Tuesday, May 22, 2007
The Big Screen: 5/22/07
So remember that column I posted about Noel Lawrence and Other Cinema? Noel sent me an email over the weekend announcing that he'll be in L.A. this week to present a few screenings. Tonight, he'll be at The Hyperion Tavern, screening weird stuff at the Club Ding-A-Ling night hosted by L.A. punk legend Don Bolles. Tomorrow, he'll be presenting weird found film at Thrift Store Movies, an event taking place at the Hammer Museum's Billy Wilder Theater. And on Friday, there will be a rare screening of J.X. Williams' film Peepshow, (which I wrote about in the above-linked column) along with some rare Williams shorts and a slide show presentation on Williams' life, at The Showcave on Temple Street downtown. More fun screening information can be seen by clicking on the clickety thing!
The Billy Wilder Theater is also the home of the UCLA Film and Television Archive, which will be presenting the documentary A Pervert's Guide to Cinema on June 4. The title is enough to sell me, but it sounds like a fascinating documentary, with philosopher Slavoj Zizek deconstructing films and examining the psyches of Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch from key film locations.
Guy Maddin's newest film, Brand Upon the Brain, will screen for a week, from June 8 through June 14, at The American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. Seeing one of Maddin's flights of cinematic fancy on the big screen could be a lot of fun, but if you go see it over the weekend, you'll get what promises to be a fantastic show. To quote the ad copy, "In an unprecedented act of faith in the enduring power of the theatrical experience, Brand Upon the Brain! is being presented as an expansive live event in select cities, featuring an 11-piece "live" orchestra, a 3-person "Live" Foley (sound effects performed onstage) team, and a "live" celebrity narrator, and onstage Castrato supplementing the filmic image, to comprise a one-of-a-kind cinematic spectacle." Yes, it says "castrato." Apparently they still exist. Maddin will be there in person to introduce the film. If you aren't familiar with Maddin's work on features like The Saddest Music in the World, check out his short film The Heart of the World:
...or The Eye Like A Strange Balloon:
Cinespia has started up their summer season of graveyard screenings. If the idea of seeing classic films projected onto a crypt in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, surrounded no doubt by the ghosts of the Hollywood legends buried there, appeals to you, this is the series for you. Vertigo screens this Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Conservancy continues its Last Remaining Seats series through June. This is a rare chance to see some great movies at the city's classic movie palaces, including The Orpheum, The Los Angeles Theater, The John Anson Ford Ampitheater, and The Alex in Glendale, where Howard Hawkes' 1932 version of Scarface will screen on Saturday, June 27. Here's my suggestion: get a cheap steak and a couple mai tais at one of L.A.'s last surviving vintage tiki bars, Damon's, then spend an hour or so shopping for used books at Brand Books and Bookfellows, then go see Scarface in this magnificent theater (see above), and finish up with the insanely tasty dulce de leche crepes at El Morfi. Sounds like a great night out to me.
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Labels: Brand Upon the Brain, Noel Lawrence, Peepshow, Scarface, The Big Screen, Vertigo
Continue reading The Big Screen: 5/22/07Monday, April 30, 2007
The Big Screen: Los Angeles, May 2007
Summer's here, which for some reason means that everyone wants to get out of the beautiful weather and into a cold, dark theater for two hours. This seems odd to me, but no more odd than me writing up a survey of interesting screenings happening in L.A., knowing that everyone who reads this is just going to go see Spider-Man 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean.
The Tarantino-curated Grindhouse Festival is wrapping up at The New Beverly Cinema, but there's still a month of fantastic double bills worth checking out. A few worth noting: the new technicolor western from Thailand, Tears of the Black Tiger, will be playing a double bill with A Fistfull of Dollars on May 9th and 10th, followed by a double bill of the dark comedies Harold & Maude and The Loved One on the 11th and 12th. The Lives of Others and Army of Shadows sounds like a fantastic double-dose of period paranoia, and later in the month, tribute is payed to the late, great Bob Clark through a double feature of his zombie flicks Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things and Deathdream.
At The Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, the American Cinematheque has a lineup of movies from the 70's which celebrates classics like Five Easy Pieces, Husbands and The Parallax View while demanding a second chance for less-celebrated fair like Saint Jack, Mandingo and Freebie and the Bean. Meanwhile, on the smaller screen at The Speilberg Theater, a chance to see three interesting new films, including The Far Side of Jericho, a rollicking western directed by Tim Hunter (director of The River's Edge, one of my favorites of the 80's) this week, Paul Giamatti in the Harry Crewes adaptation The Hawk is Dying this Saturday, and the devastating The Death of Mr. Lazarescu May 10 through 13.
