a highly-opinionated selection of things happening around town, and sometimes out of town. this month's page here.
mon. dec. 2
dirt dress, froth FREE (RSVP) @ bootleg
the punk singer 5 PM @ silent movie theater
everybody street @ silent movie theater
digital restoration of disney animated shorts FREE @ back for the future: film restoration in the 21st century @ ampas linwood dunn
is the man who is tall happy? 3:00 5:00 7:00 10:30 PM @ downtown independent
some velvet morning FREE (RSVP) @ usc broccoli theatre
cat power @ el rey
tue. dec. 3
the punk singer 10:30 PM @ silent movie theater
the palm beach story FREE 1:30 PM @ skirball
the eric andre show live @ echoplex
the films of bruce conner @ cinespia salon @ silent movie theater
is the man who is tall happy? 3:00 5:00 7:00 PM @ downtown independent
radio days FREE 6 PM @ santa monica library ocean park branch
mikal cronin, redd kross @ el rey
wed. dec. 4
miami connection @ the crest
the act of killing 7:15 PM @ arena cinema
the pervert's guide to ideology 9:15 PM @ arena cinema
the ten commandments (1923) @ egyptian
the punk singer 7:30 9:45 PM @ silent movie theater
is the man who is tall happy? 3:00 5:00 10:30 PM @ downtown independent
thu. dec. 5
jonathan richman @ the mint
the private affairs of bel ami FREE 5 PM @ the crank @ ucla james bridges
veronika voss FREE @ csun armer theater
the pervert's guide to ideology 6:50 PM @ arena cinema
the act of killing 9 PM @ arena cinema
the good the bad and the ugly @ aero
the punk singer 10:30 PM @ silent movie theater
is the man who is tall happy? 4:00 6:00 8:00 10:00 PM @ downtown independent
intertidal 8 PM @ velaslavasay panorama
the past FREE @ melnitz movies @ ucla james bridges
blood feast, blood diner @ grindhouse film fest @ new beverly
fri. dec. 6
jonathan richman @ the mint
l.a. anarchist bookfair @ cielo galleries
wong fei-hung: the whip that smacks the candle, the story of a discharged prisoner @ ucla film archive
a century ago: the films of 1913 @ ampas linwood dunn
endless bummer @ silver lake lounge
unforgiven (2013) 7 PM @ eigafest @ egyptian
cleo from 5 to 7, la pointe courte @ lacma
the sound we see trilogy 8 PM @ epfc filmmobile (location TBA)
easy living, the palm beach story @ new beverly
sat. dec. 7
jonathan richman @ the mint
l.a. anarchist bookfair @ cielo galleries
cosmonauts, dirt dress, froth, cortaud & bobtail @ lou reed tribute night @ thee mens warehouse (anaheim)
heller keller @ the smell
the devil's path 4:10 PM @ eigafest @ egyptian
star 80, lenny @ aero
le bonheur 5 PM @ lacma
new works salon marathon 8 PM @ epfc
the great ecstasy of the woodcarver steiner FREE 4 PM @ getty center
cave of forgotten dreams FREE 7 PM @ getty center
thou shalt not: a primer to pre-code hollywood FREE 2 PM @ la central library mark taper auditorium
prison bars can't stop the flow 7 PM @ west side peace center
easy living 3:40 7:30 PM, the palm beach story 5:30 9:20 PM @ new beverly
sun. dec. 8
jonathan richman @ the mint
l.a. anarchist bookfair @ cielo galleries
a city of sadness 7 PM @ ucla film archive
john c. reilly & becky stark & tom brosseau @ largo
shark toys, 100 flowers @ part time punks @ echo
leaving on the 15th spring 5:45 PM @ eigafest @ egyptian
on the air (complete series marathon) FREE (RSVP) 3 PM @ usc ray stark
free time and sunshine FREE 1 PM @ velaslavasay panorama
encounters at the end of the world FREE 3 PM @ getty center
les soviets plus l'electricite 6:30 PM @ velaslavasay panorama
lucky dragons, la fog @ save music in chinatown 1 @ human resources
bound for glory 7 PM, the long riders @ new beverly
the films of bruce conner 10 PM @ silent movie theater
mon. dec. 9
pxl this festival FREE 7:00 9:00 PM @ documental @ unurban
drinking flowers, black sea, froth FREE (RSVP) @ bootleg
nicolas rey: autrement la molussie (differently molussia) 8:30 PM @ redcat
side by side FREE @ back for the future: film restoration in the 21st century @ ampas linwood dunn
inequality for all @ the crest
the last laugh @ the silent treatment @ silent movie theater
the long riders, bound for glory @ new beverly
tue. dec. 10
in a lonely place 1 PM @ lacma
the truman show FREE 1:30 PM @ lacma
a christmas story 8 PM @ arclight pasadena
the abigails (11:00), l.a. witch (10:00), white dove (9:00), dj chris ziegler @ bootleg
the thief and the cobbler: a moment in time @ ampas samuel goldwyn
king kong (1933) @ lacma
the last of the unjust FREE (RSVP) 7 PM @ usc ray stark
the long riders, bound for glory @ new beverly
wed. dec. 11
gremlins 8 PM @ arclight hollywood
chicken with vinegar, inspector lavardin @ aero
the moment FREE @ hammer
the squaw man @ hollywood at the dawn of the movies @ hollywood heritage museum
thu. dec. 12
querelle FREE @ csun armer theater
la air: kelsey brain 8 PM @ epfc
chinatown @ million dollar theatre
bouquet @ echo country outpost
fri. dec. 13
comrades: almost a love story, in the mood for love @ ucla film archive
bleached FREE 7 PM @ whole foods, 3rd & fairfax
endless bummer, fuzz @ el cid
corners, audacity, the weirdos, the middle class @ echoplex
vagabond, documenteur @ lacma
it's a wonderful life 8 PM @ epfc filmmobile (location TBA)
a christmas story, gremlins @ new beverly
the werewolf (1956) 8:30 PM, the werewolf vs. the vampire woman, ginger snaps @ cia
sat. dec. 14
new restorations and discoveries from center for visual music @ ucla film archive
remambran (9:15) @ pehrspace
levitation room, the blank tapes @ the echo
cate le bon @ bootleg
samson and delilah 2:30 PM @ egyptian
wagon tracks @ retro format @ spielberg @ egyptian
cinefamily telethon: grand opening FREE 1 PM @ silent movie theater
cinefamily telethon: primetime FREE 5 PM @ silent movie theater
cinefamily telethon: midnight madness FREE 9 PM @ silent movie theater
cinefamily telethon: the nite owl FREE 1 AM @ silent movie theater
cinefamily telethon: morning FREE 6 AM @ silent movie theater
cinefamily telethon: closer FREE 11 AM @ silent movie theater
kung fu master 5 PM @ lacma
jacquot de nantes @ lacma
gamble in souls (28mm) 8 PM @ epfc
ulrich krieger: fathom (8:30) @ pieter
battle for haditha 12:30 PM @ downtown independent
iceberg slim: portrait of a pimp 9 PM @ arena cinema
a christmas story, gremlins @ new beverly
shane 1:30 PM @ autry
the punk singer 3 PM @ arena
sun. dec. 15
catwalk @ part time punks @ the echo
abie kabibble outwitting his rival 5 PM, his nibs, feel my pulse @ ucla film archive
dead meadow @ think tank
naomi punk @ the smell
going attractions: the definitive story of the american drive-in movie, dementia 13 @ egyptian
thief, american gigolo @ aero
the 51st ann arbor film festival traveling tour: digital program @ filmforum @ spielberg @ egyptian
a christmas story, gremlins @ new beverly
the punk singer 2:30 PM @ arena
mon. dec. 16
froth FREE (RSVP) @ bootleg
a christmas story 8 PM @ arclight pasadena
muscle shoals @ the crest
wrong cops FREE (RSVP) 7 PM @ usc ray stark
naomi punk @ take off
a christmas story, gremlins @ new beverly
tue. dec. 17
a christmas story 8 PM @ arclight sherman oaks
close encounters of the third kind FREE 1 PM @ lacma
drugstore cowboy FREE 6:30 PM @ santa monica library montana branch
the past FREE (RSVP) 7 PM @ usc ray stark
black christmas, christmas evil @ grindhouse film fest @ new beverly
southern california library holiday book sale, 11 AM - 5 PM @ southern california library for social studies and research
wed. dec. 18
the age of consent, bed of roses @ ucla film archive
adventure time encyclopedia benefit @ trepany house @ steve allen theater
northern lights 8 PM @ new beverly
thu. dec. 19
metaphor as memory FREE @ 7 dudley cinema @ beyond baroque
die hard 8 PM @ arclight pasadena
white reindeer @ silent movie theater
lost & found film club: 16 millimeter-mas 10:30 PM @ silent movie theater
northern lights 8 PM @ new beverly
the royal tenenbaums @ palace theater
fri. dec. 20
jon brion @ largo
national lampoon's christmas vacation MIDNIGHT @ nuart
