Revival: Cabin in the Sky

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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)