TAKE YOUR PICK
1 Dune (Lynch, 1984):
Somewhere in Tottenham. Address and more details here
This promises to be a fascinating evening, a VHS format screening of Dune, described by the organisers as "David Lynch's masterly crafted adaptation of Frank Herbert's epic sci-fi fantasy."
The Facebook page of the organisers, 'VHSions', here outlines some of the attractions:
Costumes / Sickness /
Spice / Sting / Early era computer effects / Twisted Landscapes / acne /
Epic Art Direction / overblown budget / scarey edged out characters /
Chicago Reader review:
If this 1984 film really cost $60 million, producer Dino
De Laurentiis must be the greatest patron of avant-garde cinema since
the Vicomte de Noailles financed Buñuel's
L'Age d'Or. Director
David Lynch thoroughly (and perhaps inadvertently) subverts the
adolescent inanities of Frank Herbert's plot by letting the narrative
strangle itself in unnecessary complications, leaving the field clear to
imagery as disturbing as anything in Eraserhead. The problem is that the imagery—as Sadean as Pasolini's Salo—isn't
rooted in any story impulse, and so its power dissipates quickly. The
real venue for this film is either a grind house or the Whitney Museum;
its passage through the shopping malls of America was a
once-in-a-lifetime anomaly. Kyle MacLachlan is the pallid hero who
becomes a messiah to an oppressed desert tribe.
Dave Kehr
Here are some sweet home movies made by Sean Youg on the set of Dune.
Here's a clip.
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2 Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks, 1939): BFI Southbank, NFT2, 6.10pm
This film, one of my all-time favourites, is screening as part of the Rita Hayworth season and is also being shown on June 1st and 14th. Details here.
Chicago Reader review:
Howard Hawks's 1939 film represents the equilibrium point of his career:
the themes he was developing throughout the 30s here reach a perfect
clarity and confidence of expression, without yet confronting the darker
intimations that would haunt his films of the 40s and 50s. The setting
is a South American port where a group of fliers, led by Cary Grant,
challenges the elements nightly by piloting mail across a treacherous
mountain range. This all-male existential ritual (Grant almost seems the
high priest of some Sartrean temple) is invaded by an American showgirl
(Jean Arthur) who stops off for a steak and remains, fascinated by the
heightened, heady atmosphere of primal struggle. The film's moral
seriousness (which sometimes approaches overt didacticism) is balanced
by the usual Hawks humor and warmth, and as Grant and Arthur are drawn
into a romance, the film moves toward a humanistic softening of its
stark premises.
Dave Kehr
Here is the opening.
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