At the Cinematheque's other theater, The Aero in Santa Monica, a rare retrospective of possibly my favorite director, Jacques Tati, including his masterpiece Playtime and rare screenings of The Big Day, Traffic and Parade. There's also an extension of the 70's Cinema program that is playing in Hollywood, with arguably even more interesting films. The big event of this program will be a sort of addendum to the New Beverly's grindhouse program, a screening of The Dion Bros., a rarely seen film which has become legendary since Tarantino programmed it at one of his festivals in Austin. The double feature of Two Lane Blacktop with Cockfighter should make for a great evening as well.
Tomorrow night at The Silent Movie Theatre, a very special one-night program presented by cartoonist Kim Deitch entitled Serial Queens of the Silent Screen will include such early serials as The Iron Claw, Lightning Raider and The Timber Queen. Later in the month, Hitchcock's early film The Pleasure Garden is playing, but the real reason to go to that show is the short Menilmontant, a reputed masterpiece of early experimental cinema. Similarly, going to see Buster Keaton in The Battling Butler will give you a chance to see Windsor McKay's 1911 cartoon Little Nemo.
The UCLA Film & Television Archive is running a retrospective of The Greatest Actress of the Golden Age, Barbara Stanwyck! A chance to see her early pre-code work in Baby Face and the women's prison drama Ladies They Talk About, screwball comedies like The Lady Eve and Ball of Fire, and of course, the gold standard for femmes fatale in Double Indemnity. They're also running programs of Godard and recent documentaries, so check the schedule.
Finally, as the month comes to a close The Los Angeles Conservancy's Last Remaining Seats program gets underway. This is your chance to see some classic movies on the screens of Los Angeles' classic movie palaces. May 23, Hitchcock's North by Northwest is playing at The Orpheum Theater, and May 30, Roman Holiday screens at the Los Angeles Theater. Both theaters are downtown. The series continues every Wednesday through June, with more movies at The Orpheum and The Los Angeles, as well as the Alex Theatre in Glendale and the John Anson Ford Ampitheatre in the Hollywood Hills. Tickets are $15 for Conservancy members and $18 for the general public. Become a member and you can help preserve the soul of L.A. in great movie houses and landmarks throughout the city.
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Labels: Los Angeles, The Big Screen
Continue reading The Big Screen: Los Angeles, May 2007Thursday, March 01, 2007
The Big Screen: Los Angeles, March 2007
March will be a great month to live in L.A. and love movies. Oh, sure, the rest of the country will get some great stuff too: the very fun Korean monster movie The Host, Black Snake Moan (already getting some rave reviews), and the not-at-all-gay 300. But for Angelenos, the cinematic choices will be positively overwhelming!
So as not to bury the lede, let's start with the New Beverly Cinema, which is being given over for the next two months to curator Quentin Tarantino, who will be programming double- and triple-features of grindhouse exploitation movies. This is your chance to see classic films like Rolling Thunder, Chinese Hercules, Eyeball, Revenge of the Cheerleaders, Supermanchu, The Blood Spattered Bride, The Girl from Starship Venus, Hot Summer in Barefoot County, Kung Fu: The Punch of Death and Jailbait Babysitter on the big screen!
On the opposite end of the spectrum, The Egyptian Theater is starting the month with a program of Douglas Sirk's larger-than-life melodramas. This is your chance to be bathed in the Technicolor visions of tormented souls in movies like All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind and Imitation of Life. Beyond that, most of the month is taken up by a survey of recent Spanish cinema which promises to bring some great films to light, but I'm most looking forward to the program that closes out the month, Movies & The Beats, a two-night extravaganza of Beatnixploitation flicks that includes The Beat Generation, starring "Mamie Van Doren, Margaret Hayes, Louis Armstrong, James Mitchum, Jackie Coogan, Vampira (reciting some twisted poetry) and "Slapsy Maxie" Rosenbloom as a wrestling beatnik!" Depending on your taste, you may also want to catch the FREE afternoon program of Japanese and Korean animation on the 31st (featuring a new film by the creator of Neon Genesis Evangeline), or the "gratifyingly mean-spirited horror comedy" Killhouse on the 7th.
Meanwhile, at the Aero Theater across town, the Cinematheque is programming monograms of Paul Verhoeven (including a sneak preview of his new film Black Book), Luc Besson (including a sneak preview of Angel-A), and Werner Herzog, as well as repeating much of the Douglas Sirk programming from The Egyptian, and kicking off a 50 Years of Janus retrospective! The Janus program will also be showing at LACMA, where it will include a great double feature of Beauty and the Beast and Spirit of the Beehive.
