's Mr. Bean and Pee-Wee Herman, took the concept of the gentle bumbling oaf to its zenith. In The Strong Man, Harry plays the nebbish assistant to circus strongman Zandow The Great, who'd previously been his enemy on the WWI battlefield. They travel to America, where Harry falls for a blind girl -- and as the plot thickens, the romance grows stronger, and Langdon even impossibly becomes a strongman impostor! After endless popular two-reelers, Harry parted ways with longtime director Harry Edwards in favor of Capra, who imparted an even greater sense of structure and scale onto the work of the silent cinema's greatest comedic innocent.
Dir. Frank Capra, 1926, 35mm, 75 min. 


TALES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE
(2009, Romania/France) Directed by Ioana Uricaru, Hanno Hoefer, Razvan Marculescu, Constantin Popescu, and Cristian Mungiu
4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days director Cristian Mungiu writes and co-directs this omnibus film, in which five filmmakers recreate urban myths popular from the last decade of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's rule. Each told with bitter irony, the episodes together form a picaresque portrait of life during the grim 1980s and serve as a testament to the range of talents of Romanian cinema.
Producer: Oleg Mutu, Cristian Mungiu. Cast: Alexandru Potocean, Avram Birau, Vlad Ivanov, Calin Chirila, Ion Sapdaru. Presented in Romanian dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 141 min. 


10 TO MIDNIGHT
(from IMDB)
Leo Kessler (Charles Bronson) attempts to stop a serial killer that's terrorizing a college dormitory. In his attempts, he finds the law isn't always on his side.  Dir J. Lee Thompson, 1983, 101 mins.


The Testament of Doctor Cordelier
1961/b&w/95 min. | Scr/dir: Jean Renoir; w/ Jean-Louis Barrault, Teddy Billis, Michel Vitold
Renoir's free adaptation of the Jekyll and Hyde story was made for French television on a small budget and is distinguished by its icy black-and-white images and its lucid abstract style. "Dr. Cordelier, an eminent psychiatrist, seeks to prove the existence of the soul by causing it to materialize. Experimenting on himself he creates the alter ego of Opale who is bestial, cruel and destructive… The interest and novelty of this version lie in Renoir's masterful use of Jean-Louis Barrault (Children of Paradise) who was chosen for the contrasting qualities of his dry, classical acting and his light, nimble, ethereal miming. Thus the change in the character is the result of a complete physical transformation. Barrault's abilities give Renoir a wide latitude in expressing the intellectual thrust that informs his film."—Jean Douchet.


TIGHT SPOT, 1955, Sony Repertory, 97 min. Dir. Phil Karlson. Screenwriter Bill Bowers is back, providing a whip-crack rendition of Leonard Kantor’s stage play about a tough dame (Ginger Rogers) being squeezed by the DA (Edward G. Robinson) to testify against a mob boss. NOT ON DVD Rhonda Fleming and Richard Erdman in person!


TOMBSTONE, 1993, Buena Vista Pictures, 130 min. Dir. George P. Cosmatos. Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Sam Elliott, Bill Paxton and Powers Boothe all pack a wallop in this star-laced revisionist Western. Lawman Wyatt Earp (Russell) is under the mistaken impression that retirement in Tombstone, Arizona, will mean a rest from his successful but exhausting career of chasing and eliminating outlaws. Instead, the town is plagued by an array of nasty villains, and Earp must get back into full-throttle butt-whoopin' mode one last time. Discussion between films with actor Powers Boothe. 


UNDERTOW, 1949, Universal, 71 min. Director William Castle brings panache to this impoverished B-production, enlivening a fairly routine tale of a framed ex-con (Scott Brady - Lawrence Tierney’s "little" brother) looking for revenge in the Chicago underworld. Hot dishes Dorothy Hart and Peggy Dow complicate matters in time-honored tradition. NOT ON DVD Special guest appearance by actress Julie Adams!


THE UNTOUCHABLES, 1987, Paramount, 119 min. Director Brian De Palma and screenwriter David Mamet turn the raw material of 1960s television and American crime history into the stuff of glorious cinematic mythology in this literate, visually arresting gangster epic. Kevin Costner is treasury agent Eliot Ness, Robert De Niro is his nemesis Al Capone, and Sean Connery is the grizzled cop who does things "the Chicago way." Discussion with screenwriter David Mamet.


Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders
As joyful as it is impossible to pin down, Valerie is a haunting, psychoactive period piece which plunges the beautiful heroine Valerie into a phantasmagorical world of thirsty vampires, the dark arts and dreamy free love -- all set to one of the great film scores of the era, a cocktail of psych-folk and avant-garde classical by the great Luboš Fišer. The film opens with 13-year-old Valerie's first menstruation and subsequent sexual awakening, her unsteady discovery of which lets loose a torrent of quixotic, hallucinatory experiences both terrifying and beautiful; amongst a haze of shifting tones and a flurry of role reversals and Gothic nightmares in broad daylight, Valerie floats along, buoyed by the fears and fantasies that come with nascent sexuality and teenage fantasy. This bewitching brew is a must to behold on 35mm -- do not miss it.
Dir. Jaromil Jires, 1970, 35mm, 77 min.


The Vengeance of Pancho Villa
Los rollos perdidos screens with a newly restored 35mm print of Rocha’s most remarkable discovery, Edmundo and Felix Padilla’s La venganza de Pancho Villa (Mexico/USA, 1930–34, 50 min., b/w), which is receiving its Los Angeles premiere. Mixing found footage of the real Villa and his army with re-enactments, this anarchic collage by the father-and-son duo freely crosses the borders separating north from south and fiction from documentary.


