Charles Theatre Workers Union

The Charles Theatre Workers Art Wall: Up All Night!

2011-09-09T13:37:00.000-04:00

Revival: Brighton Rock

2010-08-01T17:24:00.000-04:00

Restored Print of BRIGHTON ROCK

 Showtimes:
Saturday, July 31 at Noon
Monday, August 2 at 7 PM
Thursday, August 5 at 9PM.

 1947 John Boulting. Richard Attenborough, Carol Marsh, Hermione Baddeley, William Hartnell. Based on the novel by Graham Greene. 86 m.

 On a sunny Whitsun bank holiday at the slightly tacky seaside resort of Brighton (the title refers to a local hard candy), people are dancing to the bands on the pier, and the shooting galleries, souvenir stands, and tea rooms are packed with day-trippers. But “Kolly Kibber,” busy caching newspaper giveaway cards around town, keeps looking over his shoulder for Richard Attenborough’s mystical psycho “Pinkie,” razor-wielding teenage head of a racecourse gang (“one of the most vicious pieces of work to ever slink across a cinema screen” – Total Film), so ruthless that he’d actually (yecch!) marry naïve, underage waitress Carol Marsh just to tie up a crime’s loose end. But blowsy blonde Hermione Baddeley keeps asking all these questions. The Boulting Brothers’ (John alternated with identical twin Roy as director and producer) adaptation of Graham Greene’s serious thriller was scripted by the author himself, after he was dissatisfied with Terence Rattigan’s first, happily-ended draft. Breakthrough starring screen role for future Oscar-winning director (Gandhi) Attenborough, who had played the same role on stage four years earlier (see also: 10 Rillington Place) — plus dazzling location shooting, with crowds of seemingly unseeing holiday-goers in the background of chase scenes across major intersections; but also with the blackest of Noir treatments for this darkest of British Noirs (Film Forum)

2010-07-30T19:08:00.003-04:00

It's been wonderful organzing the CHARLES THEATRE WORKER'S UNION ART WALL but it's time to hand the honor over to another worthy chas employee. As the whole affair has been very, shall we say, organic, it will be up to the current employees to elect or volunteer the next art wall organizer. Don't let this amazing opportunity pass you by!!

Next week the current show will come down and what will come next will be up to you, Chas Employees! The lighting will remain up for the next two months and if nothing comes about it will come down as well.

Best of luck!

Revival: Mickey One

2010-07-10T03:28:00.001-04:00

REVIVAL: MICKEY ONE

 Showtimes:
Saturday, July 10 at Noon
Monday, July 12 at 7 PM
Thursday, July 15 at 9PM

 1965 Arthur Penn. Warren Beatty, Alexandra Stewart, Hurd Hatfield, Franchot Tone. 93 m. bw.

 Hollywood's attempt at French New Wave, courtesy of director Penn and star Beatty, results in a curious brew - the plot, such as it is, may lose some viewers completely but the film itself is intriguing enough to warrant attention throughout. Beatty is the stand-up comic who finds himself the target of mobsters, heads for Chicago and changes his name to Mickey One. He attempts to start again, but can't help feeling that he is still being followed - a hunch confirmed by a subsequent physical attack. Quirky to say the least, audiences gave its jerky editing techniques and weird visuals a wide berth when the film was first released -indeed, these are aspects which some many find hard to take even now. On the plus side, Beatty is fine and Stan Getz's cool jazzy score adds to the atmosphere...(Channel 4)

Revival: Vertigo

2010-07-05T02:44:00.001-04:00

Alfred Hitchcock's VERTIGO

Showtimes:
Monday, July 5 at 7PM
Thursday, July 8 at 9PM

1958 Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore. 128m. Technicolor.

"One of the landmarks—not merely of the movies, but of 20th-century art. Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 film extends the theme of Rear Window—the relationship of creator and creation—into the realm of love and sexuality, focusing on an isolated, inspired romantic (James Stewart) who pursues the spirit of a woman (the powerfully carnal Kim Novak). The film's dynamics of chase, capture, and escape parallel the artist's struggle with his work; the enraptured gaze of the Stewart character before the phantom he has created parallels the spectator's position in front of the movie screen. The famous motif of the fall is presented in horizontal rather than vertical space, so that it becomes not a satanic fall from grace, but a modernist fall into the image, into the artwork—a total absorption of the creator by his creation, which in the end is shown as synonymous with death. But a thematic analysis can only scratch the surface of this extraordinarily dense and commanding film, perhaps the most intensely personal movie to emerge from the Hollywood cinema." (Dave Kehr)

Revival: Cabin in the Sky

2010-06-28T11:21:00.001-04:00

LENA HORNE in the CABIN IN THE SKY

Showtimes:
Monday, June 28 at 7PM
Thursday, July 1 at 9PM.

1943 Dir. Vincente Minnelli. Ethel Waters, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Rex Ingram, Duke Ellington. 98m. bw.

One can easily criticise this all-black musical (Minnelli's first feature) for falling prey to the same 'Uncle Tom' stereotyping that characterised Green Pastures, but there's no denying both the compassion with which Minnelli treats his characters and the immense cinematic talent on view. The gorgeous dreamlike sets and consummate control of the fantastic atmosphere that imbues the story (an idle, poverty-stricken farmer dreams of being sent to Hell upon dying) are already well developed. And the cast are magnificent, delivering the lovely Harold Arlen score with style and power. (Time Out)

Revival: Roma

2010-06-11T15:50:00.000-04:00

FELLINI'S ROMA

Showtimes:
Saturday, June 12 at Noon
Monday, June 14 at 7PM
Thursday, June 17 at 9PM

ROMA 1972 Dir. Federico Fellini. Peter Gonzales Falcon, Fiona Florence, Britta Barnes, Pia De Doses. In Italian, English and French with English subtitles. 128 m. Technicolor.

Rome exerted a powerful influence over Fellini throughout his life but rarely did he express his love for it more clearly than here. Mixing documentary-style reportage, self-contained dramatic set-pieces and strange, impressionistic sequences, Roma explores the director's youth, the process of filmmaking and the mysterious allure of The Eternal City itself.

Essentially a series of loosely-connected vignettes, the first section of the film sees the young Fellini (Gonzales) arriving in Rome in the 1920s. Thereafter the focus moves to a wartime variety show at the Barafonda Theatre. We visit a brothel, witness Fellini fall in love with a prostitute and listen to the American writer Gore Vidal's bleak assessment of the city's future. Binding these threads together is a team of documentary filmmakers shooting in 1972, when traffic chokes the ancient streets and hippies gather to get stoned on the steps of the Basilica. (Film 4)

Revival: Easy Rider

2010-06-04T11:42:00.000-04:00

EASY RIDER RESTORED PRINT

Showtimes:
MONDAY, JUNE 7 at 7PM
THURSDAY, JUNE 10 at 9PM
(No Saturday Show)

EASY RIDER 1969 Dir. Dennis Hopper. Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Phil Spector. 95 m.

"(Hopper's) most influential accomplishment was directing and starring in 'Easy Rider,' the 1969 biker film about two alienated souls who (as the tag-line said) went 'looking for America.... and couldn't find it anywhere.' Made on a $400,000 budget (it grossed $60 million worldwide), it blew the hinges off the big studios' doors. It helped open American movies to contemporary content and new styles of acting and storytelling." (Michael Sragow) Read "Dennis Hopper 1936-2010" at Mike Sragow Gets Reel

"The formative film of the new Hollywood.... When he got the chance to make Easy Rider, he poured a decade's worth of desire, liberation, nihilism, despair, and hunger into it, and the freedom of the movie is there in every image."
(Owen Gleiberman)

In the oldest, finest tradition of teenpics, Easy Rider (1969) became a hit with kids mainly because adults found it unwatchable. Director Dennis Hopper borrows from the avant-garde to suggest the LSD experience, and some of the trips have a definite flavor of Kenneth Anger and Maya Deren. The film may be a relic now, but it is a fascinating souvenir—particularly in its narcissism and fatalism—of how the hippie movement thought of itself. This was the same year, remember, that Hopper played a heavy offed by John Wayne in True Grit. (Dave Kehr)

Charles Theatre Workers Union Art Wall

2010-06-03T20:08:00.005-04:00

The Charles Theatre Art Wall

Native Weapons

Presenting work by Gerry Mak, Annie Grey Robrecht, Melody Often, Adam Beaver, Sarah Matson, and Jordan Bernier.

Revival: Summertime

2010-05-29T09:49:00.001-04:00

KATHARINE HEPBURN
REVIVAL: SUMMERTIME

Showtimes:
SATURDAY, MAY 29 at NOON
MONDAY, MAY 31 at 7PM
THURSDAY, JUNE 3 at 9 PM.

1955 Dir. David Lean. Katharine Hepburn, Rossano Brazzi, Isa Miranda, Darren McGavin. 100m. Technicolor.

"The first film that British director David Lean shot on location abroad, the smoothly crafted Summer Madness is a sensitive account of a love affair between a middle-aged American spinster (Katharine Hepburn) and a married Italian antiques shop owner (Rossano Brazzi), who meet while she is holidaying in 50s Venice. Showing in a freshly restored print which does justice to the film's lush Technicolor cinematography, its comparatively modest scale makes for an interesting contrast with Lean's later, much more famous epics such as Lawrence Of Arabia and Dr Zhivago." BBC

Revival: Fast Times at Ridgemont High

2010-05-20T16:16:00.002-04:00

Revival: FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH

Showtimes:
Saturday, May 22 at Noon
Monday, May 24 at 7 PM
Thursday, May 27 9 PM.

1982 Dir. Amy Heckerling. Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Robert Romanus, Brian Backer, Phoebe Cates, Ray Walston, Forest Whitaker, Eric Stoltz, Nicolas Cage. 90 m.

Amy Heckerling's adaptation of Cameron Crowe's Fast Times at Ridgemont High is often considered one of the finest films of a disreputable genre (the teen sex comedy), and kick-started the careers of many future stars. The center of this ensemble film is Jennifer Jason Leigh as Stacy Hamilton. She is a young, innocent high-school student who, as the film opens, is asking for advice from her friend, the sexually outspoken Linda Barrett (Phoebe Cates). Stacy takes a liking to nebbish Mark Ratner (Brian Backer), but he is too afraid to make a move even after Stacy all but throws herself at him. She eventually hooks up with Mark's more confident best friend, Mike Damone (Robert Romanus). When not concerning itself with these four characters, the film spends time with stoned surfer dude Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) and his ongoing feud with history teacher Mr. Hand (Ray Walston). The film includes brief appearances by such future stars as Nicolas Cage, Eric Stoltz, and Forest Whitaker. (AllMovie)

Revival: Late Spring

2010-05-12T17:08:00.000-04:00

Don't miss Yasujiro Ozu's "LATE SPRING" this coming week at the Charles.