die hard, die hard 2 @ egyptian
it's a wonderful life @ aero
it's a wonderful life 7:20 PM @ silent movie theater
ms. 45 10:15 PM @ silent movie theater
home alone MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater
the golden voyage of sinbad, the 7th voyage of sinbad @ new beverly
sat. dec. 21
everything is terrible! holiday special 2013 @ the echo
it's a wonderful life @ egyptian
lawrence of arabia (70mm) @ aero
it's a wonderful life 8 PM @ silent movie theater
chinatown FREE 1 PM @ la central library meeting room a
the golden voyage of sinbad 3:15 7:30 PM, the 7th voyage of sinbad 5:20 9:35 PM @ new beverly
gremlins (16mm) 7 PM @ secret sixteen @ jumpcut cafe
sun. dec. 22
gospel music films FREE @ 7 dudley cinema @ beyond baroque
it's a wonderful life 4:30 PM @ silent movie theater
what's up doc? 7:45 @ greg proops film club @ silent movie theater
mon. dec. 23
it's a wonderful life @ aero
nutcracker fantasy 10:15 PM @ silent movie theater
tue. dec. 24
it's a wonderful life @ silent movie theater
wed. dec. 25
it's a wonderful life @ silent movie theater
thu. dec. 26
heller keller, smelveteen @ the smell
the bank dick, tillie and gus @ aero
it's a wonderful life @ silent movie theater
fri. dec. 27
dead alive MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater
north by northwest MIDNIGHT @ nuart
vertigo (70mm) @ egyptian
my man godfrey, my sister eileen @ aero
don jon, magic mike @ new beverly
froth FREE 7 PM @ origami
wrong cops @ silent movie theater
sat. dec. 28
the poseidon adventure @ egyptian
his girl friday, the major and the minor @ aero
don jon 3:10 7:30 PM, magic mike 5:00 9:20 PM @ new beverly
wrong cops 7 PM @ silent movie theater
sun. dec. 29
lawrence of arabia (70mm) @ egyptian
ball of fire, bluebeard's eighth wife @ aero
the godfather 4 PM, the godfather: part ii @ new beverly
wrong cops 10 PM @ silent movie theater
it's a wonderful life 7 PM @ silent movie theater
mon. dec. 30
the godfather 7 PM, the godfather: part ii @ new beverly
wrong cops 10:15 PM @ silent movie theater
it's a wonderful life @ silent movie theater
tue. dec. 31
los angeles nye noise demo 10 PM @ city hall
giant drag @ cheetahs
wed. jan. 1
a night at the opera 5 PM, a day at the races @ aero
wrong cops 9:30 PM @ silent movie theater
it's a wonderful life 6:30 PM @ silent movie theater
thu. jan. 2
wrong cops 5 PM @ silent movie theater
it's a frame up, who done it?, crazy house @ aero
fri. jan. 3
the blues brothers MIDNIGHT @ nuart
let us live, east of fifth avenue @ ucla film archive
raging bull, rocky @ egyptian
blue velvet MIDNIGHT @ silent movie theater
sat. jan. 4
the night mayor, washington merry-go-round @ ucla film archive
back to the future, back to the future part ii, back to the future part iii @ egyptian
how strange to be named federico, 8 1/2 @ aero
bending steel 1:45 PM @ silent movie theater
harry dean stanton: partly fiction 4:30 PM @ silent movie theater
chain & the gang @ the smell
sun. jan. 5
moonbeams @ part time punks @ the echo
housemaids FREE 7 PM @ ucla film archive
m. geddes gengras @ human resources
the godfather part ii @ egyptian
the search for emak bakia 2:45 PM @ silent movie theater
cutie and the boxer 5 PM @ silent movie theater
the 51st ann arbor film festival traveling tour: 16mm show @ filmforum @ spielberg @ egyptian
tue. jan. 7
the guns of navarone 1 PM @ lacma
wed. jan. 8
ms. 45 8 PM @ the crest
fri. jan. 10
hausu MIDNIGHT @ nuart
searching for sugarman FREE 8 PM @ monterey park art + film lab @ east la college
ms. 45 10 PM @ the crest
tue. jan. 14
gilda 1 PM @ lacma
fri. jan. 17
white fence, parquet courts @ fonda
stephen steinbrink @ pehrspace
little fugitive FREE 7 PM @ monterey park art + film lab @ east la college
sat. jan. 18
the goonies 6:30 PM @ electric dusk drive-in
tue. jan. 21
born yesterday 1 PM @ lacma
thu. jan. 23
chris cohen @ the echo
fri. jan. 24
wooden shjips, carlton melton @ the echo
sat. jan. 25
wooden shjips @ soda bar (SD)
sun. jan. 26
wooden shjips @ constellation room (santa ana)
tue. jan. 28
to sir with love 1 PM @ lacma
thu. jan. 30
terms and conditions may apply FREE @ hammer
fri. jan. 31
jon brion @ largo
sat. feb. 1
monty python and the holy grail 8 PM @ alex theatre
edward scissorhands 6:30 PM @ electric dusk drive-in
mon. feb. 3
the blank tapes FREE @ satellite
fri. feb. 7
the three burials of melquiades estrada FREE 7 PM @ monterey park art + film lab @ east la college
sat. feb. 8
to live FREE 7 PM @ monterey park art + film lab @ east la college
mon. feb. 10
the blank tapes FREE @ satellite
sat. feb. 15
casablanca 7 PM @ electric dusk drive-in
mon. feb. 17
the blank tapes FREE @ satellite
tue. feb. 18
inequality for all FREE @ hammer
wed. feb. 19
the making of an avant-garde FREE @ hammer
mon. feb. 24
the blank tapes FREE @ satellite
fri. feb. 28
jon brion @ largo
sat. mar. 1
the godfather 7 PM @ electric dusk drive-in
tue. mar. 18
kraftwerk: autobahn (7:30) @ disney hall
kraftwerk: radio-activity (10:30) @ disney hall
wed. mar. 19
kraftwerk: trans europe express (7:30) @ disney hall
kraftwerk: the man-machine (10:30) @ disney hall
thu. mar. 20
kraftwerk: computer world (7:30) @ disney hall
kraftwerk: techno pop (10:30) @ disney hall
fri. mar. 21
kraftwerk: the mix (7:30) @ disney hall
kraftwerk: tour de france (10:30) @ disney hall
WHAT IT IS:
Abie Kabibble Outwitting His Rival (1917)
Directed by Gregory La Cava
In 1917, director Gregory La Cava was hired by William Randolph Hearst to oversee production at International Film Service, a company he had set up to adapt Hearst-controlled comic strips into animated shorts for the big screen. Abie Kabibble Outwitting His Rival was one of two such shorts based on the Harry Hershfield’s comic “Abie the Agent” which featured the first Jewish character in an American comic strip, Abraham Kabibble, a middle class car salesman. In the short, La Cava retains the graphic word bubble element of the comics as Abie goes to great lengths to steal a customer from a competing dealership across the street. 35mm, b/w, silent, 7 min.
BALL OF FIRE
1941, 111 min, USA, Dir: Howard Hawks
Barbara Stanwyck is sassy, saucy Sugarpuss O’Shea, a wisecracking nightclub singer on the run from mob kingpins. Gary Cooper is good egg Professor Bertram Potts, a naive scholar who meets the crooner while researching slang. Two worlds collide as Sugarpuss hides out with Potts and his nerdy crew of lexicographers in Howard Hawks’ wonderfully hilarious romantic comedy, which garnered four Oscar nominations, including Stanwyck for Best Actress and Billy Wilder and Thomas Monroe for Best Original Screenplay.
Bed of Roses (1933)
Directed by Gregory La Cava
Constance Bennett burns up the pre-Code screen as Lorry, a prostitute back on the make after a jail stint with her eyes on a wealthy publisher and a plan to blackmail her way to easy street. Mucking up the works is Joel McCrea’s barge captain who crosses Lorry’s path and who she can’t get off her mind. Packed with snappy lines -- some of the best delivered by Pert Kelton as Lorry’s hard-boiled friend--Bed of Roses is director Gregory La Cava’s steamiest work.
RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. Producer: Merian C. Cooper. Screenwriter: Wanda Tuchock, G. La Cava, Eugene Thackrey. Cinematographer: Charles Rosher. Editor: Basil Wrangell. Cast: Constance Bennett, Joel McCrea, John Halliday, Pert Kelton, Samuel Hinds. 16mm, b/w, 67 min.
BLUEBEARD’S EIGHTH WIFE
1938, Universal, 85 min, USA, Dir: Ernst Lubitsch
Gary Cooper plays multimillionaire Michael Brandon, who changes wives as if they were underwear (or, in this case, pajama tops) until he marries the daughter (Claudette Colbert) of an impoverished marquis. As lucrative as divorce would be, the young woman is determined to be the final Mrs. Brandon. Director Ernst Lubitsch’s first pairing with the Charles Brackett-Billy Wilder writing team was a match made in heaven.
