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Also this issue: Wriggle Room Falling on Deaf Ears |
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July 25-31, 2002
screen picks
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Lucid Vision Festival (Thu., July 25, 7 p.m., $5, Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St., 215-569-9700, www.princemusictheater.org) It's tough to find a Philadelphia filmmaker of note who didn't come out of Temple's Film and Media Arts program, so this showcase devoted to films written, produced and directed by Temple students just might turn up the Termite TVs of tomorrow. The two-hour program, which will be followed by free Buca di Beppo eats, is subtitled "Series 1 -- Spiraling in a Blink," with the hopes that future screenings will take in the spectrum of undergrad work from around the city.
Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (Fri., July 26 and Sat., Aug. 3, 8 p.m.; Sun., July 28 and Thu., Aug. 1 and Sun., Aug. 4, 7:30 p.m., Prince Music Theater) Sadly, there's no previewing D.A. Pennebaker's document of David Bowie's farewell to his nazztacular stage persona. But it's a safe bet that this film of the final concert on Bowie's 1972 tour will kick out the jams, put some doobie in your funk, and otherwise butter your muffin. On opening night, show up early for a pre-show party, and stick around afterwards for "Bowie Karaoke." Just don't let that dude from the Locust Bar hog the mike all night.
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Big Tea Party (Fri., July 27, 9 p.m., free, Arts Garden, Broad and South sts.) Meanwhile, further down Broad Street, here’s another re-airing of BTP’s “Unconventional Coverage” of the 2000 Republican National Convention, as well as a few videos from hostess Elizabeth Fiend’s old band the More Fiends. Chances are the Prince’s Gretjen Clausing, also a BTP collaborator, won’t be running up and down Broad Street to introduce this and mastermind the Bowie screening in the same night, but there’s only one way to find out.
Una Piccola Rassegna: Italian Films Revisited (Sat., July 27, 4 p.m., free, International House, 3701 Chestnut St., 215-895-6542, www.ihousephilly.org) Mixing acknowledged classics with deserving lesser-knowns, this seven-hour marathon of Italian cinema is a pretty sweet crash course -- and free, to boot. The series kicks off with the half-hour Cenere, a 1916 silent movie featuring the only screen appearance of the celebrated actress Eleonora Duse. Live piano accompaniment will be provided. Roberto Rossellini's 1946 Rome, Open City follows, and after a break, the series resumes at 7 with The Bicycle Thief, Vittorio De Sica's heartrending 1948 neorealist landmark, which is too vibrant and moving a work to be enshrouded with the heavy cloak of masterpiece status. Mario Monicelli's The Organizer closes out the evening at 9 with a 1963 labor drama representing the tail end of the neorealist tradition represented by its two predecessors in the series. The film stars Marcello Mastroianni (in the same year he made 8 1/2) as a union organizer whose principles pit him against his own well-heeled class. Monicelli's film has been compared to the rough-hewn earnestness of Salt of the Earth, but Mastroianni's involvement alone takes the drama to another plane.
Strange Illusion/Prospero’s Books (Tue., July 30, 7:30 p.m., free, Chestnut Hill Free Library, 8711 Germantown Ave., www.armcinema25.com/tuesdaynights.html) The Chestnut Hill Film Group does the synergy thing with a series of book-themed double bills which pay homage to their screening venue. First up is a pair of Shakespeare adaptations which would send purists screaming for the hills, but should intrigue those who don't mind a little willfulness with their Will. In Edgar Ulmer's 1945 Strange Illusion, James Lydon plays an L.A. teen troubled by the suspicious death of his criminologist father, and none too happy about his mother's seduction by a suave newcomer. Peter Greenaway's 1991 Prospero's Books, which takes its place onscreen at 9 p.m., is more faithful to Shakespeare's text (in this case, The Tempest), but that hardly makes for a more traditional interpretation. Greenaway uses the play as a springboard for indulging his obsessions with text, layering and frames within frames. In other words, it wouldn't hurt to brush up on the plot before you go.
Z ($29.98 DVD) More Zazie dans le Métro than All the President's Men, Constantin Costa-Gavras' 1969 political thriller has a good deal more energy and wit than you'd expect from a movie that's also so earnest, the result being that it excites your passions while also engaging your mind. Though ostensibly fictionalized, Z is unambiguously based on the 1963 assassination of Greek leftist Grigoris Lambrakis -- an opening title inverts the usual disclaimer, allowing that any resemblance between the film and actual events is "DELIBERATE." Though the country in which the film takes place is never named, ads in Greek can be seen hanging on tavern walls, and Mikis Theodorakis' music (adapted from existing pieces, since he had been exiled and was unable to compose new music) gives little doubt as to the location. Costa-Gavras' adherence to reality produces some unpleasant byproducts, like the depiction of the Lambrakis character's assassin as a raving homosexual maniac. (In his commentary, the director says he was constrained by the real-life assassin's homosexuality, but that doesn't explain why, apart from the philandering politician, he's the only sexualized character in the whole movie.) But the film's manic energy is energizing; even from the first scene, Raoul Coutard's camera shifts its focus from speechifying politicians to their mottled bald pates. As the embattled prosecutor challenged to sort out right-wing government complicity and left-wing rhetoric, Jean-Louis Trintignant marshals steely authority, and Yves Montand is all commitment and sex as the ex-Olympian turned pacifist. Economics being what they are, it's rare enough to see an intelligently political movie, let alone one that doesn't drown in its own sincerity.
