<<< May 2009 >>>

Also see Outfest Wednesdays!

For the total “Old Hollywood” experience take a docent-led tour of the legendary 1922 Egyptian Theatre. See what it would have been like to be in a Grauman stage show with a visit to the dressing rooms and singers' boxes. Check out our state-of-the-art projection booth and more! Discover the painstaking restoration work and the marriage of modern technology with a landmark of Hollywood history. Tours will start promptly at 10:30 AM at the box office. Tours are approximately 60 min. Wear your walking shoes! You will see the old dressing rooms, the singer's boxes and the projection booth (not normally included on our tours). Reservations are not required, we have room for everyone. You can check our website or our voicemail for emergency cancellations. Tours will be held rain or shine.
Tickets: Tour & movie: $10.

What Mother doesn’t like gossip on Hollywood legends, scintillating stories of the silent screen and dramatic tales of historical architectural preservation? Bring yours! Special Treats for Moms Attending the Tour Today!

For the total “Old Hollywood” experience take a docent-led tour of the legendary 1922 Egyptian Theatre. See what it would have been like to be in a Grauman stage show with a visit to the dressing rooms and singers' boxes. Check out our state-of-the-art projection booth and more! Discover the painstaking restoration work and the marriage of modern technology with a landmark of Hollywood history. Tours will start promptly at 10:30 AM at the box office. Tours are approximately 60 min. Wear your walking shoes! You will see the old dressing rooms, the singer's boxes and the projection booth (not normally included on our tours). Reservations are not required, we have room for everyone. You can check our website or our voicemail for emergency cancellations. Tours will be held rain or shine.
Tickets: $5. Tour & movie: $10.

BUS STOP, 1956, 20^th Century Fox, 96 min. Dir. Joshua Logan. Marilyn Monroe stunned critics and fans alike with her heartbreakingly tender performance as a truck-stop singer who falls in love with naïve young cowpoke Don Murray, in this beautiful, bittersweet drama based on the William Inge play. With Betty Field, Arthur O’Connell. Trailer

New 35mm Print! SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DEVIL, 1959, MGM Repertory, 111 min. Dir. Michael Anderson. In this phenomenally hard-hitting, action-packed saga, Irish American medical student Don Murray becomes accidentally and inextricably involved with the IRA during "the Troubles" in 1921 Dublin. Professor-surgeon James Cagney is the hardboiled commandant leading a squad of insurrectionists, Glynis Johns is a feisty barmaid who refuses to kowtow to either macho British soldiers or brash Irish rebels, and Dana Wynter plays a beautiful British widow held hostage when elderly freedom fighter Lady Fitzhugh (Sybil Thorndike) is imprisoned by the Black and Tans in Dublin Castle. With a superb supporting cast including Richard Harris, Cyril Cusack and Michael Redgrave as the IRA head, the General. NOT ON DVD Discussion in between films with actor Don Murray. Trailer

PUNISH ME, (VERFOLGT), 2006, Picture This, 87 min. Directed by Angelea Maccarone and written by Susanne Billig. There has always been intense controversy over sexual relationships with people of vast age differences. In 1924, Charlie Chaplin, (age 35) married Lita Grey, (age 16) -- the results were disastrous. This relationship was said to inspire Vladimir Nabokov's 1950s novel Lolita. In 1958, Jerry Lee Lewis threw his career away when he admitted to the English press that his wife was 15. Recently Pamela Rogers Turner, 28, a former elementary school teacher pleaded no contest to having sex with one of her students, a 13-year-old boy. So the message is clear, extreme age difference in relationships destroy you! PUNISH ME takes this subject head on and presents a relationship between probation officer Elsa Seifert, (Maren Kroymann) and fresh-out-of-prison- parolee Jan Winkler (Kostia Ullmann), adding another element -- S&M, which make this film a shoo-in for FFN. Photographed in rich black and white, PUNISH ME is a superbly made German film that raises as many questions as disturbing thoughts, a film that in every definition is a modern film noir. What Academy Award-approved NOTES ON A SCANDAL, (also 2006) barely touched on, writer Billig and director Maccarone boldly present as an almost reality TV-acted dynamic between a 50-year-old woman and a 16-year-old boy. A relationship that builds on sadomasochism as a means of filling voids in each character. This is a film that some may find difficult to view, but the director knows her subject matter and keeps the drama real. The result is a relentless fetishistic tale of need and love. A powerful film. In German with English subtitles. Trailer Rick Castro invites you to discuss this very controversial topic.