The UCLA Film and Television Archive is welcoming guest curator Guy Maddin, who will be showing some of his favorite old movies, including Fritz Lang's Ministry of Fear, Cecil B. DeMille's Godless Girl, the silent fairy tale A Kiss for Cinderella, and more. There's also a program of Maddin's incredible shorts (including the gorgeous Odilon Redon or The Eye Like a Strange Balloon Mounts Toward Infinity), and a talk by Maddin ("Maddin will delve into the inner workings of his psyche and may even reveal the secret contents of the Mammalopedia, the source of ALL in his childhood home; or show clips of and recreate his pistol-whipping at the hands of a chimp on his fourth birthday"). There's also a Roberto Rossellini retrospective in progress, and on the 14th, a great double feature of March of the Penguins and Grizzly Man.
Among the interesting shows at The Silent Movie Theatre this month are the 1926 version of The Wizard of Oz, and a triple feature of Metropolis, A Trip to the Moon, and the Fleischer cartoon Theory of Relativity. Down in El Segundo, the Old Town Music Hall will be showing The Lost World this weekend (check their schedule for other interesting screenings coming up). And finally, March 23 at Midnight, The Nuart will be showing Jodorowski's Sante Sangre.
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Labels: Los Angeles, The Big Screen
Continue reading The Big Screen: Los Angeles, March 2007Monday, February 12, 2007
The Big Screen: 2/8/07
This is a special edition of The Big Screen covering the Oscar nominated shorts playing around the country. Once I figure out a way to compile the theatrical dates of interesting movies that doesn't take five hours, this column will return in a super special way. Until then, here we go...
I have this problem every year when Oscar season comes around. It's a problem that a lot of people who care about this sort of thing have, and that's that before the big show, the Oscar Shorts are never known to be seen by anyone. They exist, we're told, but we don't have the proof.
Until last year, and this was after the Oscars already happened, I had never seen one of these (save for the ubiquitous Pixar short in front of their films). But then I found out that they actually do host events around the country where they show both the animated and live action shorts. If you live in one of the following cities, you can catch a screening on the weekend of February 16th, with some following a bit later. Here are the dates:
2/16/2007
Berkeley, CA: Shattuck Cinemas
San Francisco, CA: Lumiere Theatre
San Rafael, CA: Smith Rafael Film Center
Santa Rosa, CA: Rialto Cinemas Lakeside
West Los Angeles, CA: Nuart Theatre
Denver, CO: Starz Filmcenter
Hartford, CT: Real Art Ways Cinema
Atlanta, GA: Midtown Art Cinemas 8
Honolulu, HI: Doris Duke Theatre
Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa, Bijou Theater
Chicago, IL: Music Box
Indianapolis, IN: Key Cinemas
Salina, KS: Salina Art Center
Brookline, MA: Coolidge Corner Theatre
Minneapolis, MN: Lagoon Cinema
Kansas City, MO: Screenland Theatre
Springfield, MO: Moxie Cinema
University City, MO: Tivoli Theatre
Santa Fe, NM: CCA Cinematheque
Ithaca, NY: Cornell Cinema
New York, NY: IFC Center
Columbus, OH: Gateway 8
Tulsa, OK: Circle Theatre
Portland, OR: Cinema 21 Theatre
Pittsburgh, PA: Harris Theatre
Austin, TX: Dobie Theatre
Dallas, TX: Magnolia Theatre - Dallas
Houston, TX: River Oaks Theatre
Salt Lake City, UT: Tower Theatre
Seattle, WA: Varsity Theatre
Milwaukee, WI: Times Cinema
2/20/2007
Tucson, AZ: Loft Cinema Twin
Cincinnati, OH: Cincinnati Art Museum
2/21/2007
Dover, DE: Schwartz Center for Arts
2/22/2007
Boulder, CO: International Film Series
Detroit, MI: Detroit Institute of Art
Oklahoma City, OK: Oklahoma City Museum of Art
2/23/2007
Hollywood, CA: Egyptian Theatre
San Diego, CA: Ken Cinema
Washington, DC: E Street Cinema
University Park, PA: PSU GSA CAFE Film Committee
Fort Worth, TX: Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
2/24/2007
Wichita, KS: Wichita Public Library
3/16/2007
Miami Beach, FL: Miami Beach Cinematheque
3/22/2007
Paducah, KY: Maiden Alley
3/23/2007
Grande Prairie, AB: Grande Prairie Live Theatre
4/10/2007
Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Melnitz Movies
4/13/2007
Fresno, CA: Fresno Filmworks c/o Tower Theatre
5/11/2007
Chicago, IL: Gene Siskel Film Center
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Labels: Oscars, The Big Screen
Continue reading The Big Screen: 2/8/07
