Calendar: Week 5

April 27 - May 3

Juno
Jason Reitman, 2007 - 90 min.

If you haven’t heard about Juno by now, chances are you’ve been under a rock for a while. This lovable comedy, called the female response to Knocked Up but also much more than that, is the definition of cute. Ellen Page, who with this performance has suddenly and deservedly become superfamous, stars as Juno, a high-schooler impregnated by nerdy friend Paulie (Michael Cera). Despite the unwanted pregnancy, Juno delivers a consistently hilarious brand of flippant, no-nonsense humor throughout the film. Also, fantastic music mostly from the anti-folk band the Moldy Peaches. 35mm.

By Candlelight
James Whale, 1933 - 70 min.

Whale took over By Candlelight from Robert Wyler but the dominant influence here is Lubitsch. By Candlelight just zips contently along from one mistaken identity or string of innuendo to another. Playboy prince Nils Asther finds himself en route to Monte Carlo after one ill-fated candle-lit rendez-vous (his butler Paul Lukas feigned an electrical outage) with another man’s wife. Lukas meets the frisky Marie on the train to Monte Carlo. Mistaking Lukas for a prince on the basis of his employer’s luggage crest, Marie follows Lukas to Asther’s new pad, forcing Asther to play the role of the butler. Archival 35mm.

Home, Sweet Home
D. W. Griffith, 1914 - 70 min.

One of Griffith’s experiments in constructing feature-length films, Home, Sweet Home uses John Howard Payne’s popular song as its structuring device, telling multiple thematically connected stories. The framing tale tells Payne’s own story, covering his life as an unhappy but brilliant playwright, composer, and world traveler. Intercut with this are three dramatizations of his song, each exploring a different facet of its redemptive power. Featuring nearly every member of Griffith’s lead actors, including Mae Marsh, Blanche Sweet, Courtnay Foote, Donald Crisp, Dorothy Gish, and Lillian Gish as an angel.16mm.

Douce
Claude Autant-Lara, 1943 - 104 min.

One of France’s most respected directors in the 1940s, Autant-Lara was later rejected by the Cahiers school, and is neglected today because of his right-wing politics. Douce, considered his masterpiece by admirers, tells of the titular heroine, a young socialite in love with a family servant, who in turn loves Irene, Douce’s governess and the object of Douce’s widowed father’s affections. Autant-Lara directs this class-based romantic tragedy with typical eloquence, leading The Reader to compare it with Welles’ Magnificent Ambersons “both thematically and in its deep-focus exploration of interior space.”In French; subtitled. Archival 35mm.

Experiment in Terror
Blake Edwards, 1962 - 123 min.

After achieving fame and success with Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Blake Edwards directed this gritty, noirish thriller with sexual and racial undertones. Kelley Sherwood (Lee Remick) plays a bank teller who receives threatening visits and phone calls from the asthmatic Red Lynch. FBI agent John Ripley (Glenn Ford) attempts to foil Lynch’s plan to blackmail Sherwood into robbing her own bank, but the situation becomes complicated when Lynch kidnaps Sherwood’s baby sister. Enhanced by a Henry Mancini score, the film climaxes at Candlestick Park during a Giants-Dodgers night game. 35mm.

***Schedule Change***Distinto Amanecer
Julio Brancho, 1943 - 108 min.

Mexican films often played at neighborhood movie theaters in the US, but Distinto amanecer garnered additional plaudits from the art house crowd. Indeed, the special qualities of Brancho’s film are brought into relief by comparison to the early American film noirs to which it is contemporaneous but decidedly more political. Brancho’s urban thriller follows a labor leader (Pedro Armendáriz) being hunted by state gunmen; he finds refuge in the ladies’ room of a movie theater, where he reunites with an old flame married to an ex-diplomat who possesses a document that could prove charges of corruption. In Spanish with English Subtitles. Archival 35mm.

One Million B.C.
Hal Roach, 1940 - 80 min.

Hal Roach’s epic tale of caveman warfare became the definitive dinosaur film for decades. Tumak (Victor Mature), the son of the brutal leader of the Rock Tribe (Lon Chaney, Jr.), falls in love with Loana (Carole Landis), a woman from the kinder, gentler Shell Tribe. While Tumak struggles to be accepted by the Shells, both tribes must battle with each other - and, of course, with dinosaurs. D.W. Griffith is rumored to have directed portions of the movie, though this remains in dispute. Stock footage of the Oscar-nominated effects were recycled as late as the ‘70s. Archival 35mm.
Print courtesy of UCLA Film and Television Archive.

I'm Not There
Todd Haynes, 2007 - 135 min.

With I’m Not There, director Haynes rejects conventional biopic by crafting a postmodern, historiographical biography of Bob Dylan. Haynes and co-screenwriter Oren Moverman create six different characters, each representing a different aspect of Dylan’s constantly shifting and multifaceted personality, and each played by a different actor. While the film has been described as unconventional, strange, and “for Dylan fans only,” in its themes of identity, celebrity culture, and truth, it is both intelligent and accessible, not to mention funny, tender, and totally daring. 35mm.

The Savages
Tamara Jenkins, 2007 - 113 min.

In The Savages, two siblings (Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman) realize their responsibilities as children when their aging, aloof father begins the slow descent into dementia. While hip “indie” films about dysfunctional families have been all the rage in the last two years, The Savages takes a different approach to familial discord, focusing instead on the dynamic between the two siblings as they come to grips with their new responsibilities and their strained relationship with their father. Director Jenkins brings focus and maturity to the project, drawing wonderfully rich, warm, and realistic performances from each of her leads. 35mm.