upcoming events

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.

The Player

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

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.

Nashville @ the Charles Theatre this week

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)