[Press release from the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
March and April will find the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque presenting:
(1)
Three silent films accompanied live by New Hampshire pianist Jeff Rapsis on March 3 & 4
(2)
The first Cleveland showing of 14 new films from around the world, including NERUDA and DAVID LYNCH: THE ART LIFE
(3)
Six classics starring the great Peter O’Toole (March 11 – April 29)
(4)
The Cleveland Cult Film Festival 8 (April 1-8), featuring four of the worst movies ever made (not an April Fool’s joke)
(5)
Three Italian classics set during the fascist era
(6)
Many other classic films in new digital restorations or original 35mm film prints
All
movies, which are listed below, will show in the Peter B. Lewis Theater
of the Cleveland Institute of Art, 11610 Euclid Avenue. Unless noted,
admission to each film is $10; Cinematheque members, CIA/CSU I.D.
holders, and those age 25
& under $7. A second film on the same day costs an additional $7
(or the prevailing member price). Free parking for filmgoers in
available in two institute lots accessed from E. 117th Street off Euclid Avenue: Lot 73 and the CIA Annex Lot. For further
information, visit cia.edu/cinematheque; call John Ewing or Tim Harry at (216) 421-7450; or send an email to
cinema@cia.edu. Cinematheque programs are supported by Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.
Monday, February 27, at 6:45 pm
A Special Event!
Co-Producer in Person!
DISTURBING THE PEACE
USA/Israel/Palestine, 2016, Stephen Apkon, Andrew Young
This
inspiring new documentary profiles some of the former enemy
combatants—both Israeli soldiers from elite units and Palestinian
freedom fighters—who have banded together and formed “Combatants for
Peace,” an organization advocating for
a nonviolent resolution of the longstanding (and often seemingly
hopeless) Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The film’s co-producer Marcina
Hale will answer audience questions after the screening. “Critics’
pick…Compelling—and persuasive.”
–The NY Times. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 87 min.
MARCH 2-5
Thursday, March 2, at 6:45 pm &
Sunday, March 5, at 8:45 pm
SAVING BANKSY
USA, 2014, Colin M. Day
This “lively, involving documentary” (L.A. Times)
explores the efficacy and ethics of saving street art from defacement
and destruction—and then selling it for a lot of money that the artist
does not share. The film centers on one
well-meaning San Francisco collector who tries to save a rat painted in
2010 on the side of a Haight-Ashbury building by famed, anonymous
British street artist Banksy. His intention is to donate it to a museum,
but the road to hell is paved with good intentions…
Cleveland premiere. DCP. 80 min.
Thursday, March 2, at 8:25 pm
UNCLE KENT 2
USA, 2015, Todd Rohal, Joe Swanberg
Mumblecore movie star and SpongeBob SquarePants writer and artist Kent Osborne plays a version of himself in this “sequel” to Joe Swanberg’s 2011 indie comedy
Uncle Kent—a movie you don’t have to have seen before watching this one. (The Village Voice
has called Uncle Kent 2 “the most stand-alone sequel ever made.”) It’s an outrageous, surreal work that
finds Osborne at the San Diego Comic Con, where he loses his mind
and confronts the end of the world. “The craziest movie sequel ever. A
defiantly unconventional crowdpleaser.”
–Indiewire. Cleveland premiere. DCP. 73 min.
Friday, March 3, at 7:30 pm
Film Classics in 35mm!
Jeff Rapsis accompanies
THE CAMERAMAN
USA, 1928, Buster Keaton, Edward Sedgwick
New
England’s foremost silent film accompanist, Jeff Rapsis, returns to the
Cinematheque to accompany the first comedy Buster Keaton made for MGM
near the end of the silent era. (It’s one of his funniest movies.)
Buster plays a lovestruck
Hollywood newsreel cameraman who must contend with both a local tong
war and a precocious organ grinder’s monkey before getting the girl. 69
min.
Special admission $12; members, CIA & CSU I.D. holders, and those
age 25 & under $9; no passes, twofers, or radio winners. Keaton’s
second film for MGM, and his last silent feature, shows on 3/11 &
12.
Friday, March 3, at 9:00 pm &
Sunday, March 5, at 4:00 pm
THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT
LE TOUT NOUVEAU TESTAMENT
Belgium/France/Luxembourg, 2015, Jaco Van Dormael
God exists, but He is a jerk. Or so Toto the Hero and
Mr. Nobody director Jaco Van Dormael has it in his outrageous,
religiously incorrect new fantasy, one of the most acclaimed films of
the past two years. (It won Magritte Awards, Belgium’s Oscars, for Best
Picture, Director, and Screenplay.) The movie
imagines a God who lives in a Belgian high-rise and never gets out of
his robe and pajamas. He delights in tormenting not only humanity but
also His beleaguered wife and young daughter. When the child revolts,
hacking into His computer and leaking the death
date for every person on earth, her Father is not forgiving, and goes
after her and her motley band of “apostles.” With Catherine Deneuve.
“Irresistibly laugh-out-loud and feel-good.”
–The Hollywood Reporter. “For sheer inventiveness of story, language, visuals and theme,
The Brand New Testament is, quite nearly, a divine comedy.” –The Washington Post.
Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 114 min.
Saturday, March 4, at 5:00 pm
Back by Popular Demand!
