Schedule - AFI at ArcLight Hollywood
AFI's 100 Years...Screening Series presented by Audi
Beyond Expectations - The 1970s
Films like SHAFT, NETWORK, ANNIE HALL and SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER went beyond the confines of genre - gangster melodrama, social drama, romantic comedy and coming of age drama, respectively - to find novel ways to speak to a new generation engaged in social protest and looking for alternatives to traditional structures and archetypes. All are iconic films that articulate the new voices and ideas that were beginning to emerge in 1970s American pop culture.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6, 8:00 PM
SHAFT
1971 100 MIN 35MM Rated R
DIR Gordon Parks SCR John D.F. Black and Ernest Tidyman, based on the novel by Ernest Tidyman CAST Richard Roundtree, Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John and Gwenn Mitchell
John Shaft is the ultimate suave detective in this slick homage to hardboiled detective fiction. Shaft first finds himself up against Moses Gunn, the leader of the Black crime mob, and the Black nationals, but ultimately teams up with both to confront the White Mafia who is trying to blackmail Gunn by kidnapping his daughter. Isaac Hayes's instantly recognizable, Oscar-winning theme song and Richard Roundtree's charisma and sex appeal have ensured SHAFT's status as an all-time crime classic. Furthermore, with Gordon Parks at the helm, SHAFT signaled a rebirth of films made by and for African-Americans.
The Theme from Shaft is #38 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs: The Top Movie Songs of All Time.
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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 8:00 PM
NETWORK
1976 121 MIN 35MM Rated R
DIR Sidney Lumet SCR Paddy Chayefsky CAST Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Beatrice Straight, Wesley Addy and Ned Beatty
NETWORK is a showcase for powerhouse acting by Peter Finch, Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight (each of whom won Oscars), and Oscar nominee William Holden in one of his finest roles, but the film is most famous for Howard Beale's legendary rant, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore." The year is1975 and the UBS television network is changing; terrorist violence is the stuff of network nightly news programming and Beale, its aging news anchor, is fired because he has lost his once strong ratings share-- until he announces that he will kill himself on live television in two weeks. Media madness reigns supreme in screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky's Oscar-winning satire that is every bit as potent now as it was when the film was released in 1976.
#64 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies - 10th Anniversary Edition and the quote "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" is #19 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes list.
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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20, 8:00 PM
ANNIE HALL
1977 93 MIN 35MM Rated PG
DIR Woody Allen SCR Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman CAST Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Roberts, Carol Kane, Paul Simon, Shelley Duvall and Christopher Walken
Woody Allen stars as neurotic comedian Alvy Singer with Diane Keaton as neurotic menswear-wearing nightclub singer Annie Hall, with whom he falls in love. It is the defining relationship of Singer's life, and so when their relationship ends he is thrust into a state of self-analysis that Allen exploits to great comedic effect as Singer tries to figure out where their love went wrong. Allen incorporates flashbacks, elements of fantasy and breaks the fourth wall as he delves into the recesses of Singer's heartbreak. Marshall McLuhan, Paul Simon, Carol Kane, Christopher Walken, Shelly Duvall and Truman Capote all make memorable appearances but Allen and Keaton are an unexpected and extraordinary pairing. ANNIE HALL won four Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress for Diane Keaton.
#35 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies - 10th Anniversary Edition, #4 on AFI's 100 Movies... 100 Laughs: America's Funniest Movies, #11 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions: America's Greatest Love Stories, the song Seems Like Old Times, is #90 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs, and the quote "La-dee-da, la-dee-da" is #55 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes list.
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WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 8:00 PM
SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER
1977 118 MIN 35MM Rated R
DIR John Badham SCR Norman Wexler CAST John Travolta, Karen Lynn Gorney, Barry Miller and Joseph Cali
SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER spawned disco fever worldwide, inspiring a generation to hit the dance floor in sequins and tight pants. The story of Tony Manero (John Travolta) a Brooklyn roughneck whose love for disco dancing makes him leave the neighborhood was one of those movies that set pop culture on a new course. The soundtrack, which spawned an extremely successful album, is dominated by the sounds of the Bee Gees. Disco and a sharp white suit catapulted the young John Travolta - at the time a cast member of the TV sitcom WELCOME BACK, KOTTER - to stardom and cemented his reputation as a terrific dancer. This is a new print with a re-mastered soundtrack that begs to be seen on the big screen by a new generation.
The song Stayin' Alive is #9 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs.
