Lightstruck is elated to present two full evenings of rarely screened animated shorts from one of the most significant centers of experimental animation production and creativity in the history of the medium: Poland. Spanning the early 1960s to the late 1980s, these two programs (March 26 and April 16) will showcase an incredibly eclectic selection focusing on little-known masterworks and deep-cut revelations, all screening in recent restorations.

Poland has an extraordinary animation history marked by radical experimentation in technique and texture, investigating dark and complex themes inspired by social critique and surrealist visions alike. Spanning stop motion, cutout, cel, paint on glass, and hand-drawn approaches, these programs extend to include exceptional techniques such as Zbig Rybczyński’s hyper-complex optical printing, Piotr Dumała’s exquisite renderings on plaster slabs, and Julian Antonisz’s unhinged cameraless animation produced on ingenious, visionary devices of his own making. A morbid and uneasy humor often punctuates these works, which pulse with rich, emotional, and dramatic narratives and themes matched only by the exceptional imagination and talents of their authors.

We selected the films for these programs with an emphasis on shorts not generally available on home media, and spanning a particularly diverse array of styles, aesthetics, techniques, and sensibilities. Widely celebrated artists like Rybczyński, Antonisz, Ryszard Czekała, and Jerzy Kucia will be represented by lesser known (but magnificent) offerings, while deeply memorable obscurities from Jacek Kasprzycki, Zofia Oraczewska, Ryszard Antoniszczak, and Ewa Bibańska will further illuminate Poland’s incredible spectrum of animation genius.

Programs by Zena Grey and Mark Toscano. Notes by Mark Toscano. Films courtesy of Wytwórnia Filmów Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych (+ thanks to Stanisław Bardadin) and Filmoteka Narodowa – Instytut Audiowizualny (+ thanks to Adrian Smykowski and Julia Bachman).

Polish Animation #1: Flames in Dark Places (1962-74)

2220 Arts + Archives

### **ABOUT THE FILMS:**

**SLING BLADE, 1996, Dir. Billy Bob Thornton, 136 Mins, USA**

Mentally disabled Karl Childers (Billy Bob Thornton) is released from the mental hospital where he has spent most of his life after murdering his mother and her lover. He soon forms a bond with Frank (Lucas Black), a boy whose father committed suicide. When Frank’s mother, Linda (Natalie Canerday), lets Karl stay at their house, her cruel boyfriend, Doyle (Dwight Yoakam), tries to get Karl removed. Determined to protect his friend, Karl devises a way to save Frank from years of Doyle’s abuse. Also starring J. T. Walsh, John Ritter and Robert Duvall.

FORMAT: 35mm

**TOMORROW, 1972, Dir. Joseph Anthony, 103 Mins, AGFA, USA**

In 1930s Mississippi, lonely Jackson Fentry (Robert Duvall) lives by himself as the sole caretaker of a sawmill. One day, close to the property, he discovers a young woman, Sarah Eubanks (Olga Bellin), who is three months pregnant. Since she was abandoned by both her husband and her family, Jackson takes her in. The two fall in love and get married just before her death. Jackson raises the child as his own, until the boy’s uncles arrive to demand he be returned to the family.

FORMAT: DCP

30th Anniversary of SLING BLADE SLING BLADE print courtesy of the George Eastman Museum ‘Starring Robert Duvall’

SLING BLADE / TOMORROW

Aero Theatre

Margit and her older sister Katla flee for safety after their mother is burned to death for witchcraft. Finding shelter with Johan and his resentful young son, Jonas, the sisters help form an impromptu family unit that’s soon strained by Katla’s burgeoning sorcery.

The Juniper Tree

Brain Dead Studios

Carrie White, a shy, friendless teenage girl who is sheltered by her domineering, religious mother, unleashes her telekinetic powers after being humiliated by her classmates at her senior prom.

Carrie

Egyptian Theatre

Gardena Cinema is the oldest and only vintage single-screen stand-alone movie cinema in Southwest Los Angeles.

Young, rich, and obsessed with death, Harold finds himself changed forever when he meets lively septuagenarian Maude at a funeral.

@seeiton16mm PRESENTS HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971)(PG)(Thu 3/26) 7:30pm

Gardena Cinema

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

A deceptively simple tale of a group of strangers trapped in a farmhouse who find themselves fending off a horde of flesh-eating ghouls newly arisen from their graves, Romero’s claustrophobic vision of a late-sixties America (literally) tearing itself apart rewrote the rules of the horror genre, combined gruesome gore with acute social commentary, and quietly broke ground by casting a black actor (Duane Jones) in the lead role.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Janus Films

COUNTRY: USA

Introduction by author Daniel Kraus Book signing with Daniel Kraus for his new book, Partially Devoured: How Night of the Living Dead Saved My Life and Changed the World, prior to the screening at 6:30pm at the Los Feliz 3, in partnership with the Larry Edmunds Bookshop.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

*In Filipino with English subtitles.*

A coming-of-age story of college student Joey, who’s lost all sense of direction. His only inspiration is music, but he has yet to finish writing a song. His life changes when he meets Ana and his world is suddenly turned upside-down.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: ABS-CBN Film Productions

COUNTRY: Philippines

MOMENTS IN A STOLEN DREAM

Los Feliz Theatre

Amuck! /

Lady Frankenstein / Slaughter Hotel

New Beverly Cinema

The Los Angeles premiere of the restoration of Robert Bresson&#8217;s *The Devil, Probably* is presented with an introduction from Writer and Film Critic A.S. Hamrah.

The Devil, Probably

Now Instant Image Hall

Join Titmouse for the **20th anniversary of 5 Second Day** at the LA premiere of their annual **5 Second Day… Night!!!** animation showcase, featuring a special introduction from studio co-founder **Chris Prynoski**.

This special anniversary edition will feature a unique, uncensored compilation of brand new short-form cartoons created by Titmouse animators and creative staff as part of the studio’s long-running *5 Second Day* tradition, alongside a curated selection of standout shorts from the past 20 years of the event, giving audiences a rare chance to revisit some of the weirdest, wildest, and most unforgettable cartoons from two decades of *5 Second Day*.

**About 5 Second Day: **

An annual tradition where Titmouse shuts down production for 24 hours across its Los Angeles, New York, Vancouver, and Paris studio locations, giving its artists a fully paid day to unleash their most quirky, beautiful, bizarre, and laugh-out-loud ideas. 

For more information, [https://5secondday.com](https://5secondday.com)

Titmouse Presents: 5 Second Day… Night!!!

Vidiots

Project Hail Mary 70mm

The Snow Woman/The Haunted Castle

Vista Theatre

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

*In Georgian with English captions.*

Lisa, a sports photographer, vanishes off into the greener pastures of the Georgian countryside, traces of her passing embedded in the landscape like clues. Her father, Irakli (David Koberidze), picks up her scent in the ochre foliage and communal soccer fields she documented for her last assignment. His search-and-rescue trip defies her wishes not to be followed. With a disembodied voice in his passenger seat, he embarks on a winding pastoral picaresque, marked by the recurring gaggles of adolescents, wild dogs, and oral histories he encounters along the way. Undulating between impressionistic reverie and subversive detective story, Irakli’s near-fruitless search invites us to see—with renewed eyes—the quotidian elements which constitute both cinema and life.

Shot with a pixelated W595 Sony Ericsson phone camera, DRY LEAF stands as a palpable salvo on cinematic degrowth. While director Alexandre Koberidze teeters on the edge of a formal gimmick to challenge technological tyranny, his characters swim against the false currents of modern life. Taking an audacious leap of faith after his breakthrough WHAT DO WE SEE WHEN WE LOOK AT THE SKY? and harkening back to his low-res debut LET THE SUMMER NEVER COME AGAIN, Koberidze reignites the threadbare wonders of cinematic language in spectacular, big-screen fashion.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: The Cinema Guild

COUNTRY: Georgia/Germany

Q&A with filmmaker Alexandre Koberidze and composer Giorgi Koberidze L.A. Premiere

DRY LEAF

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

Being the adventures of a young man…who loved a bit of the old ultra-violence…went to jail, was brain washed…and came out cured…or was he? In a futuristic welfare state, Alex (Malcolm McDowell), a vicious young hoodlum, sleeps all day and spends his nights roaming the city with his droogs, assaulting innocent people in the streets and in their homes. Finally captured by the police, Alex undergoes rehabilitation in the form of aversion therapy as brutal and horrifying as any of his offenses.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Bros.

COUNTRY: UK/USA

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE

**Please note**: This screening takes place at the [Academy Museum](https://www.academymuseum.org/en/programs/detail/gunvor-nelson-tribute-ii-moons-pool-019be219-d804-b817-96ac-a119453fa67b), 6067 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036

Total runtime: 74 min.

This was the film that set everything in motion. *Schmeerguntz*, coined after Gunvor Nelson’s father’s nonsense word for “sandwich” (*smörgås* in Swedish), is a hilarious, grotesque and grave attack on the public ideal of the American housewife. Critic Ernest Callenbach wrote in excitement that “A society which hides its animal functions beneath a shiny public surface deserves to have such films as *Schmeerguntz* shown everywhere.”—*Professor John Sundholm, Stockholm University*

Director: Gunvor Nelson, Dorothy Wiley.

*My Name is Oona* was Nelson’s final breakthrough on the American avant-garde film scene. The sound consists of Nelson’s daughter, Oona, repeating the names of the days of the week and of her saying “my name is Oona.” The latter is edited into an expressive rhythmical structure that accompanies the visual structure of the film that plunges into the experience of a child where both bliss and fear reign. As so often in Nelson’s oeuvre, there is a female subtext too: it is male voices that execute their authority upon Oona, whereas as a girl she is still equal to boys of her own age.—*Professor John Sundholm, Stockholm University.* 

Director: Gunvor Nelson.