FIRE AT SEA
FUOCOAMMARE
Italy/France, 2016, Gianfranco Rosi
One
of this year’s five Oscar nominees for Best Documentary Feature,
Gianfranco Rosi’s observational documentary chronicles how the current
European migrant crisis has affected the Sicilian island of Lampedusa,
located only 70 miles from
the coast of North Africa. For two decades now, Italian fishermen and
their families on the island have had to coexist with boatloads of
African and Middle Eastern refugees who risk (and often lose) their
lives crossing the Mediterranean in search of safety
and stability. “Masterly filmmaking.” –The Guardian. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 114 min.
Saturday, March 4, at 7:15 pm
Film Classics in 35mm!
A Special Event!
Tod Browning Double Feature!
Jeff Rapsis accompanies
THE UNKNOWN
USA, 1927, Tod Browning
WEST OF ZANZIBAR
USA, 1928, Tod Browning
Before he directed such horror classics as Dracula and
Freaks, Tod Browning made an unparalleled series of lurid,
twisted silent thrillers starring the peerless “man of a thousand
faces,” Lon Chaney. (One of them, 1927’s vampire movie
London After Midnight, is one of the most coveted of lost films.)
Tonight we show the best two Browning/Chaney movies that survive, both
with live musical accompaniment by New Hampshire silent film pianist
Jeff Rapsis (see 3/3 at 7:30).
The Unknown is a creepy, unforgettable circus drama in which an
“armless” knife thrower (Chaney) falls for a beautiful bareback rider
(Joan Crawford) who doesn’t like to be touched. The
Time Out Film Guide calls
it “one of the great silent movies, astonishing in its intensity” and
“by far the best of the remarkable series of Browning/Chaney
collaborations.” In the sleazy, Africa-set
West of Zanzibar, Chaney plays an evil magician, paralyzed from
the waist down and known as “Dead Legs,” who vows revenge on the ivory
trader (Lionel Barrymore) who caused his injury and stole his wife.
Total approx. 120 min.
Special admission $15; members,
CIA & CSU I.D. holders, and those age 25 & under $12; no
passes, twofers, or radio winners.
Saturday, March 4, at 9:35 pm &
Sunday, March 5, at 6:30 pm
Film Classics in 35mm!
John Hurt, 1940-2017
1984
aka NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR
UK, 1984, Michael Radford
The
late John Hurt co-stars with Richard Burton (in his last screen
appearance) in this grim, impressive, and powerful version of George
Orwell’s cautionary, dystopian classic. The film’s superb production
design rivals (and pre-dates)
that in Brazil. Music by the Eurythmics. 113 min. Special
admission $11; members, CIA & CSU I.D. holders, and those age 25
& under $8; no passes, twofers, or radio winners. Shown Sunday night
as the Cinematheque’s contribution to “Reel Film Day,”
a nationwide celebration of 35mm film taking place in select theaters
on 3/5 (get it?).
Sunday, March 5, at 4:00 pm
THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT
See 3/3 at 9:00 for description
Sunday, March 5, at 6:30 pm
1984 (1984)
See 3/4 at 9:35 for description
Sunday, March 5, at 8:45 pm
SAVING BANKSY
See 3/2 at 6:45 for description
MARCH 9-12
Thursday, March 9, at 6:45 pm &
Friday, March 10, at 9:30 pm
New 4K Digital Restoration!
BEAT THE DEVIL
UK/Italy/USA, 1953, John Huston
Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina
Lollobrigida, Peter Lorre, and Robert Morley star in John Huston’s spoof
of the international-intrigue thriller, co-written by Truman Capote,
about a bunch of rival, shady uranium speculators on the
same Africa-bound boat. The problem was that most moviegoers didn’t see
this absurd tale as a joke, so the film flopped and Bogie, who invested
in it, lost a lot of money. (He called it “a mess.”) It became a cult
classic years later; legendary film critic
Pauline Kael even dubbed it “the funniest mess of all time.” Cleveland
revival premiere. DCP. 93 min.
Thursday, March 9, at 8:40 pm &
Friday, March 10, at 7:30 pm
THINGS TO COME
L’AVENIR
France/Germany, 2016, Mia Hansen-Løve
Isabelle Huppert swept the major 2016 film critics’ awards for Best Actress—and not just for her performance in
Elle. When critics groups in New York, Los Angeles, and Boston—as
well as the National Society of Film Critics—announced their year-end
accolades, they also cited Huppert’s performance in
Things to Come, which is itself one of the most acclaimed films
of the past year. It’s a warm, funny, sensitive drama about a longtime
philosophy teacher (Huppert) whose life is coming apart: her husband
wants a divorce, her kids are leaving the nest,
and her elderly mother requires more and more of her attention. She is
forced to reinvent herself. “Huppert is such a persistently and
prolifically rigorous performer that she risks being taken for granted
in some of her vehicles, but this is major, many-shaded
work even by her lofty standards.” –Variety. Cleveland theatrical premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 102 min.
Friday, March 10, at 9:30 pm
BEAT THE DEVIL
See 3/9 at 6:45 for description
Saturday, March 11, at 5:00 pm &
Sunday, March 12, at 6:30 pm
Film Classics in 35mm!
