July 29
|
BOY MEETS GIRL
(1984)
Thursday, July 29– 7:30 PM
Carte Blanche - Free / Avon & AFG Members - $6 / Students/Seniors - $8 / Nonmembers - $10
|
|
ABOUT THE FILM: This highly acclaimed first feature by wunderkind filmmaker Leos Carax (he was only 22 at the time) is an unconventional, moody tone poem that centers on a young man cruising the dark side of
Paris.
Having just split with his lover, the young man, Alex (Dennis Lavant), meets an aging actress who has also just left her lover, and the two begin a complex relationship that grants them a temporary reprieve from the cruelties of everyday existence.
Carax’s debut is an auspicious one; his visual gifts are clearly already almost fully developed, and the film contains a number of peerless sequences that are later revisited in his works Mauvis Sang and Lovers On The Bridge.
However, Boy Meets Girl retains immediacy, perhaps because of its low budget and stunning black and white photography. (Rottentomoatoes.com)
|
back to top
August 4
|
Favorite film selections from the metro area’s film critics
Alexander Payne’s
ELECTION
Wednesday, August 4 – 7:30 PM
Carte Blanche - Free / Members - $6 / Students/Seniors - $8 / Nonmembers - $10
|
|
ABOUT THE FILM: Director/co-writer Alexander Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt, Citizen Ruth) delivers a spot-on black comedy about pathological ambition and corruption, and the extreme levels to which people will stoop to accomplish their goals. Matthew Broderick stars as Jim McAllister, a schlumpy loser of a high school teacher at George Washington Carver High School in Omaha, Nebraska. As the next high school election for class president approaches, the overly ambitious student Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon in one of her finest performances) appears poised to let nothing to get in her way of winning. That is until Mr. McAllister goads a dumb, popular jock (Chris Klein) to challenge her for the position. What ensues is a memorably smart, wry, sometimes cringe-inducing and often outright hilarious movie. Payne demonstrates yet again why he is one of America’s best filmmakers at making broad social commentaries through subtle character observations.
|
| ABOUT JOHN ANDERSON: John Anderson is a regular film critic for Variety, the Washington Post, and Newsday. His work appears regularly in the New York Times, and he has contributed to the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Film Comment, Artforum, the Village Voice, and Schizophrenia Digest. He is a past member of the selection committee of the New York Film Festival and the author of "Sundancing" (Avon), “Edward Yang” (University of Illinois) and, with Laura Kim, “I Wake Up Screening” (Billboard Books). With David Sterritt, he edited “The B List,” the most recent book by the National Society of Film Critics. He is a member and two-time past chair of the New York Film Critics Circle, and a member of the National Society of Film Critics. |
back to top
August 12
|
LED ZEPPELIN
(Rare films 1968 - 1980)
Thursday, August 12
Special Showtime - 8:00pm
Carte Blanche – FREE / Members - $6 / Students/Seniors - $8 / Nonmembers - $10
|
|
ABOUT THE FILM: We are proud to present Led Zeppelin, a band that was formed in 1968 and became the leaders in heavy metal super stardom. The show will include their hit songs, written by guitarist Jimmy Page, “Whole Lotta Love,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Black Dog,” Misty Mountain Hop,” “Kashmir,” “Moby Dick,” and “Stairway To Heaven.” Their million selling albums and world tours were legendary. Included will be some of the most complete and rare footage of performances of Led Zeppelin from television, concert tour films, and in the studio footage – most of which have never been seen by an audience until now!
This band blasted its way to the top of the charts and was nicknamed “Hammer of the Gods.” With Robert Plant as their singer and resident sex symbol, they charted a lifetime’s worth of smash hit records in one decade, the 1970’s. Films shown from their earliest days as the Yardbirds, until the end of the band in 1980, will be seen in performances transferred from archived 35mm, 16mm film print, and video tape. Some of the originals are over forty years old!
