Some cool stuff coming up in Philly:
Friday, April 23 at 8pm
Keep Your Eyes on the Skies - Two Films by Tobe Hooper
Lifeforce
dir. Tobe Hooper, US, 1985, 35mm, 116 mins, color
Coming off the success of Poltergeist, Tobe Hooper turned his attention to this science-fiction film based on the novel The Space Vampires by Colin Wilson and with a screenplay by Dan O'Bannon (RIP) that is fondly remembered as the film in which Mathilda May walks around naked for two hours while literally sucking the life out of people!
Invaders From Mars
dir. Tobe Hooper, US, 1986, 35mm, 100 mins, color
Tobe Hooper's remake of the classic 1950s Cold War science-fiction film finds a young boy trying to stop invading martians from overtaking his town. Starring Hunter Carson, son of Karen Black, who’s also in the film (of course).
Saturday, April 24 at 7pm
Le roman d'un tricheur - The Story of a Cheat
dir. Sacha Guitry, France, 1936, 35mm, 81 mins, b/w, French w/ English subtitles
From the casual, familiar and self-confident running commentary of the film's introductory behind-the-scenes footage of the cast and crew, Sacha Guitry sets the infectiously humorous and disarming tone of The Story of a Cheat. Propelled through anecdotal, first-person narration, the film is a droll, infectiously effervescent and charming satire on greed, opportunism, chance and destiny. Guitry's briskly paced, reflexive tone is further reflected in the circular nature of the film, most notably in the Cheat's repeated ncounters with his former lovers and his military comrade Serge (Roger Duchesne, Bob le flambeur).
Free admission members above Internationalist level; $5 Internationalists;
$6 students + seniors; $8 general admission. In advance at TICKETWEB or 1/2 hour before showtime at The Ibrahim Theater Box Office.
Saturday, May 15 at 7pm
I Fidanzati
dir. Ermanno Olmi, Italy, 1962, 35mm, 77 mins, b/w, Italian w/ English subtitles
Ermanno Olmi’s masterful film is the tender story of two Milanese fiances whose strained relationship is tested when the man accepts a new job in Sicily. With the separation come loneliness, nostalgia, and, perhaps, some new perspectives that might rejuvenate their love. Olmi’s deep humanism charges this moving depiction of ordinary men and women, and the pitfalls of the human heart.
Sex, Drugs and Outer Space
Co-presenter Jack Stevenson in person
Thursday, May 6 at 7pm
Gift (aka Venom)
dir. Knud Leif Thomsen, Denmark, 1966, 35 mm, 96 mins, b/w, Danish w/ English subtitles
In its original version, this film contained snippets of explicit hardcore pornography which gave the authorities fits. A compromise was reached which consisted of placing large white crosses over the offending scenes rather than cutting them out. Debate raged in the media over the issue and, thanks largely to this film, censorship was abolished in Denmark in 1969. The film was intended as a warning against the wave of unbridled hedonism looming on the horizon but ironically helped pave the way for precisely the kind of excesses it preached against.
Focussing on a young hedonist named Per who preaches the gospel of the flesh to his new girlfriend and her upper-class family into which he insinuates himself, Gift was actually a heated polemic against pornography. Largely forgotten today, it is an overlooked masterpiece from a moment in time when Denmark was transforming from an isolated backwater on the fringes of Europe into the most liberal society on the face of the earth.
preceded by
Special short film surprises.
Friday, May 7 at 7pm
Movies with Roots in Hell: The Effects of Drugs on American Cinema
dir. various, US, 1910’s-1970’s, 16mm, approx 90 mins, color and b/w
How did preachers, educators, entertainers, fear-mongers and hippies use drugs to entertain, titillate, scare and celebrate the drugs? Experience 60 hair-raising years of sin and sensation in this historical retrospective that shows how drugs were depicted in American cinema from the teens to the mid 70's. Via a selection of short-films, trailers and outtakes, it shows how filmmakers have used comedy, fear, sensationalism and occasionally realism in their treatments of the drug experience. From the giddy silent-era slapstick of Mystery of the Leaping Fish to the ultra-bizarre song performance Sweet Marijuana of the early 30’s… from the preachy mid-50's invective of The Pusher to the psychedelic excess of Rockflow (1968), Movies With Roots in Hell samples every era, wrapping up with outtakes from 70’s classics The People Next Door and Blue Sunshine.
Saturday, May 8 at 7pm
Red Planet Mars
dir. Harry Horner, US, 1952, 16mm, 87 mins, b/w
Philosophical strands about religion, science, family life and the evil of communism form a tangled web in this astonishing artefact from America ’s deep Cold War period. It’s so fiercely ideological that one would think it was produced by some cult religion, but it was made in Hollywood! On the other hand it is anything but a simplistic anti-Commie rant. Rather it is an imaginative fable about the clash of economic and spiritual movements that guide the fates of individuals as well as nations, and points out the perils of unregulated venture capitalism (familiar?) as well as Communism. Mixed up in this stew of ideologies and bizarre plot twists are a number of radical concepts still being embraced today. Part melodrama, part angry manifesto, it functions as a time capsule back to the early 50s and should be seen by every political-science and theology student today.
