Film Series

As part of its Winter Film Series, the Paramount is screening a Baz Luhrmann double-bill of Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge.

As part of its Winter Film Series, the Paramount is screening a Baz Luhrmann double-bill of Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge.

As part of its Winter Film Series, the Paramount is screening a Baz Luhrmann double-bill of Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge.

The 1966 George Axelrod film Lord Love a Duck seems relatively sedate for a Weird Wednesday selection ... until you hear WW programmer Lars Nilsen describe it:

"A quick glance at the marketing materials for LORD LOVE A DUCK would probably give the impression of another teen-appeal 60's beach party movie, but a closer look at the tagline, 'An Act Of Pure Aggression' is sure to leave viewers confused. And sure enough, there's far more here than meets the eye. I'll just dive in. Roddy McDowall plays a sort of genie or guardian angel named Mollymauk, after a type of extinct bird. He magically appears to beautiful, mixed up cheerleader Tuesday Weld and offers to grant her wishes. They all come true - for instance she is cast in a movie called BIKINI WIDOW and lands the man of her dreams, but then they take a bad twist like the fingers on a monkey's paw.

"Along the way, every aspect of modern American society circa 1965 is bitterly ridiculed. And while such sitting targets as psychoanalysis, bikini beach movies and car culture weren't exactly sacred cows even then, the machine-gun quality of the satire and the churning bile underneath the humor is notable. Writer/director George Axelrod described it as 'a non-optimistic get well card. LORD LOVE A DUCK is against teenagers, their parents, movies, cars, school and several hundred other things.' The cast is brilliant, with Tuesday Weld in particular giving the performance of a lifetime. Also with Lola Albright and the great Ruth Gordon."

The documentary Tattooed Under Fire focuses on a Killeen tattoo parlor and the soldiers who visit it. Local filmmaker Nancy Schiesari and singer/songwriter James Collette will be in attendance at this screening.

This week's Terror Tuesday film is I Come in Peace from 1990. Let's hear what Terror Tuesday programmer Zack Carlson has to say about it:

"A physically fit alien warrior delights in harvesting human victims until he's engaged in a major volley of explosive, lethal firepower by an Eastern European bodybuilder. No, I'm not talking about the movie PREDATOR. This film--from the second unit director of the movie PREDATOR--stars Dolph Lundgren as a narcotics officer who goes chin-to-chin with a 'roid-raging albino drug dealer from the outer reaches of the universe. This unearthly heroin vampire is armed with a wide assortment of impossible weapons, from his head-splitting fist spike to a series of razor-lazer frisbees that whiz through the night and straight into your jugular. Lundgren is aided in his interplanetary Aryan-vs-Aryan deathmatch by a long-haired alien cop and an FBI goofball who makes wry comic observations while our species teeters on the brink of extermination. Filmed in entirely in Houston, TX, which was unfortunately not actually half-obliterated by the futuristic arsenal of a psychotic space jerk."

The concert film James Brown: Live at the Boston Garden, 1968 is notorious for being taped and broadcast on WGBH in 1968 the day after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. Rumor has it that everyone stayed home and watched, thus preventing riots.

Information from the AFS web site:

THREE MONKEYS tells a twisty, noirish tale that opens with an ambitious politician fleeing a hit-and-run accident. Afraid of hurting his election chances, he pays off his chauffeur Eyüp to take the rap. More from the AFS web site:

Written by Ebru Ceylan, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and Ercan Kesal
Cinematography by Gokhan Tiryaki
Turkey, 2008, distributed by Zeitgeist Films, 35mm, color, 2.35:1, 109 min.

“Winner of the Best Director prize at Cannes, THREE MONKEYS tells a twisty, noirish tale that opens with an ambitious politician fleeing a hit-and-run accident. Afraid of hurting his election chances, he pays off his chauffeur Eyüp to take the rap. The film concerns the effects of this devil’s bargain on Eyüp’s family as simmering tensions and sexual intrigue wreak havoc in a household already haunted by hidden ghosts. In the spirit of Buñuel’s THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE and Haneke’s CACHE, THREE MONKEYS mounts a caustic critique of the bourgeois family, riddled with hypocrisy, yet stubbornly resilient in its seemingly boundless capacity to sidestep guilt and accountability.” – Zeitgeist Films

From the AFS Web site:

Ajami

Cinematography by Boaz Yehonatan Yaacov
Edited by Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani
Israel, 2009, distributed by Kino International, BetaSP, color, 120 min.
Cast: Shahir Kabaha, Scandar Copti, Ibrahim Frege, Eran Naim, Fouad Habash
Arabic & Hebrew with English subtitles

Ajami is a neighborhood in Jaffa, Israel, one in which Jews, Muslims, and Christians live and work. It becomes a microcosm of the Arab/Israeli conflict in which tensions, anger, and fear run at such a fever pitch that emotions always trump rationality and people suffer unnecessarily. Various “chapters” interweave the stories of young men and boys involved in seeing friends and relatives killed, making blood money payments, naively dealing drugs, working illegally, crossing religious barriers for love, and trying to maintain honor while surviving in a cauldron. AJAMI provides a sobering look at conflicts within a far more complex Israel than generally shown. Winner of “Best Feature Film” at Thessaloniki International Film Festival (Nov 2009) and Israel’s submission for Oscar consideration (2010).

"The Essential Cinema: Films of the Middle East and Beyond" series runs from January 12 through February 16, 2010. Information from the AFS web site:

Son of a Lion

Cinematography by Benjamin Gilmour and Haroon John
Edited by Alison Croft
Pakistan/Australia, 2007, distributed by Mara Pictures (UK), color, 92 min.
Cast: Niaz Khan Shinwari, Sher Alam Miskeen Ustad
Pashtu with English subtitles

Eleven-year-old Niaz desperately wants to go to school, but his father refuses and makes him assist in making and repairing guns in his shop in a small town in the Northwestern province of Pakistan, home to Afghan and Pakistani Pashtun and the problematic Taliban refugees. The young boy finds allies in his uncle Baktiyar and a poetry-loving older friend Agha Jaan, but the father’s mind is set against education, since he received none himself. Even though he is very proud of his valiant struggles against the Russian invaders of Afghanistan and certainly wants his only child to grow up to be a brave man, it becomes questionable if he really wants his son to become a warrior back in Afghanistan?  His anti-education motives may be more complicated than what they appear. This rare look into the complex politics and alliances of northwestern Pakistan was accomplished with the assistance (writing and acting) of residents of the region.