SPITE MARRIAGE
USA, 1929, Buster Keaton, Edward Sedgwick
Buster
Keaton’s second film for MGM was also his last silent feature. It’s
also one of his least shown and most underrated comedies. Keaton plays a
pants-presser in love with a stage actress who marries him in order to
spite the man she
really loves, an actor who has jilted her. “Three of the sequences (a
play ruined by Buster’s gaucheness, getting a drunk bride to bed, and an
extraordinary shipboard fight) put the film up in Division One,
crowning a decade of unparalleled creativity.”
–Time Out Film Guide. Music track. 76 min. Special admission
$11; members, CIA & CSU I.D. holders, and those age 25 & under
$8; no passes, twofers, or radio winners.
Saturday, March 11, at 6:40 pm &
Sunday, March 12, at 8:10 pm
Peter (O’Toole) the Great
New 4K Digital Restoration!
THE LION IN WINTER
UK, 1968, Anthony Harvey
If
talking politics ruined last Christmas for you, then take heart. It
could have been worse. In this classic costume drama, King Henry II
(Peter O’Toole) and his estranged wife Eleanor of Aquitane (Oscar winner
Katharine Hepburn) spend
Christmas 1183 arguing violently over which of their sons should
succeed to the British throne. Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton both
made their screen debuts in this much-honored film that earned O’Toole
the third of his eight Oscar nominations. The great
score by John Barry did win an Oscar. Cleveland revival premiere. DCP. 134 min.
Saturday, March 11, at 9:15 pm &
Sunday, March 12, at 4:00 pm
NERUDA
Chile/Argentina/France/Spain/USA, 2016, Pablo Larraín
Gael García Bernal stars in the second acclaimed film of 2016 by
Jackie director Pablo Larraín. The movie, which was Chile’s
official entry for this year’s Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film,
chronicles the political persecution suffered by Nobel Prize-winning
Chilean poet and Communist Senator Pablo Neruda after
he criticized the country’s president in 1948. “[Larraín] at his
stunning best…A work of such cleverness and beauty, alongside such
power, that it’s hard to know how to parcel out praise.”
–Variety. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 107 min.
Sunday, March 12, at 6:30 pm
SPITE MARRIAGE
See 3/11 at 5:00 for description
Sunday, March 12, at 8:10 pm
THE LION IN WINTER
See 3/11 at 6:40 for description
MARCH 16-19
Thursday, March 16, at 6:45 pm
STARLESS DREAMS
ROYHAYE DAME SOBH
Iran, 2016, Mehrdad Oskouei
Iranian
filmmaker Mehrdad Oskouei spent seven years trying to secure access to
the all-female juvenile detention center in Tehran that is the setting
for her acclaimed new documentary. There she interviews some of the
incarcerated teenage
girls about their crimes (which range from cocaine possession to bank
robbery to patricide) and about the societal and cultural and conditions
that may have sparked them. “The world needs to see this spare,
revelatory film and hear these girls' pained and
sometimes proud confessions.” –Village Voice. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 76 min.
Thursday, March 16, at 8:25 pm &
Friday, March 17, at 7:30 pm
New Digital Restoration!
ANATAHAN
aka THE SAGA OF ANATAHAN
Japan, 1953, Josef von Sternberg
The final feature by the great Joseph von Sternberg (The Blue Angel, The Docks of New York)
was an independent production shot in Japan. Inspired by a true case,
the film focuses on twelve shipwrecked Japanese sailors who, at the
end of WWII, were stranded and forgotten on a remote island inhabited
by a man and a woman. They spend the next few years fighting over the
woman and vying for control of the island. Pictorially,
Anatahan is a masterpiece (as you would expect from von
Sternberg, who made Marlene Dietrich an immortal screen icon) and this
new digital restoration is derived from the original camera negative.
“If the material is fascinating, the treatment is just
amazing…Images of staggering beauty.” –Time Out Film Guide. “Could
be [von Sternberg’s] masterpiece.” –Dave Kehr. Cleveland revival
premiere. In Japanese with English voiceover narration by the director.
DCP. 91 min.
Friday, March 17, at 9:25 pm &
Saturday, March 18, at 5:00 pm
New Digital Restoration!
PANIQUE (PANIC)
France, 1946, Julien Duvivier
The great Michel Simon (L’Atalante, Boudu Saved from Drowning) stars in the first film version of Georges Simenon’s 1933 crime novel
Mr. Hire’s Engagement (remade in 1989 as Monsieur Hire).
Simon plays a lonely misanthrope and voyeur, living in a suburb of Paris
where he is widely disliked and distrusted, who is framed for a murder
he didn’t commit. Part film noir, part tragic
romance, this nasty thriller is a “near-perfect piece of film
craftsmanship,” according to legendary film critic Pauline Kael. “[A]
masterpiece…A joy to watch…Unforgettable.”
–Village Voice (2017). Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 90 min.
Saturday, March 18, at 6:50 pm &
Sunday, March 19, at 3:45 pm
Peter (O’Toole) the Great
HOW TO STEAL A MILLION
USA, 1966, William Wyler
Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole star
in William Wyler’s elegant caper comedy, set in Paris, about an art
forger’s daughter who hires a burglar to help her steal a statue from a
museum. Wyler previously directed Hepburn in
Roman Holiday. With Charles Boyer and Eli Wallach; music by John Williams. DCP. 123 min.