SHOWTIMES:
Saturday, May 15 at Noon
Monday, May 17 at 7 PM
Thursday, May 20 at 9 PM

LATE SPRING (Banshun) 1949 Yasujiro Ozu. Chishű Ryű, Setsuko Hara, Yumeji Tsukioka, Haruko Sugimura, Hohi Aoki. In Japanse with English subtitles. 108m. bw.

"(Yasujiro Ozu is) one of the film directors from whom I received my deepest inspiration."
—Jim Jarmusch

"(Ozu) elevated film, the art form of the 20th century, to its most beautiful form—one that cannot be imitated or repeated. For me his work is something of a cinematic shrine.... His is the most universal film language that I know." —Wim Wenders

One of the most powerful of Yasujiro Ozu’s family portraits, Late Spring tells the story of a widowed father who feels compelled to marry off his beloved only daughter. Eminent Ozu players Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara command this poignant tale of love and loss in postwar Japan, which remains as potent today as ever—almost alone justifying Ozu’s inclusion in the pantheon of cinema’s greatest directors. (Criterion Collection)

"...if there were something like a sacred treasure of the cinema, then for me that would have to be the work of the Japanese director, Yasujiro Ozu." —Wim Wenders

Revival: Phantom Lady

2010-04-30T14:56:00.000-04:00

Robert Siodmak's
PHANTOM LADY (1944)
Beautiful 35MM Print!

SHOWTIMES:
Saturday, May 1 at Noon
Monday, May 3 at 7 PM
Thursday, May 6 at 9 PM

1944 Dir. Robert Siodmak. Franchot Tone, Ella Raines, Alan Curtis, Aurora Miranda, Thomas Gomez, Elisha Cook, Jr. 87 m. bw.

"Landmark exercise in nocturnal noir stylistics..."
(J. Hoberman, The Village Voice)

Siodmak's first American success, a moody thriller from a Cornell Woolrich novel which set the mould for a string of dark classics. The wife of an engineer is murdered, his female alibi's very existence is denied by every witness, and he faces the chair. His secretary and a curious off-duty cop investigate... Siodmak's angled compositions and dramatic lighting might be uncharitably ticked off as genre staples, but his manipulation of the film's key motif is masterly. He concentrates on the tangible and psychological evidence - the 'records' - of absence: the wife's portrait, the messages on the office dictaphone, the court transcript, the dead witness' typed address, the hat that recalls a dead fiancé. And the film's quest is for a woman who exists only in the memories of the condemned man and the audience. (Time Out)

Revival: UMBERTO D.

2010-04-23T10:52:00.000-04:00

THREE DAYS ONLY! Vittorio De Sica's UMBERTO D.
This week's revival at the Charles Theatre.

RESTORED VERSION!
NEW TRANSLATION AND SUBTITLES!

Showtimes:
Saturday, April 24 at Noon
Monday, April 26 at 7 PM
Thursday, April 29 at 9 PM.

1952 Italy. Dir. Vittorio De Sica. Carlo Battisti, Maria-Pia Casilio. In Italian with English subtitles. bw. 89 m.

Shot on location with a cast of nonprofessional actors, Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist masterpiece follows Umberto D., an elderly pensioner, as he struggles to make ends meet during Italy’s postwar economic boom. Alone except for his dog, Flike, Umberto strives to maintain his dignity while trying to survive in a city where traditional human kindness seems to have lost out to the forces of modernization. Umberto’s simple quest to fulfill the most fundamental human needs—food, shelter, companionship—is one of the most heartbreaking stories ever filmed and an essential classic of world cinema. -Criterion Collection

"De Sica's Greatest Achievement!"
-Martin Scorsese

"An unflinching masterpiece...one of the greatest works of Italian neorealism."
-- Mike D'Angelo, Time Out New York

"When this film came out, we felt that there was nothing the cinema could not do."
-- David Shipman

"Truly extraordinary...Nothing of De Sica's [previous work] has had [its] pure simplicity and almost unbearable candor and compassion."
-- Bosley Crowther NY Times 1955

"UMBERTO D. was overdue for revival. And now, expertly restored... exemplifying a movement that has had an immeasurable impact on the last 50 years of filmmaking around the world....
The [print's] visual and sound tracks are superb."
-- Peter Brunette, The New York Times

"As powerful as The Bicycle Thief was, for me, De Sica and Zavattini's greatest achievement together was Umberto D...a great movie about a hero of everyday life. That was De Sica's precious gift to his father. And to us."
-- Martin Scorsese

"Screenwriter Cesare Zavattini likely deserves as much credit as director Vittorio De Sica for such masterpieces of Italian neorealism as The Bicycle Thief (1947) and this 1952 feature about a retired civil servant (schoolteacher Carlo Battisti) who discovers that his meager pension won't pay the rent for his room. He's befriended by a maid in the same flat who's pregnant but unsure of the father's identity; apart from her the only creature he feels close to is his dog, and though he contemplates suicide, he has to find someone to care for it. This simple, almost Chaplinesque story of a man fighting to preserve his dignity is even more moving for its firm grasp of everyday activities."
--Jonathan Rosenbaum

REVIVAL: MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION

2010-04-17T02:35:00.001-04:00

REVIVAL: MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION

Showtimes:
SATURDAY, APRIL 17 at NOON
MONDAY, APRIL 19 at 7 PM
THURSDAY, APRIL 22 at 9 PM.

1954 Dir. Douglas Sirk. Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Barbara Rush, Agnes Moorehead, Otto Kruger. 108 m. Technicolor.

Reckless playboy Bob Merrick (Rock Hudson, in his breakthrough role) crashes his speedboat, requiring emergency attention from the town’s only resuscitator—at the very moment that beloved local Dr. Phillips has a heart attack and dies waiting for the life-saving device. Thus begins one of Douglas Sirk’s most flamboyant master classes in melodrama, a delirious Technicolor mix of the sudsy and the spiritual in which Bob and the doctor’s widow, Helen (Jane Wyman), find themselves inextricably linked amid a series of increasingly wild twists, turns, trials, and tribulations. (Criterion Collection)

Revival: The Incredible Shrinking Man

2010-04-09T12:25:00.001-04:00

REVIVAL: THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN

Showtimes:
Saturday, April 10 at Noon
Monday, April 12 at 7 PM
Thursday, April 15 at 9 PM.

1957 Dir. Jack Arnold. Grant Williams, Randy Stuart, April Kent, Paul Langton, Raymond Bailey, William Schallert. 81 m. bw.

"Not merely the best of Arnold's classic sci-fi movies of the '50s, but one of the finest films ever made in that genre. It's a simple enough story: after being contaminated by what may or may not be nuclear waste, Williams finds himself slowly but steadily shedding the pounds and inches until he reaches truly minuscule proportions. But it is what Richard Matheson's script (adapted from his own novel) does with this basic material that makes the film so gripping and intelligent. At first, Williams is merely worried about his mysterious illness, but soon, towered over by his wife, he begins to feel humiliated, expressing his shame and impotence through cruel anger. And then his entire relationship with the universe changes, with cats, spiders and drops of water representing lethal threats in the surreal and endless landscape that is, in fact, his house's cellar. And finally, to the strains of Joseph Gershenson's impressive score, we arrive at the film's philosophical core: a moving, strangely pantheist assertion of what it really means to be alive. A pulp masterpiece." (Time Out Film Guide)

Revival: The Mystery of Picasso

2010-03-26T10:29:00.001-04:00

THE MYSTERY OF PICASSO

Showtimes:
SATURDAY, MARCH 27 at NOON
MONDAY, MARCH 29 at 7 PM
THURSDAY, APRIL 1 at 9 PM

1956 Dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot. Pablo Picasso. In French with English subtitles. 78 m.

"Pablo Picasso conspired with filmmaker Henri-Georges Clouzot (The Wages of Fear) to create this 1956 pseudodocumentary on the genius at work; through the miracle of time-lapse photography, we see the master knocking out a dozen major works over what purports to be the course of a single day. The film begins in the standard format, and then expands to CinemaScope when Picasso whimsically demands more room. With music by Georges Auric; photographed by Claude Renoir." (Dave Kehr)

Revival: Shampoo

2010-03-19T13:57:00.001-04:00

SHAMPOO

Showtimes:
Saturday, March 20 at Noon
Monday, March 22 at 7PM
Thursday, March 25 at 9PM.

1975. Dir. Hal Ashby. Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, Lee Grant. 109m.

"At some point the bottom fell out of the American sex farce and romance moved back in. But 25 years ago, "Shampoo" was a jigsaw puzzle of carnal knowledge deceptively told through the eyes of its nymphomaniac hairdresser (Warren Beatty) and from the perspective of both genders. Directed by Hal Ashby and written by Beatty and Robert Towne ("Chinatown"), the film is an elaborate roundelay of sex, a screwball masterpiece that's inspired everything from "Three's Company" and Beck's "Midnite Vultures" to the Clinton Administration. Opening on the eve of the '68 presidential election in the Hollywood Hills and ending the next day with Nixon and Agnew's victory, "Shampoo" has Beatty's George bed-hopping while trying to get a loan to open his own shop, presumably so he can settle down with actress girlfriend Jill (Goldie Hawn). George is a player so addicted to women that, as Hawn puts it, he's incapable of love. The beauty of Beatty's performance - and it remains his best - is that George is miserable. His infidelity is like a curse whose shame he wears from his first come-on right through intercourse." (SF Examiner)

Revival: Wild River

2010-03-05T15:20:00.001-05:00

Elia Kazan's WILD RIVER

Showtimes:
SATURDAY, MARCH 6 at NOON
MONDAY, MARCH 8 at 7PM
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10 at 9PM
NO THURSDAY SHOW.

1960 Elia Kazan. Montgomery Clift, Lee Remick, Jo Van Fleet, Jay C. Flippen. 110m. CinemaScope.

"Never mind the grainy opening footage of flooded streets; the river is the tamest thing in Elia Kazan’s terminally neglected 1960 melodrama. That newsreel snippet sets up the social-issue background: Chuck Glover (Clift), New Deal idealogue from the Tennessee Valley Authority, is overseeing the much-needed building of a dam. But the minute he steps onto the condemned property of cantankerous matriarch Ella Garth (Van Fleet) and sees her widowed daughter-in-law (Remick), all bets on stark realism are off. Battle lines are drawn—tradition versus progress, individual rights versus government mandates, black versus white. But the movie is primarily concerned with one question: When will this handsome Fed and his hillbilly hottie explode from too much repressed lust? Kazan’s films are better known for showcasing stratospheric Method-emoting over visual expressiveness, which makes Wild River’s gorgeous imagery a shock; the shots of scorched-earth backwoods and a barge drifting through the morning mist are the most lyrical scenes Gadge ever filmed. Clift’s awkwardness (he was in steady decline when he reported for duty) punctures the movie’s attempts at reaching Sirkian dizziness. Remick, however, was Kazan’s ace in the hole; known for allowing directors to subvert her girl-next-door demeanor, she’s finally given a role that calls for sexuality and chops, delivering wildly on both fronts." (Time Out New York)

Revival: Husbands

2010-02-25T13:25:00.001-05:00

The Charles will screen John Cassavetes' praised and reviled HUSBANDS three times this week in the Revival time slots.