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AFI at the Arclight in September
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 8:00 PM
BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT
1982/2007 117 MIN 35MM Rated R
DIR Ridley Scott SCR Hampton Fancher, David Peoples, based on Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? CAST Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, M. Emmet Walsh, Daryl Hannah
Nearly 30 years after its original release, Ridley Scott's visionary futuristic classic still sets the standard when it comes to the portrayal of sprawling urban sci-fi worlds on screen. BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT represents the last word on Scott's reimagining of his masterpiece, including extended scenes and never-before-seen special effects. The film is set in Los Angeles in the year 2019 and Harrison Ford is Rick Deckard, a detective on the "blade runner" unit, charged with hunting down and "retiring" replicants, human-like androids created to toil on the off-world colonies.
Ford is superb as Deckard - he brings an existential weariness and wariness to the character, with outstanding support from Rutger Hauer as the leader of the replicants and Sean Young as a Tyrell Corp. secretary who's both more and less than she seems.
BLADE RUNNER is the #6 Science Fiction film on AFI's 10 Top 10 list. #97 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies - 10th Anniversary Edition, #74 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills: America's Most Heart-Pounding Movies list.
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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 8:00 PM
FAME
1980 134 MIN 35MM Rated R
DIR Alan Parker SCR Christopher Gore CAST Eddie Barth, Irene Cara, Lee Curreri, Laura Dean, Antonia Franceschi, Boyd Gaines, Gene Anthony Ray, Paul McCrane, Albert Hague and Debbie Allen
The songs from FAME have become classics; from the title song Fame, that won composer Michael Gore a Best Original Song Oscar, to Out Here On My Own and Hot Lunch Jam. The film is an exuberant fusion of classical, gospel, rock, jazz and rhythm and blues - sounds that inspire seven talented teenagers at the New York High School of Performing Arts as they strive to prove that they've got what it takes to make it as professional actors, singers, musicians and dancers.
AFI presents a brand new print of FAME from the Academy Film Archive.
The song Fame is #51 on AFI'S 100 Years... 100 Songs and the film is #92 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers: America's Most Inspiring Movies list.
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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 8:00 PM
THE DEFIANT ONES
1958 97 MIN 35MM NR
DIR Stanley Kramer SCR Nedrick Young (aka Nathan E. Douglas), Harold Jacob Smith CAST Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bikel, Charles McGraw, Lon Chaney Jr.
September 2008 marks the 50 th anniversary of the release of Stanley Kramer's groundbreaking social drama THE DEFIANT ONES. The story of two escaped convicts - played by Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier --whose shared misfortune forces them to overcome their racial differences to avoid capture, was a landmark film when it was released, for the way it took on the issue of race. It challenged the audience to see the two men and their journey as a representation of the racial tensions simmering in America. Fifty years later it remains an exiting action-thriller, with a heart-pounding manhunt and chase at its core. The film won two Oscars at the Academy Awards in 1959 - for Best Black and White Cinematography and Best Original Screenplay and both Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier were nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role.
A Q&A and conversation with Karen Kramer, widow of Stanley Kramer, will immediately follow the screening.
#55 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers: America's Most Inspiring Movies list.
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AFI's Directors Screenings presented by Audi
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 8:00 p.m.
THE FLY
1986 95 MIN RATED R
DIR David Cronenberg SCR David Cronenberg and Charles Edward Pogue, from a story by George Langelaan CAST Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, John Getz, Leslie Carlson
THE FLY is an extraordinary example of Cronenberg's particular brand of "body horror"; flesh transformed by disease. Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) is an eccentric scientist, whose experiments with teleportation go awry, leading to one of the horror genre's most disgusting and gory physical transformations. Ultimately, David Cronenberg's version of THE FLY - based on a short story by George Langelaan and the 1958 film that starred Vincent Price -- is a dark romantic tragedy about the wasting away of a brilliant man who mutates into an insect as his loved one looks on helplessly.
AFI, in association with the LA Opera, presents a brand new print , in the CINERAMA DOME, to coincide with the US premiere of the opera The Fly.
Placido Domingo conducts the LA Opera-commissioned opera written by Oscar(R)-winning composer Howard Shore (LORD OF THE RINGS), with libretto by Tony Award-winning playwright David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly). This also marks the LA Opera debut of Academy Award-winning production designer Dante Ferretti (THE AVIATOR, SWEENEY TODD). More information.
A Q&A with David Cronenberg and Howard Shore will precede the screening.
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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 8:00 p.m.
CHOKE
2008 92 MIN 35MM Rated R
DIR Clark Gregg SCR Clark Gregg (based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk) CAST Sam Rockwell, Anjelica Huston, Kelly Macdonald, Brad William Henke, Jonah Bobo, Clark Gregg and Bijou Phillips
Actor-turned-director Clark Gregg creates a wickedly colorful dark comedy about mothers and sons, sexual compulsion and the sordid underbelly of Colonial Americana theme parks. Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) is a sex-addicted med-school dropout, who keeps his increasingly deranged mother, Ida (Anjelica Huston), in an expensive private medical hospital by working days as a historical re-enactor at a Colonial Williamsburg theme park. By night, Victor runs a scam by deliberately choking in upscale restaurants to form parasitic relationships with the wealthy patrons who ÒsaveÓ him. When, in a rare lucid movement, Ida reveals that she has withheld the shocking truth of his fatherÕs identity, Victor enlists the aid of his best friend and his motherÕs beautiful attending physician to solve the mystery before the truth of his possibly divine parentage is lost forever.