Saturday, March 18, at 9:15 pm
Two by Raúl Ruiz
Film Classics in 35mm!
THREE CROWNS OF A SAILOR
LES TROIS COURONNES DU MATELOT
France, 1983, Raúl Ruiz
The
late Chilean/French filmmaker Raúl Ruiz (1941-2011) was one of the most
imaginative and prolific directors in the modern cinema. Although most
of Ruiz’s 100+ features are virtually impossible to see in the U.S.,
tonight and next Saturday
you have a chance to see two of his greatest works in rare (and
essential) 35mm prints. (Both were plucked from the 16-film Ruiz
retrospective presented late last year by the Film Society of Lincoln
Center.)
Three Crowns of a Sailor is a baroque, Wellesian noir in which a
student who has committed a murder meets a drunken sailor willing to
give him safe passage on his vessel. The mariner demands a payment of
three Danish crowns, but also requires that the
student spend the night before their departure listening to his life
story. What follows is a series of dreamy, fantastic tales—tales of
exotic ports of call, of bandits and brothels, of ghost ships. “In the
tradition of Cocteau, Fellini, Tarkovsky; open your
eyes and your mind to it.” –Time Out Film Guide. Subtitles. Color print from the Institut Français. 117 min.
Special admission $12; members,
CIA & CSU I.D. holders, and those age 25 & under $9; no passes,
twofers, or radio winners. Thanks to Nathanaël Arnould, L’Institut
National de l’Audiovisuel; Amélie Garin-Davet, Cultural Services of the
French Embassy, New
York; Laurence Geannopulos, Consulat Général de France, Chicago ; and
Dan Sullivan, Film Society of Lincoln Center. This program supported by the Charles Lang Bergengren Memorial Film Fund.
Sunday, March 19, at 3:45 pm
HOW TO STEAL A MILLION
See 3/18 at 6:50 for description
Sunday, March 19, at 6:30 pm
SILENCE
USA/Taiwan/Mexico, 2016, Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese’s longtime dream project follows two 17th-century
Portuguese Jesuit priests (Andrew Garfied, Adam Driver) who journey to
Japan to find a long-missing third priest (Liam Neeson). This man, their
mentor, has reputedly
renounced his faith in the face of anti-Christian persecution by the
shogunate. This magisterial historical drama has the sweep of Kurosawa
and the spirituality of Mizoguchi. “Five stars (highest rating)… Ranks
among the greatest achievements of spiritually
minded cinema…Scorsese has hit the rare heights of Ingmar Bergman and
Carl Theodor Dreyer.”
–Time Out New York. DCP. 161 min. Special admission $11;
members, CIA & CSU I.D. holders, and those age 25 & under $8; no
passes, twofers, or radio winners.
MARCH 23-26
Thursday, March 23, at 6:45 pm
BEHEMOTH
BEI XI MO SHOU
China/France, 2015, Zhao Liang
The awesome human and environmental
destruction wrought by Chinese coal mining in Inner Mongolia is captured
on an epic scale—without resorting to interviews or talking heads—in
this much heralded, monstrously poetic nonfiction film that
The Village Voice calls “a work of film art.” Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 90 min.
Thursday, March 23, at 8:35 pm &
Sunday, March 26, at 6:45 pm
THE LURE
CÓRKA DANCINGU
Poland, 2015, Agnieszka Smoczyńska
Hans Christian Andersen goes Goth and
new wave in this imaginative and outlandish horror musical, set in 1980s
Poland. It follows a pair of carnivorous mermaid sisters who go ashore
and land gigs as strippers and singers in a half-glam,
half-gritty nightclub. While living among the humans, one sibling looks
for love, the other for dinner. A future cult classic, it’s like
The Hunger with scales. “[A] wholly original and ominously enchanting nightmare.”
–Indiewire. Adults only! Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 92 min.
NO FILMS FRI., 3/24
Saturday, March 25, at 5:00 pm &
Sunday, March 26, at 8:40 pm
FILM TO BE ANNOUNCED
Visit cia.edu/cinematheque for updates
Saturday, March 25, at 7:00 pm
Peter (O’Toole) the Great
THE STUNT MAN
USA, 1980, Richard Rush
A fugitive (Steve Railsback) stumbles
upon an action movie set and replaces a stunt man who has died. He uses
the film shoot to hide from the police, but soon discovers that there’s
no hiding from the movie’s imperious, eccentric director
(Peter O’Toole in the sixth of his eight Oscar-nominated roles), who
may be trying to kill him. Reality and illusion blur in this witty,
head-spinning cult classic that Pauline Kael called “a virtuoso piece of
kinetic moviemaking” and “slapstick metaphysics.”
With Barbara Hershey and Allen Goorwitz/Garfield. Blu-ray. 129 min.
Saturday, March 25, at 9:30 pm
Two by Raúl Ruiz
Film Classics in 35mm!
CITY OF PIRATES
LA VILLE DES PIRATES
France/Portugal, 1983, Raúl Ruiz
This dark fairy tale by the late, great Raúl Ruiz (see 3/18 at 9:15) is a surreal, nightmarish variant on
Peter Pan. It contains a 10-year-old “lost boy” who has murdered
his family; a sleepwalking maid who may be the boy’s mother; and a
crazed lecher who keeps the servant imprisoned on his rocky island.
