Thursdays 1
Defend the Keep: Sieges, Encirclements, and Last Stands
Programmed by Nick Quintana
Ever since the Spartans dug their heels in at Thermopylae, the heroic last stand has captured the popular imagination across time and culture. The scenario usually follows a small group of underdogs pitted against a larger, more formidable force in a desperate, all-or-nothing fight to the death. What our presumed heroes often lack in arms or manpower, they make up for in strategic position, confined within a fortified space. This series showcases cinematic sieges that satisfy these conventions and push them to their utmost limits. Featuring Straw Dogs, Assault on Precinct 13, and 13 Assassins.
3/30/2017 @ 7:00 PM
Straw Dogs
(Sam Peckinpah, 1971) · Nebbishy David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman), a draft-dodging mathematician, settles with his wife Amy (Susan George), in a Cornish village. The increasingly hostile locals emasculate David before raping Amy. A meditation on our innate capacity for violence, the film culminates in a bracing showdown, as breathtaking as it is disturbing. Peckinpah unleashes his trademark slow-motion and "flash" montage for a brutal evocation of David's descent into cold-blooded savagery.
runtime: 118m format: 35mm(IB-Tech)
4/6/2017 @ 7:00 PM
The Raid: Redemption
(Gareth Evans, 2011) · A covert SWAT raid tasked with eliminating a ruthless kingpin goes south when the team's cover is blown, inviting an army of violent criminals to converge on their position. The simple premise grounds a brutal showcase of Indonesian martial arts, highlighting masterful choreography and breakneck improvisation, as the survivors creatively repurpose every available surface and object in the 15-story tenement to beat the living shit out of their assailants.
runtime: 100m format: 35mm
4/13/2017 @ 7:00 PM
Trespass
(Walter Hill, 1992) · Uproot Treasure of the Sierra Madre from the Mexican wilderness and drop it in the urban blight of East St. Louis, and you're not far off from Walter Hill's unassuming thriller. Rumor has it that there's gold stashed away in the tenements, so a couple of hard-put firemen (Bill Paxton and William Sadler) sneak in with a metal detector. Ice T and Ice Cube channel the raw aggression of their '90s heyday as members of a gang that welcomes the intruders with an arsenal of AKs.
runtime: 102m format: 35mm
4/20/2017 @ 7:00 PM
Mad Max: Fury Road (Black & Chrome)
(George Miller, 2015) · Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) smuggles Immortan Joe's wives out of The Citadel, prompting all hell to break loose, fast on her tail. With a little luck, the help of a leather clad drifter named Max (Tom Hardy), and "2000 horsepower of nitro-boosted war machine," they just may escape. George Miller's preferred version shimmers with high-contrast B&W, abstracting the fantastic desert scenery into a poetic landscape emblematic of Mad Max's gritty roots in the Outback.
runtime: 120m format: DCP
4/27/2017 @ 7:00 PM
Mystery Screening
(, )· Whether your go-to spot is in the front row, in the very back, or somewhere in between, you have orders to return to the Max Palevsky Cinema and hold your positions! We've secured an IB-technicolor print with effervescent colors worth fighting for, to the death. Come see action on a bold scale, the mythic past carved out of light and stretched wide by our 35mm projectors' scope lenses, and experience a siege rivalled by few others.
runtime: ???m format: 35mm (IB-Tech)
5/4/2017 @ 7:00 PM
You're Next
(Adam Wingard, 2011) · After reuniting at an isolated estate, the Davisons receive an unwelcome interruption right in the middle of the family dinner. Little do they know that silent killers creep around the house, wearing uncanny animal masks that evoke occult sacrifice. With jump scares that are clever and visceral, gratuitously in-your-face gore, and a final girl with more than a few tricks up her sleeve, You're Next is a welcome entry in the home invasion subgenre.
runtime: 101m format: 35mm
5/11/2017 @ 7:00 PM
Assault on Precinct 13
(John Carpenter, 1976) · In this tour de force of ensemble-based badassery, an unlikely team of police officers, inmates, and secretaries gets trapped in a police station, totally outgunned and outnumbered. Hundreds of methodical killers lurk outside in menacing silence, literally dying to get their hands on a fugitive inside. Relentlessly pulsing with a synth score that ticks like a bomb, this lean thriller builds torturous suspense and releases it in brutal outbursts of hot lead.
runtime: 105m format: 35mm
5/18/2017 @ 7:00 PM
Cabin in the Woods
(Drew Goddard, 2012) · Five college kids find themselves trapped and hunted by the undead after stealing away to a remote cabin. However, "pain-worshipping redneck zombies" are only one piece in a game with stakes even higher than their own lives. With stand-out comic turns from Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford as the absurdly casual bureaucrats monitoring the game, Cabin in the Woods is a gleeful dissection of horror tropes that probes our complicity in on-screen violence.
runtime: 105m format: 35mm
5/25/2017 @ 7:00 PM
13 Assassins
(Takashi Miike, 2010) · A samurai dream team prepares an elaborate ambush to snuff out a politically ascendant sociopath. In Miike's hands, the Trojans make the horse, inviting their aggressors beyond the fortified walls into a forty minute gonzo extravaganza of virtuosic swordplay and booby traps, deftly integrating creative practical effects and CGI, flaming bulls aside. Surrounded by hundreds, the assassins plunge into a bloody ballet that builds suspense until the climactic final duel.
runtime: 141m format: 35mm