A CENTURY AGO: THE FILMS OF 1913
The Final Reign of One-Reel Films
Presented on a 1909 hand-cranked Power’s Model 6 Cameragraph motion picture machine, restored and cranked by Joe Rinaudo. Featuring live musical accompaniment by Michael Mortilla.
The Academy celebrates the year 1913 and its developmental contributions to motion pictures with a program of selected films in “A Century Ago: The Films of 1913.”
The program will spotlight a selection of short films reflecting a typical night at the movies 100 years ago, just as longer “feature-length” films of three or more reels were beginning to emerge more frequently. Movie stars, filmmaking techniques and genres had blossomed to create a bustling business for the young and rapidly expanding motion picture phenomenon, with 1913 becoming a turning point for movies as we have come to know them.
Films will include “Suspense,” a split-screen tour-de-force directed by Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley; “Barney Oldfield’s Race for a Life,” featuring Mabel Normand and Mack
Sennett; “The Lady and the Mouse,” directed by D.W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish; “The Evidence of the Film,” a picture from Thanhouser of New Rochelle, New York, featuring a crime that is solved by a film editor; and highlights from several feature-length films including “Traffic in Souls,” a sensational movie exploiting the fear of “white-slave” trafficking.
Most prints will be in 35mm and are drawn from the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the British Film Institute, EYE Film Institute Netherlands and the Library of Congress.
CHICKEN WITH VINEGAR
POULET AU VINAIGRE
1985, Cohen Film, 110 min, France, Dir: Claude Chabrol
Unorthodox detective Jean Lavardin (Jean Poiret) is called to a provincial French town after a prank turns deadly in this underrated mystery flecked with sly humor. In French with English subtitles.
CINEFAMILY TELETHON: CLOSER: 11AM-1PM
Featuring lunchtime conversation/hangout with Bruce Dern, and more!
CINEFAMILY TELETHON: GRAND OPENING: 1-5PM
- Q&A with Anjelica Huston
- Roger Ebert tribute w/ documentarian Steve James (Hoop Dreams), including excerpts from the upcoming film Life Itself on the subject of Ebert’s life and work!
- And more…
CINEFAMILY TELETHON: MIDNIGHT MADNESS: 9PM-1AM
Featuring:
- Eric Wareheim
- Mike Judge’s "Judgemental Sampler": join us as we kneel humbly before the beloved creator of Office Space, Idiocracy and King of the Hill for a rare public screening of his "Judgemental Sampler," the legendary mixtape of found footage madness circulated amongst his closest friends for years. In every subtly edited clip, the personality that spawned Beavis and Butt-head clearly shines through, busting guts and blowing minds with the trademark Judge blend of cultural satire.
- Everything is Terrible! presents Acapellasqatsi & "The Terrible Machine": the amazingly talented Hi-Fidelity Quartet will perform LIVE their rendition of Philip Glass’s score to Koyaanisqatsi. Plus, a return of Everything Is Festival 2013's wildly popular video mash-up game console The Terrible Machine!
- And more…
CINEFAMILY TELETHON: MORNING: 6-11AM
Featuring:
- encore film presentation from our friends at the Exploratorium (plus childrens’ “direct animation” workshop!)
- Claire Evans (of YACHT) presenting video rarities from the archives of forward-thinking sci-fi cultural cornerstone OMNI Magazine
- live performance by the Bob Baker Marionette Theater
- and more…
CINEFAMILY TELETHON: THE NITE OWL: 1-6AM
Featuring:
- live performance by Father John Misty
- live score by The Gaslamp Killer to legendary animator Bruce Bickford’s decades-in-the-making opus Cas’l (w/ Bruce Bickford in person!)
- And more…
CINEFAMILY TELETHON: PRIMETIME: 5-9PM
Featuring drone metal pioneers Earth performing live to Werner Herzog’s hypnotic 1971 documentary Fata Morgana, and more!
A CITY OF SADNESS
Directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien
By the late 1980s, director Hou Hsiao-hsien had become recognized internationally for his signature filmmaking style---consisting of spare dialogue, long, lingering shots, extraordinarily precise compositions and a remarkable use of deep focus---and his highly specific but universally resonant stories of intergenerational conflict and change. With A City of Sadness, Hou takes on a far broader historical canvas: the period of the "White Terror" between 1945 and 1950, when Taiwan became host to the Nationalist Chinese government-in-exile as they fled from their defeat at the hands of Mao's Communists---an era of political repression that reached its brutal culmination in the "February 28 Incident," the 1947 massacre of thousands of Taiwanese civilians by Nationalist soldiers. Focusing on four brothers, each of whom represents a different response by the Taiwanese to the Nationalist government---with particular emphasis on the gentle, deaf-mute Wen-ching, movingly played by Hong Kong superstar Tony Leung Chiu-wai---Hou keeps the famous historical events off-screen while showing the tragic ruptures they create within the microcosmic world of the family. A Taiwanese mirror of the "scar films" then being made in a Mainland China just recovering from the Cultural Revolution, Hou's beautiful, tragic, and ineffably moving City is, "one of the supreme masterworks of the contemporary cinema" (Jonathan Rosenbaum).
3-H Films, Era International. Producer: Ch’iu Fu-sheng. Screenwriter: Chu T’ien-yen, Wu Nien-jen. Cinematographer: Chen Hwai-en. Editor: Liao Ch’ing-sung. Cast: Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Li Tien-lu, Hsin Shu-fen, Kao Jai, Chen Sown-yung. 35mm, color, in Mandarin, Min Nan and Cantonese with English subtitles, 160 min.
Cléo From 5 to 7
1961, 90 minutes, black and white, DCP
Written and directed by Agnès Varda; with Corinne Marchand, Antoine Bourseiller, Dominique Davray, Dorothée Blanck, and Michel Legrand
The film that cemented writer/director Agnès Varda’s reputation as a major new filmmaker, Cléo From 5 to 7 nimbly chronicles in real-time a fraught moment in the life of upstart chanteuse Cléo. Drifting through the bustle of Paris’s Left Bank as she awaits the results of a biopsy, Cléo may be cinema’s first female flaneur. Following her every step of the way is Varda, documenting the buzz of street life and subtly registering the shifts in Cléo’s temperament from narcissistic exuberance to sober mindfulness. The war in Algeria seeps through the radio and even takes physical form in a soldier Cléo encounters in Parc Montsouris. Featuring a score and cameo by Michel Legrand—fresh off A Woman Is a Woman and three years before penning music for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg—not to mention appearances by Jean-Luc Godard and Anna Karina in a silent-film-within-the-film, Cléo From 5 to 7 finds Varda one-upping her New Wave colleagues with a masterpiece at once delightfully vivacious and enduringly poignant. The film prompted Positif, the Left Bank rival to the New Wave’s Cahiers du Cinema, to proclaim, “There is nothing rarer than a mind smitten in equal measure with rigor and fancy, except for a temperament that is both hyper instinctive and extra lucid at the same time. Agnès Varda is the harmony of her opposites, and perhaps the most complete of our filmmakers.”
Also screening tonight, a different look from Varda of women in Paris: Les dites cariatides (The So-called Caryatids) | 13 minutes, color, 35mm) considers the many female statues that adorn facades throughout the city.
Comrades: Almost a Love Story (Hong Kong, 1996)
Directed by Peter Chan
Made one year before the handover of Hong Kong to the Mainland, prolific Second Wave filmmaker Peter Chan’s tender, lyrical boy-meets-girl chronicle garnered nine prizes at the Hong Kong Film Awards, including Best Director and Best Actress. Leaving his fiancée back home in Beijing, wide-eyed Xiao Jun (Leon Lai) arrives in Hong Kong from the Mainland in 1986 to pursue his dreams of making a comfortable life for his future family. He soon meets the ambitious, shrewd and hard-working Li Qiao (Maggie Cheung), who turns out to be a fellow Mainlander. The friendship between Xiao Jun and Li Qiao, made more intimate by their mutual physical dislocation and experience of urban isolation, quickly escalates into a heated love affair that spans a decade and the vast distance between two islands in transition---Hong Kong and New York City---as the couple separate and reconnect with each other in unexpected circumstances. Its soundtrack filled with the warm and nostalgic songs of pan-Asian singing sensation Teresa Teng---whose tragically early passing during production inspired Chan to change the film’s Chinese title to that of one of her best known songs ("Tian Mi Mi")---Comrades is both a spellbinding romance and a scintillating snapshot of Hong Kong, capturing the megacity’s palpable anxiety and disorientation on the brink of profound historic change.
Golden Harvest Company, United Filmmakers Organization. Producer: Raymond Chow, Eric Tsang. Screenwriter: Ivy Ho. Cinematographer: Jingle Ma. Editor: Chan Ki-Hop, Kwang Chi-leung. Cast: Maggie Cheung, Leon Lai, Eric Tsang, Irene Tsu, Christopher Doyle. 35mm, in Cantonese and Mandarin with English subtitles, 118 min.