(There are no pirates.) Rape, incest, and castration
factor into this sexually charged, visually stunning, absurdist
fantasia that operates on dream logic. “Magical, perversely playful and
macabre.”
–Time Out Film Guide. Subtitles. 111 min. Special admission
$12; members, CIA & CSU I.D. holders, and those age 25 & under
$9; no passes, twofers, or radio winners. Thanks to Geraldine Bryant, Le
Bureau, and Jake Perlin of the Metrograph. This program
supported by the Charles Lang Bergengren Memorial Film Fund.
Sunday, March 26, at 3:30 pm
New Digital Restoration!
PELLE THE CONQUEROR
PELLE EROBREREN
Denmark/Sweden, 1987, Bille August
Max von Sydow stars in this epic film
that won the 1989 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film as well as the
top prize at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival. Set during the late 1850s,
the film follows an older widower and his young son as they
emigrate from their native Sweden to Denmark in search of a better
life. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 157 min.
Special admission $11; members, CIA & CSU I.D. holders, and those
age 25 & under $8; no passes, twofers, or radio winners. Presented
as part of the 2017 Cleveland Humanities Festival (theme:
“Immigration”), coordinated by the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities
at CWRU.
Sunday, March 26, at 6:45 pm
THE LURE
See 3/23 at 8:35 for description
Sunday, March 26, at 8:40 pm
FILM TO BE ANNOUNCED
THE CINEMATHEQUE AT CIFF
The
Cinematheque will be a community partner for an acclaimed new foreign
film showing in this year’s 41st Cleveland International Film Festival,
March 29–April 9 at Tower City Cinemas and at various locations around
town (including the
Peter B. Lewis Theater). For the title, location, dates, and showtimes
of our chosen film—and for advance tickets to it—visit clevelandfilm.org
after March 3. Use the code “CINE” and receive $2 off the ticket price
to our partnered film and to any regular
CIFF screening.
MARCH 30 – APRIL 2
NO FILMS 3/30-31
Saturday, April 1, at 7:00 pm &
Sunday, April 2, at 8:35 pm
Cleveland Cult Film Festival 8
Film Classics in 35mm!
MOMENT BY MOMENT
USA, 1978, Jane Wagner
At
the start of his movie career, John Travolta had a three-film contract
with the Robert Stigwood Organisation. His first two pictures were
Saturday Night Fever and Grease. Moment by Moment, film
#3, has largely been forgotten. This is not surprising given its
disastrous reception by critics and the public in 1978. The movie is a
love story in which lonely, unhappily married Beverly
Hills socialite Trisha Rawlings (Lily Tomlin!) falls in love with a
young drifter and car valet named Vick Sunset (Travolta). Sunset’s
unfortunate nickname is “Strip” (get it?); thus, whenever Trisha calls
him, it sounds like she’s giving him a sexy command!
Not on video or DVD. “This truly terrible movie might have been made by
HAL in his most maudlin ‘Bicycle-built-for-two’ mood, as the plugs were
being pulled out.” –Gilbert Adair. Color & scope print from the
Universal Pictures studio archive. 102 min.
Special admission $11; members, CIA & CSU I.D. holders, and those
age 25 & under $8; no passes, twofers, or radio winners.
Saturday, April 1, at 9:05 pm &
Sunday, April 2, at 6:30 pm
Cleveland Cult Film Festival 8
New Digital Restoration!
ISHTAR
USA, 1987, Elaine May
Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty,
Isabelle Adjani, and Charles Grodin in a $51 million comedy written and
directed by Elaine May and shot by the great Vittorio Storaro—what could
possibly go wrong? Plenty, if you believe the film critics of
1987. Beatty and Hoffman play untalented, unsuccessful lounge singers
who accept a gig in Morocco. Soon they find themselves involved with CIA
political intrigue—and even regime change!—in the neighboring
(fictional) republic of Ishtar. Despite its reputation,
this folly and flop has many ardent admirers—among them Quentin
Tarantino, Lena Dunham, and Martin Scorsese. Cleveland natives Jack
Weston and Carol Kane co-star. “If all of the people who hate
Ishtar had seen it, I would be a rich woman today.” –Elaine May. DCP. 105 min.
Special admission $11; members, CIA & CSU I.D. holders, and those
age 25 & under $8; no passes, twofers, or radio winners.
Sunday, April 2, at 8:35 pm
MOMENT BY MOMENT
See 4/1 at 7:00 for description
APRIL 7-8
NO FILMS THU., 4/6
Friday, April 7, at 7:00 pm &
Saturday, April 8, at 9:20 pm
Cleveland Cult Film Festival 8
Film Classics in 35mm!
Original, Uncut NC-17 version!
SHOWGIRLS
USA, 1995, Paul Verhoeven
A
young drifter (Elizabeth Berkley) rises from lowly lap dancer to Vegas
headliner in this sleazy maybe-satire directed by Paul Verhoeven (Elle) and written by NE Ohio’s Joe Eszterhas (Basic Instinct). A critical and financial
fiasco when first released, Showgirls has become a hugely
profitable cult film with defenders ranging from Jim Jarmusch and
Quentin Tarantino to Jacques Rivette. With Kyle MacLachlan and Gina
Gershon. No one under 18 admitted! Scope. 131 min.