SHOWTIMES:
Saturday, February 27 at Noon
Monday, March 1 at 7pm
Thursday, March 4 at 9pm

1970 John Cassavetes. Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk, John Cassavetes. Restored version.

"...this formally radical, deeply personal work still packs plenty of surprises.
The story centers on three longtime friends, neighbors on Long Island and fellow-commuters—Gus, Archie, and Harry —whose buddy Stuart has died suddenly. After the funeral, they go on a two-day bender. Returning home, Harry has a violent row with his wife and his mother-in-law and decides to fly off to London that day. Fearing for Harry’s well-being, Archie and Gus accompany him. Once there, the three go to a casino and end up bringing women back to their hotel rooms. The drama turns on a simple question: whether any of them will go home." (Richard Brody, The New Yorker)

"A master at the top of his groundbreaking form.
Never before had Cassavetes been this powerful and personal." (Rolling Stone)

"HUSBANDS is an important and great film!"
(Time Magazine)

"Sigmund Freud himself could not have done the job more efficiently. It's a film that - like much of Cassavetes' work - is excessively boring, hard to follow, and extraordinarily illuminating about masculinity and its incorrigible delusions." (The Guardian)

NEXt CTWU Art Exhibit

2010-02-25T12:10:00.002-05:00

2010-02-18T19:19:00.001-05:00

poster by mr.freibert

Magic Eye presents Baltimore filmmakers

2010-02-18T14:04:00.000-05:00

Monday, February 22, 2010
9:30pm
The Charles Theater
$5

Magic Eye is proud to present a night of short films and videos created by Baltimore artists. This group features work by Kari Altmann, Kristen Anchor, Mark Brown, Lauren Friedman, Jenny Graf, Clarissa Gregory, Justin Kelly, Andrew Mausert-Mooney, Catherine Pancake, Jimmy Joe Roche, Paul Sharitis, Stan Vanderbeek, Fred Worden and Karen Yasinsky.

The films, dating from the early 60s to contemporary work, range from experimental narrative to animation, music videos and performance documentation.

In celebration and remembrance, Magic Eye will screen Paul Sharits’ T,O,U,C,H,I,N.G (1968) featuring the Baltimore poet David Franks.

This installment of Magic Eye is programmed by Matt Porterfield.

Revival: American Graffiti

2010-02-15T17:49:00.000-05:00

AMERICAN GRAFFITI plays twice this week at the Charles. There will be no Monday show.

Show Times:
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 16 at 7 PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18 at 9 PM

1973 George Lucas. Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Mackenzie Phillips, Wolfman Jack, Bo Hopkins, Harrison Ford, Johnny Weissmuller, Jr., Joe Spano, Suzanne Somers. 112m. Technicolor.

"The Charles Theatre revival series this week offers its loyal but frigid audiences the closest they can come right now to Grade A cinematic comfort food: George Lucas' 'American Graffiti.'

George Lucas' memories of growing up with carhops, cruising, hot rods and hoods produced a film 37 years ago that sent the whole country into an early-1960s flashback. Its in-and-out, vignette style, and its nonstop rock-oldies soundtrack, quickly became standard issue for teen movies. Some of Lucas's characters - the nerd (Charlie Martin Smith), the deceptively 'dumb' blonde (Candy Clark), the hot-rodder (Paul Le Mat) - were stock figures even in 1962, the year in which the story takes place. But Lucas reanimates the cliches, using them to externalize and flesh out the cruising mind-set of his teen era. He gets at the archetypal bonds and tensions between eternal high school types like the brainy semi-outsider ( Richard Dreyfuss) and the sharp yet inertia-prone class prez ('Ronny' Howard). And the rock-and-roll moviemaking rhythms give 'Graffiti' a souped-up engine all its own. This 1973 movie recaptured the idea of teen years being fun - a notion that has since gotten way out of hand.

The uncanny casting, including Harrison Ford as Paul Le Mat's nemesis and Suzanne Somers as Dreyfuss' dream girl, doubly ensures this film's place in history. By now, it too is a nostalgic memory - not just for the supposedly innocent time of 1962, but for the seat-of-the-pants innovations of early-1970s moviemaking. The Dolby Digital prints allow you to appreciate how Walter Murch's sound montages woke a generation on the rise to the power of the soundtrack. He uses classic rock 'n' roll in ways it had never been used before. It becomes the natural sound of a small-town California night - more natural than crickets or coyotes. Murch and Lucas don't just exploit rock to set a mood; they use it to fix the movie's meanings in a viewer's mind, like a Greek chorus with a beat. At times, the sound alone makes us feel as if we're in the middle of a giant, rainbow-colored jukebox.

But the filmmakers also know how to blow away that aural mist to exploit silence and sound effects - usually in places where conventional movies would use a musical score to pound home emotional tension or crises in the plot. When Dreyfuss has to sneak a hook onto the undercarriage of a police car in order to prove himself to a gang known as the Pharoahs, the rock 'n' roll subsides. All you hear is the nerve-rattling sound of an approaching train. A year before, the sound of an unseen train had worked for Michael Corleone's murder of a rival mobster and a crooked cop in 'The Godfather.' In a different manner and context, it works just as brilliantly here.

Cinematographer Haskell Wexler has said that 'what was groundbreaking' for him was that 'we were able to use documentary techniques, we were able to use smaller equipment, we were able to work in a simpler way and still have what ultimately was on the screen be interesting and good.' These days, Lucas is known for digital wizardry. He did some latter-day digital touch-ups on 'American Graffiti,' too. But what makes this movie click was the edge the actors got from knowing that Lucas was seizing on their most spontaneous reactions - including their stumbles and 'mistakes.'" (Michael Sragow, The Baltimore Sun)

"A brilliant work of popular art" (Dave Kehr)

Revival: The Last Picture Show (try number two)

2010-02-14T01:50:00.000-05:00

Due to the weather of the past week THE LAST PICTURE SHOW will be shown at the Charles again next week.

Showtimes:
Saturday, February 20 at Noon
Monday, February 22 at 7PM
Thursday, February 25 at 9PM

SUBMIT

2010-02-13T17:28:00.001-05:00

Revival: The Last Picture Show

2010-02-05T20:09:00.003-05:00

The revival this week is the Last Picture Show.

Showtimes:
SATURDAY NOON SHOW CANCELLED
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8 at 7PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11 at 9PM

1971 Peter Bogdanovich. Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn, 126m. (Director's Cut). bw. Written by Larry McMurtry.

"Peter Bogdanovich followed the route of the French New Wave filmmakers when he left criticism to make this 1971 feature, and like many of their films, it's an intimate psychological story laced with references to Hollywood movies. The setting is a small, stagnant Texas town of the 1950s; everybody's moving away, and even the movie theater is ready to close (the last picture show is Howard Hawks's Red River, apparently programmed by the Texas correspondent of Cahiers du Cinema). The few people who remain spend their time carrying on sordid affairs and eulogizing the vanishing west...Bogdanovich knows how to cast actors and highlight character turns (both Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman won Oscars). The handsome black-and-white photography is by Robert Surtees." (Dave Kehr)

new show opening at open space next friday!

2010-02-05T19:25:00.001-05:00

Revival: Footlight Parade

2010-01-29T14:05:00.000-05:00

The revival this week is FOOTLIGHT PARADE

Showtimes:
SATURDAY, JANUARY 30 at NOON
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1 at 7PM
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4 at 9PM

1933 Lloyd Bacon. James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell. 104m. bw.

"The last--and to some aficionados, the best--of choreographer Busby Berkeley's three Warner Bros. efforts of 1933, Footlight Parade stars James Cagney as a Broadway musical comedy producer. Cagney is unceremoniously put out of business when talking pictures arrive. To keep his head above water, Jimmy hits upon a swell idea: he'll stage musical "prologues" for movie theatres, then ship them out to the various picture palaces in New York. Halfway through the picture, Cagney is obliged to assemble three mammoth prologues and present them back-to-back in three different theatres. There are all sorts of backstage intrigues, not the least of which concerns the predatory hijinks of gold-digger Claire Dodd and the covetous misbehavior of Cagney's ex-wife Renee Whitney. Joan Blondell plays Jimmy's faithful girl-friday, who loves him from afar; Ruby Keeler is the secretary who takes off her glasses and is instantly transformed into a glamorous stage star; Dick Powell is the "protege" of wealthy Ruth Donnelly, who makes good despite this handicap; Frank McHugh is Cagney's assistant, who spends all his time moaning "It'll never work"; and Hugh Herbert is a self-righteous censor, who ends up in a censurable position. The last half-hour of Footlight Parade is a nonstop display of Busby Berkeley at his most spectacular: the three big production numbers, all written by Harry Warren and Al Dubin, are "By a Waterfall", "Honeymoon Hotel", and "Shanghai Lil", the latter featuring some delicious pre-code scatology, a tap-dance duet by Cagney and Keeler, and an out-of-left-field climactic salute to FDR and the NRA!" (Hal Erickson)

"The fastest moving of all musical films."
– Richard Barrios

"Busby Berkeley never did anything more splendid."
– J. Hoberman, Village Voice

"Sexual daydream (has) found its medium."
-- David Thomson

"A marvelous cinematic wonder"
-- Classic FIlm Guide

Next CTWU Art Exhibit

2010-01-22T20:08:00.001-05:00

Revival: Swing Time

2010-01-22T11:54:00.000-05:00

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers star in George Stevens' legendary SWING TIME showing three times this week at the Charles.

SHOW TIMES
Saturday, January 23 at Noon
Monday, January 25 at 7PM
Thursday, January 28 at 9PM

1936 George Stevens. Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Victor Moore, Helen Broderick, Eric Blore. 103m. bw.