*Fog Pumas* is the second film that Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley shot together. It received one of the grand prizes at the Knokke Experimental Film Festival, EXPRMTL, in 1967-68. The film is a hilarious, liberating exploration of absurd imagery and situations in which Nelson and Wiley also make fun of some classical avant-garde film techniques. It is an empowering film, made in the spirit of exploring the potentialities of filmmaking and insisting upon having fun while doing it.—*Professor John Sundholm, Stockholm University*

Director: Gunvor Nelson.

*Moons Pool* marks a new path in Gunvor Nelson’s filmmaking in which she develops her interest in creating a weave of movements and superimpositions. The film that is mostly shot underwater, in a pool, begins with footage of water and a close-up of Nelson from which we move to her body immersed in water in a bathtub. Another transition occurs to a pool with male and female naked bodies swimming underwater. The latter part of the film is almost totally liberated from speech, and has a dreamlike, complex soundtrack consisting of sounds of waves, voices, water and music woven together into a seamless web of sounds.—*Professor John Sundholm, Stockholm University*

Director: Gunvor Nelson.

Movement begins and ends with snowflakes, fleeting, floating, whirling and dancing in constant restlessness. Sudden changes in direction, composition, background, density, color and contrast interrupt the perpetual flow.—*Professor John Sundholm, Stockholm University*

Director: Gunvor Nelson.

Off-site: Gunvor Nelson Tribute II: Moons Pool

Hammer Museum

Join us for day of riso printing! Come by and participate in this quick turnaround open riso studio. Beginners and experiences artists can bring a simple photograph or design, or make something on the spot, and have us print it on our riso with a quick turnaround time. We will have supplies to make drawings, collages, or print an existing image. This session will be limited to one color or two color designs. We will print 20 copies of each design. To print extra copies, feel free to pay a small material fee.

1-Hour Risograph Printing (3/27)

Join us for a night of music featuring solo performances by Dustin Wong, thunderwerld, Randy Randall, and strangejane.

Dustin Wong, thunderwerld, Randy Randall, strangejane

Heavy Manners Library

### **ABOUT THE FILM: **

*In Nigerian Pidgin, Yoruba, and English with English subtitles.*

The UK’s Best International Feature Film entry to the 98th Academy Awards and recipient of the Caméra d’Or Special Mention at Cannes, Akinola Davies Jr.’s MY FATHER’S SHADOW is a poetic, tender portrait of father-son bonds. Framed by the political landscape of 1993 Lagos, the film follows a father and his two young sons as they journey into and around the vibrantly rendered Nigerian metropolis, quietly reckoning with their relationship while navigating a city on the precipice of democratic crisis. Brothers and collaborators Akinola Davies Jr. and Wale Davies bring us a groundbreaking feature debut – centering an award-winning performance by Sopé Dìrísù (SLOW HORSES, GANGS OF LONDON) – that reveals the profound depths of what families leave unspoken.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: MUBI

COUNTRY: UK/Nigeria

MY FATHER'S SHADOW

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

Two codependent best friends become addicted to the heroin-like touch of an alien narcissist who may or may not be trying to take over the world.

FORMAT: 35mm

DISTRIBUTOR: Yellow Veil Pictures

COUNTRY: USA

Q&A with filmmaker Addison Heimann and actors Olivia Taylor Dudley, Jordan Gavaris, Marlene Forte and Lou Taylor Pucci L.A. Premiere

TOUCH ME

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

Taking much of its inspiration from Homer’s* The Odyssey*, this Coen brothers comedy stars George Clooney, John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson as escaped convicts in Depression-era Mississippi. On a wild goose chase for loot from a previous crime, the trio encounter bluesmen, bank robbers, Bible thumpers and politicos, and become unlikely hitmakers as the “Soggy Bottom Boys” (in real life, the film’s bluegrass-filled soundtrack topped charts and won three Grammys). Costarring John Goodman.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Disney

COUNTRY: UK/USA/France

O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?

True Romance

Before his untimely death, William Pope.L was commissioned to make a new work for MONUMENTS. Though this never came to fruition, Pope.L’s 2012 film *Reenactor* engages with the Lost Cause leisure activity of battlefield re-enactments. In celebration of his life, The Brick is pleased to present two nights of Pope.L video works in partnership with Now Instant.

*Please note: seating is limited. Doors open thirty minutes prior to the listed showtime. Your RSVP does not guarantee you a seat. Seating is first-come, first-served. **This film is non-narrative and attendees are invited to come and go as they please.*

The Videos William Pope.L

The world premiere of an original program that explores Henson's formally inventive and philosophically probing early works!

JIM HENSON: EXPERIMENTS IN VISUAL THINKING feat. THE CUBE — World Premiere!

Philosophical Research Society

**Screenwriters**: Christopher Guest,  Eugene Levy

**Producer**: Karen Murphy

We&#8217;re bringing the band back for an encore screening in remembrance of the remarkable **Catherine O&#8217; Hara**!

*Hey, wha&#8217; happened?* We&#8217;re getting folksy AND getting the bands back together for Christopher Guest&#8217;s third hilarious mockumentary/musical, *A Mighty Wind* starring a dozen of the funniest people on the planet. Three eclectic, never-quite-famous folk bands come together for the first time in decades following the death of their manager to put on an reunion concert in his honor. With all the *Spinal Tap* band members as their alternate personas as *The Folksmen*, Catherine O&#8217;Hara and Eugene Levy as *Mitch and Mickey*, the doomed ex-lovers, and the *New Main Street Singers* who worship colors, it&#8217;s a cavalcade of washed up talent all ready for the stage again after all these years. The songs themselves range from authentic and beautiful, to historically grim, to downright hilarious and toe tapping, while the story has more bittersweet and human moments than its predecessors while never skimping on the laughs. Get your tickets for the comeback concert of the year &#8211; while they still last!

**Remembering Catherine O’Hara**

Catherine O’Hara, our scene stealing, impossibly funny, impeccably comically timed, deeply human, perfectly wigged icon, we will miss you so. Thank you for making us laugh til we cried and lighting up generations of artists to seize art and life with a vigor only you could inspire. We’ll be celebrating you in our video store and on our big screen always.

**Picks from the Video Store**

Need to bring more Catherine O’Hara brilliance home? Check out some of these delights on physical media:

*After Hours, SCTV, Waiting for Guffman*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

A Mighty Wind

**Screenwriter**: Harry Lighton

**Producers**: Lee Groombridge,  Ed Guiney,  Andrew Lowe,  Emma Norton

Come for Alexander Skarsgård as a leather daddy, stay for the romance, laughter, and humanism of Harry Lighton&#8217;s sweet and kinky dom com! Colin, a timid man is swept off his feet when Ray, an enigmatic, impossibly handsome biker takes him on as his submissive. It&#8217;s got all the biker orgies and back alley b.j.s you would hope for, but it&#8217;s also truly a wonderfully universal triumph of warmth and humor for anyone &#8211; not just those in the kink community.

Pillion

**Screenwriter**: Albert Brooks

**Producer**: Michael Grillo

Join us in the afterlife for Albert Brooks&#8217; imaginative and hilarious take on life and love after death. After a sudden death, Daniel Miller, an unexceptional and hapless ad exec, ends up in a way station between life and ascendancy to a higher journey into the Universe. In this bureaucratic limbo, the newly deceased are treated to free buffets but unencumbered by calories, but also judged for their life on earth, a pressure the nebbishy Miller is not comfortable undertaking. When he meets Julia, a remarkable woman with a ticket to the next stage, he finally starts to feel alive for the first time. But is it enough to seal their fate into the universe, or will he be destined to return to Earth a loser again?

**Picks from the Video Store**

Looking for more life after death? Be the afterlife of the party with these gems

*After Life, A Matter of Life and Death, I Am a Ghost*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Defending Your Life

**Screenwriter:** Kaneto Shindō

**Producer:** Toshio Konya

A chilling and atmospheric slow burn from Kaneto Shindō, this dark and ghostly nightmare will sink into your subconscious with striking black and white cinematography, a frenetic sensuality, and a viscerally unnerving tone. In the wind-swept marshes of medieval Japan, a land ravaged by war and famine, two women wait for the return of their son and husband from the war as they exist by slaughtering samurai for their belongings. As word of their loved one&#8217;s demise in the war, the return of an enticing neighbor, and the mask of a demon threaten to plunge them all into a horrifying fate.

**Picks from the Video Store**

Looking for more 60s Japanese Horror? Visit our Asian Horror section for these creepfests and more!

*Jigoku, Blind Beast, Kuroneko, The Face of Another*

**Accessibility Options**: Open Captions, Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Onibaba

Rio Bravo

Super Fly

Every school day, African-American teenagers William Gates and Arthur Agee travel 90 minutes each way from inner-city Chicago to St. Joseph High School in Westchester, Illinois, a predominately white suburban school well-known for the excellence of its basketball program. Gates and Agee dream of NBA stardom, and with the support of their close-knit families, they battle the social and physical obstacles that stand in their way. This acclaimed documentary was shot over the course of five years.

Hoop Dreams

A basketball player&#8217;s father must try to convince him to go to a college so he can get a shorter prison sentence.