Special admission $11; members, CIA & CSU I.D. holders, and those
age 25 & under $8; no passes, twofers, or radio winners.
Friday, April 7, at 9:30 pm &
Saturday, April 8, at 7:00 pm
Cleveland Cult Film Festival 8
Film Classics in 35mm!
GIGLI
USA, 2003, Martin Brest
Everybody
knows that Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck star in this notorious
stinker. But how many know that Al Pacino and Christopher Walken are
also in it? Or that writer-director Martin Brest previously directed
such hits as
Scent of a Woman, Beverly Hills Cop, and Midnight Run?
Surely it’s time to take another look at this much derided romantic
comedy. Larry Gigli (Affleck) is a lackey in the L.A. mob who is ordered
to kidnap the brother of a federal prosecutor.
But he is offended when a woman—and a lesbian, no less (Lopez)—shows up
to supervise the operation. 35mm. 121 min.
Special admission $11; members, CIA & CSU I.D. holders, and those
age 25 & under $8; no passes, twofers, or radio winners.
Saturday, April 8, at 9:20 pm
SHOWGIRLS
See 4/7 at 7:00 for description
NO FILMS SUN., 4/9
APRIL 13-16
Thursday, April 13, at 6:45 pm
MA
USA, 2015, Celia Rowlson-Hall
In this modern-day vision of Mother
Mary’s pilgrimage—told entirely through movement—a pregnant woman
crosses the scorched landscape of the American Southwest to give birth
in Las Vegas. Deconstructing gender roles and reinventing the hero’s
journey, MA turns an archetypal American road trip (gas stations, motel
rooms, convenience stores, etc.) into a voyage into the visceral and
the surreal—interweaving ritual, performance, and the body as sculpture.
Choreographer and director Celia Rowlson-Hall
stars in her feature debut, which The Village Voice calls
“audacious enough to warrant attention.” “One of the year’s most
original debuts…The cinematic medium has seldom felt as free.”
–Variety. Cleveland premiere. DCP. 81 min. This program supported by the Charles Lang Bergengren Memorial Film Fund.
Thursday, April 13, at 8:30 pm &
Friday, April 14, at 7:00 pm
World War I + 100
GRAND ILLUSION
LA GRANDE ILLUSION
France, 1937, Jean Renoir
Orson Welles once said, “If I had only one film in the world to save, it would be
Grand Illusion.” Jean Gabin, Erich von Stroheim, and Pierre
Fresnay star in Jean Renoir’s great anti-war movie—a humanistic
masterpiece set in and around a German POW camp during the First World
War. This exciting and moving classic slyly demonstrates
that it is social class—not nationality or language—that really
separates and divides people. Essential viewing! Subtitles. DCP. 114
min.
Friday, April 14, at 9:15 pm
Film Classics in 35mm!
MORGAN!
aka MORGAN: A SUITABLE CASE FOR TREATMENT
UK, 1965, Karel Reisz
This rarely revived counterculture
cult classic is set in swinging 1960s London. David Warner plays an
anarchist artist from a working class background who literally goes ape
when his well-heeled wife (Vanessa Redgrave, in her Oscar-nominated
film debut) wants a divorce. Our romantic rebel hero embarks on a
series of funny, outlandish stunts to win her back. Print from England!
97 min.
Special admission $12; members, CIA & CSU I.D. holders, and those
age 25 & under $9; no passes, twofers, or radio winners. Thanks to
Bruce Goldstein, Film Forum, New York. This program supported by the
Charles Lang Bergengren Memorial Film Fund.
Saturday, April 15, at 5:00 pm
Three with Mussolini
GENERAL DELLA ROVERE
IL GENERALE DELLA ROVERE
Italy/France, 1959, Roberto Rossellini
During the German occupation of Milan
in WWII, a petty Italian thief and con man (Vittorio De Sica) is
arrested by the Gestapo and forced to spy for them in
prison—impersonating a general in order to root out anti-fascist
resistance fighters
there. Winner of the Golden Lion (top prize) at the 1959 Venice Film
Festival and one of Rossellini’s best films. Subtitles. Blu-ray. 140
min.
Saturday, April 15, at 7:45 pm
Peter (O’Toole) the Great
Film Classics in 35mm!
THE RULING CLASS
UK, 1972, Peter Medak
Peter O’Toole earned the fourth of his
eight Oscar nominations for this savage British satire (with musical
numbers!) in which an institutionalized lunatic with a Jesus complex
inherits a lordship, upsetting the upper class order. An outrageous,
irreverent cult classic! 154 min. Special admission $11; members,
CIA & CSU I.D. holders, and those age 25 & under $8; no passes,
twofers, or radio winners.
NO FILMS SUN., 4/16
APRIL 20-23
Thursday, April 20, at 6:45 pm &
Friday, April 21, at 9:30 pm
LOVESONG
USA, 2016, So Yong Kim
Jena Malone and Elvis Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough (Mad Max: Fury Road, American Honey) co-star in the fourth film by So Yong Kim (In Between Days, Treeless Mountain).
The movie tells of two old college friends—one
a young mother whose husband is often away, the other an unmarried free
spirit—who embark on an impromptu road trip. As they travel, their
long-held affection for each other deepens into something unspoken that
leaves them confused and uneasy. “Deftly digs
beneath the clichés and formulas of familiar sub-genres (female
friendship movie, road movie, lesbian romance) to come up with something
specific, nuanced and insightful…Kim’s strongest film to date.”
