Classic Films
Los Olvidados
Friday, 10:00 am, Regal Downtown #4
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s classic updates Sirkian melodrama to 1970s Germany. Elderly Emmi marries Ali, an Arab guest worker, and both face social ostracism. The film is both a biting social commentary and a deeply introspective piece of self-reflection.
with Michael Sturges
Friday, 10:00 am, Culbreth
Spencer Tracy is a one-armed stranger come to a desert town to deliver an important package, only to find hostility, suspicion, and a deep secret. Director John Sturges makes great use of CinemaScope to tell an intimate story on a grand scale. Charlottesville High School tickets are generously sponsored by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Sunday, 10:00 am, Culbreth
Steven Spielberg’s intelligent sci-fi thriller. Strange, global phenomena give clues to a visit by creatures from beyond. Richard Dreyfuss is captivating as the everyman driven by forces beyond his control. Best Cinematography award went to Vilmos Zsigmond.
Friday, 1:15 pm, Regal Downtown #3
Luis Buñuel’s feature, made at the tail end of his Mexican period, is a masterful, subversive meditation on the nature of Christianity. Beautifully lensed by frequent Buñuel collaborator Gabriel Figueroa, the film charts the inevitable hardships of a Mexican priest attempting to live the life of Christ.
Thursday, 10:15 pm, Regal Downtown #3
Perhaps the best known film of Luis Buñuel’s Mexican period, Los Olvidados (The Forgotten Ones) follows a band of poverty-stricken children living in a Mexican slum. Although infused with many of Buñuel’s trademark surrealist fetishes (including disturbing dream sequences, a girl bathing her legs in milk, and a rooster staring down a blind man), Los Olvidados features stylistic choices comparable to those of the Italian Neo-realists of the same period. Buñuel used mostly non-professional actors for the film and shot almost entirely on location. Upon its release in 1950, Los Olvidados received a storm of criticism for its focus on controversial themes including rape, murder, and pedophilia. Nevertheless, it was, and is, a heartbreakingly truthful account of localized, highly personal experiences.
Sunday, 4:00 pm, Regal Downtown #4
Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon), a beautiful and mysterious Serbian immigrant living in New York City, believes that she suffers from an ancient curse: when emotionally aroused, she will transform into a beast and kill her mate. Director Jacques Tourneur evokes the solitude of an outsider separated from her humanity.
with director Gregory Nava
Saturday, 7:00 pm, Regal Downtown #4
Hailed by Variety upon its release 25 years ago as “the first American independent epic”, Gregory Nava’s visually stunning feature tells the tale of two young Guatemalans fleeing their homeland and heading north towards the United States in search of a new start.
with live musical accompaniment by Matt Marshall and Elizabeth Leverage of the Reel Music Ensemble
Sunday, 1:00 pm, Scottsville Victory Theatre
Silent swashbuckler The Mark of Zorro features Douglas Fairbanks’ amazing athletic prowess as the masked champion of Spanish California.
with live musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin, Joanna Seaton, Paul Reisler, Terri Allard, and Kid Pan Alley!
Saturday, 1:00 pm, Paramount
For the second year, musician Paul Reisler and Terri Allard will lead a group of Charlottesville schoolkids who have composed songs to accompany today’s Family Day presentation of classic silent fantasy films: Edwin S. Porter’s Jack and the Beanstalk (1907), Gulliver’s Travels, Alice in Wonderland (1915), and Charlie Chaplin’s The Immigrant (1917).
Thursday, 10:00 pm, Culbreth
Considered one of the great sci-fi films of the fifties, George Pal’s film was the first cinematic depiction of the H.G. Wells classic novel, setting the focus of Martian wrath in Southern California. The film won a deserved Oscar for special effects.
Friday, 1:00 pm, Culbreth
The Academy’s choice for Best Picture in 1961, West Side Story transplants the classic tale of Romeo and Juliet to the streets and ethnic tensions of New York in the 1950s. While rival gangs battle for dominance, an unlikely and powerful romance ignites.