He Got Game

### **ABOUT THE EVENT:**

11:00am | Doors open & Live piano performance

12:00pm | Introduction by Alan K. Rode

12:10pm | **TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT**

*Start times are approximate.*

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

Originally released October 11, 1944

Humphrey Bogart is an aimless fisherman who gets drawn into the growing French Resistance in Martinique. Lauren Bacall is the American songbird who seduces him and subsequently reawakens his sense of purpose. Ernest Hemingway’s self-described “worst” novel is gleefully translated to the screen by director Howard Hawks, who ditches most of the plot to play up the nuclear chemistry between his two leads. Sure, there’s a lot borrowed from 1942’s CASABLANCA, but you’d be hard-pressed to hold back a smile whenever Bacall teases Bogie or tutors him on the importance of whistling. It’s a debut performance for the ages, bolstered by the memorable tunes that Bacall sings alongside co-star/songwriter Hoagy Carmichael. Featuring a Walter Brennan character that can best be described as a “Walter Brennan type.”

FORMAT: 35mm

DISTRIBUTOR: Park Circus

COUNTRY: USA

Live piano performance Introduction by Alan K. Rode ‘NOIR CITY: Hollywood 2026’

TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT

### **ABOUT THE EVENT:**

2:00pm | Doors open & Live piano performance

3:00pm | Introduction by Alan K. Rode

3:10pm | **LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME**

*Start times are approximate.*

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

Originally released May 26, 1955

The tumultuous life of dancer-singer Ruth Etting (Doris Day, in a revelatory performance) gets a vivid retelling in this vivacious and vitriolic biopic that is equal parts lavish musical and noir-stained psychodrama. Daniel Fuchs (HOLLOW TRIUMPH, CRISS CROSS) won a “Best Writing, Motion Picture Story” Oscar for this tale of the 1920s singing and dancing sensation who makes a Faustian bargain for fame and glory—becoming a protégé to Chicago gangster Marty Snyder (Jimmy Cagney, in an Oscar-nominated performance). The role is such a scintillating showcase for Doris Day’s talents that it’s hard to believe Ava Gardner was the studio’s first choice for the starring role until Cagney convinced producer Joe Pasternak that Day, borrowed from Warner Bros., was the perfect choice. Many of Etting’s greatest hits are performed by Day, including “Ten Cents a Dance,” “You Made Me Love You,” “Stay on the Right Side, Sister” as well as “I’ll Never Stop Loving You,” a 1956 Oscar nominee for Best Original Song.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Bros.

COUNTRY: USA

LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME

### **ABOUT THE EVENT:**

6:00pm | Doors open & Live musical performance by the Nick Rossi Trio

7:00pm | Live musical performance by singer Laura Ellis

7:05pm | Introduction by Eddie Muller and Nick Rossi

7:15pm | **A MAN CALLED ADAM**

8:54pm | Intermission

9:04pm | Introduction by Eddie Muller and Nick Rossi

9:14pm | **ALL NIGHT LONG**

*Start times are approximate.*

### **ABOUT THE FILMS:**

**A MAN CALLED ADAM, 1966, Dir. Leo Penn, 99 Mins, Rialto Pictures, USA**

Originally released August 3, 1966

Sammy Davis, Jr. like you’ve never seen him before! Sammy plays Adam, the cornetist whose prodigious talent is dwarfed only by his penchant for self-destruction. He maps out a comeback with the help of a saxophonist turned Civil Rights activist and his granddaughter, but it doesn’t take long for the demons to come calling. One of the most unrelentingly bleak noir films of the 1960s, economically directed by Leo Penn (father of Oscar-winner Sean) and tailored to showcase musical luminaries George Rhodes and Louis Armstrong as they tear up real New York City nightclubs. Featuring memorably intense supporting turns by Davis’ Rat Pack cohort, Peter Lawford, and Rat Pack offspring, Frank Sinatra Jr.

FORMAT: DCP

**ALL NIGHT LONG, 1962, Dir. Basil Dearden, 91 Mins, AGFA, UK**

Originally released February 6, 1962

ALL NIGHT LONG redresses William Shakespeare’s *Othello* for pulp audiences. Patrick McGoohan is an ambitious drummer who tries to coax a famous singer out of retirement to front his band. The singer declines and the drummer becomes so obsessed with destroying her marriage that he risks his own relationship and career in the process. There’s a perverse delight in watching party gossip spread like wildfire, especially when you know the source will get burned, but ALL NIGHT LONG isn’t just a slick meditation on celebrity. The film captures musical icons Dave Brubeck, John Scott and Charles Mingus in their prime, making it an invaluable time capsule of the London jazz scene in the early 1960s. Featuring a heartbreaking turn by Betsy Blair.

FORMAT: DCP

Live musical performance by singer Laura Ellis and the Nick Rossi Trio Introductions by Eddie Muller and Nick Rossi ‘NOIR CITY: Hollywood 2026’

A MAN CALLED ADAM / ALL NIGHT LONG

A Depression era-set Southern Gothic thriller, *The Night of the Hunter* tells an adult story through the eyes of children. Actor-turned-director Charles Laughton described it as a “fairy tale of the Big Bad Wolf’s pursuit of the Little Pigs.” Robert Mitchum stars as the wolf in preacher’s clothing pursuing the two children of a widow (Shelley Winter) who know about a stash of ill-gotten loot. A dream-like work thanks in part to the unique cinematography by Stanley Cortez, it turns feverishly on dualities — heaven and hell, good versus evil, the sacred and profane — while paying homage to the silent era with Lillian Gish also starring.—*Theater Manager Lauren Brown*

Director: Charles Laughton. Screenwriters: James Agee, Charles Laughton. With: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish.

The Night of the Hunter

Loose Frames presents an evening of various funny, experimental, and evocative animated shorts. There will be a short Q&A with the filmmakers before the screening begins.

Loose Frames Freak Out!: Animated Shorts Screening

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

*In Georgian with English subtitles.*

One of the great films from Georgia—and the Soviet Union as a whole—was featured at the 1975 London Film Festival (nearly a decade after it was made), where Brian Baxter noted: “Quite surely a masterpiece and one of the most strikingly original and beautiful films ever made. It is shot in the deepest blacks and almost blinding whites, tightly compressing its complex tale of love, hate, and revenge. The screenplay is taken from [two poems by Vaza Psavela] . . . Abuladze has managed to convey the ‘epic’ quality of the piece by superb use of the harsh landscapes and the integration of the characters within the surroundings.”

FORMAT: DCP

COUNTRY: Soviet Union

THE PLEA

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

When a writing assignment lands journalist Raoul Duke and sidekick Dr. Gonzo in Las Vegas, they make it the ultimate business trip. Fueled by a suitcase full of mind-bending pharmaceuticals, Duke and Gonzo set off on a ride through nonstop neon, surreal surroundings and a crew of the craziest characters ever, discovering that sometimes going too far is the only way to go.

FORMAT: 35mm

DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures

COUNTRY: USA

FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS

Michael Almereyda & Courtney Stephens' fascinating experimental doc about the psychonautic scientist who tried to communicate with dolphins

JOHN LILLY & THE EARTH COINCIDENCE CONTROL OFFICE (2025)

Ken Russell’s mind-bending descent into the primordial depths of consciousness, inspired by the experiments of John C. Lilly!

Ken Russell's ALTERED STATES (1980) —  A Mind-Bending Psychonautic Classic!

**Screenwriters**: Bill Walsh, Don DaGradi

**Producer**: Walt Disney

Sing Along with everyone&#8217;s favorite magical flying nanny! The world&#8217;s most famous nanny takes flight on the winds of fancy and fantasy in this beloved magical musical no one can resist. Sent from the sky to keep the Banks children in line and show them a world of imagination, song, and wonderment &#8211; Mary Poppins is the answer to everyone&#8217;s prayers in the bustling Banks household. So open your umbrella and fly on over for a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious experience every generation of Vidiot will love!

**Picks from the Video Store**

Our musicals section has a shelf dedicated to the great Julie Andrews! Take home more magic tonight!

*Thoroughly Modern Millie, First a Girl, Cinderella *(1957)*, The Princess Diaries*

**Accessibility Options**: Open Captions, Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Mary Poppins Sing-Along

**Screenwriters**: Ugo Bienvenu,  Félix de Givry

**Producers**: Félix de Givry,  Sophie Mas,  Natalie Portman,  Ugo Bienvenu

A magical and beautifully animated journey through time, *Arco* is a dazzling adventure about a 10-year-old boy from a peaceful, distant future who accidentally travels back to the year 2075 and discovers a world in peril. As Arco develops a charming and touching friendship with a young girl named Iris, they band together and along with her trusted robot caretaker Mikki, set out on a quest to get Arco home, while the two children may also be the only ones who can save our planet.  A wondrous odyssey filled with hope and optimism for our future, *Arco* is an enchanting fable from breakout filmmaker Ugo Bienvenu, produced by Remembers’ Bienvenu and Felix de Givry, and mountainA’s Natalie Portman and Sophie Mas. The film debuted at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival and won The Cristal Award for Best Feature Film at the 2025 Annecy Awards.

Arco (English Dubbed)

**Screenwriters**: Oscar Brodney,  Myles Connolly from the stage play by Mary Chase

**Producer**: John Beck

Is it madness or just a giant rabbit? Jimmy Stewart has never been more delightful than in this bunnariffic comedy classic, a beloved staple of springtime for over 75 years! Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Mary Chase, this beyond charming film is the (cotton)tail of a man that befriends an invisible man-sized rabbit, who may either be his ticket to the looney bin or the answer to all his problems!