–The Hollywood Reporter. Cleveland premiere. DCP. 85 min.
Thursday, April 20, at 8:30 pm &
Saturday, April 22, at 7:10 pm
Three with Mussolini
Film Classics in 35mm!
TEA WITH MUSSOLINI
Italy/UK, 1999, Franco Zeffirelli
Maggie
Smith, Judi Dench, Joan Plowright, Cher, and Lily Tomlin star in Franco
Zeffirelli’s semi-autobiographical film about a group of eccentric
British and American friends in 1930s Italy who help raise an
illegitimate, motherless local
boy. Given Zeffirelli’s considerable gifts for lavish, picturesque
visuals, the cast’s scenery-chewing divas have their work cut out for
them! In English with Japanese subtitles (only available print). 35mm.
117 min.
Special admission $11; members, CIA & CSU I.D. holders, and those
age 25 & under $8; no passes, twofers, or radio winners.
Friday, April 21, at 7:00 pm
New Digital Restoration!
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL
UK, 1969, Jean-Luc Godard
This Godard classic from the late 1960s (his first feature after
Weekend) mixes scenes of social and political unrest (black
militants, student revolts, women’s liberationists, etc.) with footage
of the Rolling Stones in the studio working on the classic track that
gives the movie its title. But as the song comes
together, the world falls apart. With Anne Wiazemsky (Mouchette) as Eve Democracy.
Sympathy for the Devil was selected to be shown by New York-based
visual artist Adam Pendleton, subject of the one-man show “Adam
Pendleton: Becoming Imperceptible” at MOCA Cleveland through 5/14.
Pendleton regards the Godard movie as a suitable companion
piece to his 2012 short film Lorraine O’Grady: A Portrait, which will precede the feature at 7:00 pm. DCP. Total 120 min. Co-presented by MOCA Cleveland.
MOCA members & staff $7. Image courtesy of Cupid / ABKCO films.
Friday, April 21, at 9:30 pm
LOVESONG
See 4/20 at 6:45 for description
Saturday, April 22, at 5:00 pm &
Sunday, April 23, at 8:20 pm
Peter (O’Toole) the Great
Film Classics in 35mm!
MY FAVORITE YEAR
USA, 1982, Richard Benjamin
A young writer on a top live TV comedy
show in 1954 New York spends the week chaperoning the show’s next guest
star, Alan Swann (Peter O’Toole), an aging, swashbuckling matinee idol
with a drinking problem and a proclivity toward mischief
and bad behavior. O’Toole received the sixth of his eight Oscar
nominations for this wonderful comedy that was allegedly inspired by an
Errol Flynn appearance on Sid Caesar’s
Your Show of Shows, for which Mel Brooks and Woody Allen were
writers. With Mark Linn-Baker, Jessica Harper, and Joseph Bologna. 92
min. Preceded at showtime by a surprise short.
Special admission $11; members, CIA & CSU I.D. holders, and those
age 25 & under $8; no passes, twofers, or radio winners.
Saturday, April 22, at 7:10 pm
TEA WITH MUSSOLINI
See 4/20 at 8:30 for description
Saturday, April 22, at 9:30 pm &
Sunday, April 23, at 6:30 pm
DAVID LYNCH: THE ART LIFE
USA/Denmark, 2016, Jon Nguyen, Rick Barnes, Olivia Neergaard-Holm
It’s only one month before the re-launch of Twin Peaks, so the time is right for this new documentary about the show’s enigmatic and idiosyncratic creator.
David Lynch: The Art Life is nothing less than an artistic coming-of-age story and autobiography in which the now 70-year-old director of
Blue Velvet and Mulholland Dr. recounts his idyllic
American childhood, his love of painting, and his formative years at
various art and film schools. (These culminated in the making of
Eraserhead.) Lots of weird stories, too. Cleveland premiere. DCP. 90 min.
Sunday, April 23, at 4:00 pm
Film Classics in 35mm!
SALT OF THE EARTH
USA, 1954, Herbert J. Biberman
It’s
a miracle that this landmark labor classic was ever made. It was
written, produced, and directed by three men who had been blacklisted by
Hollywood; financed by a union that had been expelled from the CIO
because of its alleged communist
leadership; and denounced by the U.S. House of Representatives and
denied screens by theater owners when finally finished. Despite all
that, this indie milestone survives today (and was even added to the
Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 1992.)
Inspired by a true case, Salt of the Earth chronicles a long,
painful strike by New Mexico zinc miners. The movie was years ahead of
its time. It was shot in a neorealist style with a largely
non-professional cast of real miners and their families;
it promoted feminist attitudes two decades before the ERA; and it
exposed the inequities between Mexican-American workers and their
“Anglo” counterparts. “No American film is more inspiring and
emotionally satisfying.” –Danny Peary,
Cult Movies II. Archival print! 94 min. This is the second in
an ongoing series of labor-related films co-presented and co-sponsored
by the United Labor Agency. Special admission $11; members, CIA &
CSU I.D. holders, those age 25 & under, and those
with union cards $8; no passes, twofers, or radio winners. Thanks to
Lia Benedetti Jarrico.