Running Time: 2 hours |
|
ABOUT BILL SHELLEY/SHELLEY ARCHIVES: As a filmmaker, William Shelley has been shooting professionally since the 1970’s when he captured on film and video bands such as The Stray Cats, Twisted Sister, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts playing in small bars and clubs before they became famous. Shelley later associated with rap group Public Enemy (PE), then known as Spectrum City, going on to direct a number of their videos and become an honorary member of PE’s African American Media Network cable television studio. Shelley Archives was started in 1985. After working with Readers Digest Entertainment in 1990, the company’s end product was nominated for an Emmy in 1993 for the three part series “Legends of Comedy.” The program was broadcast on the Disney cable network, and home video sales exceeded a record breaking one million copies sold. Today the company has over 100,000 reels of original 35mm and 16mm films in its archives and over 10,000 hours of rare concerts, television shows (from Europe & USA), promos, interviews, out-takes, and home movies, from a wide-ranging variety of subjects. The company has licensed them to numerous documentary and commercial projects throughout the world. Preservation of films and music clips is a main focus of the organization, as well as the desire to compensate the artists. |
Stay tuned for more Legends of Rock Live from Shelley Archives this Fall!
|
back to top
August 18
|
THE AGONY AND
THE ECSTASY
OF PHIL SPECTOR
Wednesday, August 18 - 7:30pm
“Not only a hell of an exclusive but a work of art itself, a synthesis of a psychological profile, a critical history and a candid, surprising interview. An overwhelming experience.”
–
Carte Blanche - Free / Members - $6 / Students/Seniors - $8 / Nonmembers - $10 |
|
ABOUT THE FILM: Legendary pop music genius, record producer Phil Spector created the “wall of sound” behind some of the greatest hits of the ’60s: Be My Baby, He’s a Rebel, Da Doo Ron Ron, You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling, to name just a few. Today he is imprisoned serving 19 years to life for the murder of B-movie actress Lana Clarkson. During his first trial (a hung jury), Spector gives a rare freewheeling interview to Vikram Jayanti, filmed at his castle, seated before the white piano which he bought with John Lennon, for Imagine. He lucidly holds forth on his life father’s suicide when he was a child; the process through which he achieved his distinctive sound; his friendship with Lennon; and his case that (despite Paul McCartney’s position), he salvaged the Beatles’ album, Let It Be. Then there is Spector’s curious enmity toward Tony Bennett and Buddy Holly (“he got a postage stamp even though he was only in rock ’n’ roll three years”), and a grandiosity that has him likening himself to Bach, da Vinci, Michelangelo and Galileo. And, yes, there is an endless parade of hairstyles and flamboyant outfits.
|
back to top
August 26
|
THE ROLE OF HER LIFE
(LE RÔLE DE SA VIE)
Thursday, August 26 – 7:30 PM
Carte Blanche - Free / Avon & AFG Members - $6 / Students/Seniors - $8 / Nonmembers - $10
|
|
ABOUT THE FILM: Director François Favrat brings to the screen the story of an introverted freelance fashion photographer Claire Rocher (Karin Viard), and her encounter with the more extroverted actress Elisabeth Becker (Agnès Jaoui).
Rocher’s life goes in an upheaval upon her accepting a position as Becker’s new personal assistant.
Featuring two terrific lead performances, the film looks cleverly at the nuances of life through radically different characters.
Never released theatrically in the United States, THE ROLE OF HER LIFE (LE RÔLE DE SA VIE) has only been screened at a handful of festivals here.
It was the winner of the Best Actress (Karin Viard) and Best Screenplay awards at the 2005 Montreal Film Festival.
|
back to top
September 1
|
NIGHT TIDE (1961)
Starring and in memory of Dennis Hopper
Wednesday, September 1 - 7:30pm
Carte Blanche – FREE / Members - $6 / Students/Seniors - $8 / Nonmembers - $10 |
|
ABOUT THE FILM: No ordinary cult film, Night Tide covers a variety of different waterfronts. It's a film from the American underground, it's a horror movie, and it's an early example of independent cinema (before there was such a term). Shot in 1960, it's also a strangely haunting artifact of its time. Night Tide was written and directed by Curtis Harrington, a member of the experimental avant-garde of the '50s who went on to make the atmospheric shocker Games and many an episode of Dynasty. Mounted on the cheap, and shot on authentic locations in Santa Monica and crumbling Venice, California, Night Tide has a loose, lyrical quality not found outside Cassavetes and Godard films of the same era.