**Picks from the Video Store**

Want more 1950s comedies? We&#8217;ve got dozens! Including these gems:

*Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, The Mouse that Roared, Pillow Talk*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Harvey

**Screenwriter**: Christian Petzold

**Producers**: Florian Koerner von Gustorf,  Michael Weber,  Anton Kaiser

Join us in the microcinema for Christian Petzold&#8217;s latest low-key charmer. During a weekend trip to the countryside, Laura, a young piano student from Berlin, miraculously survives a shocking car crash. Awakening in a nearby house, Laura finds herself in the care of a local woman, who tends to her with motherly devotion. As she recuperates, Laura begins to integrate herself into the lives of the woman and her initially reluctant husband and son. By turns haunted and hopeful, Laura and her adopted family reawaken to the world and come to find a strange harmony together. However, they cannot outrun the ghosts of the past, which begin to stir, as acclaimed director Christian Petzold (*PHOENIX, TRANSIT*) spins a modern gothic fairytale about the lies we tell ourselves and the strange ways that grief, connection, and humanity bind and sustain us. Sweet, funny, and soul-stirring, this small but mighty film is charming from start to finish!

Miroirs No. 3

**Screenwriters**: S.S. Rajamouli, Sai Madhav Burra

**Producers**: D.V.V. Danayya

Can&#8217;t stop! Won&#8217;t Stop! The biggest film of the decade has become a Vidiots tradition! *RRR* is an exhilarating, action-packed spectacular, starring two of India&#8217;s biggest superstars, N.T Rama Rao Jr., aka Jr NTR and Ram Charan. Set in the 1920s before their fight for India’s independence began, *RRR* imagines a fictional meeting between two real-life freedom fighters who helped lead India’s fight for independence from the British Raj.

With staggeringly choreographed action sequences, an all-timer of a musical number, and a powerful story, *RRR* is pure cinematic joy from start to finish. Audiences across the world have been won over, and trust us — If you haven&#8217;t seen this on a big screen, you haven&#8217;t really seen it, and if you have, you know why we sell out every single screening!

**Accessibility Options**: Open Captions, Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

**Screenwriter**: Georgi M. Unkovski

**Producers**: Ivan Unkovski,  Ivana Shekutkoska,  Katarina Prpic

Join us in the microcinema for Georgi M. Unkovski&#8217;s delightful coming-of-age triumph for the pink sheep in every family! 15-year-old Ahmet, from a remote Yuruk village in North Macedonia, finds refuge in music while navigating his father’s expectations, a conservative community, and his first experience with love — a girl already promised to someone else. Winner of both an audience and jury award at Sundance, this international charmer (that features an actual pink sheep!) has a rhythm all its own.

DJ Ahmet

The Drama

*Urgh! **A Music War,* the pioneering punk concert classic, returns to LA! Hollywood Entertainment proudly presents this unmissable cavalcade of counterculture with legendary musicians too numerous to list in full!

A raucous and rarely-screened record of the state of punk, post-punk, new wave, reggae, and ska, *Urgh! A Music War *is one of the great documents of live music. It is a uniquely breathless rush of back-to-back live performances featuring raw and righteous takes from Devo, X, XTC, Au Pairs, The Cramps, The Go-Go&#8217;s, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Dead Kennedys, Pere Ubu, Athletico Spizz 80, Gary Numan, Klaus Nomi, Gang of Four, Chelsea, and many, MANY more…

Several of the film’s most memorable performances were filmed over two nights at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium and one night at the Whiskey a Go Go in August 1980 along with sets from San Diego, New York City, Frejus, Paris, Portsmouth, and London.

*35mm screening of the original theatrical cut*

Urgh! A Music War

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

From Umberto Lenzi, notorious director of such Euro-sleaze classics as PARANOIA, SEVEN BLOOD-STAINED ORCHIDS, SPASMO, EYEBALL and CANNIBAL FEROX comes NIGHTMARE BEACH, a shockingly gory tale of a madman in a motorcycle helmet who is taking out young co-eds all over the sparkling sands of South Florida during Spring Break. As the body count creeps up, Miami detective John Saxon tries to keep ahead of the curve in this carnage-packed slasher gem from the maestro of macabre. Featuring a rollicking score by Goblin’s Claudio Simonetti and co-starring the great Michael Parks.

FORMAT: 35mm

DISTRIBUTOR: Rialto Pictures

COUNTRY: USA/Italy

Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive Special thanks to Phil Blankenship for the print ‘Cinematic Void’

Cinematic Void Presents NIGHTMARE BEACH

**Screenwriter**: Harmony Korine

**Producer**: Cary Woods

Co-presented by community programming partners **The Cinegogue**.

Harmony Korine &#8211; one of America&#8217;s purest and most provocative auteurs &#8211; made his directorial debut with this absurd and confrontational cult classic; a film that&#8217;s hard to describe but easy to fall under its sway. A cast of aimless youth don bunny ears, tape their nipples, hunt cats, and spend time loitering on the streets of Xenia, Ohio, a small town that has never recovered from the tornado that ravaged the community in the 1970s. Not for the average film-goer, this obtuse oddity creates an often-grimy piece of art out of a gutter of strange that will either mesmerize you or leave you questioning what you&#8217;ve just experienced!

**Picks from the Video Store**

Bring home more Chloe Sevigny treasures on physical media tonight!

*The Last Days of Disco, Julien Donkey Boy, Zodiac*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Gummo

When Eddie Moscone (Joe Pantoliano) hires tight-lipped bounty hunter Jack Walsh (Robert De Niro) to locate a mob accountant named "The Duke" (Charles Grodin) and bring him to L.A., Eddie tells Jack that the job will be simple, or a "midnight run." But when Jack finds The Duke, the FBI and the mob are anxious to get their hands on him. In a cross-country chase, Jack must evade the authorities, hide from the mob and prevent The Duke's erratic personality from driving him mad.

Midnight Run


Despite having solid field training, CIA analyst Susan Cooper (Melissa McCarthy) has spent her entire career as a desk jockey, working hand-in-hand with dashing agent Bradley Fine (Jude Law). Using high-tech equipment and a hidden earpiece, Susan is the guardian angel who helps Bradley avoid danger. However, when Bradley is assassinated by Bulgarian arms dealer Rayna Boyanov (Rose Byrne), Susan wrangles her way into her first undercover assignment to help capture Boyanov and avenge Bradley.

### **ABOUT THE EPISODES:**

**Season 2, Episode 8, “****Drive With A Dead Girl,” Dir. Caleb Deschanel, 47 Mins**

The One-Armed Man escapes custody.

FORMAT: DCP

**Season 2, Episode 9, “Arbitrary Law,” Dir. Tim Hunter, 46 Mins**

Cooper tricks the killer into revealing himself.

FORMAT: DCP

### **ABOUT THE SERIES:**

**TWIN PEAKS, 1990, Paramount, USA**

A crime drama mixed with healthy doses of the surreal, this series is about FBI Agent Dale Cooper, who travels to the small logging town of Twin Peaks to solve the murder of seemingly innocent high schooler Laura Palmer. Almost nothing is as it seems, however, and the show’s sometimes eerie visuals, oddball characters and wild dream sequences drive the point home.

“Drive With A Dead Girl” and “Arbitrary Law” ‘TWIN PEAKS: The Complete Series’

TWIN PEAKS: Season 2, Ep. 8 & 9

### **ABOUT THE FILM: **

Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell confront the ogre of faceless corporate tyranny and have fun doing it in this comedy for young people. Ed (Mitchell) is a teenager who lives for his job at Good Burger, a small but friendly neighborhood hamburger stand, while his buddy Dexter (Thompson) also works there, but lack Ed’s single-minded devotion to his job — he’s there because he accidentally destroyed the car of his teacher Mr. Wheat (Sinbad) and has to raise money to pay the damages. When Mondo Burger, a mammoth fast-foot chain, opens across the street, it looks like Good Burger is history, until Ed formulates a secret sauce that brings hundreds of new customers to their door.

FORMAT: 35mm

DISTRIBUTOR: Paramount Pictures

COUNTRY: USA

GOOD BURGER

**Writer/Producer**: Julie Dash

Join us for Julie Dash&#8217;s rapturous masterpiece, *Daughters of the Dust*.  As the 20th century dawns, a multi-generational Gullah family from the Sea Islands off of the South Carolina coast struggle to maintain their deep-rooted heritage and folklore while considering relocating to the mainland. The first widely released feature from a Black female director, the film was met with ecstatic critical acclaim and phenomenal audience response when it initially opened in 1991. *Daughters of the Dust* has cast a resounding legacy including references to the film in Beyonce’s video album *“Lemonade.”* Restored (in conjunction with UCLA) for the first time with proper color grading overseen by cinematographer AJ Jafa, audiences will finally see the film exactly as Julie Dash intended.

**Picks from the Video Store**

Take home more gems from the groundbreaking Julie Dash on DVD and Blu-Ray tonight!

*Subway Stories, Illusions, The Rosa Parks Story*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Daughters of the Dust

We Watch Wrestling Presents

A special screening of Beyond The Mat with Q+A by WWW&#8217;s Matt and Vince and Director Barry Blaustein live at Brain Dead Studios.

Synopsis:

&#8220;Beyond the Mat,&#8221; Barry Blaustein&#8217;s honest, intimate, revealing, highly entertaining, and critically acclaimed behind-the-scenes look at wrestling, takes viewers beyond the ring and into the lives of the men and women who inhabit this colorful, competitive, and surprisingly complex world.

Beyond the Mat

On the occasion of the release of Melissa Anderson’s latest collection of essays and reviews, *The Hunger: Film Writing 2012–2024* from The Film Desk, Anderson will join Now Instant for a special presentation of *The Bigamist*, followed by a conversation with writer Kate Wolf on all things cinema and criticism.

Copies of *The Hunger* will be available for purchase in-store, courtesy of The Film Desk.