Sunday, April 23, at 6:30 pm
DAVID LYNCH: THE ART LIFE
See 4/22 at 9:30 for description
Sunday, April 23, at 8:20 pm
MY FAVORITE YEAR
See 4/22 at 5:00 for description
APRIL 27-30
Thursday, April 27, at 6:45 pm &
Sunday, April 30, at 8:40 pm
THE SETTLERS
France/Israel/Canada/Germany, 2016, Shimon Dotan
This
important and acclaimed new documentary takes an in-depth look at some
of the many Israeli citizens who have built homes and communities in the
occupied West Bank—complicating the nation’s ongoing Palestinian
conflict and jeopardizing
the two-state solution that many seek. The film also looks at the
religious and political roots of the settler movement, going back to
Israel’s founding in 1948 and to its acquisition of substantial Arab
territories after 1967’s Six-Day War. “Extraordinary!”
–Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! “Everyone who cares about Israel should see Shimon Dotan's
The Settlers.” –The Jerusalem Post. Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. Blu-ray. 107 min.
Thursday, April 27, at 8:55 pm &
Friday, April 28, at 9:30 pm
THE HUMAN SURGE
EL AUGE DEL HUMANO
Argentina/Brazil/Portugal, 2016, Eduardo Williams
How
do you describe a film that is essentially indescribable? Eduardo
Williams’ feature debut, one of the most audacious and acclaimed visions
of 2016, is nominally about work and millennials. It begins in
Argentina, where a bored, unemployed
young man decides to dabble in internet porn. From there the film
connects to other idle young men in Mozambique, and to even more of them
in the Philippines. (Though without jobs, they have phones and
computers.)
The Human Surge is about movement and forward motion, about networking, about “how we live now.” It’s a work that
Sight & Sound calls “singular and unclassifiable,” and which Artforum
critic Nick Pinkerton says contains “things that I’d actually never seen
before in a movie.” Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 97 min.
This program supported by the Charles Lang Bergengren Memorial Film Fund.
Friday, April 28, at 7:30 pm &
Saturday, April 29, at 9:15 pm
New 4K Digital Restoration!
UGETSU
UGETSU MONOGATARI
Japan, 1953, Kenji Mizoguchi
Mizoguchi’s most celebrated film is an atmospheric samurai drama and ghost story in which two peasants living in war-torn 16th-century
Japan leave their homes hoping to profit from the conflict. This
haunting movie subtly conveys
the illusory nature of ambition and desire. With Machiko Kyō and Kinuyo
Tanaka; cinematography by Kazuo Miyagawa. “Simultaneously realistic,
allegorical and supernatural,
Ugetsu is the most stylistically perfect of all Mizoguchi’s work,
and many critics consider it the greatest Japanese film ever made.”
–David L. Cook. Cleveland revival premiere Subtitles. DCP. 96 min.
Friday, April 28, at 9:30 pm
THE HUMAN SURGE
See 4/27 at 8:55 for description
Saturday, April 29, at 5:00 pm
Peter (O’Toole) the Great
DEAN SPANLEY
New Zealand/UK, 2008, Toa Fraser
Peter O’Toole and Sam Neill (both
giving Oscar-worthy performances) star in this delightful film version
of Lord Dunsany’s cult fantasy novel. Set in Edwardian England, this
odd, one-of-a-kind movie chronicles how a lecture on the transmigration
of souls, and a rare Hungarian wine, help effect a thaw in the chilly
relationship between a dutiful son and his embittered father. And dog
lovers absolutely shouldn’t miss it. Blu-ray. 100 min.
Saturday, April 29, at 7:00 pm &
Sunday, April 30, at 4:00 pm
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIV
LA MORT DE LOUIS XIV
Portugal/France/Spain, 2016, Albert Serra
Jean-Pierre
Léaud stars in the highly acclaimed new film from Catalan maverick
Albert Serra, who specializes in minimalist historical dramas that
humanize larger-than-life figures (Don Quixote, Dracula, Casanova, the
Magi). His latest work
brings France’s powerful Sun King down to earth, re-creating the ailing
monarch’s final days in his Versailles bed chamber, surrounded by
concerned doctors and counselors. “A mesmerizing elegy.”
–The NY Times. “The most beautiful film at Cannes 2016.” –Sight & Sound.
Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 115 min. This program supported by the Charles Lang Bergengren Memorial Film Fund.
Saturday, April 29, at 9:15 pm
UGETSU
See 4/28 at 7:30 for description
Sunday, April 30, at 4:00 pm
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XIV
See 4/29 at 7:00 for description
Sunday, April 30, at 6:30 pm
Three with Mussolini
A SPECIAL DAY
UNA GIORNATA PARTICOLARE
Italy/Canada, 1977, Ettore Scola
On
the day in 1938 that Hitler visits Mussolini in Italy, two lonely
Romans—a housewife/mother in an unhappy marriage (Sophia Loren) and an
anti-fascist journalist recently fired and awaiting deportation
(Marcello Mastroianni)—meet and
hang out while everyone else is at the big parade and rally. Loren and
Mastroianni are far from glamorous in this touching, well-acted film
that, 40 years ago, garnered many nominations and awards. Subtitles.
Blu-ray. 107 min.
Sunday, April 30, at 8:40 pm
THE SETTLERS
See 4/27 at 6:45 for description
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