Film Schedule

originally published March 21, 2007

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Some Like It Hot Thursday, Mar. 22 at 8:30 p.m.: (NR) 1959. Billy Wilder directed this runaway (literally), subversive screwball comedy starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and an absolutely iridescent Marilyn Monroe. Two down-on-their-luck musicians, Jerry (Lemmon) and Joe (Curtis), in Prohibition-era Chicago witness a mob hit in a garage and are soon running for their lives. They grab their chance to join an all-girl band on its way to a resort in Florida by dressing up like refined conservatory-educated ladies (Daphne and Josephine). On the train-ride South, Joe is immediately smitten with the voluptuous, sweet, but not terribly bright Sugar Kane Kowalski (Monroe), the singer and mandolin player for the ensemble. Things really get complicated in Florida, as Joe (Curtis doing a hilarious, dead-on impression of Cary Grant) masquerades as a shy millionaire to win Sugar's affections, while Jerry, er, Daphne is pursued by an amorous playboy (Joe E. Brown). Somewhere in all this, the mob guys show up and all hell breaks loose. This bawdy, gender-bending comedy was nominated for six Oscars. Monroe sings the spicy "Runnin' Wild" and what would become her signature song, "I Wanna Be Loved By You." Special invited guest will be former President and COO of Turner Entertainment, Roger Mayer .
Laura Friday, Mar. 23 at 1:30 p.m.: (NR) 1944. Otto Preminger ( Anatomy of a Murder ) is in peak form with this classic film noir. A beautiful career girl (Gene Tierney) is brutally murdered in her apartment with a shotgun blast to the face. The detective assigned to investigate, Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews, excellent as the square-jawed world-weary working class cop), spends time trying to figure out who she really was and why someone would want to kill her in such gruesome fashion. He interviews her friends, reads her diaries and starts to unravel what may have happened to her. Was it the handsome but dull-witted playboy fiancé (yes, that's right, Vincent Price before he was the king of horror), Laura's mentor, viper-tongued (and seemingly flamingly gay) gossip columnist Waldo Lydecker (Clifton Webb, who received a well-deserved Oscar nod for his venomous performance) or someone else? Abetted by the haunting portrait of Laura that hangs in her apartment, McPherson begins to fall in love with the dead girl. A shocking revelation and many contrived plot twists later, the truth is revealed. But still, contrived or not, the film succeeds in spite of it all. Special guests at the screening will be Norm Aladjam and David Oppenheim .
The Man Who Would Be King Friday, Mar. 23 at 4:30 p.m. Special FREE! Matinee: (PG) 1975. Michael Caine and Sean Connery star in John Huston's epic adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's short story, "The Man Who Would Be King." Caine and Connery star as Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnahan, British ex-soldiers in India. Having had enough of civilization, the two set out for Kafiristan, a country where no white man has been since Alexander the Great. Their mission: to become kings of the native population, a feat they deem easy as they are white men, and therefore superior in every way. Soon, Dravot sets himself up as not only a king, but a deity, and falls for a beautiful local girl (Caine's real-life wife Shakira). An explosive climax is followed by a poignant and ultimately very satisfying ending. (How many present-day action movies can claim such?) This film is counted as one of the best action-adventure films ever made - non-stop action, gorgeous exotic locales, but also suspense, wit, drama and compelling lead actors with great chemistry. Christopher Plummer stars as the young Kipling who records Daniel and Peachy's remarkable story. Angela Allen , continuity supervisor for the film (and who also worked on a total of 14 of Huston's films) will be present at the screening.
Waiting For Guffman Friday, Mar. 23 at 8:30 p.m.: (R) 1996. The curse of living in a fame-obsessed culture is that everyone with the least bit of talent (and plenty without) never feels more than a hair’s breadth from their due acclaim, yet, as in the Beckett play that serves as a basis for this devilishly funny mockumentary, nothing ever seems to happen. In Waiting for Guffman, one group of such people and their effete director Corky St. Clair (comic mastermind Christopher Guest, who was also the film’s real director) plan an elaborately farcical musical theatre extravaganza to honor their modest hometown, Blaine, MO. Blaine is known for its bumbling founder’s mistaken belief that he’d reached the Pacific, UFO landings and renowned stool production. The painfully familiar small community theatre cast, including such Guest movie regulars as Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Fred Willard (special guest at the screening) and Parker Posey (as, respectively, a coke-bottle spectacled dentist, a husband-and-wife travel agent team, and a Dairy Queen employee) are convinced that Corky’s long-past off-off-off-off Broadway connections have secured them a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in the shape of one Mort Guffman. Throughout, the movie percolates with instantly quotable off-the-cuff dialogue and builds to one of the most anti-climactic climaxes in recent movie history.