The Bigamist

**Writer/Producer**: Julie Dash

Join us for Julie Dash&#8217;s rapturous masterpiece, *Daughters of the Dust*.  As the 20th century dawns, a multi-generational Gullah family from the Sea Islands off of the South Carolina coast struggle to maintain their deep-rooted heritage and folklore while considering relocating to the mainland. The first widely released feature from a Black female director, the film was met with ecstatic critical acclaim and phenomenal audience response when it initially opened in 1991. *Daughters of the Dust* has cast a resounding legacy including references to the film in Beyonce’s video album *“Lemonade.”* Restored (in conjunction with UCLA) for the first time with proper color grading overseen by cinematographer AJ Jafa, audiences will finally see the film exactly as Julie Dash intended.

### **ABOUT THE FILMS: **

**REPAST, 1951, Dir. Mikio Naruse, 93 Mins, Janus Films, Japan**

*In Japanese with English subtitles.*

Michiyo lives in the small place Osaka and is not happy with her marriage; all she does is cook and clean for her husband.

FORMAT: 35mm

**LIGHTNING, 1952, Dir. Mikio Naruse, 87 Mins, Kadokawa, Japan**

*In Japanese with English subtitles.*

Facing pressures to marry and having witnessed her two sisters’ own marital struggles, sightseeing bus guide Kiyoko (Hideko Takamine) strives for her own solitary independence, resisting suitors and openly expressing a disdain for men. Through a family of four siblings, each from different fathers, Naruse explores the suffocating family life of Kiyoko’s *shitamachi* household and its surroundings. LIGHTNING is a buildup of vignettes, events and occurrences, as Kiyo experiences the world around her—misfortune, family tragedy, interpersonal quarrels and the vulgarities of men—trying to make sense of a modern existence where the promise of happiness still comes second for women.

FORMAT: 35mm

35mm prints courtesy of The Japan Foundation, Los Angeles Series co-presented by The Japan Foundation, Los Angeles and The Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities ‘Mikio Naruse: An American Cinematheque Retrospective’

REPAST / LIGHTNING

PHANTASMAGORIA presents Sky Hopinka’s short experimental film FAINTING SPELLS (2018) alongside Colombian feature film EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (2015).

Myth, knowledge, and sacred indigenous plants are at the center of these two films. In each film, the landscape and its flora is at once sublime and fragile. For his dreamlike abstract short FAINTING SPELLS, filmmaker Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) creates an origin myth poem for the medicinal flowering plant Xąwįska, also known as the Indian pipe plant or the ghost flower, traditionally used to revive those who have fainted. In Ciro Guerra’s feature film EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT, Amazonian shaman Karamakate encounters two different Western scientists (at two different stages of his life), each seeking the sacred hallucinogenic Yakruna plant. Through poetic storytelling and hypnotic imagery, both films examine themes of cultural identity, loss, and reconnection to the spiritual world in the face of colonialism and destruction.

### EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT

At once blistering and poetic, the ravages of colonialism cast a dark shadow over the South American landscape in EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT, the third feature by Ciro Guerra. Filmed in stunning black-and-white, SERPENT centers on Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and the last survivor of his people, and the two scientists who, over the course of 40 years, build a friendship with him. The film was inspired by the real-life journals of two explorers (Theodor Koch-Grünberg and Richard Evans Schultes) who traveled through the Colombian Amazon during the last century in search of the sacred and difficult-to-find psychedelic Yakruna plant.

### FAINTING SPELLS

*Director:* Sky Hopinka

*Run Time:* 11 mins

*Format:* DCP

*Release Year:* 2018

Told through recollections of youth, learning, lore, and departure, this is an imagined myth for the Xąwįska, or the Indian Pipe Plant &#8211; used by the Ho-Chunk to revive those who have fainted.

EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT + FAINTING SPELLS


Meet Jack Foley, the most successful bank robber in the country. On the day he busts out of jail, he finds himself stealing something far more precious than money ... Karen Sisco's heart. She's smart. She's sexy, and unfortunately for Jack, she's a Federal Marshal. Now, they're willing to risk it all to find out if there's more between them than just the law.

Out of Sight

In this seven-time Oscar®-nominated film, things go terribly awry when small-time Minnesota car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) hires two thugs (Steve Buscemi and Peter Stormare) to kidnap his wife so he can collect the ransom from his wealthy father-in-law. Once people start dying, the very chipper and very pregnant Police Chief Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand, who won an Oscar® for her performance) takes the case. Is she up for this challenge? You betcha.

Fargo

**Screenwriters**: Aidan Zamiri, Bertie Brandes from an original idea by Charli xcx

**Producers**: David Hinojosa,  Charli xcx

The microcinema is getting pumped for a Brat Spring with Charli xcx&#8217;s self-parodying mockumentary *The Moment*. A rising pop sensation navigates fame and industry pressures while preparing for her arena tour debut, revealing the transformation of underground culture into mainstream success.

The Moment

The LA Festival of Movies arrives in its third year, with many screenigns and events across three days at 2220 Arts. Full lineup, festival pass details and ticket prices to be announced in early 2026.

LA Festival of Movies 2026

### **ABOUT THE EVENT:**

6:00pm | Doors open & Live musical performance by the Nick Rossi Trio

7:00pm | Live musical performance by singer Elizabeth Bougerol

7:05pm | Introduction by Eddie Muller and Elizabeth Bougerol

7:15pm | **THE MAN I LOVE**

8:51pm | Intermission

9:01pm | Introduction by Alan K. Rode

9:11pm | **NORA PRENTISS**

*Start times are approximate.*

### **ABOUT THE FILMS:**

**THE MAN I LOVE, 1947, Dir. Raoul Walsh, 96 Mins, Park Circus, USA**

Originally released January 11, 1947

As flinty chanteuse Petey Brown, Ida Lupino is at the apex of her big-screen glamour, offering a radiantly romantic vision of the post-WWII American woman—able to settle everyone’s hash but her own. A coast-to-coast road trip through a world of atmospheric nightclubs, tenements, and backlot streets, this majestic melodrama is part noir, part soap opera, and pure Hollywood magic. Reportedly, the film’s mix of music, romance, and noir inspired Martin Scorsese to make NEW YORK, NEW YORK. This was Lupino’s third film with director Walsh, and, despite the high heels and form-fitting lamé gowns, Ida is every bit as tough as she was in THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT and HIGH SIERRA, her first two films with Walsh. Featuring an array of classic songs, including “Why Was I Born?” and the Gershwin melody “The Man I Love,” Lupino’s singing voice for the film was dubbed by American contralto Peg La Centra, wife of actor Paul Stewart, a NOIR CITY favorite.

FORMAT: 35mm

**NORA PRENTISS, 1947, Dir. Vincent Sherman, 111 Mins, Warner Bros., USA**

Originally released February 21, 1947

San Francisco physician Richard Talbot (Kent Smith) falls hard for nightclub singer Nora Prentiss (Ann Sheridan), but she cuts off their budding romance when she learns the smitten sawbones is married. Not to be deterred, the doc devises an outlandishly noirish scheme to reunite with Nora under a new identity. Need we say that tragic consequences ensue? This pitch-black melodrama was tailored by Warner Bros. for oft-suspended star Sheridan, the studio’s “Oomph Girl,” who had turned down the lead role in 1945’s MILDRED PIERCE allowing Joan Crawford to snag an Oscar and a career comeback. Sold as a romantic “woman’s picture,” the film is really focused on the doctor’s terminal case of *amour fou*, which spirals into one of the darkest and most daring plot twists in the genre. Director Vincent Sherman elicits career-best performances from both Smith and Sheridan, while the quintessentially noir tone is supplied by legendary DP James Wong Howe. A neglected classic!

FORMAT: DCP

Live musical performance by singer Elizabeth Bougerol and the Nick Rossi Trio Introductions by Eddie Muller, Alan K. Rode and Elizabeth Bougerol ‘NOIR CITY: Hollywood 2026’

THE MAN I LOVE / NORA PRENTISS

Marking the 90th anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), Silvia Ribelles de la Vega, a scholar and historian at The Packard Humanities Institute, presents a program featuring seldom-seen views of the war, drawn from the Hearst Metrotone News collection.

The preservation of and access to the collection have been made possible only through the incredible efforts of The Packard Humanities Institute, in collaboration with the UCLA Film & Television Archive, to expand access to one of the most significant newsreel archives of the 20th century. This collection of 27 million feet of newsreels includes approximately 288 reels of film related to the Spanish Civil War.

At the time, newsreels — short-form, theatrically exhibited news stories — were often the only moving image records of unfolding events available to international audiences. Hearst cameramen covered the conflict extensively and, remarkably, filmed from both sides of the war. Ribelles’ presentation will move chronologically from 1936 to 1939 and feature not only edited newsreels but also selections from longer, previously unseen footage.

Describing the Hearst Metrotone News collection as “a gem for any researcher,” Ribelles highlights the opportunities this newly accessible material offers to scholars and history enthusiasts alike. Drawing on production records, maps and related archival documents, she will examine how the newsreels were filmed, edited and circulated, and how studying them today can surface overlooked histories and reshape our understanding of the Spanish Civil War.

90 years after a conflict that tore a nation apart, these newsreels stand as vital audiovisual evidence and as a testament to the enduring impact of making archival collections accessible to all.

The Archive is grateful to The Packard Humanities Institute (PHI) for its role as the driving force in the project to share the Hearst Metrotone News Collection for research, study and public access. To explore more than 20,000 news stories preserved and made accessible by PHI, including unedited materials featured in this program, [visit newsreels.net](https://newsreels.net/).