THE DEVIL'S PATH
Journalist Shuichi Fujii receives a letter from death row inmate Junji Sudo, wanting to confess to crimes unknown. Sudo seeks revenge for being setup by the murders true mastermind, and implores Fujii to find the evidence needed to bring in his former boss. Working off Sudo’s sketchy memories, Fujii begins to piece together a grizzly tale of extortion, torture, rape, and arson, but as his desire to see justice nears the boiling point, he runs into resistance from his editor, the police, who seem indifferent to the case, and his even his wife, who is left dealing with his mother’s increasing dementia. Based on true crime cases, “The Devil’s Path” exposes the secret underbelly of crime in modern Japan. Dir. Kazuya Shiraishi, 2013, 128 min
DIGITAL RESTORATION OF DISNEY ANIMATED SHORTS
The Academy Award-winning shorts Flowers and Trees and The Old Mill, made by Walt Disney in the 1930s, first introduced audiences to Technicolor animation. While these shorts served as a testing ground for expansion to the Technicolor features Disney would later produce, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Fantasia, they were also animation masterpieces in their own right. Twenty years later, Disney won another Oscar for his studio's first foray into color widescreen (Cinemascope) animation, Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom. Screenings of the 4k digital restorations of all three shorts will be accompanied by a detailed discussion of the challenges of preserving and restoring animated films. IN PERSON: Theo Gluck, Walt Disney Company.
Documenteur
1981, 65 minutes, color, DCP
Written and directed by Agnès Varda; with Sabine Mamou and Mathieu Demy
In the late 1970s, Agnès Varda found herself living once more in Los Angeles, this time separated from her husband Jacques Demy. Made during this period, the introspective Documenteur traces the drifting course of French single-mother Emilie (Tunisian-born Sabine Mamou, also the film’s editor) as she relocates in self-imposed exile to Venice with her young son in tow (played effortlessly by Varda’s own child: Mathieu Demy). Emilie spends her days transcribing at a desk that offers an encumbered view of sand and ocean, broken only by the occasional gleaners. A city much changed since her time here in the turbulent, hippie-flecked ‘60s, Varda finds Los Angeles a strange, fascinating new frontier of alleys and murals—the subject of her other film from this period Mur murs—that are as colorful and elusive as its citizens. The Los Angeles of Documenteur is a wintry labyrinth. The resulting film is one of Varda’s most mysterious and beautiful works.
EVERYBODY STREET
Filmmaker Cheryl Dunn in person! In a heady, dense rush, showing off some of the best and most idiosyncratic NYC street photography from the last full century, Everybody Street illuminates the lives and work of New York’s iconic street photographers, and the incomparable city that has inspired them. The documentary pays tribute to the spirit of the medium through a cinematic exploration of the City That Never Sleeps, and captures the visceral rush, singular perseverance and at times immediate danger customary to these artists — some of whom have never been covered as film subjects before, until now. From the surreal to the silly, from charming neighborhood slices of life to life-threatening police run-ins, from hip-hop to old ladies to everything in-between, Everybody Street throbs with the vital pulse of one of the world’s most amazing human nexus points. Featuring the work of Bruce Davidson, Elliott Erwitt, Jill Freedman, Bruce Gilden, Joel Meyerowitz, Rebecca Lepkoff, Mary Ellen Mark, Jeff Mermelstein, Clayton Patterson, Ricky Powell, Jamel Shabazz, Martha Cooper, Boogie, and more!
Dir. Cheryl Dunn, 2013, digital presentation, 83 min.
Feel My Pulse (1928)
Directed by Gregory La Cava
The incomparable Bebe Daniels gets big laughs as a hypochondriac heiress who retreats to a sanitarium that, unbeknownst to her, has become a hideout for bootleggers. William Powell is the gang’s heavy who plays along until the truth outs in a splendid slapstick crescendo.
Paramount Famous Lasky Corp. Screenwriter: Nicholas T. Barrows, George Marion Jr., Howard Emmett Rogers, Keene Thompson. Cinematographer: J. Roy Hunt. Editor: E. Lloyd Sheldon. Cast: Bebe Daniels, Melbourne MacDowell, George Irving, Charles Sellon, William Powell. 16mm, b/w, silent, 63 min.
The 51st Ann Arbor Film Festival Traveling Tour, Digital Program
Los Angeles Filmforum concludes its 2013 programming with what is now an annual tradition – the Ann Arbor Film Festival Traveling Tour, giving Los Angeles audiences a chance to see the best new experimental works from around the world! Los Angeles Filmforum is pleased to present the 51st AAFF Traveling Tour. This program of short films includes recent experimental, narrative, documentary and animated films from England, Canada, India and the US; all selected from the most recent Ann Arbor Film Festival. We’ll be presenting a program of 16mm films from the festival in January!
THE FILMS OF BRUCE CONNER
Renowned American artist Bruce Conner (November 18, 1933 – July 7, 2008) was seismically influential in a large number of disciplines, was actively involved in the California counterculture, and is known the world over for his work in assemblage, film, drawing, sculpture, painting, collage, and photography. Connor’s film work also established him as a pioneer of the found-footage movement, something near and dear to our hearts here at Cinefamily. Wild, beautiful, humorous, sometimes contemplative and always compelling, Conner’s films are what the Hammer Museum calls “an inspired mix of heartfelt meditation and political satire” — and the artist is thought by many to be the father of the modern music video. Join us as we celebrate Bruce’s life with a collection of his short films from the ‘60s to the ‘80s, including collaborations with Terry Riley, Brian Eno, David Byrne, Devo, Toni Basil and Jay DeFeo. Rarely screened, these films are guaranteed to move and inspire.
The evening’s film lineup includes:
COSMIC RAY (1961)
A MOVIE (1958)
BREAKWAY (1966)
MEA CULPA (1981)
MONGOLOID (1978)
EASTER MORNING (2008)
LOOKING FOR MUSHROOMS (1967)
PAS DE TROIS
and more!
Finyé (The Wind)
Mali, 1982, 100 minutes
Written and directed by Souleymane Cissé
Starring Fousseyni Sissoko, Goundo Guissé, and Balla Moussa Keita
Writer/director Souleymane Cissé’s 1982 drama starts with a deft intimacy—following high-school classmates from two disparate worlds as they traverse the tricky roads of family and friends while keeping an eye on their futures. Ba is a young man from the village, struggling to keep his grades up, and Batrou is the sensitive daughter of a no-nonsense military man. But then Cissé shifts the ground beneath the feet of his characters—and the audience—when a political stand becomes the center of the story. What seemed to be a tried and true story of the path to adulthood becomes another altogether different one. “The wind awakens the path of man,” a title informs at the beginning of Finyé, and Cissé is out to reveal what happens when a force of nature prods another such force into action.
FREE TIME AND SUNSHINE
Echo Park Film Center invites you to the premiere of the EPFC Fall 2013 Youth Documentary Project… Free Time and Sunshine: Home Movies in Southern California. Working with local film archivists, preservationists and humanities experts, local youth between the ages of 12 and 19 have explored the history of the home movie as it pertains to life in mid-century Southern California and the perpetuation of the American Dream. Their half hour documentary project was filmed on Super 8, and incorporates historic home movie footage from local archives and personal family collections. Preceding the documentary, the students own home movies, filmed on Ektachrome Super 8, will be shown from the camera original rolls throughout the beautiful Velaslavasay Panorama building.
GAMBLE IN SOULS
This will be an extremely rare event! Quite possibly the very first time that a feature length film has been projected continuously on 28mm! Utilizing 2 antique Pathescope Premier projectors (both circa 1918), a nearly 100 year old film print will be projected switching between the 2 machines. Given the cost of the machines when they were originally sold, it is very doubtful that anyone purchased 2 for this purpose. As more and more silent films are beginning to be presented digitally, they are being removed from their proper historical context. Take advantage of this opportunity to see a rare film that only exists today on 28mm (1 print at USC and 1 print at GEH) and may never be given a full restoration. Live musical accompaniment by Michael Mortilla. Program: Gamble in Souls, starring William Desmond, Dorothy Dalton, 1916, 28mm, 80 min. (Tinted, Archival 28mm print courtesy of USC Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive), plus How Movies Move (1918) from the collection of Pray Pictures shorts of Thomas Stathes.
GOING ATTRACTIONS: THE DEFINITIVE STORY OF THE AMERICAN DRIVE-IN MOVIE
2013, 85 min, USA, Dir: April Wright
Two of America’s greatest loves - cars and movies - intersect at drive-in theaters; in the years following World War II, thousands of them spread across the country. Though the popularity of drive-ins began to decline in the late 1960s, a few hundred still remain, and this new documentary explores the enduring appeal of watching films under the stars. Discussion between films with GOING ATTRACTIONS director April Wright.
THE GREAT ECSTASY OF THE WOODCARVER STEINER
The Great Ecstasy of the Sculptor Steiner (1975, 45 mins.) explores the ski-jumping exploits of a Swiss woodcarver determined to confront his fear of "flying" head-on. "Beautiful, moving and exhilarating" (Vincent Canby, The New York Times). Dir. Werner Herzog.
