So what's playing in LA theaters on 35mm (mostly) in this hot, hot weather, you ask? Here's my list!
It's just what's on my radar. There's other stuff too.
Curious? Browse the LA Film Calendars links on my side bar → → →
As usual, a couple of these choices are tonight, FYI.
Egyptian Theatre
Le Doulos (1962, Jean-Pierre Melville)
Sat Aug 12 7:30pm
The Melville retrospective (granddaddy of the French New Wave) continues at the Egyptian, and I have my eye as usual on the less-talked-about gems, like Le Doulos. Check the Egyptian Calendar for more of the Melville that's showing, but this and Bob le Flambeur (below) are my main two pics. It was superb seeing Le Deuxième Souffle (1966) getting the big-screen treatment last week, wow, and on 35mm, so great to see, albeit a loooong movie. Things like Le Samouraï (playing Sunday) pop up around town quite a bit, and, yes, the Egyptian is possibly the best screen to see it on (and in 35mm), but stuff like Le Doulos starring the superb Jean-Paul Belmondo does not come up as often. And in glorious 35mm black and white!
EGYPTIAN THEATRE LINK
Egyptian Theater
Bob le Flambeur (1956, Jean-Pierre Melville)
Sun Aug 13 7:30 pm
No, that doesn't mean Bob the Flamer or Bob the Flammable, it means "Bob the Gambler," and, man, does this guy have a gambling problem. You just have to see it to believe it..! Plus there's a heist? Believe me when I tell you this movie has everything, including sadness and ennui (it's a French thing). I continue to adore Bob le Flambeur, highly recommend it as a great classic film to see in the theater. In 35mm.
(I haven't mentioned it, but of course this same night Le Samouraï (1967) is playing at 5:00 pm)
EGYPTIAN THEATRE LINK
The Thing (1982, John Carpenter) in 70mm
Friday (tonight!) 7:30 pm
So tonight the 70mm series at the Aero continues with The Thing (1982, John Carpenter.) I am not on the same page with every fanboy and fangirl in the world who adore this movie, but it's pretty good, and should be fun in 70mm. Now, I don't entirely know what the point is of seeing a 35mm film blown up to 70mm, as opposed to Lawrence of Arabia or 2001: A Space Odyssey that were actually shot in 70mm, but I did see Aliens at the Egyptian once on 70mm (another one blown up from 35mm), and it was a pretty tight experience, so if this movie is your jam, and those special effects benefit from the higher resolution, then go, go, go to this! Plus, it's rare just to see anything projected on film anyway.
There is a lot more playing in 70mm, check the Aero Calendar for this week, including Baraka (1992, Ron Fricke) Thursday Aug 17, the only one that was actually shot on 70mm.
AERO THEATRE LINK
New Beverly Cinema
King Kong (1933, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack)
and
Okja (2017, Bong Joon-Ho)
Fri (tonight) 7:00pm/9:10pm
Sat Aug 12 7:00pm/9:10pm
It's fun to see this brand-new film Okja in a special 35mm print struck just for the New Beverly Cinema! Plus it has been paired with unique double features in the great New Beverly tradition all week long, culminating stupendously this weekend with the original 1933 King Kong, all of these in 35mm, because otherwise Kong will get angry. Also it goes without saying that it's required viewing to see this landmark in the development of special effects that took a huge leap toward what we'd eventually be seeing today when we go to see, like, I guess Valerian, right?
NEW BEVERLY LINK
Billy Wilder Theatre (UCLA Film & TV Archive)
Two-Lane Blacktop (1971, Monte Hellman)
and
Vanishing Point (1971, Richard C. Sarafian)
Sat Aug 12 7:30 pm
This is a ballsy kick-ass prime car chase movie double feature, both in sweet archival 35mm from, you know, an actual archive. This is some high-octane fun, and, yes, that's the only time "high-octane" can be associated with James Taylor (and yes, he really is in this movie). If you are also an aging Guns 'N' Roses fan, you'll recognize a particular monologue by Cleavon Little as being spoken by Axl Rose on their song "Breakdown" from User Your Illusion II. So a bit of curiosity factor there.
BILLY WILDER THEATRE LINK
Cinefamily
The Evil Dead (1981, Sam Raimi)
Friday (tonight!) Midnight
This is great, Cinefamily has a nice midnight screening of The Evil Dead (1981) tonight, ooh, in 35mm.
CINEFAMILY LINK
Cinefamily
Variety (or Varieté) (1925, E.A. Dupont)
Sat Aug 12 2:00 pm
Big-time silent film nerd alert here!! This is E.A. Dupont's hard-to-see Variety (or Varieté) (1925) with live musical accompaniment. I saw it once on a dusty VHS, and I found it sort of weirdly infuriating. It has huge production values for the time period, and maybe it was too edgy for me when I first saw it—or too cliché, can't recall! (I'm leaning toward the latter.) But rarity in silent films trumps everything, and this is an opportunity to see it in what used to be LA's one-and-only Silent Movie Theatre before Cinefamily took over many years ago. But they pay their respects and keep the light burning for silent movies! (This screening DCP)
CINEFAMILY LINK
Billy Wilder Theatre (UCLA Film & TV Archive)
The Lost Man (1969, Robert Alan Arthur)
and
Edge of the City (1956, Martin Ritt)
Friday (tonight!) 7:30 pm
This Sidney Poitier double feature looks like it could be extremely good. In The Lost Man he's "a Black militant on the run from the establishment." Plus "Featuring an innovative jazz and funk-tinged score by Quincy Jones"!!