The Hearst Metrotone News Collection and the Spanish Civil War

GAG! returns to Heavy Manners for another iteration of their screening series. GAG! Presents... VIDEO3. As a way to highlight video artists and blur the line between video art and cinema, GAG! brings together a select group of artists and filmmakers to screen pieces that are intended for the exhibition space. Simultaneously, VIDEO3 reimagines films intended for theaters within the context of video art. This screening allows audiences to approach these practices in a new light. Fine art [+](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/gag-presents-video3-tickets-1985030046304?aff=oddtdtcreator&keep_tld=true) film = VIDEO3 ◡̈

*GAG! is an interdisciplinary art collective based in Los Angeles. GAG! (Gallery Attendants&#x27; Gallery) seeks to make us play, disrupt, react, and respond to the contemporary art world.*

GAG! presents VIDEO3

**Screenwriters**: Walter Tevis,  Richard Price

**Producers**: Irving Axelrod,  Barbara De Fina

Scorsese, Newman, and Cruise hit the pool hall for this sequel to *The Hustler &#8211; *25 years on &#8211; with incredible cinematography from the legendary Michael Ballhaus and a killer soundtrack from Robbie Robertson of *The Band*. &#8220;Fast Eddie&#8221; Felson (Paul Newman reprising his Oscar-winning role) is back on the beat &#8211; after years of laying low, he&#8217;s ready to get back in the pool hall and start hustling again, this time with a young protegé Vincent Lauria (Tom Cruise). When the two part ways over Lauria&#8217;s flashy, showboating ways, they are destined to come face to face in a game of winner take all! So grab your pool cues and get ready to win with *The Hustler* all over again!

**Picks from the Video Store**

Bring home more Paul Newman tonight with these classics on physical media!

*The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds, Rachel, Rachel, Sometimes a Great Notion*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

The Color of Money

**Screenwriter:** Norio Osada

**Producer:** Kikumaru Okuda

Gory revenge is raised to the level of visual poetry in Toshiya Fujita’s stunning *Lady Snowblood.* A major inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s *Kill Bill* saga, this endlessly inventive film, set in late nineteenth-century Japan, charts the single-minded path of vengeance taken by a young woman (Meiko Kaji) whose parents were the unfortunate victims of a gang of brutal criminals. Fujita creates a wildly entertaining action film of remarkable craft, an effortless balancing act between beauty and violence.

**Picks from the Video Store**

Meiko Kaji is one of the most elegantly bad-ass ladies of cinema, check out her section in Martial Arts for more kick-ass gems!

*Delinquent Girl Boss, Female Prisoner 701: Scorpion, Blind Woman&#8217;s Curse*

**Accessibility Options**: Open Captions, Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Lady Snowblood

**Screenwriters**: Michael Almereyda,  Courtney Stephens

**Producers**: Taylor Hess,  Jesse Miller,  Michael Almereyda,  Courtney Stephens

Filmmaker **Courtney Stephens** in person Saturday &#8211; with a Q+A after the 4:30pm show and an introduction before the 7:30pm show!

The daring experimenter Dr. John C. Lilly dedicated his life to radical self-investigation and unlocking the mysteries of consciousness and communication. “My body is my laboratory” was the motto, and his research on the language of dolphins and whales – as well as psychedelics and sensory deprivation – assured his own cult status in 20th-century pop culture as the basis for Ken Russell’s *Altered States* and Mike Nichols’s *The Day of the Dolphin*. 

Directors Michael Almereyda and Courtney Stephens, along with narrator Chloë Sevigny, explore the life of a determined scientist and his experiments into the psychonautical unknown.

“An illuminating work of cultural archaeology”

&#8220;*Earth Coincidence* paints Lilly as a 20th-century polymath, a one-of-a-kind maverick&#8220;

—THE FILM STAGE

John Lilly and the Earth Coincidence Control Office

**Screenwriters**: Parker Bennett, Ed Solomon, Terry Runte

**Producers**: Jake Eberts,  Roland Joffé

Grab the controller for your Super Nintendo and get ready to get weird in this bizarro tale of two plumbers on a quest to save the world from projectile-throwing 8bit dinosaurs! It&#8217;s not a game anymore as Mario and Luigi, plumbers from Brooklyn, find themselves in an alternate universe where evolved dinosaurs live in hi-tech squalor. Now these mustached blue-collar heroes are the only hope to save our universe from invasion by the dino dictator, Koopa (Dennis m*therf$&ing Hopper!).

**Picks from the Video Store**

We&#8217;ve got a whole section devoted to video game adaptations! Take home these bangers tonight!

*Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Tekken*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Super Mario Bros.

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

11:00am | Doors open & Live musical performance by pianist Chris Dawson

12:00pm | Introduction by actor Elliott Gould and Eddie Muller

12:10pm | **THE LONG GOODBYE**

2:02pm | Q&A with actor Elliott Gould. Moderated by Eddie Muller.

*Start times are approximate.*

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

Originally released March 7, 1973

Philip Marlowe wakes up from a twenty-year nap to find that Los Angeles has only gotten screwier in his absence. The private detective gets a postmodern update with THE LONG GOODBYE, a rambling adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s 1953 novel. There are some crucial changes made by screenwriter Leigh Brackett, but to get hung up on the machinations of the plot is to miss the point entirely. Sure, Marlowe wants to solve the case, but there are stretches where he seems more interested in cat-food brands or making sure the goons tailing him don’t get lost. The film is so committed to its irreverent worldview that you become invested in these tangents, too. Elliott Gould redefines “cool” as Marlowe, and director Robert Altman has so much fun playing with noir clichés that he works in over a dozen versions of the hardboiled theme song.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Park Circus

COUNTRY: USA

Q&A with actor Elliott Gould. Moderated by Eddie Muller. Live musical performance by pianist Chris Dawson ‘NOIR CITY: Hollywood 2026’

THE LONG GOODBYE

### **ABOUT THE EVENT:**

3:00pm | Doors open & Live musical performance by pianist Chris Dawson

4:00pm | Introduction by Alan K. Rode

4:10pm | **SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS**

*Start times are approximate.*

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

Originally released June 27, 1957

A box-office disaster upon original release, SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS is now considered one of best films of the 1950s—as well as the definitive cinematic statement on the dangers of media corruption. Burt Lancaster seethes through a thinly-veiled portrait of powerful New York gossip columnist Walter Winchell as J.J. Hunsecker, and Tony Curtis gives perhaps his finest performance as the two-faced, sycophantic press agent Sidney Falco. Some of the most dyspeptic dialogue in screen history is spewed courtesy of writers Lehman and Odets, all complemented by James Wong Howe’s *cinéma vérité* camerawork and a brassy, propulsive score by Elmer Bernstein. Keep your eyes and ears open as put-upon jazz cat Martin Milner sits in with the legendary Chico Hamilton Quintet (Paul Horn, flute; Fred Katz, cello; John Pisano, guitar; Carson Smith, bass; Chico Hamilton, drums). Co-starring Susan Harrison, Emile Meyer, and Barbara Nichols (“What am I, a bowl of fruit? A tangerine that peels in a minute?”) J. J. Hunsecker said it best, “I love this dirty town!”

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Park Circus

COUNTRY: USA

Live musical performance by pianist Chris Dawson Introduction by Alan K. Rode ‘NOIR CITY: Hollywood 2026’

SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS

### **ABOUT THE EVENT:**

6:00pm | Doors open & Live musical performance by the Nick Rossi Trio

7:00pm | Live musical performance by singer Elizabeth Bougerol

7:05pm | Introduction by Eddie Muller

7:15pm |** KING CREOLE**

9:11pm | Intermission

9:21pm | Introduction by Alan K. Rode

9:31pm |** YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN**

*Start times are approximate.*

### **ABOUT THE FILMS:**

**KING CREOLE, 1958, Dir. Michael Curtiz, 116 Mins, Paramount Pictures, USA**

Originally released July 2, 1958

Elvis Presley is the headstrong teen who can sing. Walter Matthau is the crime boss who wants to own him. The dance between these two makes up the central conflict of KING CREOLE, Elvis’ last film before he joined the U.S. Army. Elvis gets plenty of opportunities to show his moves onscreen, but the real delight here comes from watching a seemingly generic Presley vehicle take all the wrong turns and wind up stranded in NOIR CITY. Management troubles would become all too real for Elvis by the 1960s, but even without this real-life parallel, the rock-and-roll star delivers the acting performance of his career. Featuring stylish direction by Michael Curtiz and a spirited turn by Carolyn Jones as the woman caught between the warring show-biz factions.

FORMAT: DCP

**YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN, 1950, Dir. Michael Curtiz, 112 Mins, Warner Bros., USA**

Originally released February 9, 1950

Dorothy Baker’s novel, inspired by the life of cornetist Bix Beiderbecke, gets a full-blown Hollywood treatment veering far from the truth while telling an engrossing musical tale. Star-crossed jazzman Rick Martin (Kirk Douglas) lives for his music, but his arrogance (and alcohol) threaten to ruin him. Doris Day is the loyal singer whose love is unrequited, and Lauren Bacall is the woman he craves but can’t comprehend. (For 1950s Hollywood, Bacall’s character is as “out” as a lesbian could be.) Carl Foreman’s script takes a few daring turns for a musical drama of the era, bolstered by Michael Curtiz’ dazzling direction, stunning camerawork by Ted McCord, and especially Rick’s horn solos provided by musical advisor Harry James. Adding depth and soul are the fantastic supporting performances by Hoagy Carmichael (an actual compadre of Beiderbecke) and Juano Hernandez as Rick’s mentor.

FORMAT: DCP

Live musical performance by singer Elizabeth Bougerol and the Nick Rossi Trio Introductions by Eddie Muller and Alan K. Rode ‘NOIR CITY: Hollywood 2026’

KING CREOLE / YOUNG MAN WITH A HORN

Movie theater chain established in 1938 showcasing the latest independent, foreign & art films.

G/Approved 
 
RICAHRD FLEISCHER DOUBLE FEATURE  5 hr. 13 min.
 
