This screening includes an extended intro by BFI National Archive preservation and curatorial staff, and writer Ken Hollings. The film is screening as part of the Trash season at BFI Southbank and is also being shown on April 21st. Details here.
Chicago Reader review: Bela Lugosi died during the making of this low-budget
science fiction programmer, but that didn't faze director Edward Wood:
the Lugosi footage, which consists of the actor skulking around a
suburban garage, is replayed over and over, to highly surreal effect.
Wood is notorious for his 1952 transvestite saga Glen or Glenda? (aka I
Changed My Sex), but for my money this 1959 effort is twice as strange
and appealing in its undisguised incompetence. J. Hoberman of the
Village Voice
has made a case for Wood as an unconscious avant-gardist; there's no
denying that his blunders are unusually creative and oddly expressive. Dave Kehr
John Huston is much better known for The Dead, African Queen and The
Maltese Falcon but Fat City is surely, along with Wise Blood (1979), his finest work. Don't miss the
chance to see a rare screening of this wonderful slice of Hollywood
melancholia in which Stacy Keach gives the performance of a lifetime as a
struggling boxer giving it one last try and Jeff Bridges shines as a
naive up-and-coming fighter. Watch out, in particular, for the final scene
of this movie and an audacious, haunting shot a minute from the end.
Time Out review: Marvellous, grimly downbeat study of desperate lives and the escape routes people construct for themselves, stunningly shot by Conrad Hall.
The setting is Stockton, California, a dreary wasteland of smoky bars
and sunbleached streets where the lives of two boxers briefly meet, one
on the way up, one on the way down. Neither, you sense instantly, for
all their talk of past successes and future glories, will ever know any
other world than the back-street gymnasiums and cheap boxing-rings
where battered trainers and managers exchange confidences about their
ailments, disappointments and dreams, and where in a sad and sobering
climax two sick men beat each other half to death for a few dollars and a
pint of glory. John Huston directs with the same puritanical rigour he
brought to Wise Blood. Beautifully summed up by Paul Taylor as a
"masterpiece of skid row poetry". Tom Milne
ICA introduction: In Deux Isabelle Huppert plays a dual role of two young twins,
Marie and Magdelana (their mother played by Bulle Ogier), to explore
the complex and surreal resonances of the double, mirrored selves and
memory, and the violences done to women by patriarchy and
family. His second collaboration with the actress,
Schroeter wrote the film for Huppert, who he described as his “alter
ego” and claimed it contains elements of direct autobiographical
interludes and dreams.
“Deux is a very
personal film about the tragedy of love.” — Elfi Mikesch
BFI introduction: Newly arrived in Indonesia, an inexperienced Australian reporter investigates the country’s political turmoil. A charismatic war photographer with dwarfism gives him helpful tips and introduces him to a beautiful British Embassy employee, setting the stage for a whirlwind love affair. Weir’s first foray into romance imbues love with existential weight, framing both passion and journalistic integrity as brave acts of caring.
Chicago Reader review: Don Siegel’s cop movie was received as a right-wing fantasy on its
release in 1971, and it probably made a lot of money on that basis. But
now that the political context has faded, it’s easier to see the
ambiguities in Clint Eastwood’s renegade detective—who, in the usual
Siegel fashion, is equated visually and morally with the psychotic
killer he’s trampling the Constitution to catch. A crisp, beautifully
paced film, full of Siegel’s wonderful coups of cutting and framing. Dave Kehr
This screening is part of the season at the ICA Cinema devoted to Werner Schroeter. You can finds all the details here.
One of the most caustic and personal essay films ever made, Werner
Schroeter’s account of the 1983 Manila Film Festival, presided over
by Imelda Marcos, chronicles the legacy of American and Spanish
imperialism as it presents a “kaleidoscope of a ravaged country.” A lamentation on power and spectacle.
Time Out review: Stanley Ipkiss is a likeable schmuck, a bank teller who wouldn't say
'boo' to a goose. Men don't give him a second glance, women look right
through him - until, one night, Stanley happens across an ancient mask.
Wearing it, he's transformed into a lime-faced bundle of mischievous
energy, part man, part loony tune. 'I could be a superhero,' he muses,
'a force for good...' But first for some fun: he wreaks vengeful havoc
at his local garage, robs the bank where he works, and sweeps lovely
nightclub chanteuse Tina (Cameron Diaz) off her feet. This is a treat, a classic
Jekyll and Hyde story for the '90s. Director Chuck Russell brings a lowbrow
pulp rigour to the material that's reminiscent of vintage Roger Corman
and pays lavish homage to animator Tex Avery. The design is bright as a
button and the transformation scenes real eye-poppers, but the film's
best special effect is putty-faced Jim Carrey with his razzle-dazzle star
turn as the affable Stanley and his manic alter ego. Hip, flip and fly. Tom Charity