Dennis Hopper, whose youthful looks and Method style were still intact at this point, plays an innocent sailor at liberty in a coastal town; he falls for a girl who plays a mermaid at the sideshow. Or is she really a mermaid? Inspired by Val Lewton's horror classic Cat People, Harrington cooks up a supernatural stew with the suggestion that the willowy lass is one of the "Sea People," called back to her ocean home by a weird sea witch (played by a real-life occult celebrity called Cameron). Yet Night Tide only occasionally feels like a horror movie; with its naturalistic exteriors, bongos, and coffeehouse atmosphere, it's more a slice of poetic bohemia. Luana Anders, who should have had a major movie career but later became a B-movie leading lady, is wonderfully fresh as the good girl, and the music score by Hollywood pro David Raksin (Laura) is inventive and offbeat. Shown at the Venice Film Festival in 1961, the film did not secure a U.S. release until 1963, when its New-Wave-ish style probably looked less innovative. Seen today, Night Tide is both a lovely mood piece and a look back at a peculiar moment in American moviemaking, and either way a bit of low-cost enchantment. --Robert Horton
ABOUT MAITLAND MCDONAGH: Critic, lecturer and TV commentator Maitland McDonagh is the author of Movie Lust: Recommended Viewing for Every Mood, Moment and Reason, Filmmaking on the Fringe: The Good, the Bad and the Deviant Directors, The 50 Most Erotic Films of All Time and Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento, an all-new edition of which was published in April 2010 by the University of Minnesota Press Formerly TVGuide.com's Senior Movies Editor and editor of AMCtv's Horror Hacker website, she contributes to Time Out New York, Film Comment and other magazines, and has been interviewed for many film-related documentaries. She reviews new movie and DVD releases here, and blogs about movie-related news, views and issues
at Your Daily Maitland.
|
back to top
September 7
|
ELVIS PRESLEY &
THE BEST OF
SUN RECORDS
Featuring Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins & Jerry Lee Levis
Tuesday, September 7 - 7:30
Carte Blanche Members – FREE / Members - $6 / Students & Seniors - $8 / Nonmembers - $10
|
|
ABOUT THE FILM: You won’t want to miss this showing of Elvis Presley clips and never-before-seen footage of the King of Rock and Roll from his early years in the 1950’s to his Las Vegas performances and tours in the 1970’s. Along with this send-up for Elvis (“Hound Dog,” “Heartbreak Hotel,” “I’m All Shook Up,” “Love Me Tender,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” “In the Ghetto,” and “Suspicious Minds”) will be the celebration of Sun Records and its other famous recording artists, including Johnny Cash (“I Walk the Line,” “A Boy Named Sue,” and “Ring of Fire”), Roy Orbison (“Pretty Woman,” “Crying,” “Dream Baby,” “Only the Lonely,” and “Blue Bayou”), Carl Perkins (“Blue Suede Shoes,” “Match Box,” and “Honey, Don’t”) and Jerry Lee Lewis (“Great Balls of Fire” and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”), all musical geniuses in their own right.
The 1950’s & 1960’s come alive again in this rare showing of newly discovered films, concert performances and television shows starring the Kings of Sun Records.
(Show is 90 minutes)
|
|
ABOUT BILL SHELLEY/SHELLEY ARCHIVES: As a filmmaker, William Shelley has been shooting professionally since the 1970’s when he captured on film and video bands such as The Stray Cats, Twisted Sister, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts playing in small bars and clubs before they became famous. Shelley later associated with rap group Public Enemy (PE), then known as Spectrum City, going on to direct a number of their videos and become an honorary member of PE’s African American Media Network cable television studio. Shelley Archives was started in 1985. After working with Readers Digest Entertainment in 1990, the company’s end product was nominated for an Emmy in 1993 for the three part series “Legends of Comedy.” The program was broadcast on the Disney cable network, and home video sales exceeded a record breaking one million copies sold. Today the company has over 100,000 reels of original 35mm and 16mm films in its archives and over 10,000 hours of rare concerts, television shows (from Europe & USA), promos, interviews, out-takes, and home movies, from a wide-ranging variety of subjects. The company has licensed them to numerous documentary and commercial projects throughout the world. Preservation of films and music clips is a main focus of the organization, as well as the desire to compensate the artists. |
Stay tuned for more Legends of Rock Live from Shelley Archives this Fall!
|
back to top
September 22
|
COUNTDOWN TO ZERO
Post-film Q&A with Dr. Stephen Myers,
President of Greenwich Forum on War and Peace
Wednesday, September 22
Reception - 6:30pm
Film - 7:30pm
Carte Blanche – FREE / Members - $6 / Students/Seniors - $8 / Nonmembers - $10 |
|
ABOUT THE FILM: Countdown To Zero traces the history of the atomic bomb from its origins to the present state of global affairs: nine nations possessing nuclear weapons capabilities with others racing to join them, with the world held in a delicate balance that could be shattered by an act of terrorism, failed diplomacy, or a simple accident. Written and directed by acclaimed documentarian Lucy Walker (The Devil’s Playground, Blindsight), the film features an array of important international statesmen, including President Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pervez Musharraf and Tony Blair. It makes a compelling case for worldwide nuclear disarmament, an issue more topical than ever with the Obama administration working to revive this goal today.