"...The score by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields is peerless – ‘A Fine Romance’, ‘The Way You Look Tonight’, ‘Pick Yourself Up’, and Fred’s turn with Berkeley-esque trimmings, ‘Bojangles of Harlem’. And nothing Fred and Ginger did together surpasses their lengthy, climactic duet, taking off from ‘Never Gonna Dance’, which reminds you that dance is the most perfect sexual metaphor of them all."
-- Time Out, London

"...TOP HAT and SWINGTIME...see these before you die!"
--Mel Brooks

"The plot is strictly secondary to dancing, which is beautiful and elegant to the point of being otherworldly."
--Chris Kaltenbach

"The best of the Astaire-Rogers films."
– Roger Ebert

"A jaunty little masterpiece."
– Time Out New York

"The pinnacle of the Astaire-Rogers series."
--Film Forum

"There are many reasons why Swing Time is the best of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movies. This film, unlike their others, has a director with a point of view, the talented George Stevens, who recognizes and amplifies the emotion in their pairing...The music by Jerome Kern (with lyrics by Dorothy Fields) is much darker and more complex than their previous Irving Berlin scores.... great deal of thought has been put into Swing Time. Everyone knows what works for this team, and everyone is taking chances.....(The) ending took close to 50 takes to complete. In the last few, Rogers's feet were bleeding and had to be bandaged under her shoes. The pain of Swing Time lies in the apotheosis of its dances, the fact that it has a fine director who cares about what he's doing, and the wrenching feeling that Astaire and Rogers have reached the height of their historic partnership right at the moment when it's coming to an end."
-- Slant

"When you see anyone--an athlete, a musician, a dancer, a craftsman--doing something difficult and making it look easy and a joy, you feel enhanced. It is a victory for the human side, over the enemies of clumsiness, timidity and exhaustion. The cynical line on Astaire and Rogers was, 'She gave him sex; he gave her class.' Actually, they both had class, and sex was never the point. The chemistry between Fred and Ginger was not simply erotic, but intellectual and physical: They were two thoroughbreds who could dance better than anyone else, and knew it. Astaire's later dance partners danced in his spotlight, but Ginger Rogers, the dance critic Arlene Croce wrote, 'shed her own light.'....
The best of the Astaire-Rogers films is their fifth, ``Swing Time'' (1936), directed by George Stevens at a time when he was a king at RKO Radio Pictures (his other credits in that period included 'Alice Adams' and 'Gunga Din'). The plot, with its sly drolleries, is based like 'Top Hat' on mistaken identities, but it's wittier and more cleverly written; it could have been devised by P.G. Wodehouse. It serves to link the great dance sequences, built around Jerome Kern songs, including the climactic 'Never Gonna Dance' number that may be the high point of the Astaire-Rogers partnership."
-- Roger Ebert

Revival: Gold Diggers of 1933

2010-01-15T11:50:00.000-05:00

The revival this week is GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933

Showtimes:
Saturday, January 16 at Noon
Monday, January 18 at 7 PM
Thursday, January 21 at 9PM.

1933. Dir. Mervyn LeRoy. Warren William, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Guy Kibbee, Ned Sparks, Ginger Rogers. 96m. bw.

Second of the archetypal backstage musicals from Warners (it followed hard on the success of 42nd Street) which established the idiosyncratic geometrics of Busby Berkeley. Some semblance of a plot (songwriter Powell turns against his wealthy parents in wishing to marry chorus girl Keeler), and much Depression wisecracking from Blondell, MacMahon and Rogers; but most notable is the vulgar, absurd and wonderfully surreal Berkeley choreography. Great numbers: Ginger Rogers adorned in dollars singing 'We're in the Money'; young lovers interrupted by rain while 'Pettin' in the Park'; and on a strangely bleak note, the files of unemployed ex-servicemen during 'Remember My Forgotten Man'. Delirious and delightful. (Time Out)

Revival: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

2010-01-08T13:16:00.002-05:00

WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? will be screened three times this week as the Charles' revival film.

Show Times:
Saturday, January 9 at Noon
Monday, January 11 at 7 PM
Thursday, January 14 at 9PM

1966 Mike Nichols. Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis. Written by Edward Albee (play) and Ernest Lehman (screenplay). Winner of five Oscars: Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Art Direction (bw), Best Cinematography (bw), Best Costume Design (bw). 131m. bw.

"Outstanding direction by Mike Nichols in his feature debut, and four topflight performances score an artistic bullseye.

Elizabeth Taylor's...chacterization is at once sensual, spiteful, cynical, pitiable, loathsome, lustful and tender.

Richard Burton delivers a smash portrayal. He evokes sympathy during the public degradations to which his wife subjects him, and his outrage, as well as his deliberate vengeance, are totally believable.

Provoking the exercise in exorcism is the late-night visit of Dennis and Segal. Latter is the all-American boy type who, in the course of one night, is seduced by his hostess, exposed by his host, but enlightened as to more mature aspects of love and marriage. Segal is able to evoke sympathy, then hatred, then pity, in a first-rate performance.

Dennis makes an impressive screen debut as the young bride, her delivery rounded with the intended subtlety of a not-so-Dumb Dora." (Variety)

2010-01-02T15:38:00.001-05:00

Revival: 42nd Street

2009-12-31T18:42:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year! This week's revival film: 42ND STREET (1933)

SHOW TIMES:
Saturday, January 2 at Noon
Monday, January 4 at 7 PM
Thursday, January 7 at 9 PM

42ND STREET 1933 Dir. Lloyd Bacon. Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, George Brent, Guy Kibbee, Una Merkel, Ginger Rogers. Choreography by Busby Berkeley. 89m. bw. 35mm.

"42ND STREET's charm and fascination lie in director Bacon's fast-paced and vivid backstage atmosphere, crammed with exhausted chorus kids and sudden hysterics. The great cast is in fine fettle....The real star, though, is the master of kaleidoscopic imagery, Busby Berkeley. Backed by the ebullient songs of Harry Warren and Al Dubin, Buzz unleashed his startling creations on an escapism-hungry public. The dizzying combination of sexuality and abstraction in such numbers as "Young and Healthy," "Shuffle Off to Buffalo," and the title tune remains potent to this day. A film that returned it's $400,000 investment ten times over, inspired dozens of imitations and a Broadway reprise in the 1970s, 42ND STREET, "that avenue I'm takin' you to," remains hard to beat."
-- TV Guide

Some photos from Lost & Found reception

2009-12-28T18:25:00.005-05:00

Featuring work by Greglan Ward, Kristin Tata, Annie Gray Robtrecht, Sarah Matson, Antoinette Suiter, Andrew Hegele, Alex Russel, Melody Often, and Heather Boaz.

Revival: A Night at the Opera

2009-12-27T01:17:00.001-05:00

The Charles' revival for this week is A NIGHT AT THE OPERA.

Show Times:
Saturday, December 26 at Noon
Monday, December 28 at 7 PM
Wednesday, December 30 at 9 PM
No Thursday Show.

1935. Dir. Sam Wood. Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Kitty Carlisle, Margaret Dumont. 96m. bw.

"Two beautifully stuffed American targets - grand opera and high society - are left dismantled, flapping like scarecrows. (If you ever could listen to Il Trovatore with a straight face, you can never do so again.)...This comedy has its classic sequence: the stateroom scene, which is widely regarded as the funniest five minutes in screen history. It will sustain you through the dreadful duets."
(Pauline Kael)

Revival: Manhattan

2009-12-18T11:57:00.000-05:00

This week's revival: Woody Allen's MANHATTAN.

Show Times:
Saturday, December 19 at Noon
Monday, December 21 at 7 PM
Wednesday, December 23 at 9 PM
(No Thursday Show)

1979 Dir. Woody Allen. Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Michael Murphy, Mariel Hemingway, Meryl Streep. Cinematography, Gordon Willis. 96m. bw. CinemaScope. 35mm.

"Woody Allen's 1979's bittersweet mash note to the city features gorgeous widescreen black-and-white photography from Gordon Willis and a fabulous cast. TV writer Isaac (Allen) chases love and sex with teenaged Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), but it's the neurotic Mary (Diane Keaton) who comes between him and his best friend. Hopelessly romantic, unabashedly nostalgic, and comically self-reflexive, at this point Manhattan is the most quintessentially Woody Allen of his career, being explicitly about relationships--to each other, to movies--and how they shape the self. It remains an entertaining treat." (City Paper)

"Woody Allen's great leap forward into character development and dramatic integrity (1979). The story is La Ronde with a thrown cog, as Allen's Isaac Davis, a television writer with serious aspirations, turns among three women (Mariel Hemingway, Diane Keaton, and Meryl Streep), his spin impelled by best friend Michael Murphy. The script is funny and observant, full of shocks of recognition..." (Dave Kehr)

"The only truly great American movie of the 1970s. A masterpiece that has become a film for the ages by not seeking to be a film of the moment." (Andrew Sarris)

"The Woody Allen movie where it all came together. The city is gorgeously rendered by cinematographer Gordon Willis; the apartments are lovingly cluttered with cultural detritus; the mainly East Side locations have been fastidiously selected. Every line is a one-liner, but the dialogue flows擁t's not only funny but also seamless." (J. Hoberman)

"Stunningly Beautiful! Woody's supreme masterpiece!" (Time Out New York)

"ABSOLUTELY PERFECT!
The most refined distillation of Woody Allen's sensibility and his best film." (NY Magazine)

Interview with cinematographer Gordon Willis

Revival: Trouble in Paradise

2009-12-12T11:11:00.000-05:00

A new print of Ernst Lubitsch's TROUBLE IN PARADISE is the revival for this week.

Showtimes:
Saturday, December 12 at Noon
Monday, December 14 at 7 PM
Thursday, December 17 at 9 PM

1932 Ernst Lubitsch. Herbert Marshall, Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Edward Everett Horton, Charles Ruggles, C. Aubrey Smith, Robert Greig, Leonid Kinskey. 86m. bw.

"...the most Lubitschian Lubitsch. Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins are a pair of professional thieves who fall in love while plundering the Riviera, but when Marshall falls under the spell of the wealthy Parisienne he intends to fleece (Kay Francis), their perfect relationship falters. The bons mots fly and an elegant immorality abounds, while beneath the surface the most serious kinds of emotional transactions are being made." (Dave Kehr)

“One of the gossamer creations of Lubitsch's narrative art...it would be impossible in this brief notice to describe the innumerable touches of wit and narrative skill with which it is unfolded.” (Alexander Bakshy)

“A shimmering, engaging piece of work...in virtually every scene a lively imagination shines forth.” (NY Times)

"I have played Trouble in Paradise to three different generations over the past forty years or so, to the delight of all of them." (Alistair Cooke)

"A masterpiece of light comedy, with sparkling dialogue, innuendo, great performances and masterly cinematic narrative...the masterpiece of American sophisticated cinema." (Leslie Halliwell)

"This movie seemed to have everything: the grace and elegance of the twenties, the egalitarian conscience of the thirties, the visual wit of the silent cinema, and the verbal wit of the talkies." (Andrew Sarris)

"Trouble in Paradise has none of the single-entendre tawdriness or salacious Puritanism that gives pre-Code Hollywood its carnival flavor. Style is substance in Lubitsch's instantly recognized masterpiece: "As close to perfection as anything I have ever seen in the movies," the young Dwight Macdonald wrote in a little literary magazine. Indeed, style is morality....
Never equaled, Trouble in Paradise twinkles like the polestar in the sky above the comedies of Billy Wilder, George Cukor, and (less brightly) Otto Preminger; it anticipates the banter of Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief and North by Northwest." (J. Hoberman)

Next CTWU Art Exhibit

2009-12-02T09:13:00.002-05:00

Opening Thursday, December 10 from 7-9 pm. Be there!