FFN is once-monthly series hosted by Rick Castro of Antebellum Gallery, the only fetish art gallery in the world, located directly next to the American Cinematheque. www.antebellum.us.ms. Each screening will be followed by an informal discussion and debate with the audience.

All screenings for this series will have fetish as the main theme and subject matter. Rick Castro is an independent curator, filmmaker and photographer working and living in Los Angeles his entire life. Castro explores the worlds of fetish and subculture. Rick’s photography is in the permanent collections of the Alfred Kinsey Institute. His books and magazines are archived at the UCLA Library and the Leather Museum in Chicago. See www.antebellum.us.ms and www.rickcastro.com for more information.) This series is for audiences 18 and over. Discussion following the film with the audience, moderated by Rick Castro.

YOU'RE THE SHOW Seminar with Thomas Ethan Harris

(Approx. 3 hours) Spielberg Theatre - Are you tired of submitting your film to countless festivals, spending countless dollars only to receive a standard, depersonalized rejection letter?

Do you wonder why your film was not programmed into more festivals?

Are you wondering what festival programmers are really looking for?

How can you improve your "work-in-progress" short or feature to better its chances of playing in festivals or to maximize its way in the "bigger world" of theatrical or television distribution?

Do you wonder if you have a "festival" movie or is your film better off served in the hands of a foreign sales agent or by making a quick sale to a DVD distributor?

Whether you have a documentary, narrative or experimental feature length film, a short film, a web series/television pilot, or even a "work-in-progress, the answers to these questions and many more may be found in the American Cinematheque's newest seminar incarnation, YOU'RE THE SHOW!

On YOU'RE THE SHOW, we select short films or scenes from feature length films from our attending audience, screen them on the spot and provide immediate critical insight and money saving festival tips, festival strategy and distributor guidance.

You show...we tell!

YOU'RE THE SHOW is a seminar for all working filmmakers as well as those who wish to obtain a greater understanding of what content (short and feature length) gets played on the film festival circuit, what content moves straight to a DVD release, foreign sale or cable television and what content is best served through internet or alternative distribution outlets (ITUNES,
YOUTUBE, et all).

Even if you don't have a film to share right now, this seminar might be invaluable to your future film's exhibition life as well as to its concurrent/ongoing visual construction and planning.

Join film festival programmer/film consultant Thomas Ethan Harris (Los Angeles Film Festival, Palm Springs International Short Film Festival, Cinema Diverse) for some "on the spot" professional guidance that's all about YOUR film! Just bring your film to our May 20th seminar and you might very well be...THE SHOW!


YOU'RE THE SHOW: Participation Rules

In order to participate on YOU'RE THE SHOW, the following "Rules of Participation" must be observed:

1. Narrative Shorts/Features, Documentary shorts/features,
experimental/non-narrative work, pilots for television/web series, works-in-progress (WIP) are welcome to participate.

2. No more than 15 minutes of any feature length or short film project will be screened the evening of our seminar.

3. All content featured on YOU'RE THE SHOW (shorts or features) will be presented from the film's first or introductory scene. No "select scenes" will be permitted.

4. Films chosen to participation on YOU'RE THE SHOW will be done on an entirely random basis and final selections will be made on the evening of the seminar from the seminar's attending audience. Not all the content made available to YOU'RE THE SHOW's evening performance will be projected.

5. Projection Format: NTSC DVDs only. It is highly recommended that completed film work (shorts or features) be presented on "professionally authored" DVDs. Works-in-progress are exempt. Sorry no special technical
considerations, alternative decks or computer changes will be made if your "home computer" authored DVD does not play.

Still have additional questions or comments regarding YOU'RE THE SHOW? Contact Thomas Ethan Harris at filmconsultant at earthlink.net with a brief, 100 word or less email. Please include the words "YOU'RE THE SHOW" in your subject line.

Click for more information about the Cinematheque's Seminar Series.

We hope that you will join us!In this informative seminar, film festival programmer/film consultant Thomas Ethan Harris (former Director of Programming, Los Angeles Film Festival and Palm Springs International Short Film Festival) will examine the European Film Movements that have defined contemporary filmmaking. For more details click here. Seminar Tickets: $20 General Admission, $15 Student/Senior with valid I.D.; $12 Members of the Cinematheque.

We’ll be looking at two versions of the same film created in different decades, FLASH GORDON (1936 & 1980) and honoring art directors Ralph Berger and Danilo Donati, respectively. Based on the 1930s comic strip, the plot follows the adventures of Flash Gordon, Dale Arden and Professor Zarkov, who travel to the planet Mongo and find themselves fighting the tyrant, Ming the Merciless, to save Earth.