Then in the second feature, he is paired with the always exciting John Cassavetes. It says here Poitier "brings power and grace to the film as counterpoint to the nervous, edgy intensity of co-star John Cassavetes"—Wow, sign me up!—in this social drama about "the racist working conditions faced by African-American longshoremen in New York."
Both in glorious 35mm.
BILLY WILDER THEATRE LINK
Foxy Brown (1974, Jack Hill)
and
Coffy (1973, Jack Hill)
Monday Aug 14 7:30pm
Well, this is exactly what your Monday night needs, an in-your-face kickoff to the week with a double dose of vintage original Pam Grier. On a Monday night, seriously? Yup, totally let's do it. Both are in 35mm. It also may be the weirdest venue to see these in (not a raucous crowd!), but they will have the best possible prints because it's a film archive! I haven't seen these in a while, what's wrong with me? Gems.
BILLY WILDER THEATRE LINK
Cinefamily
The Inner Scar (1972, Philippe Garrel)
and
Chromo Sud (1968, Etienne O'Leary)
Friday (tonight!) 10:00 pm
Sun Aug 13 10:15 pm
Weirdo alert!
Cinefamily has something weird, it's Philippe Garrel's The Inner Scar (1972) starring the Velvet Underground's Nico. It's DCP but quite rare to see. I've seen it before, and it's hella weird, well worth checking out. Plus the second "unearthed treasure" (one hopes) on the double feature is Chromo Sud (1968, Etienne O'Leary) is 16mm, which Cinefamily describes as:
Though he only made three films, Etienne O’Leary’s work is an impactful feat of editing. Peripheral to the Zanzibar group, but an ideal companion, Chromo Sud is a pulsing, psychedelic drug fueled freakout in which shots from the barricades of May '68 protests become a single, layered, flashing, collage for 21 vital minutes.CINEFAMILY LINK
Cinefamily
Jules et Jim (1962, François Truffaut)
Monday Aug 14 7:30 pm
Jeanne Moreau just died, and there happens to be a perfectly timed screening to see one of her prime performances, the classic early French New Wave hit from François Truffaut. In stunning 35mm of course.
CINEFAMILY LINK
New Beverly Cinema
Michael Parks movies all week
Okay, who is Michael Parks and why do you want to see these films? He's a Tarantino fave, and you'll see him most memorably in From Dusk Till Dawn as the sheriff in that opening super-long conversation in the gas station before shit gets real weird fast, in one of the best-acted scenes I've ever seen. Secondly, he's also the (same?) sheriff in Kill Bill, Texas Ranger Earl McGraw, who shows up to the bloody scene at the wedding party. Remember him now!? So, okay, this week answers the question, "Who is this guy and where are all the movies he was in before that?!" It's a plethora of (hopefully?) delights:
NEW BEVERLY LINK
Sun Aug 13 6:30pm/8:40pm
Mon Aug 14 7:30pm/9:40pm
Wild Seed (1965, Brian G. Hutton) w/Michael Parks
and
The Idol (1966, Daniel Petrie) w/Michael Parks, Jennifer Jones
Tue Aug 15
The Evictors (1979, Charles B. Pierce) w/Michael Parks, Jessica Harper
and
Love and the Midnight Auto Supply (1977, James Polakof) w/Michael Parks, Colleen Camp
7:30pm/9:30pm
Wed Aug 16
Thur Aug 17
The Happening (1967, Elliot Silverstein) w/Anthony Quinn, Michael Parks, Faye Dunaway
and
The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977, Larry Cohen) w/Broderick Crawford, Parks
7:30pm/9:40pm
Egyptian Theatre (presented by Los Angeles Film Forum)
Limite (1931, Mário Peixoto)
Sun Aug 13 7:30pm (Spielberg Theatre at the Egyptian)
It says it's restored by the Film Foundation, so I have to presume this is a film print, since I can't see on the site what format it is showing in. A film that Scorsese has championed, and his taste in these matters is usually unassailable, the Los Angeles Film Forum's own blurb sums it up best:
Filmforum presents the remarkable 1931 Brazilian experimental feature Limite. An astonishing creation, Limite is the only feature by the Brazilian director and author Mário Peixoto, made when he was just twenty-two years old. Inspired by a haunting André Kertész photograph on the cover of a French magazine, this avant-garde silent masterpiece centers on a man and two women lost at sea, their pasts unfolding through flashbacks propelled by the music of Erik Satie, Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky, and others. An early work of independent Latin American filmmaking, Limite was famously difficult to see for most of the twentieth century. It is a pioneering achievement that continues to captivate with its timeless visual poetry. Possibly the Los Angeles premiere!LOS ANGELES FILM FORUM LINK
Eye on the Future
Late next week, a prime classic Japanese festival kicks off Thursday Aug 24 at the Aero Theatre with a Ugetsu/The Life of Oharu double feature (both by the great Kenj Mizoguchi) and continuing with more Japanese classics into the following week. These two are classically cited as among the greatest films of all time.
A Mario Bava festival continues at the Egyptian Theatre, with basically only Black Sunday (1960) on my radar on Friday Aug 18, as I don't really like his except for that one film, starring Barbara Steele. But you can look up the others..!
Next week, Sunday Aug 20 and Monday Aug 21, Cinefamily has a great Seijun Suzuki movie Tokyo Drifter (1966) in beautiful 35mm. This is a stunning, transgressive classic of the gangster genre, as Seijun Suzuki was the master of bending the rules of the basic genres to inject his own compelling artistic elements into them.
New Beverly Cinema will have some classic Roger Moore Bond in 35mm: The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker Aug 18 and Aug 19, in a double feature.
Ugetsu
The Life of Oharu
Black Sunday
Tokyo Drifter
The Spy Who Loved Me
Moonraker
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