Revival: Breakfast at Tiffany's

2009-11-27T19:31:00.000-05:00

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S is the Charles' revival film for this week.

SHOWTIMES:
Saturday, November 28 at Noon
Monday, November 30 at 7 PM
Thursday, December 3 at 9PM

1961 Blake Edwards. Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen, Martin Balsam, Mickey Rooney. Cinematography by Franz Planer. Oscar for Best Original Song "Moon River" (Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer) 115m. Technicolor.

Audrey Hepburn brought a bounty of spontaneous humor and emotion to her signature roles, and it's all on slapstick-sophisticated display in 1961's "Breakfast at Tiffany's." Except for Mickey Rooney's controversial comic caricature of a Japanese expatriate, it's a soft, romantic variation on Truman Capote's novella of the same name. But it creates its own goofy glamour and casts its own warming glow. (Michael Sragow)

Revival: Duck Soup

2009-11-20T12:41:00.004-05:00

Don't miss DUCK SOUP at the Charles-- Saturday and Monday showings only.

Showtimes:
Saturday, November 21 at Noon
Monday, November 23 at 7 PM
No show Thursday.

1933 Leo McCarey. Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx, Zeppo Marx, Margaret Dumont, Louis Calhern, Edward Arnold. 68m. bw. 35mm.

"A Marx Brothers revival has long been overdue. Let's hope the Charles' presentation of their masterpiece "Duck Soup" helps kicks one off. It's a good thing that the Charles plays old movies more than once a week. The punning effrontery of Groucho and the dialect comedy of Chico come so fast and mock-furious that even their target audiences in the 1930s had to attend the films several times to catch all the jokes. Each brother of the brothers (except game, banal Zeppo) could also be a sight gag unto himself. And each had his comic force multiplied when he played off another Marx or two. Chico's piano-playing, for example, could be a drag, but the group knew how to mine it for laughs.

They had already annihilated college life in their 1932 burlesque "Horse Feathers," and the next year, in "Duck Soup," they took on an even larger institution than academia - statehood - as Groucho (here the president of the struggling nation of Freedonia) and Chico and Harpo (as secret agents) aim fusillades at every aspect of war with an abandon unmatched until Kubrick made "Dr. Strangelove" 40 years later. And even Kubrick backed off from ending his film with a custard-pie fight, while the Marx Brothers merrily sling slimy fruit at Freedonia's patroness while celebrating a meaningless victory over the country of Sylvania. It makes most other parodies of nationalism taste like thin broth, indeed." (Michael Sragow)

"A few years ago I was asked what films I would like to see again just for my own pleasure, and without a second's thought I replied Duck Soup." (Pauline Kael)

Crispin Glover screening It Is Fine! at the Charles Theatre

2009-11-16T12:48:00.002-05:00

On Thursday, November 19th, Crispin Hellion Glover will appear at the Charles Theatre to present his Big Slide Show and a screening of his film “It Is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE” (2007. Part 2 of the "It" Trilogy). The screening will be followed by a question and answer session and a book signing.

... But first, get in the spirit before he arrives with a screening of River's Edge at The LOFT (120 North Ave) on wednesday night the 18th at 8pm. First 20 people through the door get free tickets for the events at The Charles.
and let rumors of an after party circulate freely.

Tickets avaiable now at the Charles Theatre box office and at Brown Paper Tickets.
For more information (347) 247 3921
Show Time: 7:30
Tickets are $20 and are available now at the Charles Theatre box office. Buy your tickets early!

Charles Theatre
1711 N. Charles Street
Baltimore
(410) 727-FILM

The LOF/t
120 North Ave
410-914-7878

crispinglover.com/slideshow

Revival: The Hustler

2009-11-06T02:17:00.000-05:00

This week the Charles presents an archival print of THE HUSTLER starring Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason.

Showtimes:
Saturday, November 7 at Noon
Monday, November 9 at 7 PM
Thursday, November 12 at 9 PM

1961 Robert Rossen. Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, Piper Laurie, George C. Scott, Murray Hamilton, Myron McCormick, Michael Constantine, Stefan Gierasch, Jake LaMotta (bartender), Art Smith (uncredited). 134 m. bw. Cinemascope.

Robert Rossen's 1961 feature is a somber morality play postulating as existential hero a pool hustler perfecting his craft (Paul Newman at his best). It makes wonderful use of its seedy locations (memorably filmed in black-and-white 'Scope by Eugen Shuftan, who won an Oscar for his work) and its first-rate secondary cast (Piper Laurie, Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott, Myron McCormick, and Murray Hamilton). Adapted by Rossen and Sidney Carroll from a Walter Tevis novel, this picture is so much better than Martin Scorsese's belated sequel The Color of Money that they don't even belong in the same category. A postnoir melodrama with metaphysical trimmings, it does remarkable things with mood and pacing, and the two matches with Gleason as Minnesota Fats are indelible. (Jonathan Rosenbaum)

watch trailer

Children's Halloween Matinee

2009-10-26T13:07:00.002-04:00

On Saturday, October 31st at noon the Charles will host a special children's matinee of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN. Children will be admitted free. Adults $6.

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN will screen again on Monday, November 2 and Thursday, November 5. (No free admission for children on Monday and Thursday)

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948 Charles Barton) Bud Abbott, Lou Costello, Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi, Glenn Strange, Lenore Aubert, Jane Randolph. 83m. bw. Archival 35 mm film print. Not Rated.

The comedy duo's finest onscreen hour comes in the shape of this wonderful horror spoof which also unites all of Universal's scariest horror heroes under the same cinematic roof. Here, the pair are at the mercy of Dracula, Frankenstein and the werewolf, after the neck-chomper (Lugosi) hatches a plan to resurrect the long-dead bolt-head with Abbott's brain. This works so well not only because of the tight comic control which builds to a hysterical finale (all the monsters on the loose), but because Lugosi and Chaney as the werewolf play the entire thing as straight as can be, leaving the truly wacky antics to Abbott And Costello. (Channel 4)

Revival: Amarcord

2009-10-22T15:55:00.002-04:00

This week's revival: A new technicolor print of Federico Fellini's AMARCORD.

SHOWTIMES
Saturday, October 24 at Noon
Monday, October 26 at 7 PM
Thursday, October 29 at 9PM

1973 Federico Fellini. Pupella Maggio, Armando Brancia, Magali Noël, Bruno Zanin, Ciccio Ingrassia.123m. In Italian and Greek with English subtitles. Technicolor.

"If ever there was a movie made entirely out of nostalgia and joy, by a filmmaker at the heedless height of his powers, that movie is Federico Fellini's AMARCORD. The title means "I remember" in the dialect of Rimini, the seaside town of his youth, but these are memories of memories, transformed by affection and fantasy and much improved in the telling. Here he gathers the legends of his youth, where all of the characters are at once larger and smaller than life -- flamboyant players on their own stages.

At the center is an overgrown young adolescent, the son of a large, loud family, who is dizzied by the life churning all around him -- the girls he idealizes, the tarts he lusts for, the rituals of the village year, the practical jokes he likes to play, the meals that always end in drama, the church's thrilling opportunities for sin and redemption, and the vaudeville of Italy itself -- the transient glories of grand hotels and great ocean liners, the play-acting of Mussolini's fascist costume party."
-Roger Ebert

Revival: Touch of Evil

2009-10-16T12:31:00.003-04:00

A beautiful archival print of the restored version of TOUCH OF EVIL will be played as the Charles Theatre's revival for this week.

SHOWTIMES
Saturday, October 17 at Noon
Monday, October 19 at 7 pm
Thursday, October 22 at 9 pm

1958 Orson Welles. Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles, Joseph Calleia, Akim Tamiroff, Dennis Weaver, Marlene Dietrich, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Mercedes McCambridge, Keenan Wynn, Joseph Cotten. bw. 111 minute restored version from 1998.

After seeing the work print of his last Hollywood feature, Orson Welles wrote a lengthy memo requesting several changes in editing and sound—work that was carried out in 1998 by producer Rick Schmidlin and editor Walter Murch with myself as consultant. About the original 95-minute 1958 release (superseded since the mid-70s by a 108-minute preview version), Dave Kehr wrote, “Eternal damnation to the wretch at Universal who printed the opening titles over the most brilliant establishing shot in film history—a shot that establishes not only place and main characters in its continuous movement over several city blocks, but also the film's theme (crossing boundaries), spatial metaphors, and peculiar bolero rhythm.” These titles now appear at the film's end—yielding a final running time of 111 minutes—and in the opening shot Henry Mancini's music comes exclusively from speakers in front of the nightclubs and from a car radio. Other changes involve different sound and editing patterns and a few deletions, all of which add up to a narrative that's easier to follow, but there's no new or restored footage. To quote Kehr again, “Welles stars as the sheriff of a corrupt border town who finds his nemesis in visiting Mexican narcotics agent Charlton Heston; the witnesses to this weirdly gargantuan struggle include Janet Leigh, Marlene Dietrich, Akim Tamiroff, and Joseph Calleia, who holds the film's moral center with sublime uncertainty.” (Jonathan Rosenbaum)

"Touch of Evil is a sensational calling card Welles is almost touchingly eager to demonstrate what he can do. The dialogue is as intricately overlapped as the lighting is cross-hatched; the cameos are as vivid as possible in a black-and-white movie; the camera work and blocking have the coordination of an Olympic pole vaulter. The very first day of shooting, Welles choreographed an astoundingly efficient 12-minute expository shot in which his camera glided from room to room to room while an assortment of cops, lawyers, and suspects pace in and out, yelling, fencing, and looking for evidence. ("Twelve pages in one take," Heston noted in his journal that night.)....Unable to shoot on location in Tijuana, Welles came up with a wonderful alternative (and an implicit metaphor for Hollywood) by using the once fashionable seaside neighborhood of Venice a designed community which, after oil was discovered there in 1927, deteriorated from a fantasy Europe to a wide-open sailor town to a beatnik slum of scummy canals and crumbling colonnades. As Welles's set, the place has no normal life. It has been imbued with the sinister clutter of a derelict amusement park tattered posters, windblown detritus, cars careening through the empty streets."
- J. Hoberman

"A disreputable classic whose brave sensibility more than matches its towering bravura." (Michael Sragow)
Read Michael Sragow on Touch of Evil

"Marvellously garish...a terrific entertainment...
the cast is assembled as perversely as in a nightmare."
- Pauline Kael

Leave Her To Heaven at the Charles Theatre

2009-10-09T11:46:00.000-04:00

A new restored 35mm print of John Stahl’s LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN Starring Gene Tierney and Cornel Wilde will be the Charles Revival Series' film for this week.