VOICE OF THE WHISTLER, 1945, Sony Repertory, 60 min. Richard Dix is a terminally ill man lured into marriage by a gold digger (Lynn Merrick) with fatal consequences for all concerned. Written and directed by William Castle, this is a must-see in a new 35mm print! Discussion in between films with actor Robert Dix, son of Richard Dix.  NOT ON DVD 


Voyage to Italy
1953/b&w/97 min. | Scr: Vitaliano Brancati, Roberto Rossellini; dir:  Roberto Rossellini; w/ Ingrid Bergman, George Sanders
Long-wedded British couple Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders embark on a trip to Naples on family business. But as Mediterranean sensuality clashes with English stringency somewhere between the lava fields of Vesuvius and the catacombs of Fontanelle, the disintegration of the marriage suddenly becomes evident. A massive influence on the soon-to-be-filmmakers at Cahiers du cinema, it ranked as the third best film of all time, behind F.W. Murnau's Sunrise and Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game, in a 1958 poll of French critics. Under the surface of its minimal plot, Rossellini's film amasses subtle details and small moments towards one of cinema's most enigmatically poignant conclusions. Though Farber never published anything on it, Rossellini's film was a source of inspiration for at least one of his paintings and it was often screened in his UCSD classes. And Farber's summation of Rossellini's films—"his people are always sent out to face uncontrollable crowds, unpredictable weather, or unconquerable terrain"—easily applies to this 1953 masterwork.


WALK A CROOKED MILE, 1948, Sony Repertory, 91 min. Dir. Gordon Douglas. When a security leak at an atomic energy plant threatens the safety of the free world, an FBI agent (Dennis O’Keefe) and a Scotland Yard inspector (Louis Hayward) track the spy ring to - where else? - Commie-infested San Francisco. Hint to the feds: Look for the big, shifty guy (Raymond Burr) with the Lenin look-alike goatee. Discussion between films with actor Paul Picerni. NOT ON DVD


Wavelength
1966-1967/color/45 min./16mm | Dir: Michael Snow
Farber heralded Michael Snow's single-take milestone—an uninterrupted diagonal zoom across a room, "probably the most rigorously composed movie in existence"—as "The Birth of a Nation of Underground films." In his UCSD exams, he even asked his students to draw the space depicted in the film, "The way it looks from the camera's original setting; include (and label for clarity) all the important objects."
Also screening in this program: George Kuchar's first color film, the "ribald, inexplicable" camp classic Hold Me While I'm Naked; D.W. Griffith's A Corner in Wheat, which juxtaposes a tycoon's lavish lifestyle and the hardship of the lower classes, in a precursor to Sergei Eisenstein's epic montages; and a documentary of 1940s street life in Spanish Harlem as seen through the lens of Helen Levitt and James Agee, "a somber study of the American figure, from childhood to old age... The chief sensation is of people zestfully involved in making themselves ugly and surrealistic, as though everything Goya's lithographs indicated about the human race had come true."
Hold me while I'm Naked 1966/color/15 min./16mm | Dir: George Kuchar; A Corner in Wheat 1909/b&w/16 min./16mm | Dir: D.W. Griffith; In the Street 1948/b&w/16 min./16mm | Dir: James Agee, Helen Levitt, Janice Loeb 


The Way Of The Strong
Tonight's Silent Treatment double bill starts with The Way Of The Strong, starring Mitchell Lewis (The Mystic) in the tightly-wound tragic tale of the gruff and homely bootlegger Handsome Williams, who falls madly in love with alluring (and blind!) street busker Alice Day while getting caught in gangland crossfire. Even at this early stage, Capra's masterful, mature camerawork (including techniques far advanced for the era, like point-of-view shots and rack focus) speaks volumes about the length between him and his contemporaries.  Dir. Frank Capra, 1928, 35mm, 61 min.


WELCOME TO L.A.,  1976, MGM Repertory, 106 min. Dir. Alan Rudolph. Robert Altman produced this delightful ensemble film from his protege Alan Rudolph, who uses the title city as a backdrop for several stories exploring love and loneliness. Keith Carradine anchors the film as Carroll Barber, a womanizing songwriter who has affairs with a real estate agent (Sally Kellerman), his father's mistress (Lauren Hutton) and the wife (Geraldine Chaplin) of one of his father's chief executives (Harvey Keitel). 


What?
The rarest (and possibly strangest) Polanski of them all, slammed by Roger Ebert as “the work of a madman, of a crazed cinematic genius off the deep end!” After losing his wife Sharon Tate to the Manson clan in the late '60s, Roman took a weird career detour that reached its insane climax with this nudity-packed dark comedy variation on Alice in Wonderland about a naïve, American tourist (Sydne Rome) who falls afoul of a carload of would-be rapists and ends up roaming around mostly topless in an Italian villa filled with weirdos and and other lecherous characters, including Marcello Mastroianni as an ex-pimp and Polanski himself as the gun-toting handyman “Mosquito” who’s obsessed with ping-pong. If you love far-out Polanski concoctions like Cul-de-Sac or The Fearless Vampire Killers, this madcap Mediterranean cocktail is a must-see, in glorious 'scope and not available on DVD!
Dir. Roman Polanski, 1972, DigiBeta, 110 min.