| Special Events in March:Some events will repeat at
the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.
Wednesday, March 1 – 7:30 PM
ANNIE HALL, 1977,
Columbia (Sony Repertory), 93 min. Director Woody
Allen’s Oscar winning film about neurotic comedian Alvy Singer’s (Woody
Allen) relationship with Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) and how Alvy figures out
what led to the end of their relationship. Bursts with comic bravura and insights into
love-among- the-neurotics. It deservedly walked off with all the Oscar for Best Picture;
Actress in a leading role (Diane Keaton); Best Director; Best Screenplay written for the
screen (Woody Allen & Marshall Brickman); plus a nomination for Best Actor in a
Leading Role (Woody Allen). Starring Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Paul Simon,
Shelley Duvall and Carol Kane.
JAPANESE WORLD CLASSICS MEDLEY
March 2 – 3 at the Aero Theatre
This series is sponsored, in part, by The Japan
Foundation.
In the past, the American Cinematheque has been active in programming lesser known
Japanese films that have been unfairly overlooked because of their genre status (our
Japanese Outlaw Masters series). In the process, except for our Kenji Mizoguchi series
last year, we have screened few of what the critical establishment might call Japanese
"classics." Lest we seem neglectful of these films, and as response to our many
audience members who have requested them, we are very happy to offer this selection of two
Japanese movie classics: Akira Kurosawa’s THE SEVEN SAMURAI and Yasujiro Ozu’s
TOKYO STORY.
Series compiled by Chris D.
Thursday, March 2 – 7:30 PM
Japanese World Classics
TOKYO STORY (TOKYO MONOGATARI), 1953, Janus Films, 136
min. Revered master director Yasujiro Ozu dealt with the pathos, poetry and humor
of everyday family life in Japan, and his most highly-regarded masterwork is, without
question, this heartrending drama of two elderly parents (Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama)
leaving their provincial home village to visit their indifferent grown-up children in the
city. Like all of Ozu’s other pictures, there is a deceptively simple presentation of
commonplace events, that nevertheless, by the end, have drawn on deep wellsprings of
emotion. One of Ozu’s greatest talents was in showing these feelings as universal, as
part of the human condition and not specific to Japan - it is well-nigh impossible not to
be moved by his films.
Friday, March 3 - 7:30 PM
Japanese World Classics
THE SEVEN SAMURAI (SHICHININ NO SAMURAI), 1954,
Janus Films, 207 min. Director Akira Kurosawa’s most famous film is certainly
one of the finest movies ever made - a huge, sprawling but intimate, character-driven
period epic about an aging swordsman (the great Takashi Shimura) who enlists six
other warriors-for-hire (amongst them, Toshiro Mifune, Minoru Chiaki, Isao Kimura,
Daisuke Kato, Seiji Miyaguchi, Yoshio Inaba) to safeguard a remote village plagued by
bandits. One of Kurosawa’s prime talents as director, aside from his meticulous
attention to writing and character development, was his ability to create a lived-in
wealth of detail in all of his in-period samurai films. Nowhere is this talent more
evident than in this hypnotic evocation of a bygone age. The action film prototype,
enormously influential on a legion of filmmakers from around the world, including Sam
Peckinpah and Clint Eastwood. "Moves like hot mercury, and it draws a viewer so
thoroughly into its world that real life can seem thick and dull when the lights come
up." – Ty Burr, Boston Globe.
Saturday, March 4 - 7:30 PM
LASTING IMPRESSIONS
This is the first installment in a monthly series featuring screenings
and conversations with moviemakers, featuring the human, real-life stories of people who
make movies, hosted by comedy writer and performer, Ed Crasnick.
Teri Garr In-Person!
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, 1974, 20th
Century Fox, 105 min. Director Mel Brooks’ hilariously abby-normal homage to
1930’s monster movies on American audiences – one of the strangest, funniest,
most brilliantly conceived comedies since the heyday of the Marx Bros. Gene Wilder (who
co-wrote the script) stars as Dr. Frankenstein ("That’s Frankensteen.")
struggling to breathe life into tap-dancing monster Peter Boyle, with demented help
from hunchback assistant Marty Feldman, lusty Teri Garr, neurotic girlfriend
Madeline Kahn and Frau Blucher herself, Cloris Leachman. "The
biggest problem we had in doing Young Frankenstein was that we had to do so many takes
because we couldn't stop laughing." - Teri Garr. Discussion following with actress, Teri Garr.
Teri Garr will be signing her book Speedbumps,
Flooring It Through Hollywood at Every Picture Tells a Story at 6:30 PM.
Wednesday, March 8
– 7:30 PM
Frank Perry Tribute Double Feature:
PLAY IT AS IT LAYS 1972, Universal, 99 min.
Director Frank Perry (DAVID AND LISA) delivered many edgy psychological classics,
and none is more deserving of rediscovery than this rarely-screened adaptation of Joan
Didion’s bestseller, with a screenplay by Didion and her late husband, John Gregory
Dunne. Tuesday Weld is at her best as fiercely intelligent Maria, an ex-model
on the verge of a nervous breakdown. In-the-closet producer Anthony Perkins is her
only friend and Adam Roarke her estranged, director husband trying to jumpstart his career
out of the biker-film ghetto. A scathing portrait of Hollywood in the early 1970’s.
NOT ON VIDEO! >> Also playing at the Egyptian, March 17.
THE SWIMMER 1968, Columbia (Sony Repertory), 94 min. One
of the most unjustly neglected figures of the New Hollywood, director Frank Perry
made 10 low-key, razor-sharp dissections of modern morals and relationships between 1962
and 1975. Based on John Cheever’s acclaimed novel, THE SWIMMER follows vigorous,
middle-aged Burt Lancaster on a metaphoric journey swimming from backyard pool to
backyard pool, headed towards a "home" that may no longer exist. A nostalgic
portrait of regret and despair lying beneath the gemlike surface of suburbia, featuring
one of Lancaster’s finest performances.