Richard Fleischer was a versatile American film director known for helming nearly 50 films across many genres, including the sci-fi classics, the film noir and epics. The son of animation pioneer Max Fleischer, he began his career at RKO in the 1940s, and his work spanned from low-budget thrillers to big-budget spectacles, making him a popular and prolific director throughout Hollywood's Golden Age and the New Wave era. Today’s event will be 20,000 LEGUES UNDER RTHE SEA and COMPULSION. In person is Ricahrd’s granddaughter Claire and a Q&A moderated by Tim Williams of TV Guide.
 
20,000 LEAGUES UNDER HE SEA, The oceans during the late 1800s are no longer safe; many ships have been lost. Sailors have returned to port with stories of a vicious narwhal (a giant whale with a long horn) which sinks their ships. A naturalist, Professor (Pierre) Aronnax, his assistant, Conseil, and a professional whaler, Ned Land, join a US expedition which attempts to unravel the mystery.
 
COMPULSION, In 1924 Chicago, Artie Strauss and Judd Steiner are friends and fellow law students who both come from wealthy backgrounds. They have few true friends as they believe all their contemporaries are intellectually inferior. Within their relationship, Artie is the dominant and Judd the submissive who says he will do whatever Artie tells him. Although Judd acts intellectually arrogant to others, he also shows signs of weakness and reticence most evident to Artie. Part of their goal in life is to experience how it feels to do everything. As such, they plot to commit what they consider the perfect crime - a kidnapping and murder - not only so that they can experience the sense of killing for killing's sake, but also taunt the law with the knowledge of it and their superiority after the fact. They believe their crime is above the law. Their murder of young Paulie Kessler is not so perfect, with evidence at the scene uncovered by one of their law school colleagues, Sid Brooks, who also works for the Globe newspaper. As Artie and Judd try to manipulate their way out of how the evidence may implicate them, their manipulation ultimately backfires and they are charged with the murder. The most famed trial lawyer in town, Jonathan Wilk, is hired to defend the pair despite his atheism being against the families' sensibilities. Jonathan, renowned for his ability to manipulate juries, has to decide how best to defend his clients in the overwhelming face of evidence against them. The testimony of Ruth Evans, Sid's girlfriend, may have some impact on the trial's outcome.

RICHARD FLEISCHER DOUBLE FEATUR

Fine Arts Theatre

This program is a continuation of *Toward a More Perfect Rebellion: Multiracial Student Activism at UCLA**,* which celebrates the radical filmmaking legacy of UCLA’s affirmative action initiative, the Ethno-Communications Program (1969–1973). This iteration honors Ethno-Communications alumnus Robert A. Nakamura (1936–2025), who taught film at UCLA for over 30 years and was widely known as the “godfather of Asian American media.” A co-founder of the pioneering media organization Visual Communications, Nakamura co-directed a milestone feature-length film made by and about Asian Pacific Americans, *Hito Hata: Raise the Banner* (1980). Shaped by his internment at age six in the prison camp Manzanar during World War II, he transformed personal history into landmark films that helped change how Asian Americans are seen on-screen. 

*Series programmed by Associate Professor Josslyn Luckett, NYU Cinema Studies, and Public Programmer Beandrea July. Notes written by Beandrea July.**
*

***Special thanks to our community partners**: [Platform UCLA](https://www.instagram.com/platformucla/), [UCLA Alumni Association](https://alumni.ucla.edu/), [UCLA Asian American Studies Department](https://asianam.ucla.edu/), [UCLA Department of History](https://history.ucla.edu/), [UCLA Japanese Student Association](https://www.instagram.com/ucla.jsa/), [UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television](https://www.tft.ucla.edu/)*

Shot with a three-person crew of fellow UCLA Ethno-Communications student filmmakers, including Betty Chen, *Manzanar* is a lyrical, intimate documentary in which Robert A. Nakamura, a Nisei, reflects on his internment at age six and its enduring impact. Returning to the desolate site of Manzanar — one of 10 camps where Japanese Americans were unjustly imprisoned during World War II — Nakamura grapples with fragmented recollections of family, community and loss. As the film meditates on the lasting psychological impacts of internment, it also explores what it takes to face the unhealed wounds of the past and reclaim one’s identity.

Director: Robert A. Nakamura.

This short traces how the former Manzanar WWII concentration camp has been reclaimed by subsequent generations of Japanese Americans as a site of remembrance, resistance and intergenerational solidarity. Blending never-before-seen archival footage with a contemporary sensibility, the film follows the annual Manzanar Pilgrimage as it takes on renewed meaning in a post-9/11 world. Though produced by his parents, Karen L. Ishizuka and Robert A. Nakamura, director Tadashi Nakamura steps confidently out of their shadow through a hip-hop–inflected score and music by Yellow Pearl, whose fusion of folk, blues, soul and jazz energized a new generation of Asian American youth.

Director/Editor: Tadashi Nakamura.

A landmark documentary of Japanese American community memory and resilience, Robert A. Nakamura’s Ethno-Communications M.F.A. thesis film (UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television ’75) recounts the stories of three intertwined Issei lives — a fisherman, a gardener and a pioneering farm family. Weaving personal memory and collective history, Nakamura includes his own father, a gardener, who recalls bicycling to work with a lawnmower tied to his back. The short is also a foundational work of Visual Communications, the trailblazing Asian American media collective Nakamura co-founded in 1970 with Duane Kubo, Alan Ohashi and Eddie Wong.

Director: Robert Nakamura.

“How do you repay someone who has given you everything? This film became my answer.”—Tadashi Nakamura

Inspired by *Wataridori: Birds of Passage*, Tadashi Nakamura documents his father’s life and legacy in a profound act of love. As Parkinson’s disease shapes the elder Nakamura’s titular third act, the film confronts the psychic costs of Japanese internment and assimilation, and the ways imagemaking and familial togetherness became forms of resistance. Shot over seven years, the documentary premiered in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Director: Tadashi Nakamura. With: Robert Nakamura, Karen L. Ishizuka.

Toward a More Perfect Rebellion: Celebrating the Legacy of Robert A. Nakamura

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

*In Japanese with English subtitles.*

Sundays for Ryotaro and Fumiko have become routine: he reads the paper, she knits; he complains that his stomach hurts, she readies his medicine; she suggests things to do, he decides to stay home; he yawns, she yawns. They have no children and live in a suburb outside of Tokyo, surrounded by gossipy neighbors. One particular afternoon, the community gains two new residents, Nenkichi and his nonconformist wife Hinako. As the two couples come to know each other, upcoming layoffs in Ryotaro’s company trigger what could very well be the end of his marriage to Fumiko. He wishes to return to the country. She wishes to stay near Tokyo and find employment of her own. He opposes the idea of his wife working. Despite being married for some time, they still do not understand each other. Pretty soon, it becomes clear the possibility of separation is looming over them…

FORMAT: 35mm

DISTRIBUTOR: Toho

COUNTRY: Japan

35mm print courtesy of The Japan Foundation, Los Angeles Series co-presented by The Japan Foundation, Los Angeles and The Yanai Initiative for Globalizing Japanese Humanities ‘Mikio Naruse: An American Cinematheque Retrospective’

SUDDEN RAIN

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

After Barbara (Geena Davis) and Adam Maitland (Alec Baldwin) die in a car accident, they find themselves stuck haunting their country residence, unable to leave the house. When the unbearable Deetzes (Catherine O’Hara, Jeffrey Jones) and teen daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder) buy the home, the Maitlands attempt to scare them away without success. Their efforts attract Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton), a rambunctious spirit whose “help” quickly becomes dangerous for the Maitlands and innocent Lydia.

FORMAT: 35mm

DISTRIBUTOR: Park Circus

COUNTRY: USA

BEETLEJUICE

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

First, I guess you need to know something about them—the beautiful ones. The flawless four. Everyone wanted to be them. You know ’em. They went to your school, too. First, there’s Courtney “Satan-in-heels” Shayne (Rose McGowan) and her pawn, the dense but dangerous Marcie Fox (Julie Benz), a legend in her own little mind. Then there’s angelic Julie Freedman (Rebecca Gayheart), doomed to be popular because of her pretty face, and lastly, the teen dream herself, Elizabeth Purr. When an ordinary kidnapping prank leaves the future prom queen dead (accidentally gagged with a jaw-breaker), a deadly sweet prank leads to cover-up makeover in this edgy and unpredictable comedy. But there will be no mercy as prom night arrives, bringing this spirited tale to its cruel tiara-dropping conclusion.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures

COUNTRY: USA

JAWBREAKER

**Screenwriters**: Charles Brackett,  Billy Wilder,  Walter Reisch

**Producer**: Ernst Lubitsch

These comrades are ready to pawn the crown jewels and steal your heart in Ernst Lubitsch&#8217;s universally beloved comedy, featuring the legendary Greta Garbo&#8217;s only comedic role! The great Garbo plays a no-nonsense diplomat of the Soviet Union who arrives in Paris to ensure the sale of jewels seized during the Russian Revolution. Meanwhile, carefree bachelor Count Leon d&#8217;Algout (Melvyn Douglas) attempts to intercept the valuables on behalf of their former owner, the Grand Duchess Swana (Ina Claire). Despite their conflicting allegiances, the icy Ninotchka soon warms to Leon&#8217;s charms, reluctantly going against her better judgment. When diplomatic forces threaten to tear them apart, will the find a place in the world where their love can grow? An international charmer with the masterful hand of Ernst Lubitsch and the magnificent charisma of one of the greatest actresses of all time, it&#8217;s time to fall in love with this classic all over again!

**Picks from the Video Store**

Need more Garbo in your life? Take home these treasures on physical media tonight!