HIS GIRL FRIDAY
1940, Sony Repertory, 92 min, Dir: Howard Hawks
This frenzied remake of Hecht and MacArthur’s THE FRONT PAGE switches ace newsman Hildy Johnson to a woman (Rosalind Russell at her peak), while Cary Grant does a complete 180 from BRINGING UP BABY as cynical editor Walter Burns. The unparalleled cast includes Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart, Porter Hall, Ernest Truex, Roscoe Karns, Cliff Edwards, John Qualen, Billy Gilbert and tons more. Featuring some of the most rapid-fire dialogue ever, by screenwriters Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.
His Nibs (1921)
Directed by Gregory La Cava
One of director Gregory La Cava's first directorial jobs after moving from animation, His Nibs features vaudeville star "Chic" Sale in multiple roles in a film within a film about a movie screening in a small town.
Exceptional Pictures. Screenwriter: Arthur Hoerl. Cinematographer: A.J. Stout. Editor: Arthur Hoerl. Cast: Charles “Chic” Sale, Colleen Moore, Joseph J. Dowling, J.P. Lockney, Walt Whitman. 35mm, b/w, silent, 59 min.
INSPECTOR LAVARDIN
INSPECTEUR LAVARDIN
1986, Cohen Film, 100 min, France, Dir: Claude Chabrol
Jean Poiret reprises his role as French Inspector Lavardin, who is called to provincial village to investigate a murder – only to find that one of his ex-lovers is the victim’s widow. In French with English subtitles.
Intertidal
(2012, 16mm X 2 analytic, ~50-60 minutes)
Inspired both by the work and thought of 1940s marine scientist Ed Ricketts and the technical approach of French filmmaker Jean Painleve in the same era, INTERTIDAL presents a submersive exploration of the tidal zones and marine life off the shores of Western Canada. Using both camera and non-camera approaches, this performance-based work presented on two analytic 16mm projectors speaks to the fragility of both the film medium and the marine environment explored. Travelling as far West as Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island and North to the tip of Naikoon on Haida Gwaii, this route expessly emulates that which Ricketts and his close friend author John Steinbeck intended to revisit prior to Ricketts' untimely death in 1948. The scope and materiality of both emulsion and environment are explored using elements as wide ranging as photograms, alternative film chemistry, live manipulation, and the very movement of the tides themselves. At once personal, political, visual and ecological, the work gives equal weight to representation and abstraction. A project of process through exploration, INTERTIDAL is a marine ecology for emulsion: teeming and tenuous, fleeting and alive.
IT’S A GIFT
1934, Universal, 73 min, USA, Dir: Norman Z. McLeod
Considered by some to be the Great Man’s greatest film, this short, sweet W.C. Fields vehicle is little more than a series of zany sketches loosely tied to his desire to move to California and grow oranges. Includes the legendary "Mr. Muckle" and "Carl LaFong" scenes, as well as the hanging mirror and sleeping porch routines. Jean Rouverol, who co-wrote THE FIRST TIME, plays Fields’ daughter.
Jacquot de Nantes
1991, 118 minutes, black and white and color, DCP
Written and directed by Agnès Varda; with Philippe Maron, Edouard Joubeaud, Laurent Monnier, Brigitte de Villepoix, and Daniel Dublet
Agnès Varda’s enchanting ode to the cinema and childhood of Jacques Demy blends clips from the director’s colorful oeuvre—masterpieces such as Lola and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg—with scripted black and white scenes imagining his years growing up in Brittany under the shadow of World War II. A precocious boy with a tight-knit, blue-collar family—an auto-mechanic father and hairdresser mother—the young Demy found his way to film through a love of puppetry and circuses. Comparing how details from Demy’s childhood may have resurfaced in fictionalized form in his motion pictures, Varda’s film is part biography and part bittersweet whimsy. The gray-haired, real-life Demy also appears throughout the film as Varda underscores the unerring toll of time. Finished the year after Demy passed away, Jacquot de Nantes is not just a touching elegy from a wife to her husband, but a tender love letter from one great filmmaker to another.
Kung Fu Master
1987, 80 minutes, color, 35mm
Written and directed by Agnès Varda; with Jane Birkin, Mathieu Demy, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Lou Doillon
A unique coming-of-age tale, Agnès Varda’s little-seen Kung Fu Master finds single mother Jane Birkin falling for one of her daughter’s classmates. Making things even more interesting, the film is a family affair—Birkin’s own daughters star as themselves as do her parents and Varda’s son Mathieu Demy plays the preteen paramour. Spanning Paris and London, arcade games and AIDS panic, Margaret Thatcher on Spitting Image and mohawked punks on the streets, braces and chiptunes, desolate beaches and schoolboy bravado, Kung Fu Master considers how the worlds of adults and children reflect and distort each other.
“Quite moving . . . [the film] draws a delicate line between the pure and the profane.” —Georgia Brown, The Village Voice
LA AIR: KELSEY BRAIN
LA AIR is an artist-in-residence program that invites Los Angeles filmmakers to utilize EPFC resources in creating a new work over a four-week period. Our December LA AIR resident is Kelsey Brain. Of her project, Kelsey says: “The community in my apartment building is changing from old to young, from working class to middle class, and from families to individuals. Over time I have come to know my neighbors. With their help, I will make a film.”
La Pointe Courte
1961, 90 minutes, black and white, DCP
Written and directed by Agnès Varda; with Corinne Marchand, Antoine Bourseiller, Dominique Davray, Dorothée Blanck, and Michel Legrand
Agnès Varda’s debut is set in the rustic seaside hamlet Sète, where her family migrated to from Belgium when she was a child. Inspired by the structure of William Faulkner’s The Wild Palms (aka If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem), Varda interweaves two narratives: a vérité look at the everyday life of Sète’s fishermen and a neorealist-tinged portrait of a couple’s quietly disintegrating marriage. Edited by and clearly influential to future auteur Alain Resnais, La Pointe Courte not only marked the transition of Varda from photographer to filmmaker, but it also predated by several years the first films of the French New Wave such as The 400 Blows and Breathless. Throughout her career Varda returned to Sète, most recently in her new television series From Here to There. The village, its residents, and this film are all key inspirations to her work.
“A miraculous film, in its existence and its style.”—Andre Bazin
Also screening, L'Opéra-Mouffe (1958, 17 minutes, black and white, 35mm)—which Varda made shortly after La Pointe Courte—a freewheeling amusement portraying life on the Rue Mouffetard, a pedestrian-clogged stretch of the Left Bank, interspersed with Surrealistic impressions of pregnancy.
THE LAST LAUGH
After shocking audiences worldwide with Nosferatu, but before emigrating to Hollywood for Sunrise, F.W. Murnau revolutionized filmmaking with this most silent of silent films — one rare for its lack of intertitles, and timeless for its artful social commentary. Using daring camera angles, expressionist framing and groundbreaking P.O.V. effects to convey a subjective psychological state, The Last Laugh tells the heartrending story of Emil Jannings (The Blue Angel, The Last Command) as an elderly hotel doorman demoted to washroom attendant, who must fight to retain his dignity in his life’s winter years. Tellingly, the original German title was The Last Man, yet the pathos at play here retains its power to inspire, finding breathtaking beauty in potentially bleak subject matter. Made at the height of Murnau’s powers, with gorgeous cinematography by Karl Freund and his “unchained camera” (a breakthrough technique that freed the camera eye from the conventional tripod), The Last Laugh is a silent classic of the highest order — one that forever defines the question “is it the work that makes the man?” in our cinematic vocabulary. Dir. F.W. Murnau, 1924, 35mm, 101 min.
LEAVING ON THE 15TH SPRING
Based on real life on the Okinawan island of Minami-Daito. The film depicts the excitement and anxieties of a girl, Yuna (Miyoshi Ayaka), in her last year of junior high school, living on an island without a high school where further study means leaving home. After her mother followed her older sister when she left for high school, Yuna worries about her father’s solitary life after she leaves as well. A beautiful family drama unfolds. Dir. Yasuhiro Yoshida, 2013, 114 min.
Le Bonheur
1965, 85 minutes, color, 35mm
Written and directed by Agnès Varda; with Jean-Claude Drouot, Claire Drouot, and Marie-France Boyer
Agnès Varda’s follow-up to her breakthrough Cléo From 5 to 7 is an equally masterful though more enigmatic portrait of self-transformation and the bearing of time. Though married to a cheerful dressmaker and the mother of his two young children, carpenter François finds himself flirting unabashedly with a gamine postal clerk. Mozart meets Brigitte Bardot in Varda’s lyrical ode to the pleasures and snares of modern suburban life as the serenity of François’s postcard-perfect nuclear family is jeopardized by his actions. Released not too long after Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Jean-Luc Godard’s A Married Woman, Varda’s film echoes the vibrant color palette and heartrending plot twists of the former and the minimalist, coital tableaux vivants of the latter. One of Varda’s most pictorially perfect films, Le Bonheur offers a progressively darker narrative in glorious sunlight.