SHOWTIMES:
Saturday, October 10 at Noon
Monday, October 12 at 7 PM
Thursday, October 15 at 9PM

(1945 John M. Stahl) Gene Tierney, Cornel Wilde, Jeanne Crain, Vincent Price. Chill WIlls. 110 m. Technicolor.

"Gene Tierney as the most fatale femme in movie history provides the red-hot center to John Stahl's magnificently obsessive 'Leave Her to Heaven' (1945), a delirious Technicolor film noir and a hot pick for the Charles' revival series in a superb 35 mm restoration. From the moment Tierney and Cornel Wilde (playing a best-selling writer) meet as strangers on a train, the film exerts a hypnotic pull as murderous romance, courtroom spectacular (with Vincent Price as the DA) and dysfunctional-family tragicomedy: 'There's nothing wrong with [her], it's just that she loves too much!' says Mom."
-Michael Sragow

"STAGGERINGLY BEAUTIFUL... There's neither a bland nor trivial frame in the whole thing. And it was perhaps never more gorgeous since its release than it is now, in the wonderful restoration... A strangely heartening reminder of just how exhilaratingly bizarre Hollywood moviemaking could get!”
-Glenn Kenny

"Mesmerizing! A very special film! A glorious restoration!"
-Martin Scorsese

"(LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN is) a noir from the classic era, only photographed in rococo color and draped in baroque melodrama."
-Bret McCabe

“A MASTERPIECE OF AMERICAN CINEMA. The onscreen melo boils, but Stahl's gaze remains spare and precise,
like an acidic fusion of Ozu and Naruse. The glamour of the film's palette is but a bandage on a festering canker...
God is in the details, but he remains tauntingly at the margins.”
– Keith Uhlich, Time Out New York

“Stahl's purpose unfolds only on the big screen, where the blue-velvet skies and the lethally smooth waters
acquire the unquestioned clarity of a fever dream. Color is the lifeblood of the film, Stahl takes the time to feel his way
into the more vivid hues of the heart... Technicolor reaches its astounding apogee in the lips of Gene Tierney, as red as a witch's apple. Each frame of her seems to be hand-tinted.”
– Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

"SPECTACULAR! Pure drama and pure cine noir, all at the same time, with brilliant, deceptive photography
which knocks the spectator out when he discovers that those pastel shades conceal vast amounts of madness and sordidness. A forerunner of Sirk, but more turbulent... The most frightening film that cinema has given us about the evil of jealousy.”
– Pedro Almodóvar

“Gothic pyschologizing melodrama, so preposterously full-blown and straight-faced that it's a juicy entertainment.”
-Pauline Kael

Hand-Made Experimental Animation at the Charles Theatre

2009-10-04T22:34:00.003-04:00

This week's revival: Hand-made experimental ANIMATION programmed by animator Karen Yasinsky and sponsored in part by the MICA Animation Department and JHU Film/Media Studies.

A screening of experimental animations from some of the masters. Don't miss this chance to see magicians of the single frame, from Lewis Klahr's bursting collage of image and color to Robert Breer's sublime manipulation of our processing of image through time. Including long lost dolls, operatic divas, sausages and a few surprises. 16 mm.

2 Screenings Only!
Monday, October 5 at 7pm
Thursday, October 8 at 9pm
(No Saturday Show)

Including Lewis Klahr, Janie Geiser, Robert Breer, Adam Beckett and others.

Lewis Klahr: Lulu
"Lewis Klahr has developed a signature style of cutout animation using illustrations from old magazines and, occasionally, photographic cutouts. LULU was commissioned to be shown as an interlude for a Danish production of Alban Berg's opera, and it is a remarkably intricate piece of work. Berg's instructions call for an expository filmic sequence, but Klahr takes a more indirect approach, collaging stills of diva Constance Hauman with iconographic motifs and metaphoric condensations derived from the heroine's lurid fall from grace. A roulette wheel is a central image, at once a harbinger of chance and a catherine's wheel on which the body and soul of this femme fatale is broken. Intensities of color - predominantly gold, red, and blue - join with vertical movements into and out of frame in mirroring the rising and subsiding intensities of Berg's musical phrases. For those familiar with Lulu's dramatic trajectory, it is like watching an implosion of elements drawn to the center from opposite ends of her story, the moment at which Fate drops its mask of neutrality." - Paul Arthur, Film Comment
1996, 16mm, color/so, 3m,

Janie Geiser: The secret story
The Secret Story arose as a response to several beautifully decayed toy figures from the 1930s that were given to me as a gift. These figures, and other toys, objects and illustrations that I found from the period between the world wars, suggested a kind of unearthed hidden narrative which I have attempted to re-piece together, as if these figures were the hieroglyphics of a just-forgotten tongue. The Secret Story revolves around the central figure of the woman, and her girl-double, who look somewhat like versions of Snow White. She wanders through landscapes of rivers and floods, home and war, and memory and illness, culminating in an ecstatic walk in the forest, suggesting both the dark and cathartic trajectories of the richest fairy tales.
1996, 16mm, color/so, 8.5m,

Robert Breer: 69
"It's so absolutely beautiful, so perfect, so like nothing else. Forms, geometry, lines, movements, light, very basic, very pure, very surprising, very subtle." - Jonas Mekas, The Village Voice; "A dream of Euclid." - Donald Richie
Awards: NY Film Festival; London Film Festival; Tours Film Festival; Oberhausen Film Festival.
1968, 16mm, color/so, 5m

Robert Breer: Fuji
"A poetic, rhythmic, riveting achievement (in rotoscope and abstract animation), in which fragments of landscapes, passengers, and train interiors blend into a magical color dream of a voyage. One of the most important works by a master who - like Conner, Brakhage, Broughton - spans several avant-gardes in his ever more perfect explorations." - Amos Vogel, Film Comment
Awards: Oberhausen Film Festival, 1975; Film as Art, American Film/Video Festival.
1974, 16mm, color/so, 8.5m,

Adam Beckett: Sausage City
Newly preserved print courtesy Iota Center and Academy Film Archive, Music: Brillo
Starting with a white screen a city of interlocking boxes evolves, always moving, constantly changing perspective. After a while, this group of sausages begins to emerge. They are a thoroughly rendered (using fancy colored-pencil technique) bunch of sausages. As time passes there get to be a whole bunch of sausages; in fact, the screen becomes one mass of seething, throbbing, pullulating life. The ending is a surprise.
Awards: Humboldt Film Festival, 1974; Ann Arbor Film Festival, 1974.
1974, 16mm, color/so, 5.5m

Noetic Justice

2009-10-02T22:36:00.004-04:00

Artists include Adam Beaver, Jennifer Strunge, Kristin Tata, Jessica Hans, Shannon Lenise Fitzgerald, John Jones, and Melody Often. Special thanks to Sara Seidman.

Noetic Justice opens tonight!

2009-10-01T10:44:00.005-04:00

Noetic Justice

October 1 - November 30 2009
Opening Reception: Thursday, October 1, 7 - 9pm
Charles Theatre Workers Art Wall

Featuring works by Adam Beaver, Shannon Fitzgerald, Jessica Hans, John Jones, Melody Nadia Often, Jennifer Strunge, and Kristin Tata.

Phantom of the Opera @ Charles Theatre

2009-09-25T10:33:00.004-04:00

Showtimes:

Saturday, September 26 at Noon.

Monday, September 28 at 7 pm

Thursday, October 1 at 9 pm

1925 Dir. Rupert Julian. Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, Norman Kerry, Gibson Gowland. 93m. bw. SIlent with music track.

...The Phantom is invested by the intense and inventive Lon Chaney with a horror and poignancy that is almost entirely created with body language. More of his face is covered than in modern versions (a little gauze curtain flutters in front of his mouth), but look at the way his hand moves as he gestures toward the coffin as the titles announce "That is where I sleep." It is a languorous movement that conveys great weary sadness. The Phantom's unmasking was one of the most famous moments in silent film. He is seated at his organ. "Now, when he is intent on the music," Sandburg wrote, "she comes closer, closer, her fingers steal towards the ribbon that fastens the mask. Her fingers give one final twitch -- and there you are!" There you are, all right, as Chaney, "the Man of 1,000 Faces" and a master of makeup, unveils a defacement more grotesque than in any later version, his mouth a gaping cavern, his nose a void, his eyes widely staring: "Feast your eyes, glut your soul, on my accursed ugliness!" (Roger Ebert)

Human Foliage Opening

2009-09-23T15:57:00.015-04:00

Annie Hall @ Charles Theatre

2009-09-18T14:37:00.002-04:00

A new print of Woody Allen's Oscar-winning ANNIE HALL screens three times this week as the Charles' revival.

Showtimes:

Saturday, September 19 at Noon

Monday, September 21 at 7 pm

Thursday, September 24 at 9 pm

1977. Dir. Woody Allen. Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane, Shelley Duvall, Christopher Walken, Mordecai Lawner, Jeff Goldblum, Dick Cavett. 93m.

In a boy-has-already-lost-girl story, comedian Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) reflects on his failed romance with Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) and attempts to get her back. It's a slight story but what makes this film significant in Allen's long career is that it's really the first time he wrote adult characters. Previous movies such as the mock Russian literature epic "Love and Death" are funnier but are only really a sequence of gags. From here his writing (with Marshall Brickman) and directing make an unexpectedly subtle and involving movie. It's in "Annie Hall" that Allen first seems to have first learned the power of excision. Later he would re-shoot scenes, or once an entire movie ("September"), but here he deleted over an hour of footage. What's more, "Annie Hall" is really a murder-mystery but you'd never know it because that lost hour of footage included the murder and the mystery (this surplus plot became the basis of Allen's "Manhattan Murder Mystery"). Crime is a crutch in storytelling because it starts with the crime and ends with the inevitable unmasking of the villain, so it's a mark of greater sophistication that Allen chose to throw that away. This more intelligent film-making is rewarding because it hasn't dated as much as its 1970s fashions or focus on psychiatry. Its best sequence is still being ripped off, too: Allen and Keaton have a flirtatious chat that is subtitled with what each of them is really thinking. It's really no surprise that "Annie Hall" beat "Star Wars" to the Best Picture Oscar of 1977. (William Gallagher, BBC) "Arguably Allen's best film: a thoroughly winning examination of the relationship between the ditzy title character and Allen's standard neurotic loon. A seminal '70s movie, and it holds up beautifully." – Time Out New York "Recommended! Remains Allen's clearest, cleanest intersection of whimsy, riotousness, and angst. It's a film that lovers and would-be lovers bond over—a jumbled sketch of a romance from start to finish, with well-observed moments of what love is really like." – The Onion “An aggressively experimental fantasia in which he unleashed all the kung fu in his cinematic arsenal, Annie Hall leaves any other romantic comedy made since choking on its dust.” – Grady Hendrix, The New York Sun

Next CTWU Art Exhibit

2009-09-18T10:21:00.003-04:00

LE DOULOS @ the Charles Theatre

2009-09-09T11:42:00.001-04:00

Don’t miss Jean-Paul Belmondo in LE DOULOS directed by Jean-Pierre Melville (ARMY OF SHADOWS, BOB LE FLAMBEUR). LE DOULOS screens three times this week as the Charles’ revival.