*Grand Hotel, The Saga of Gosta Berling, Mata Hari*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Ninotchka

**Screenwriters**: Avery Corman,  Robert Benton

**Producer**: Stanley R. Jaffe

This sensitive, heartrending drama is both one of the most popular films of the 1970s and arguably the definitive Hollywood movie about an era of skyrocketing divorce. Dustin Hoffman plays Ted Kramer, a workaholic ad man who’s shell-shocked when he comes home one day to find his wife Joanna (Meryl Streep) about to leave him and their seven-year-old son Billy (Justin Henry) in order to find herself. Ted slowly learns how to take care of household tasks and emotionally care for his son, but his world is turned upside down again when Joanna returns to claim custody of Billy, triggering a bitter court battle. Winner of five Oscars — including Best Picture, Best Actor for Hoffman, and Best Supporting Actress for Streep (the first wins for both performers) — *Kramer vs. Kramer* remains a deeply moving, achingly human look at divorce and its messy aftermath.

**Picks from the Video Store**

Looking for more movies about life after divorce? You won&#8217;t want to break up with these classics!

*War of the Roses, Irreconcilable Differences, An Unmarried Woman*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Kramer vs. Kramer

**Writer/Producer**: John Waters

Feeling down about the possibility that Santa won’t bring you Cha-Cha heels for Christmas this year? Never fear, delinquent Dawn Davenport (Divine) is here to live out the bizarre and beautiful life of crime you can only fantasize about. *Female Trouble* is yet another John Waters classic, a grotesque examination of the female condition and cycles of violence presented through the flashy and trashy lens of the Pope of Filth. There’s a reason Waters himself considers this his favorite of his early work, and why Mink Stole has named Taffy Davenport as her favorite role in Dreamland. *&#8220;Hey, spare me your morals!&#8221;* and give yourself over to violence and perversion.

Female Trouble

### **ABOUT THE EVENT:**

11:00am | Doors open & Live piano performance

12:00pm | Introduction by Alan K. Rode

12:10pm | **THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM**

*Start times are approximate.*

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

Originally released December 15, 1955

Frank Sinatra is Frankie Machine, a hustler and recovering drug addict. Frankie decides to go straight and pursue his dream of becoming a musician, but the more time he spends on the outside the harder it becomes to resist the temptation of the needle. THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM is the darkest noir gets, bolstered by Otto Preminger’s unflinching direction and Sam Leavitt’s cinematography, which renders every moment of Frankie’s sobriety a claustrophobic nightmare. The real highlight of the film, however, is Sinatra’s Oscar-nominated performance. He’s remarkable as the weak-willed drummer, utilizing his slight physique and baby-blue eyes to haunting effect. Featuring Eleanor Parker and Kim Novak as the devil and angel, respectively, on Frankie’s shoulders.

FORMAT: 35mm

DISTRIBUTOR: Reel Media International

COUNTRY: USA

Live piano performance Introduction by Eddie Muller Print from the collection of the Library of Congress ‘NOIR CITY: Hollywood 2026’

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM

### ABOUT THE EVENT:

3:00pm | Doors open & Live piano performance

4:00pm | Introduction by Eddie Muller

4:10pm | **ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW**

*Start times are approximate.*

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

Originally released October 12, 1959

Disgraced ex-cop Dave Burke (Ed Begley) masterminds a piece-of-cake bank robbery in upstate New York, but to pull it off he requires the cooperation of two dangerously mismatched cohorts: hot-headed redneck war veteran Earle Slater (Robert Ryan) and gambling addict jazzman Johnny Ingram (Harry Belafonte); their racist antagonism threatens to thwart a seemingly fool-proof plan. Silent producer Belafonte hired blacklisted screenwriter Abraham Polonsky to adapt William P. McGivern’s novel, specifically to subvert the sanctimony of THE DEFIANT ONES (1958), a “feel good” movie about racism. Robert Wise’s direction is as fresh and expressive as anything being done by the French New Wave of the period, and the score by John Lewis’ Modern Jazz Quartet is innovative and exhilarating. With vivid supporting performances by Shelley Winters, Kim Hamilton and Gloria Grahame. An all-time classic heist thriller—and much more.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Park Circus

COUNTRY: USA

ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW

### **ABOUT THE EVENT:**

6:00pm | Doors open & Live musical performance by the Nick Rossi Swing Four

7:00pm | Live musical performance by singer Elizabeth Bougerol

7:05pm | Introduction by Eddie Muller, Elizabeth Bougerol and Nick Rossi

7:15pm | **KANSAS CITY**

9:11pm | Intermission

9:21pm | Introduction by Eddie Muller, Alan K. Rode, Elizabeth Bougerol and Nick Rossi

9:31pm | **PETE KELLY’S BLUES**

*Start times are approximate.*

### **ABOUT THE FILMS:**

**KANSAS CITY, 1996, Dir. Robert Altman, 116 Mins, AGFA, USA**

Originally released August 16, 1996

Jennifer Jason Leigh is a Jean Harlow obsessed housewife trying to free her loser husband from the clutches of a local gangster. She kidnaps the wife of a politician as leverage, but things get complicated when the two women develop a friendship and discover just how crooked their city has become. All this on the day before the 1934 Democratic primary election, no less. Shot with painstaking attention to period detail, director Robert Altman enlists real musicians to play venerated jazz figures like Ben Webster, Lester Young and Mary Lou Williams. Their performances, captured by Altman in a concert-documentary style, give the film an intoxicating sense of excitement despite its bleak conclusion. Featuring a sensational late-period turn by Harry Belafonte as the incredibly named “Seldom Seen.”

FORMAT: DCP

**PETE KELLY’S BLUES****, 1955, Dir. Jack Webb, 95 Mins, Warner Bros., USA**

Originally released July 31, 1955

The lone Technicolor offering of the festival has Jack Webb as a Prohibition-era bandleader who refuses to bend the knee to a local bootlegger. The actor maintains the same ironclad will that made him a star on DRAGNET, but PETE KELLY’S BLUES, which he also directed, ventures further into the darkness than the procedural franchise ever could. The gangland violence and speakeasy musical numbers are skillfully recreated, especially when they collide in the astonishing final act. Webb also assembles a Murderers’ Row of supporting talent from noir stalwarts Edmond O’Brien and Lee Marvin to vocal powerhouses Peggy Lee and Ella Fitzgerald. Lee, in only her third onscreen appearance, scored a 1956 Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her performance as a boozy torch singer.

FORMAT: DCP

Live musical performance by singer Elizabeth Bougerol and the Nick Rossi Swing Four Introductions by Eddie Muller, Alan K. Rode, Elizabeth Bougerol and Nick Rossi ‘NOIR CITY: Hollywood 2026’

KANSAS CITY / PETE KELLY'S BLUES

Co-presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive

Recommended for ages 6+ 

Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds shine in perhaps the greatest Hollywood musical of all time. Propelled by a crackling script and exuberantly delightful song-and-dance routines, Kelly is a silent movie star making a trying transition to the talkies, and Reynolds is the chorus girl who complicates the affair. (1952, Dirs. Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen, 35mm, color, 103 min.)

Family Flicks: Singin' in the Rain

The Billy Wilder Theater opens 15 minutes before each *Family Flicks* program.

Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds shine in perhaps the greatest Hollywood musical of all time. Propelled by a crackling script and exuberant song-and-dance routines, Kelly plays a silent movie star trying to make the leap to talkies, while Reynolds’ struggling chorus girl finds her entry into Hollywood no less complicated. With Donald O’Connor delivering the delirious gags, this timeless classic will leave you with a glorious feeling.

Director: Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen. Screenwriter: Betty Comden, Adolph Green. With: Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds.

*Recommended for ages 6+*

Singin’ in the Rain

Considered the first Chicano feature, Efraín Gutiérrez’s landmark independent film *Please, Don’t Bury Me Alive! *(*¡Por favor, no me entierren vivo!*) was believed lost for years until UCLA Distinguished Professor Chon Noriega tracked down the director and relocated elements to the UCLA Film & Television Archive, where collaborative restoration efforts brought the film back to life.

Incorporating Chicano forms of popular theater and music, the bilingual film offers a rhythmic, in-depth look at 1970s-era South Texas Chicano culture, as its central character questions his place in a society that undervalues Latinos, so many of whom had been killed in the Vietnam War. A historic, influential hit in regional theaters, the film’s tremendous impact on Chicano cinema was further cemented in 2014, when it was named to the National Film Registry for its historic, cultural, and artistic significance. Today, in a moment when visibility itself can feel precarious, the film’s call to live boldly in defiance of erasure resonates as powerfully as it did 50 years ago.

Director: Efraín Gutiérrez. Screenwriter: Sabino Garza. With: Efraín Gutiérrez, Josefina Paz, David Moss.

50th Anniversary Screening: Please, Don’t Bury Me Alive!

LA Loft Movie Club returns to PRS for their 1st 2026 screening— a  festival of imaginative, rapidly produced  one minute films!

Polish Animation #1: Flames in Dark Places (1962-74)

8:00 PM

SLING BLADE,

TOMORROW,

7:30 PM

The Juniper Tree

8:00 PM

Carrie

@seeiton16mm PRESENTS HAROLD AND MAUDE (1971)(PG)(Thu 3/26) 7:30pm

7:30 PM

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD

7:00 PM

MOMENTS IN A STOLEN DREAM

10:00 PM

Amuck!

7:30 PM

Lady Frankenstein

Slaughter Hotel

7:30 PM

The Devil, Probably

7:00 PM

Titmouse Presents: 5 Second Day… Night!!!

Project Hail Mary 70mm

The Snow Woman/The Haunted Castle

7:00 PM