Also screening, two meditations by Varda on romance and coupling: Elsa la rose (1965, 20 minutes, black and white, digital) on the life and love of Surrealist poet Louis Aragon and his wife Elsa Triolet, and the silent film pastiche Les Fiancés du pont Mac Donald (1961, 3 minutes, black and white, digital) starring Jean-Luc Godard, Anna Karina, and Jean-Claude Brialy.
Les Soviets Plus l’Électricité (Soviets Plus Electricity)
(2001, 15mm, 175 min.)
A cinetrip to a defunct country
Super-self-production in Sviemacolor by Nicolas Rey
Three hours of 16mm public transportation.
Wandering through Russia as if through someone else's house.
Soviets Plus Electricity is a cinematic journey through Russia to Magadan, a city famous in Soviet times for being synonymous with deportation. Based on excerpts from his acoustic diary, documentary footage and some autobiographical insights given on the way, the roving reporter searches for imaginary roots and its historical and political implications. The film was shot in August and September 1999.
"Day two is the worst. It was the same in the train: on the second day, I stamped my feet impatiently. Then, from the third day on, it gets better. You get used to the slowness, to the monotonous landscape, to a life made up of short sleep-eat-wait cycles having absolutely nothing to do with the usual timing of a day." Advertisements for linoleum as if it were some precious stone, and entire cities - built on gold mines - left abandoned. There is no such thing as Russian chaos. Just "Europe" stretching all the way to the Pacific Ocean, and no longer merely to the ghostly Oural Mountains.
LOST & FOUND FILM CLUB: 16 MILLIMETER-MAS
December’s “16 Millimetermas” program will contain ho-ho-holiday favorites plus some recent discoveries sure to put you in the spirit of the season, including an IBM typewriter sales film by Jim Henson featuring Rowlf the Dog and the 1941 anaglyphic 3D short: Third Dimensional Murder. Join us as we bust out our red & blue glasses for this rarely-screened stocking stuffer!
THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR
1942, Universal, 100 min, USA, Dir: Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder made his Hollywood directorial debut with this wartime farce, cowritten with frequent collaborator Charles Brackett. Ginger Rogers sparkles as a woman who masquerades as a 12-year-old girl to travel by train on a child’s fare; Ray Milland is the military man who shelters the youngster.
The Making of an Avant-Garde
Co-presented with the MAK Center for Art and Architecture
The Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS) began as a core group of young architects including Diana Agrest, Peter Eisenman, Frank Gehry, Philip Johnson, Rem Koolhaas, Richard Meier, and Anthony Vidler, seeking alternatives to traditional forms of education and practice. IAUS has since redefined architectural discourse and practice in the United States and abroad. (2013, Dir. Diana Agrest, 64 min.)
A Q&A with director Diana Agrest follows the screening.
METAPHOR AS MEMORY - Gerry Fialka probes McLuhan and Chris Marker, who said "I remember the images I filmed. They have substituted themselves for my memory. They are my memory - the act of remembering is not the opposite of forgetting." "All active media are metaphors in their power to translate experience into new forms...what is a meta phor?" - McLuhan. "Remember to forget" - James Joyce.
MS. 45
King of New York, Bad Lieutenant, The Funeral — all indelible cinematic classics from the mind of Abel Ferrara, whom we proudly call one of America’s greatest and most unique living filmmakers. Ms. 45, one of Ferrara’s earliest works, comes to Cinefamily in a brand-new DCP restoration, and is by far one of the best of the drive-in vigilante films kicked off some years earlier by Death Wish. This gritty ditty puts a novel spin on the premise by turning its avenging gun-packer into a beautiful young mute woman cleaning up the streets. Thana (Zoë Tamerlis, co-writer of Bad Lieutenant), a diligent worker in NYC’s garment district, has the ultimate bad day as she’s assaulted not once, but twice in visceral fashion. Shocked to her core, her nights become consumed by seductive prowls through the city — which often results in male pigs winding up on the wrong end of a bullet. Tamerlis offers a compelling silent performance that eerily echoes Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion, while Ferrara displays an amazing command of the medium on very limited means. Eerie, firey, unforgettable.
Dir. Abel Ferrara, 1981, DCP, 80 min.
The Moment
Los Angeles Premiere
Jennifer Jason Leigh gives a riveting performance as Lee, an acclaimed international photojournalist who returns home to Los Angeles after a traumatic experience abroad. Lee finds herself falling in love with John (Martin Henderson), a charismatic younger man with a complicated past. Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development) plays Lee’s 22-year-old daughter Jessie, an aspiring photographer with ambivalent feelings toward her mother. Together the three form an explosive triangle in this complex psychological thriller. A Q&A with director Jane Weinstock follows the screening. (2013, Dir. J. Weinstock, 90 min.)
New Restorations and Discoveries From Center for Visual Music
From absolute film to psychedelia, this program of revelatory moments from the history of visual music and kinetic art explores lost, legendary and rare treasures found in the archives of Center for Visual Music (CVM). Featuring among others, rare works by Jordan Belson, including the unfinished Quartet (1983) and the U.S. premiere of the restoration of the infamous LSD (1962); Charles Dockum’s Mobilcolor Performance Film (1970), a later color-light projection composition that provides insights into the history of kinetic art; and two newly discovered films by John Cage and Richard Lippold, including the U.S. premiere of The Sun Film (1956), a kinetic art sculpture.
The program, featuring many newly preserved 16mm and 35mm prints, will be introduced by archivist/curator Cindy Keefer of CVM. Richard Brown, Ph.D., will introduce The Sun Film and The Sun, Variations Within a Sphere No. 10 [documentation] (1956) by John Cage and Richard Lippold.
NEW WORKS SALON MARATHON
Celebrate Echo Park Film Center’s 12 year anniversary with a marathon screening / benefit party. For the past year and a half, our (mostly) monthly series of New Works Salons have been giving out rolls of raw camera stock in Super 8 and 16mm to artists to encourage them to continue making new works in small gauge film. Tonight, many of those artists will come back to show work made with this film stock, including Dana Berman Duff, Eve LaFountain, Mike Stoltz, Erich Burci, Walter Vargas, Aida Lugo and more! Plus we’ll have new works by alumni from our LA AIR artist in residence program, including Mariah Garnett & Eve Fowler, John Palmer, Pablo Valencia, Margie Schnibbe, Will O’Loughlen, Nancy Jean Tucker, and a video installation in our storefront window by Ursula Brookbank and Christine Alicino! We’ll also have special performances and screenings of works by Charlotte Pryce, Reza Monahan, Ross Lipman, Huckleberry Lain, a midnight screening of works by Isabell Spengler and AnitRa Menning curated by Kate Brown, John Cannizzaro’s new 16mm film The Son Also Rises, plus more surprises that will be announced as the day approaches! So celebrate 12 years of independent small gauge film and video made in your friendly neighborhood film center. Sliding scale donation, suggested $12 for 12 years, but donations of any size small or very, very large are welcome.
Nicolas Rey: autrement, la Molussie (differently, Molussia)
“Few works so perfectly combine cinesensuality and Marxist dialectics: here, beauty is praxis and agitation becomes thought.” —Film Comment
Based on fragments from Günther Anders’ novel The Molussian Catacomb, written between 1932 and 1936, Nicolas Rey’s captivating nine-part film presents allegorical stories and musings by political prisoners sitting in the pits of an imaginary fascist state called Molussia. Shown in random order whenever it is screened, the film’s sections ruminate on capitalism, imperialism and resistance—accompanied by gritty, unsettling self-processed images of undefined landscapes. A haunting and moving meditation on brutality and control, autrement, la Molussie has galvanized audiences at festivals throughout the world. Since 1993 Rey has been making films that hover between photography, documentaries and the avant-garde. He is one of the founders of the Paris-based artist film lab L’Abominable. In person: Nicolas Rey
NORTHERN LIGHTS
In 1915 North Dakota, Swedish-born farmer Ray Sorenson (Robert Behling) organizes the populist Nonpartisan League as a response to the bank foreclosures that threaten the livelihoods of himself and his neighbors. 1978, USA, 35mm, 95 minutes.
New 35mm print! An Artists Public Domain/Cinema Conservancy Release. www.artistspublicdomain.org. Winner of the Caméra d’Or, Cannes Film Festival. Written and directed by John Hanson & Rob Nilsson; starring Robert Behling, Susan Lynch, Joe Spano, Ray Ness, Marianna Åström-De Fina, Helen Ness. Q & A at both screenings with actor Joe Spano and cinematographer Judy Irola.