Show times:
Saturday, September 12 at Noon
Monday, September 14 at 7 PM
Thursday, September 17 at 9 PM

LE DOULOS (1962 Jean-Pierre Melville) Jean-Paul Belmondo, Serge Reggiani, Jean Desailly, René Lefèvre, Marcel Cuvelier. 108 m. In French with English subtitles.

Jean-Pierre Melville's existentialized gangster films are one of the glories of the French cinema, American forms played out with European self-consciousness. This 1962 effort stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as an informer on the lam, but plot pales before Melville's detailed noir imagery of dingy hotel rooms, back alleys, and subterranean passages. Melville's love for American films (he was a man of taste as well as talent) was one of the most profound influences on the New Wave generation. In French with subtitles. 108 min. (Dave Kehr)

If you do only one thing this week, see LE DOULOS!
If you dug the re-release of his Army of Shadows...
it's time to catch up with this essential title from Melville's filmography.
– Time Out New York

For fans of classic hard-boiled crime cinema, nothing all summer will compete with the crystalline new black-and-white print of Le Doulos, the great Jean-Pierre Melville's most influential film… A masterful blend of economy and style.
– Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

A gripping and effective mood piece from one of the greats.
– Bilge Ebiri, New York magazine

A superbly-crafted film noir! Taut and Terrific!
-David Sterritt

Jean-Pierre Melville's Brutal and subtly brilliant policier...underscores why the French put the name to film noir.
– Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

The movie is a French neo-noir that comes from 1962. The setting is the Parisian underworld. The dodgy nightclub owner is Michel Piccoli. The snitch paranoid that a just released prisoner is out to get him is Jean-Paul Belmondo. The title refers to a type of hat, the kind worn by the informer, hence why "doulos" becomes slang for a criminal canary. The cinematography is black and white. Almost everybody smokes. And the director is Jean-Pierre Melville. Need we say more?
-Bret McCabe, City Paper

TOMORROW NIGHT!

2009-09-04T10:54:00.001-04:00

Summer with Monika @ the Charles Theatre this week

2009-08-28T15:18:00.001-04:00

Showtimes:
Saturday, August 29 at Noon
Monday, August 31 at 7 PM
Thursday, September 3 at 9 PM

1953 (Ingmar Bergman) Harriet Andersson, Lars Eckborg, Dagmar Ebbesen, Åke Fridell. 96m. In Swedish with English subtitles.

When revived in Paris, then-critic Jean-Luc Godard hailed Monika in a frenzy of enthusiasm as "the cinematographic event" of 1958: "Ignored when it was first shown on the boulevards, [Monika] is the most original film of the most original of directors. It is to cinema today what Birth of a Nation is to classical cinema." In the U.S., the movie—with its 20-year-old star Harriet Andersson swimming in the nude—inspired another sort of excitement. Veteran exploitation distributor Kroger Babb cut the film to 62 minutes, dubbed the dialogue, added a Les Baxter score, and released it as Monika, the Story of a Bad Girl. Woody Allen claims to have camped out on the sidewalk the night before its Flatbush opening. Uneven and sometimes clumsy, Monika doesn't nearly justify Godard's claims, but it's easy to see what impressed him. Bergman's tale of heedless teenage love is a sort of neorealist Rebel Without a Cause—except that sex is acknowledged and the outlaw is a girl....(J. Hoberman)

A Place in the Sun @ Charles Theatre

2009-08-20T11:22:00.000-04:00

This week's revival: A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951) directed by George Stevens.

Showtimes:
Saturday, August 22 at Noon
Monday, August 24 at 7 PM
Thursday, August 27 at 9 PM

A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951 George Stevens) Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, Shelley Winters, Anne Revere, Raymond Burr. 122m.

Academy Awards for Best Director, Screenplay, Cinematography (William C. Mellor), Editing (William Hornbeck), Score (Franz Waxman), Costume Design (Edith Head).

Previously filmed in 1931 under its original title, Theodore Dreiser's bulky but brilliant novel An American Tragedy was remade in 1951 by George Stevens as A Place in the Sun. Montgomery Clift stars as George Eastman, a handsome and charming but basically aimless young man who goes to work in a factory run by a distant, wealthy relative. Feeling lonely one evening, he has a brief rendezvous with assembly-line worker Alice Tripp (Shelley Winters), but he forgets all about her when he falls for dazzling socialite Angela Vickers (Elizabeth Taylor). Alice can't forget about him, though: she is pregnant with his child. Just when George's personal and professional futures seem assured, Alice demands that he marry her or she'll expose him to his society friends. This predicament sets in motion a chain of events that will ultimately include George's arrest and numerous other tragedies, including a vicious cross-examination by a D.A. played by future Perry Mason Raymond Burr. A huge improvement over the 1931 An American Tragedy, directed by Josef von Sternberg, A Place in the Sun softens some of the rough edges of Dreiser's naturalism, most notably in the passages pertaining to George's and Angela's romance. Even those 1951 bobbysoxers who wouldn't have been caught dead poring through the Dreiser original were mesmerized by the loving, near-erotic full facial closeups of Clift and Taylor as they pledge eternal devotion. ~ Hal Erickson

Children of Paradise @ Charles Theatre this week

2009-08-13T12:16:00.001-04:00

The Charles Theatre’s Revival Series will screen a new print of LES ENFANTS DU PARADIS this coming week. Don’t miss it.

Showtimes:
Saturday, August 15 at 11 AM (Please note the earlier-than-usual starting time);
Monday, August 17 at 7 PM;
Thursday, August 20 at 9 PM.

CHILDREN OF PARADISE Les enfants du paradis. (1945 Marcel Carné) Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault, Pierre Brasseur, Pierre Renoir, María Casares, Marcel Herrand, Louis Salou. In French with English subtitles. 190m.

A fresco conceived on a majestic scale, Children of Paradise sweeps its audience back to the 1820s, painting the detail of a world obsessed with both theater and crime. The original screenplay by Jacques Prévert drew its inspiration from such colorful personalities of the period as Jean-Gaspard Deburau, the innovative mime; Pierre-François Lacenaire, a murderer who went to the scaffold; and Frédérick Lemaître, a celebrated actor for whom both Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo wrote plays. Jean-Louis Barrault, fascinated by the character of Deburau (Baptiste in the film), urged Prévert to develop a story around him. The result was a tightly plotted narrative dominated by the fictional figure of Garance (played by the inimitable Arletty), a woman who arouses the passion and envy of the film’s four leading men....

Perhaps the film’s greatest achievement lies in its evocation of a vanished epoch, a “lost paradise” of Proustian proportions. The costumes and sets by Alexandre Trauner and the music of Joseph Kosma contribute to a vivid, teeming environment that enables Children of Paradise to transcend the theatrical circles in which it moves. Both men, incidentally, had to work anonymously to conceal their Jewish origins from the authorities.

One of the richest embodiments of romantic agony in 20th-century art, Children of Paradise still rules the seas of French cinema like some proud galleon, the ultimate exemplar of classical filmmaking, great acting, and a perfectly constructed screenplay. For many critics, it remains the finest French film ever made.
-Peter Cowie. Full Review

Children of Paradise is the high-water mark of the Golden Age of French cinema. -Brian Stonehill

Trailer

This lushly romantic creation, directed by Marcel Carné and written by Jacques Prévert, is a one-of-a-kind film, a sumptuous epic about the relations between theatre and life. -Pauline Kael

Q and A with Director and Editor of Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg @ the Charles Theatre Friday

2009-08-11T19:16:00.001-04:00

Friday, August 14th only.

Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, Director Aviva Kempner and editor Judith Herbert will be on hand at the Charles Theatre for a Q and A. after the 6:45 show this Friday.

Aviva will also introduce the film at 6:45pm.

Human Foliage Opens Tonight at the Charles Theatre Workers Art Wall

2009-08-06T10:23:00.004-04:00

Human Foliage
August 6 - September 30 2009
Opening Reception: Thursday, August 6, 7 - 9pm
Charles Theatre Workers Art Wall

Featuring works by Adam Beaver, Shannon Fitzgerald, Andrew Hegele, Melody Nadia Often, Katherine Ralston, Alex Russell, Sara Seidman, Jennifer Strunge, and Kristin Tata.

Bigger Than Life @ the Charles Theatre this week

2009-07-31T00:30:00.000-04:00

The Charles Theatre's Revival Series is proud to announce three screenings of a brand-new color cinemascope print of Nicholas Ray's legendary BIGGER THAN LIFE.

Showtimes:
Saturday, August 1 at Noon
Monday, August 3 at 7 PM
Thursday, August 6 at 9 PM

(1956 Nicholas Ray) James Mason, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau. 95. Color. CinemaScope.

Mason's furrowed brow and brooding presence have rarely (never?) been used to better effect: 30 years on, his performance as the mild schoolteacher who is prescribed the wonder drug cortisone and becomes a raving megalomaniac addict remains profoundly disturbing. Suburbia is haunted by psychosis; family life torn apart by Oedipal bloodlust. Ray's direction (in 'Scope and Eastman Colour) is as moving as ever - delicate compositions and fluid camerawork contradicted by the image of weak men locked into obsessive self-destruction. At every level the banal props of '50s prosperity are turned into symbols of suffocation and trauma, from the X-ray machine used to diagnose Mason's 'disease' to the bathroom cabinet mirror shattering under a desperate blow. Trashed on first release, resurrected by Truffaut and Godard, lovingly imitated by Wim Wenders (in American Friend): this is Rebel Without a Cause for the grown-up world. (Time Out)

“One of the best, most radical, least known films in the 1950s. A canny retelling of the Jekyll and Hyde story, Father Knows Best as Greek tragedy. Still terrifying!” (Village Voice)

"Ray’s most powerful film, and in some respects his most important. A profoundly upsetting exposure..” (Jonathan Rosenbaum)

“Under Ray’s masterful direction, James Mason is given three or four of the most beautiful close-ups I have had the chance to see since the advent of CinemaScope… The slightest detail has an overwhelming beauty. A film of implacable logic and sanity, Bigger than Life uses both those very qualities as targets, and scores a bull’s-eye in every frame.” (François Truffaut)

THIS COMING MONDAY

2009-07-29T13:40:00.000-04:00

ANTONIO GAUDÍ @ The Charles Theatre

2009-07-24T12:13:00.000-04:00

Showtimes:
Saturday, July 25 at Noon
Monday, July 27 at 7 PM
Thursday, July 30 at 9 PM.