FLASH GORDON: ROCKETSHIP, 1936, Holland Releasing, 72 min. Dir. Frederick Stephani. Condensed from the original four hours plus serial, ROCKETSHIP hurtles along like, well, a rocketship! Flash (Buster Crabbe), faithful female sidekick Dale Arden (Jean Rogers) and Dr. Zarkov (Frank Shannon) do battle with interplanetary tyrant Ming the Merciless (Charles Middleton) while Flash tries not to succumb to the wiles of smitten, seductive Princess Aura (Priscilla Lawson), Ming’s daughter. Trailer

FLASH GORDON, 1980, Universal, 111 min. Dir. Mike Hodges (the original GET CARTER). Like the early 1930s serial, director Hodges’ FLASH is surprisingly faithful to Alex Raymond’s original comic strip, with just the right balance of action, tongue-in-cheek humor and mindblowing production design (here courtesy of wizard Danilo Donati), with a score by none other than Queen! Relative unknowns Sam Jones and Melody Anderson play Flash and Dale, but the supporting cast is full of heavyweights, including Max Von Sydow (as Ming), Topol (as Dr. Zarkov), Ornella Muti (as Aura), as well Lina Wertmuller favorite Mariangela Melato (SWEPT AWAY) and future James Bond, Timothy Dalton. Art director Steve Berger, son of the original FLASH GORDON art director Ralph Berger, will be present to participate in a discussion between the screenings, along with a panel of distinguished film artists, to be moderated by John Muto. Trailer

QUEER SHORTS Included tonight: Brian Harris Krinsky’s "Dish" (15 min, USA). Emo kids Israel and Louie walk around their east Los Angeles neighborhood dishing and "sexting" about their high school classmates. After listening to Louie boast about his sexual escapades, Israel decides he has some catching up to do. Madeleine Olnek’s "Countertransference" (15 min., USA) A comedy about therapy and its discontents. L.A. Premiere! Luis Rene Guerra’s "O Sapatos De Aristeu" ("The Shoes of Aristeu," 17 min, Brazil). A deceased transvestite’s body is prepared for burial by a group of her peers, but her mother and grandmother have other ideas. L.A. Premiere! Jennifer Jordan Day’s "Make a Mate" ( 4 min, USA). A lonely woman finds a magical shop where she can craft an ideal mate. Jules Nurrish’s "Bend It" (4 min, U.K.). An homage that plays with conventional notions of gender, with a significant nod toward the living sculpture of Gilbert and George. Guinevere Turner’s "Quiet Please" (12 min, USA). A librarian decides the only way to stay sane is to get to know the library patrons a little better. L.A. Premiere! Barry Morse’s "Ookie Cookie" (3 min, USA). An uber-campy, sexy, and hallucinogenic glitterdrag-inspired tribute to the work of the late NYC underground 1980s gay video artist Tom Rubnitz.  Starring legendary Los Angeles drag artist Jackie Beat as Lady Bunny and LA artist Barry Morse as Pickle. It also stars notable Los Angeles performers 'playing' gay icons RuPaul and Lahoma Van Zandt.. Dennis Hensley’s "Reunion" (11 min, USA). A gay home makeover TV show host goes to his 20 year high school reunion and discovers his former classmates are not what they seem.  Shorts program curated by Andrew P. Crane & Kimberley Yutani. Discussion after films with directors Brian Harris Krinsky ("Dish), Jules Nurris ("Bend It"), Jennifer Jordan Day ("Make A Mate", Barry Morse ("Ookie Cookie") & Dennis Hensley ("Reunion").

We’re tying in this exciting program of new Queer Visions with a Queer Aesthetics Seminar with our own Thomas Ethan Harris, who will lead a discussion with the audience, several filmmakers and possibly other special guests and clips from films. Do you want to get more into gay cinema? Check out this GAY AESTHETICS SEMINAR on Wednesday, June 10th and delve into a visually based wild journey through everything from homoeroticism to the establishment of a queer POV called "The Gay Gaze"!

DARK AND STORMY NIGHT. 2009, Bantam Street, 92 min. Dir. Larry Blamire. The crackpot geniuses behind the LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA franchise return again with their biggest and funniest film yet, a lovingly faithful re-creation of those 1930s old-dark-house thrillers, complete with a reading of the will, secret passageways, a hooded killer, wise-cracking reporters and a Brooklyn cabbie who just wants his "toity-five cents," all presented in glorious black-and-white. With Daniel Roebuck, Jennifer Blaire, Brian Howe, Fay Masterson and many others, plus a terrific new score by Christopher Caliendo (FORD AT FOX). NOT ON DVD Discussion following with cast and crew.