NUTCRACKER FANTASY
In the late-’70s, Sanrio (yes, the Hello Kitty people) unleashed this wonderously unusual stop-motion confection that has sadly laid unsavored for ages. Ex-Rankin/Bass animator Takeo Nakamura was the lucky fellow called upon to employ the signature “Animagic” technique of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to this vaguely festive, awesomely bizarro sugarplum dream — one in which and the signifiers of Christmas fare are all there, except Christmas is never once mentioned. The titular fantasy seems adapted from a German-to-Japanese-to-English translation of the original yarn, rather than the beloved ballet, (though its melodies are employed on the Moog-drenched soundtrack, to supergroovy effect.) Adding to the beautiful confusion are elaborate musical numbers, plus the voice talents of showbiz stalwarts like Christopher Lee, Roddy McDowall, Dick Van Patten and Jo Anne Worley as the “Nut of Darkness”-wielding, two-headed rat queen. Not screened since its initial release, never on DVD and presented here on film! As a special holiday gift, our pals from Screen Novelties (L.A.’s premiere stop-motion masters of misfit toys) will present a curated mix of their favorite yuletide bits and baubles. Dir. Takeo Nakamura, 1979, 16mm, 82 min.
ON THE AIR
Created by David Lynch and Mark Frost
The year is 1957. A new program entitled "The Lester Guy Show" is debuting on the Zoblotnick Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC). Most of the cast is nuts, the crew is incompetent and everything that could go wrong always does. Of course, this makes the show a hit.
While mixing the sound for an episode of the second season of Twin Peaks, Lynch was hit with a sudden inspiration. "It just came into my head, the idea of people trying to do something successful and having it all go wrong." Followed by a Q&A with Ian Buchanan, Robert Engels, and Nancye Ferguson
THE PRIVATE AFFAIRS OF BEL AMI
Writer/director Albert Lewin, ever on the lookout for esoteric story material that would accommodate his fascination with Egyptian sculpture and feline symbolism, managed to inject both into The Private Affairs of Bel Ami. Though based on a Guy de Maupassant story, Bel Ami seems to have been written by Oscar Wilde, another of Lewin's pets. George Sanders plays an epigrammatic Parisian journalist, who rises to the top through the "kindnesses" of the various influential women that he's seduced and abandoned. This 19th-century rake's progress is ultimately halted by a duel... George Sanders' stepping-stone ladies include Angela Lansbury, Frances Dee, Ann Dvorak, Marie Wilson, Katherine Emery and Susan Douglas. Dir. Albert Lewin, 1 hr. 52 min, 1947.
PXL THIS FESTIVAL
23rd annual festival features films made with the Fisher-Price PXL 2000 toy camcorder. PXL THIS is one of the longest running film festivals in the entertainment capital of the world. Celebrating "cinema povera" moving image art, it evokes Marcel Duchamp's axiom "Poor tools require better skills." Pixelators from across the globe hoick up inventive approaches to the unassuming throw-away of consumer culture. These low-tech hi-jinx films come through loud and clear by reframing a new cinema language. "If movies offer an escape from everyday life, Pixelvision is the Houdini of the film world." - SF Weekly.
SAMSON AND DELILAH
1949, Paramount, 131 min, USA, Dir: Cecil B. DeMille
No one brought the Bible to the big screen with more gusto than director Cecil B. DeMille, who initially tried to adapt the tragic love story of the strongman and his Philistine temptress in the mid-1930s. Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr smolder in the title roles, with strong support from George Sanders, Angela Lansbury and Henry Wilcoxon. A huge box office hit, this Technicolor epic picked up Oscars for Best Art Direction and Costume Design.
SIDE BY SIDE
(2012, Chris Kenneally)
In 2010 actor-producer Keanu Reeves witnessed the transition from film to digital media – in image-capture, post-production and theatrical presentations – and decided to document this sea change taking place in his industry. Through interviews with leading Hollywood filmmakers and cinematographers, SIDE BY SIDE probes the virtues and limitations of capturing and viewing stories on film vs. digital means. This screening will be the premiere of the first 35mm print of SIDE BY SIDE. IN PERSON: Keanu Reeves and Justin Szlasa, independent producers (schedules permitting).
SOME VELVET MORNING
Fred (Stanley Tucci) arrives at the doorstep of his beautiful young mistress Velvet (Alice Eve) after four years apart, claiming to have finally left his wife. But when she rejects his attempts to rekindle their romance, his persistence evolves into obsession — and a dark history between the former lovers comes into focus. A return to form for writer/director Neil LaBute (In the Company of Men, Your Friends & Neighbors), Some Velvet Morning is an astutely written portrait of a very modern romance. Running time: 83 minutes. Written & Directed by Neil LaBute
THE SOUND WE SEE TRILOGY
Los Angeles. Rotterdam. Hanoi. In each of these cities Echo Park Film Center has embarked on a multi-week project with local youth and artists to produce a 24-hour exploration of city life. In black and white, these projects document the contemporary life, rhythm, and movement of each city in unique perspectives. Each of the projects draws on the same rich traditions and techniques of past avant-garde urban documentarians, while exploring new approaches to collaborative creative process and celebrating the energy and possibility of 21st century urbanism. Program: The Sound We See: A Los Angeles City Symphony (28 minutes, 16mm) The Sound We See: A Rotterdam City Symphony (27 minutes, 16mm) The Sound We See: A Hanoi City Symphony (25 minutes, Super 8 on 16mm). **Location announced the day before the show.
THE SQUAW MAN
In December,1913 filming began on Hollywood's first feature-length motion picture "The Squaw Man". To kick off what will be the centennial year of the film, we are hosting an in-depth presentation of Hollywood's earliest years with a distinguished panel of film historians and authors who will speak on the following topics:
ROBERT S. BIRCHARD, The Lasky Feature Play Company; KURT COX, The Burns and Revier Studio; BRUCE TORRENCE, Hollywood when the movies came to town; MARC WANAMAKER, Moviemaking in Los Angeles and Hollywood.
The program will also feature a screening of the legendary 1914 version of "THE SQUAW MAN", the directorial debut of Cecil B. DeMille.
The Story of a Discharged Prisoner (Hong Kong, 1967)
Directed by Patrick Lung Kong
Only recently being rediscovered, this tough-as-nails, black-and-white crime thriller from 1967 has had an enormous and lasting influence: it served as the basis for John Woo's 1986 bullet-ballet opus A Better Tomorrow, which made "heroic bloodshed" the new face of Hong Kong action cinema. Patrick Tse Yin stars as the eponymous ex-con Lee Cheuk-hung, who is released from prison after 15 years to discover his fiancée has become the mistress of powerful triad boss One-Eyed Jack (Shek Kin, best known in the West as the villain in Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon), who tries to recruit Lee into his gang; determined to stay on the straight and narrow, Lee refuses. But when the vengeful Jack starts putting the pressure on, the former foot soldier is forced to once again show that he has the "true colors of a hero" (as per the film's original title). Both a groundbreaking action melodrama (featuring fight choreography from legendary martial arts master Lau Kar-leung's brother Lau Kar-wing) and a forceful, socially conscious portrait of the plight of the marginalized in a rapidly modernizing Hong Kong, The Story of a Discharged Prisoner is "[both] a damning critique [and] a call for hope...[this] is filmmaking at its sharpest and most masterful" (South China Morning Post).
Kong Ngee Company. Producer: He Jianye. Screenwriter: Patrick Lung Kong. Cinematographer: Chen Kan. Cast: Patrick Tse Yin, Shek Kin, Chan Tsai-chung, Do Ping, Hui Ying-ying. 35mm, b/w, in Cantonese with English subtitles, 119 min.
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
1923, Paramount, 136 min, USA, Dir: Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille produced and directed this epic silent film, told in two parts, starring Estelle Taylor, Theodore Roberts, Charles de Roche, Richard Dix and Leatrice Joy. The first part (shot in two-color Technicolor) tells the biblical tale, adapted from the Book of Exodus, of the prophet Moses leading the Children of Israel from bondage under the Egyptian Pharaohs into the Promised Land. Things go awry, however, when Moses goes to Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from God and the Israelites renounce their faith to worship the Golden Calf. The second part (shot in black-and-white) reflects the efficacy of the Ten Commandments in people’s everyday lives through a modern-day parable involving two brothers - one a saint, the other a sinner - in love with the same girl. Architecture and the evils of shoddy construction practices figure in as well as some jaunty 1920s dialog and fashions. Remade by DeMille in 1956 with Charlton Heston as Moses. Feature presented with live musical accompaniment by a string-and-horn ensemble led by Cliff Retallick, whose brand-new score will transport you back to biblical Egypt and the roaring ’20s!
Terms and Conditions May Apply
This quietly blistering documentary should rile even the most passive viewer. —Jeannette Catsoulis, New York Times
What are you really agreeing to when you click “I accept”? Interviews with technology thought leaders and futurists—including Google chief engineer Ray Kurzweil and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg—brilliantly demonstrate how we unknowingly—click by click—generate a cloud of data that records our every online move. (2013, Dir. C. Hoback, 79 min.)
A Q&A with Rainey Reitman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation follows the screening.
THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER: A MOMENT IN TIME
Introduced by Richard Williams
The First Public Screening of Richard Williams's original version of "The Thief and the Cobbler"
Richard Williams will be returning to Los Angeles from the U.K. to present "The Thief and the Cobbler," which has been newly reconstructed from his original workprint from May 13, 1992. This lavish and exquisite film, which follows a young cobbler on a daring adventure in ancient Persia, is a rare delight for animation novices and aficionados alike.