1984 Hiroshi Teshigahara. 72M.

This 1984 documentary about the architect essentially lets Gaudi's work speak for itself, and it couldn't be more eloquent. The cinematography by Junichi Segawa, Yoshikazu Yanagida, and Ryu Segawa provides perspectives you couldn't get on-site in Barcelona, guiding you at a perfect pace through intimate interiors or whisking you to aerial vantage points, alternating between minute details and comprehensive views. The often gently moving camera and the lyrical editing unobtrusively yet decisively shape what you see. The acutely perceptive sound track doesn't have to compete with continual voice-over—much of the historical information is provided in on-screen titles that barely disrupt the enveloping beauty of the images. Produced and directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara (Woman in the Dunes). (Chicago Reader)

Next CTWU Art Exhibit

2009-07-13T21:06:00.001-04:00

FIRST ROUGH MOVIE NITE!

2009-07-13T20:50:00.001-04:00

SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS @ The Charles Theatre

2009-07-10T00:04:00.001-04:00

Showtimes:
Saturday July 11 at Noon
Monday July 13 at 7 PM
Thursday July 16 at 9 PM.

1957 Alexander Mackendrick. Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, Martin Milner, Chico Hamilton, Barbara Nichols. 96m. bw.

A film noir from the Ealing funny man? But Mackendrick's involvement with cosy British humour was always less innocent than it looked: remember the anti-social wit of The Man in the White Suit, or the cruel cynicism of The Ladykillers? Sweet Smell of Success was the director's American debut, a rat trap of a film in which a vicious NY gossip hustler (Curtis) grovels for his 'Mr Big' (Lancaster), a monster newspaper columnist who is incestuously obsessed with destroying his kid sister's romance... and a figure as evil and memorable as Orson Welles in The Third Man or Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter. The dark streets gleam with the sweat of fear; Elmer Bernstein's limpid jazz score (courtesy of Chico Hamilton) whispers corruption in the Big City. The screen was rarely so dark or cruel. (Time Out)

LOLITA @ The Charles Theatre

2009-06-29T13:10:00.000-04:00

Showtimes:
Saturday, July 4 at 11:30 AM
Monday, July 6 at 7 PM
Thursday, July 9 at 9 PM

1962 Stanley Kubrick. James Mason, Shelley Winters, Sue Lyon, Peter Sellers. 152 m. bw. View Trailer

Wild, marvellously enjoyable comedy, adapted from Nabokov's novel. James Mason is the lover of little girls, the smiling, obsequious, phony Humbert Humbert; Shelley Winters is Charlotte Haze, the culture vulture rampant; Sue Lyon is her sexy daughter, Lolita; and Peter Sellers (at his most inspired) is Quilty, Humbert Humbert's walking paranoia. Stanley Kubrick directed. (Pauline Kael)

Death to the Videodrome!

2009-06-20T17:24:00.003-04:00

Thanks everybody for coming out. It was great, now it's gone. See you at the next.

My Partner

2009-06-16T20:05:00.001-04:00

"You're going to be up all night watching TV now."

Midnight Movie Flyer

2009-06-15T16:28:00.002-04:00

Midnight Movie at the Charles Theatre! Videodrome!

2009-06-14T16:24:00.004-04:00

Friday June 19th at Midnight
Charles Theatre
Videodrome
Directed by David Cronenberg
$6

City Dwelling Summer Swelling is up!

2009-06-10T19:10:00.005-04:00

City Dwelling, Summer Swelling Opens Tonight!

2009-06-04T12:41:00.004-04:00

City Dwelling, Summer Swelling
June 4 - July 31 2009
Opening Reception: June 4, 7 - 9pm
Charles Theatre Workers Art Wall

Featuring works by Kristin Tata, Jennifer Strunge, Nicholas Often, Sara Seidman, Antoinette Suiter, Justin Durel, Willie J. Taylor, Melody Nadia Often, Bob Myaing, and Joe Delano

Plus Blow Pops!

there will be blow pops

2009-06-02T13:25:00.001-04:00

Next Midnight Movie at the Charles Theatre!

2009-05-26T23:47:00.003-04:00

Wes Craven's "The Serpent and the Rainbow," Friday June 5th, 6 Dollars

upcoming events

2009-05-22T10:02:00.004-04:00

The next midnight movie will be on Friday, June 5 at midnight.

The current art show, Mysticism in America, is being taken down on May 31st. If you haven't gotten a chance to see it before the next one goes up, the time is now.

This week is the last week of the Robert Altman series. A Prairie Home Companion will be showing at the theatre Saturday, May 23 at noon, Monday, May 25 at 7pm and Thursday, May 28 at 9pm.

Blazing Saddles Flyer

2009-05-13T16:03:00.001-04:00

Next Art Wall Opening

2009-05-10T20:38:00.000-04:00

Midnight Movie at the Charles Theatre! Blazing Saddles!

2009-05-10T17:54:00.004-04:00

Friday April 15th at Midnight
Blazing Saddles
Charles Theatre
$6

Mysticism in America

2009-05-06T15:10:00.009-04:00

The Charles Theatre Workers Art Wall currently exhibiting works from members of the CTWU. Exploring the theme of the mystical American experience.

For more on the reception visit our Facebook.

The next theme is City Dwelling, Summer Swelling, reception is June 4th.

Blazing Saddles Trailer

2009-05-06T01:01:00.000-04:00

RIP Dom DeLuise

2009-05-05T13:16:00.001-04:00

August 1, 1933 – May 4, 2009

The Player

2009-05-01T17:46:00.000-04:00

Showtimes:
Saturday, May 2 at noon
Monday, May 4 at 7 PM
Thursday, May 7 at 9 PM

1992 Robert Altman, Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi, Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg, Peter Gallagher, Dean Stockwell, Richard E. Grant, Lyle Lovett, Gina Gershon, Steve Allen, Rene Auberjonois, Harry Belafonte, Karen Black, James Coburn, Peter Falk, John Cusack, Louise Fletcher, Elliott Gould, Buck Henry, Anjelica Huston, Jeff Goldblum, Jack Lemmon, Nick Nolte, Burt Reynolds, Lily Tomlin, Rod Steiger, etc. 124m.

In the early '90s, it looked as if Robert Altman's career had gone into a terminal tailspin; the film industry had basically written him off as yet another '70s maverick who'd crashed and burned. That backstory has made The Player's runaway success one of the sweetest, most satisfying comeback narratives in the history of American film. A whip-smart and wickedly hilarious satire of Hollywood's mad methods, The Player is as relevant today as it was 17 years ago, a testament to either Altman's perspicacity or Hollywood's ongoing ossification, probably both. The nonstop flurry of star cameos and insider's insider references will keep film junkies high, but beneath the slick merriment there's a center as bone-chilling as ice queen June Gudmundsdottir's (Greta Scaatchi) cold-blooded art. The Player has been touted as Altman's love/hate tribute to the system that had both embraced and scorned him, but in the end, it's pretty difficult to feel the love here. If you look closely, it's hard not to see that even America's beloved “sweetheart,” Julia Roberts, comes off as smug and self-satisfied; this portrait of a culture wallowing in narcissism and greed lets no one off the hook, maybe even the viewer. (Linda DeLibero)

Buffalo Bill and the Indians @ the Charles Theatre this week

2009-04-24T17:31:00.001-04:00

Showtimes:
SATURDAY, APRIL at 25 NOON
MONDAY, APRIL 27 at 7 PM
THURSDAY, APRIL 30 at 9 PM

1976 Robert Altman. Paul Newman, Joel Grey, Burt Lancaster, Shelley Duvall, Kevin McCarthy, Harvey Keitel, Allan F. Nicholls, Geraldine Chaplin, John Considine, Robert DoQui, Bert Remsen. 123m.

Paul Newman's larger-than-life performance is the surprise at the center of Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson, another of his provocative and largely undiscovered black comedies. Altman's clever casting of the revered actor as the eponymous Wild West charlatan turned the part into a scathing meditation on contemporary celebrity, and Newman gamely played along. Eschewing his card-calling likeability, Newman portrays William Cody as a faker, a racist, and a charming but vainglorious fool in some of the most honest and underrated work of his career. The film is packed with great performances, among them a rueful Burt Lancaster as Ned Buntline, dime novelist and chief engineer of Cody's legend, and a hilariously meek Harvey Keitel. Long before Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven mined the same territory, Buffalo Bill cast a cold eye on the lies history tells about the great frontier.

They Live?

2009-04-21T18:32:00.005-04:00

Cripple Fight (won't embed)

Midnight Movie this Friday

2009-04-20T17:17:00.002-04:00

Friday April 24th at Midnight.
Charles Theatre
They Live.
Directed by John Carpenter.
$6

Nashville @ the Charles Theatre this week

2009-04-18T11:55:00.001-04:00

Don't forget that the Saturday screening starts early.

Showtimes:
Saturday, April 18 at 11 AM
Monday, April 20 at 7 PM
Thursday, April 23 at 9 PM

1975 Robert Altman. Ned Beatty, Karen Black, David Arkin, Barbara Baxley, Ronee Blakley, Timothy Brown, Keith Carradine, Geraldine Chaplin, Shelley Duvall, Henry Gibson, Scott Glenn, Jeff Goldblum, Michael Murphy, Lily Tomlin, Keenan Wynn, Vassar Clements, Elliott Gould, Julie Christie. 159m.

In 1975, legendary film critic Pauline Kael dubbed Nashville “an orgy for movie-lovers” in a worshipful review that seemed more than a little over the top at the time, especially when the film flopped at the box office. Audiences, used to predictable generic conventions (was it a musical, a political satire, a docudrama?) didn't get Altman's sprawling, multi-layered bicentennial epic and stayed away in droves. When the director was asked why it failed, he wryly replied, “Because we didn't have King Kong or a shark.” More than three decades later, it's clear that Kael's judgment has triumphed over the taste of the times. Today Nashville is acknowledged as everything Altman's outsized vision demanded: it's a seminal film and a great one, and it changed the definition of what movies could be. Challenging, to be sure. Seamlessly juggling the stories of more than two dozen characters over five days in Music City, USA, Nashville refuses to tell us where to look or how to respond. But give yourself over to the spectacle and you can't help but be moved by the miracle of it, by the sheer audacity of its scope and depth. If any film ever demanded to be seen more than once, this is it-maybe 24 times would be apt, once for each character. It's guaranteed that each viewing will yield up a multitude of new pleasures and insights. Enjoy the orgy. (Linda DeLibero)

2009-04-17T13:20:00.001-04:00