ABOUT Dr. STEPHEN MYERS: Dr. Stephen Myers is the president of the Greenwich Forum on War and Peace. He graduated from Renssaleer Polytechnic Institute in 1958 and received a PHD in physics from New York University in 1976. He is a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists, The Federation of American Scientists, Arms Control Association and Peace Action. He speaks and writes on nuclear issues at public forums and in magazines and newspapers.
|
back to top
September 30
|
Jean-Pierre Melville’s
DIRTY MONEY (UN FLIC)
Thursday, September 30 – 7:30 PM
Carte Blanche Members – FREE / Avon & AFG Members - $6 /Students/Seniors - $8 /
Nonmembers - $10
|
|
ABOUT THE FILM: A bank robbery in a small town goes awry, ending with one of the robbers being wounded. But the loot from the robbery winds up being an asset for an even more spectacular heist. Ultimately, Simon (Richard Crenna), gang leader and Paris nightclub owner, must deal with police comissaire Edouard Colemane (Alain Delon), who also happens to be his good friend.
Also starring Catherine Deneuve, the final movie made by legendary writer-director Jean-Pierre Melville (Army of Shadows, Le Cercle Rouge, Le Samouraï, Bob Le Flambeur) finds him once again exploring the heist/gangster genre in a highly accomplished work of film noir.
All of the master’s trademarks are on display - terrifically dark colors, a brooding atmosphere, and quiet, taciturn gangsters who find themselves challenged when things don’t go according to plans. |
back to top
October 6
|
Favorite film selections from the metro area’s film critics
Jean-Luc Godard’s
BREATHLESS
Wednesday, October 6 – 7:30 PM
Carte Blanche Members – FREE / Avon & AFG Members - $6 /Students/Seniors - $8 /
Nonmembers - $10
|
|
ABOUT THE FILM:“To become immortal. And then...die." Lip-stroking pug Jean-Paul Belmondo’s on the run, shooting cops and stealing cars — as well as cash from the handbag of thickly-Iowa-accented, Herald Tribune-hawking girlfriend Jean Seberg; with the typically Gallic undertone of femmes vs. hommes as the couple engage in boudoir philosophy, staring contests, sous blanket tussles, and plenty of le smoking. Erstwhile Cahiers du Cinéma critic Godard’s début feature turned a sketchy outline from critical confrère François Truffaut into one of the benchmarks of the New Wave, seemingly reinventing the cinema itself, and immediately rocketing Belmondo (in his ninth film) and Seberg (here beginning her European eminence following two Preminger flops in a row) to world stardom, and beginning Godard’s decade of supreme hipness, of seemingly compulsive, and often outrageous innovation. The pace is non-stop — a better translation of the title is “out of breath” — thanks to the startling, then-revolutionary use of jump-cutting (when the first edit came in at 3 hours, New Wave godfather Jean-Pierre Melville — seen here as novelist “Parvulesco” — advised losing the subplots, but JLG instead did the unheard of: cutting freely within shots); while the “je m’en fous” attitude of both protagonist and film proved the prototype of movie cool that every would-be cinéaste still aspires to. This new 35mm restoration, with freshly revised subtitles by Lenny Borger, is the first in Breathless history.
|
| ABOUT THE CRITIC: Joe Meyers writes about movies for the Connecticut Post. A native of Chicago, Joe did most of his schooling in Philadelphia and studied journalism at Penn State. The former editor of the (now sadly defunct) Delmarva News, he spent two wonderful years in the late 1970s running the first (and only) arthouse movie theater on the Delmarva Peninsula, where he learned many valuable lessons about the differences between commerce and art. A collection of Joe's pieces about film stars of the past - "Whatever Happened to..." - went through several printings. |
back to top
|
|
|
