Season 54 (2019-2020)
Season 54 was cut short due to the 2020 COVID Pandemic. See the original flyer for this season below.
Battleship Potemkin
Date Shown: September 8, 2019
Soviet Union, 1925, B&D, Not Rated, Silent, 66 min
Directed by Sergei M. Eisenstein; starring Aleksandr Antonov, Vladimir Barskly, Grigoriy Aleksandrov, Ivan Bobrov
In 1905 the crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin were fed up with their maggot-ridden meat rations and decided it was time to rise up against their officers. After overtaking their ship and pulling into Odessa, word of their rebellion spread and ignited a revolutionary spirit. Soon the Czar sent his troops to quell the uprising and many protesters and innocents alike were slaughtered. This exhilarating film was shot in black and white with stunning use of montage. The scenes of the uprising are rousing and incredible. The Odessa staircase scene, where a baby carriage with baby in tow glides slowly down the stairs, is one of the most famous.
Moon
Date Shown: October 13, 2019
UK/USA, 2009, Color, R, 97 min
Directed by Duncan Jones; starring Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, Dominique McElligott
Sam Rockwell stars as Sam Bell who is working a three-year shift by himself on the moon, supervising a new kind of energy mining to boost the depleted reserves of resources on Earth. His only companion is a robot called GERTY (voiced by Spacey) who manages the base and looks after Sam’s every need. Sam’s shift is nearly over and recently he has been going stir crazy. Distracted, he crashes his moon rover and wakes up later in sick bay. He has orders not to go outside, but does anyway. He finds GERTY exhibiting strange behavior and the environment is not quite what it appears to be. The film is tantalizing as it draws us in and then pushes us away.
Tampopo
Date Shown: November 10, 2019
Japan, 1985, Color, Unrated, 114 min
Directed by Jûzô Itami; starring Ken Watanabe, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Nobuko Miyamoto
Few movies did more to introduce westerners to contemporary Japan and its sense of humor than this culinary comedy. It is a series of meditations on food many short sketch-like pieces lasting but a few minutes. For example, an etiquette teacher teaches her students how to eat Italian pasta, which they want to slurp in the Japanese manner. A gangster has kinky sex with his girlfriend using crazy food items as aphrodisiacs. The main vignette is the story of pixieish Tampopo, a middle-aged single mother and owner of a failing ramen shop. A truck driver, Goro, and his buddy, Gun, offers to help Tampopo perfect her recipe and turn the shop into a thriving business.
Good Morning
Date Shown: December 8, 2019
Japan, 1959, Color, Unrated, 94 min
Directed by Yasujirô Ozu; starring Keiji Sada, Yoshiko Kuga, Chishû Ryû
The film concerns a small community of families in Japan, where the neighbors all know each other and are involved in each other’s business. One family has two young sons who berate their father for his daily “small talk” about the weather, etc., believing it’s phony talk. They want a TV so they can watch sumo wrestling. The father refuses, so the boys take a vow of silence until they get the TV. The director, Okzu, uses the fabric of the community and the neighbors as grist for his story, highlighting the importance of language and communication. The boys’ refusal to observe the social niceties sets off a chain reaction in their tiny neighborhood.
Monty Python and The Holy Grail
Date Shown: January 12, 2020
UK, 1975, Color, PG, 91 min
Directed by Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones; starring Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin
With the team assembled, Lancelot and company embark on a journey to, well, they really have nowhere to go and nothing to do when God suddenly tasks them with locating the Holy Grail. The entire movie is little more than a series of over-the top misadventures. It’s a cornucopia of sheer off-the-wall entertainment, of memorable one-liners, unforgettable characters, zany situations, and uproarious skits. The cast and crew of this film have found the perfect balance between absurdity as part of the plot and absurdity introduced just for the sake of absurdity.
The Thin Man
Date Shown: February 9, 2020
USA, 1934, B&W, Unrated, 91 min
Directed by W.S. Van Dyke; starring William Powell, Myrna Loy, Maureen O’Sullivan, Nat Pendleton
Nora: “You know, that sounds like an interesting case, why don’t you take it?”
Nick: “I haven’t the time. I’m much too busy seeing that you don’t lose any of the money I married you for.”
The charm of this film is the dialogue between Nick and Nora. Based on Dashiell Hammett’s novel, the movie operates from an irresistible premise: sophisticated hard-drinking private eye Nick Charles (Powell) has married wealthy socialite Nora (Loy). Though from two different worlds they get along famously and Nora jumps at the chance to accompany Nick when he is asked to help with an investigation.
Playtime
Date Shown: March 8, 2020
France, 1967, Color, Unrated, 115 min
Directed by Jacques Tati; starring Jacques Tati, Barbara Denneck, Rita Maiden
Tati spent years and tons of money building “Tativille”, a huge glass-and-steel movie set comprising a modern day airport, office building and restaurant. It was as inhuman as possible, clashing in every way with human nature. Tati filled his set with a group of gaggling American tourists, the loping Hulot (Jacques Tati) and a host of other bizarre characters. The film has a chaotic feel–unpredictable–like life. Nearly every joke has to do with the clash between man and modern living, and there are plenty. In the restaurant scene, things really get crazy where a wild party continues until dawn. The miraculous ending leaves you smiling about the way we humans have of demolishing order wherever we go.