>> Also playing at the Egyptian, March 17.
Friday, March 17 – 7:30 PM
Sneak Preview!
BRICK, 2005, Focus Feature, 100 min. This dynamic debut feature
from writer/director Rian Johnson, which won the Sundance Film Festival’s
Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision, takes its cues from the novels of Dashiell
Hammett and the cinematic tradition of the hard-boiled noir. But Johnson wittily
immerses them in fresh territory – a modern-day Southern California neighborhood and
high school. Fiercely intelligent student Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is not afraid to
back up his words with actions, and knows all the angles; yet he prefers to stay an
outsider, and does – until the day that his ex-girlfriend, Emily (Emilie de Ravin of
"Lost"), reaches out to him unexpectedly and then vanishes. To find her, Brendan
enlists the aid of his only true peer, The Brain (Matt O’Leary). Brendan’s
single-minded unearthing of students’ secrets thrusts him headlong into the colliding
social orbits of rich-girl sophisticate Laura (Nora Zehetner), intimidating Tugger (Noah
Fleiss), substance-abusing Dode (Noah Segan), seductive Kara (Meagan Good), jock Brad
(Brian White), and – most ominously – non-student The Pin (Lukas Haas). It is
only by gaining acceptance into The Pin’s closely guarded inner circle of crime and
punishment that Brendan will be able to uncover hard truths about himself, Emily, and the
suspects that he is getting closer to. Discussion following
with director Rian Johnson.
Wednesday, March 22 – 7:30 PM
OUTFEST WEDNESDAY AT THE AERO
CABARET, 1972, Warner Bros. 123 min. Boasting eight
Oscars and a host of openly-gay creative talent, Director Bob Fosse’s CABARET
set standards of excellence in the musical film genre. Set in decadent 1930’s Berlin,
where life inside and outside the Kit Kat Klub is brilliantly told through the clever
blend of story and musical numbers, as the outside world of Nazi politics grows into a
brutal force, slowly affecting everyone in the film. The impulsive and morally liberal
agent provocateur, Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) meets the scholarly and handsome
Bryan (Michael York) and the two develop an intimate relationship unknowingly
sharing a bisexual lover. Androgynous Master of Ceremonies Joel Grey brings the
cabaret to life with Kander and Ebb’s exquisite lyrics and music depicting
1930’s pansexual, yet politically violent Weimar Germany.
Saturday, March 25
– 7:00 PM
In Person Tribute To Italian Documentarian Folco Quilici!
Presented in association with the Italian Cultural Institute and the Consulat
General of Italy in Los Angeles.
Director Folco Quilici has made over 300
medium-length and short films of a cultural nature. Particularly important were two
non-competing works presented at the Venice Film Festival; GAUGUIN (1957) and THE ANGEL
AND THE MERMAID (1980). For many years, Folco Quilici's name has been connected with the
relationship between man and the sea, with films like BLUE CONTINENT (Venice Film Festival
Special Award, 1954), TIKO AND THE SHARK ( co-written with Italo Calvino, Unesco Award for
Culture 1961), and BROTHER SEA (FRATELLO MARE, 1975). In 1971, he received an Oscar
nomination for TUSCANY , one of the sixteen films of the Italy from the Sky series.
US. Premiere! L’IMPERO
DI MARMO (THE MARBLE EMPIRE), 2005, 58 min. A screening of Italian director
Folco Quilici's newest film, a documentary on the search for the most beautiful
marble, from the distant past of imperial Rome to contemporary times. Marbles from every
part of the empire: yellow gold from the Numidia, red from the Peloponneso, alabaster rose
from Algeria, green from the Tessaglia, blood red from the Tebaide. A rigorously
scientific film, inspired by the work Roman Marmora by Ranico Gnoli, tells of the
"hunters of marble", both yesterday and today.
Quilici’s Lost film! FRATELLO MARE (BROTHER SEA), 1975. In director Folco
Quilici’s longstanding tradition comes another look at a world set apart from
modern civilization, an exploration of the relationship of man and the ocean.Quilici
started shooting this documentary on marine locations in the 1950’s and finished it
in the 1970’s when the lost cans where found in the hand of a collector. But the
finished print, itself, subsequently disappeared for a number of years. A copy was
recently found in Japan, and, after restoration by the Italian Cineteca, a digital version
is finally available for rediscovery. Discussion in between
films with director, Folco Quilici.
Thursday, March 30 – 7:30 PM
Sneak Preview!
Steve Buscemi In-Person!
LONESOME JIM, 2005, IFC Films, 91 min. Dir. Steve
Buscemi. Jim (Casey Affleck) returns to his rural Indiana home after failing to
make it in New York. He soon remembers why he left: a doting but overbearing mother (Mary
Kay Place), a distant father (Seymour Cassel), and a depressed older brother (Kevin
Corrigan). Jim is soon forced to take on his brother's duties - working at his parent's
factory and helping out with his two rambunctious nieces. Crippled by obligations and
anxieties, Jim trudges on, even after the family's collapse when mom is mistakenly taken
for a drug smuggler. Almost miraculously, hope springs from his developing relationship
with a local nurse (Liv Tyler) and her young son, and Jim slowly learns to move
forward without leaving anyone behind. Steve Buscemi's seamless direction and James C.
Strouse's thoughtful script paint a picture of working-class characters filled with the
comedy and rich details of everyday life. Discussion following with director Steve Buscemi. |