Election Saturday, Mar. 24 at 1:30 p.m.: (R) 1999. Tom Perotta’s second novel, Election , bristled with such flaying, immediately palpable satire that director and screenwriter Alexander Payne ( Sideways ) secured the rights for the film adaptation a full three years before the book even hit bookstores. The story focuses on an English teacher’s midlife self-destruction, a spiteful first-love breakup, and a nearly-apocalyptic student council election; all this done so deftly as to remind audiences of the essential similarity of everyone’s petty struggles and yet it remains viciously funny. Perotta’s star in the film world would take a few more years to rise to the heights it was destined for (he won an Oscar for his Sideways screenplay and got an Academy nod for Little Children this year). But the characters he created: cloying, duplicitous climber Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon) driven by her controlling mother ( Colleen Camp , special guest at the screening); walking hornet’s nest of frustrated ambition Jim McAllister (a role that revived Matthew Broderick’s career); vindictive closeted lesbian cheerleaders, clueless jocks and disaffected hipsters, are timeless. This film rang such archetypal bells that Entertainment Weekly ranked it the 15th greatest High School movie in cinema in spite of its R rating. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay and garnered three Independent Spirit Awards.
Mad Hot Ballroom Saturday, Mar. 24 at 4:30 p.m.: (NR) 2005. The sole documentary in this year's festival, Mad Hot Ballroom is to ballroom dancing what Spellbound was to spelling bees. This award-winning film from first-time director Marilyn Agrelo (who will be Mr. Osborne's special guest at the screening) follows a group of inner-city 11-year-old kids as they learn ballroom dancing, working their way to the city-wide competition. As with Spellbound , this film succeeds not just because of the competitive element, but because the children featured are so dynamic and interesting that the audience becomes invested in each of the fifth graders profiled. The viewer learns not just about the compulsory dancing class they must take, but about the amazing individual each child is. Caught somewhere between childhood innocence and teenaged cool, these New York kids are absolutely captivating.
An Affair To Remember Saturday, Mar. 24 at 8:30 p.m.: (NR) 1957. Itself a remake that was later remade (and prominently featured in Sleepless in Seattle ), An Affair to Remember is an odd mix of romantic comedy and weepy melodrama. In the film's first half, gadabout playboy Nickie Ferrante (Cary Grant), engaged to an heiress, is traveling on a cruise-ship from the French Riviera back to the USA. He meets lovely, witty Terry McKay (Deborah Kerr) and the two strike up an acquaintance that soon turns to love. Since Terry is also engaged, they agree at the end of the voyage to meet at the top on the Empire State building in six months to see if their love is genuine and if they should get married to each other. At this point, get out your handkerchiefs. Terry fails to show up at the lovers' rendezvous and they remain apart, separated by fate and their own foolish pride, for most of the rest of the film, until a coincidence (and a shawl) bring them inexorably together (as if you thought it wouldn't happen!). This film is ranked at No. 5 on the American Film Institute's Top 100 Love Stories. Actress and singer Marni Nixon , who provided Kerr's singing voice in the film (and in The King and I ) will be a special guest at this screening.
The Sound Of Music Sunday, Mar. 25 at 1:30 p.m.: (NR) 1965. Though one of the lesser known songs in the beloved score of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s final musical collaboration, “I Have Confidence” is notable in The Sound of Music for one reason. As Julie Andrews, playing honey-voiced nun Maria who adopts the widower Baron von Trapp and his seven children, passes under an archway, the group of extras beyond contains the actual Maria von Trapp, upon whom the character is based. Also in that group are one of the original von Trapp children, and a grandchild. While hardly noticeable amidst the glorious Bavarian scenery and costumes, unsurpassed musical performances, and dancing as beautiful and carefree as any ever committed to celluloid, this moment is indicative of the kind of magic that earned the film five Academy Awards and 10 nominations. Partly as a result of the arresting juxtaposition of such instantly recognizable tunes as “Edelweiss,” “My Favorite Things," “Do Re Mi,” and the title song with the palpable family hardship and, more sinisterly, the threatening appearance of the Nazis in the second act, this classic remains, in adjusted terms, the third highest-grossing film of all time. Special guest is Marni Nixon , who played Sister Sophia in the film.