Loosely influenced by Persian miniatures, the film has become a legend in the animation industry. Williams began this ambitious film in 1968, and over the next 25 years, collaborated on it with such animators as Ken Harris and Emery Hawkins from Warner Bros., as well as Art Babbitt from Disney and Grim Natwick, the creator of Betty Boop. The film was originally self-financed by Williams, but after he received two Academy Awards® in 1988 for “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” Williams was able to secure additional external finances so that the film could be completed. The investors ultimately pulled the project from him and it was completed by other animators. The resulting film was released in different versions under the titles “The Princess and the Cobbler” and “Arabian Knight.”
The Academy is pleased to present the first public screening of Williams’s original version of “The Thief and the Cobbler” on this historic occasion.
Preceded by a special screening of Williams's Academy Award®-winning short "A Christmas Carol" (1971):
Richard Williams won an Oscar in 1972 for his short film "A Christmas Carol," an animated adaptation of Charles Dickens's 1843 novella. The film was first broadcast on television in December 1971, but was so well received that it had a theatrical release as well in 1972. This adaptation was directed by Williams and featured animation by Ken Harris, Abe Levitow and others. The film has a distinctive and dark tone, which was inspired by John Leech's engraved illustrations of the original story.
Thou Shalt Not: A Primer to Pre-Code Hollywood
In 1930, a set of moral censorship guidelines known as the Production Code was drafted by members of the film industry to be applied to movies made in the United States. "The Code" as it was sometimes referred to was supposed to be Hollywood's way of keeping morally objectionable film content in-check without interference from the Federal Goverment. However, from 1930-1934 filmmakers largely ignored this list of "don'ts and be carefuls" resulting in storytelling that could be shocking, provocative, modern, and forward thinking - elements that would be drastically toned down in Hollywood productions once "the Code" was enforced. Now known as the pre-Code era, the films from this time would largely be buried in studio vaults until the home distribution market resurrected them in all their glory.
Join Christina Rice, LAPL's own photo librarian and author of Ann Dvorak: Hollywood's Forgotten Rebel (University Press of Kentucky) for a brief introduction to this era of Hollywood filmmaking. The lecture will be followed by a screening of a pre-Code gem starring Ann Dvorak, Joan Blondell, and Bette Davis as childhood friends who are reunited years later, causing Dvorak's life to derail after she's the third to light her cigarette on a match.
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
2005, 121 minutes, Rated R
Dir: Tommy Lee Jones; screenplay by Guillermo Arriaga; with Tommy Lee Jones, Dwight Yoakam, Barry Pepper, and Julio César Cedillo
Inspired by true events, Tommy Lee Jones’s directorial debut weaves a fractured tale of murder, injustice, and redemption at the Texas-Mexico border. When innocent ranch hand (and illegal immigrant) Melquiades Estrada is gunned down by border patrol, Estrada’s best friend Pete Perkins turns to vigilantism. Seeking a proper burial, Perkins kidnaps the patrolman and, with corpse in tow, journeys to Estrada’s hometown of Jiménez, Mexico. A deft story of honor, loyalty, and forgiveness, Three Burials touches on contemporary issues felt on both sides of the border.
ALSO SCREENING:
The Horse
1973, 14 minutes, rated PG-13
Directed by Charles Burnett
A lyrical coming-of-age tale about a boy tending to a hemorrhaging horse. By dusk, the horse will be euthanized by gunshot.
To Live
1994, 125 minutes, Not Rated, Mandarin, with English subtitles
Dir: Zhang Yimou; with Gong Li, Ge You, and Ben Niu
“All I ask is a quiet life together.” These are lines spoken by wife Jiazhen, who, with her husband Fugui, survive the sweep of history in the decades before and during the Cultural Revolution. Embodying both hero and heroine, the couple adapt to ever-changing political realities and reversals of fortune, all while holding down a family. Told with wit and tenderness, this epic melodrama features a powerhouse cast and is directed by one of China’s greatest living directors.
UNFORGIVEN
(2013)
Based on the Clint Eastwood classic of the same name, comes director Lee Sang-il’s samurai western UNFORGIVEN, staring Ken Watanabe.
It’s the dawn of the Meiji Era in 1880. The Tokugawa Shogunate has just collapsed, and the Ainu aborigines strive to settle the land alongside the newly established government. Jubei Kamata is a relic of the Tokugawa Shogunate, his name alone once terrorized Kyoto as he slew countless loyalists in the name of the Shogun. After the fall of the Shogunate, he vanished from sight. More than ten years have passed, and Jubei lives a secluded life, having fathered children with an Ainu woman. Poverty leads Jubei to abandon his resolve to bury his sword, and once again he finds himself ensnared in a life of violence. - US PREMIERE -
Ticket includes red carpet, screening, Q&A with Director Lee Sang-Il, and access to our opening night After Party!
WAGON TRACKS
1919, Paramount, 64 min, USA, Dir: Lambert Hillyer
Produced by Thomas H. Ince (and beautifully shot by cinematographer Joe August), this Western has legendary silent screen star William S. Hart leading a wagon train across the wilderness - and trying to figure out who killed his brother. With live piano accompaniment by Cliff Retallick. Plus, an outstanding program of short films by D.W. Griffith.
WHITE REINDEER
Director in person — plus, come dressed in your favorite weird holiday gear, as our screening is a Bad Christmas Sweater Bonanza! When a jet-black satirical comedy tackles its subject with intelligent aplomb, we here at Cinefamily smile — and when a film in that vein backs up the sharp comedy with a genuine warmth, we get an extra-special tingle. Poised to become a perennial indie film holiday tradition, White Reindeer shines with its unique, delicate see-saw balance of acidic observations and affectionate touches. In a breakout, all-too-real performance, Anna Margaret Hollyman (The Color Wheel) is Suzanne, an uptight Xmas-loving woman who, at the dawn of December, finds her dream husband deceased, and her devotion in him dissolved after meeting Fantasia, the exotic dancer with whom he’d been cheating with. As Suzanne slides into Fantasia’s fast, wreckless world of dance parties, drugs and shoplifting, filmmaker Zach Clark takes on thirty-as-the-new-twenty, and shows a suburban America where sleaze and sadness may float on the surface, but hope and compassion aren’t too far away either. Dir. Zach Clark, 2013, digital presentation, 82 min.
Wong Fei-Hung: The Whip That Smacks the Candle (Hong Kong, 1949)
Directed by Wu Pang
One of the most revered of Chinese folk heroes, the legendary martial artist Wong Fei-hung (1847-1924) is also one of the most popular and enduring screen characters in cinema history. A tried and true symbol of Chinese tradition and patriotism standing tall against Western influence and foreign incursion, Wong was portrayed at various ages and in numerous incarnations, from the comic to the ultra-serious, in over 100 feature films---most famously by Jackie Chan (in 1978’s Drunken Master and its absolutely awesome 1994 sequel) and Jet Li (in the Once Upon a Time in China series). But Wu Pang’s 1949 The Whip That Smacks the Candle started it all: not only did it bring Wong to the screen for the first time in the person of Chinese opera star Kwan Tak-hing (who would go on to play the role in over 70 features, serials and TV episodes), it set the template for the modern kung fu genre by eschewing the fantasy elements of the silent era wuxia films in favor of realistic action choreography and a focus on the importance of martial arts discipline and technique. Come see where it all began!
Wing Yiu Film Company. Producer: Cheung Tsok-hong. Screenwriter: Ng Yat-siu, based on the story by Chu Yu-chai. Cast: Kwan Tak-hing, Walter Tso Tat-Wah, Lee Lan, Sek Kin, Tsi Chi-wai. 35mm, in Cantonese with English subtitles, 72 min.
WRONG COPS
After directing just a mere handful of features, Quentin Dupieux has immediately established himself as one of the world’s most fearless cinematic surrealists. His previous works Rubber and Wrong effortlessly set the template for a movie universe in which airy visual rhythms, dark electronic beats (courtesy of Dupieux’s musical alter-ego Mr. Oizo) and an upside-down, pranksterish wit are all the blissfully ridiculous norm — and now, with Wrong Cops, Dupieux once again tackles the absurdity of life in the d’oh!-zone, this time with a curiously dystopian bent. In the near-future, when all crime is eradicated, what is the, bored idle police class to do? Deal drugs, dry-hump cars, make dance music demos, cover up for accidentally shooting their neighbors — you know, the usual. With a motley cast of outrageous funnymakers (including Eric Wareheim, Eastbound & Down’s Steve Little, Dupieux regulars Eric Judor & Mark Burnham, and even Marilyn Manson), Wrong Cops is Cinefamily’s way of sending off 2013 in seriously silly style. Quentin Dupieux & cast members in person for our opening night, Friday 12/27 show!
Dir. Quentin Dupieux, 2013, digital presentation, 79 min.