A Q&A with director/writer/actor Clark Gregg and actors Brad William Henke and Bijou Phillips will immediately follow the screening.
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Schedule - AFI at ArcLight Sherman Oaks
AFI's 100 Years...Screening Series presented by Audi
Groundbreaking Sci-Fi Worlds
All of the films this month feature groundbreaking visual effects and archetypes. ALIEN was the first horror film set in space and it made Ellen Ripley the first bona fide female action hero by giving her one of the most complex and grotesque alien adversaries in cinema. JURASSIC PARK took full motion CGI to a new level to create the most realistic animated dinosaurs to walk across a movie screen. And with THE MATRIX, the Wachowski Brothers' visual effects innovations transported us to an unprecedented virtual world.
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MONDAY, AUGUST 4, 7:30 p.m.
ALIEN: THE DIRECTOR'S CUT (2003)
1979 116 MIN 35MM Rated R
DIR Ridley Scott SCR Dan O'Bannon CAST Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto.
The small crew of the commercial cargo ship the Nostromo is halfway home when they are awakened from deep space cryo-sleep to investigate a distress call from an alien vessel, only to discover too late that the signal is a warning. Lt. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) sets a new action hero standard as she single-handedly takes on one of the most terrifying and hostile aliens that anyone had ever seen on-screen. From the Alien's first appearance, bursting from the chest of an unsuspecting member of the crew, the film is an unrelentingly shocking monster movie anchored by H.R. Giger's creature design, for which the special effects team won a Best Visual Effects Oscar at the 1980 Academy Awards.
ALIEN is the #7 Science Fiction film on AFI's 10 Top 10 list. The film is #6 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills: America's Most Heart-Pounding Movies and #3 on AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores list. The character Ellen Ripley is the #8 hero and the Alien is the #14 villain on AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains list.
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MONDAY, AUGUST 11, 7:30 p.m.
ALIENS
1986 137 MIN 35MM Rated R
DIR James Cameron SCR James Cameron CAST Sigourney Weaver, Carrie Henn, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Paul Reiser and Bill Paxton
In James Cameron's action-packed sequel to ALIEN set half a century after ALIEN, Ellen Ripley, the only survivor from mankind's first encounter with the Alien, is discovered floating in space in deep sleep. When she awakes and learns that a space colony has been built on the same planet where the crew of the Nostromo first encountered the Alien, and that Earth has lost all contact with its inhabitants, Ripley joins a team of high-tech space marines on an expedition to the planet to kill all the aliens and bring back any human survivors. With ALIENS, Sigourney Weaver cemented the unprecedented relevance of the female action hero and the character of Ripley as a cinematic icon.
The character Ellen Ripley is the #8 hero on AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains list.
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MONDAY, AUGUST 18, 7:30 p.m.
JURASSIC PARK
1993 127 MIN 35MM Rated PG-13
DIR Steven Spielberg SCR Michael Crichton and David Koepp, based on the novel by Michael Crichton CAST Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Bob Peck and Samuel L. Jackson
Wealthy entrepreneur John Hammond has built a theme park on a remote island of living dinosaurs cloned from prehistoric DNA. When Hammond invites three scientists and his two eager grandchildren to visit the park before it opens, he is convinced that the park is safe. However, what is initially an idyllic and wondrous theme park visit quickly turns horrific when a storm causes a breach in the security system and the dinosaurs are set free on the island. The film won 3 Oscars in 1994- for Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects. Based on Michael Crichton's best-selling novel, JURASSIC PARK is an action-adventure, sci-fi thriller that was made to be seen and heard on the big screen.
#35 on AFI's100 Years...100 Thrills: America's Most Heart-Pounding Movies.
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MONDAY, AUGUST 25, 7:30 p.m.
THE MATRIX
1999 136 MIN 35MM Rated R
DIR The Wachowski Brothers (Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski) SCR The Wachowski Brothers CAST Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving and Joe Pantoliano
It's 1999, and for the most part, Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) lives an ordinary life - he works as a corporate software engineer by day and a computer hacker by night. Then one day, the sign that he has been waiting for - that there is more to life than the daily grind - arrives in the form of a woman named Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss). She takes him to the only person who can lead him to the truth, Morpheus (Laurence Fishbourne), and the answer to a question that gnaws at him, "What is the Matrix?" Morpheus answers that question and more, leading him to discover what he has always suspected: that the "real world" is not real at all. THE MATRIX's groundbreaking visual effects raised the bar for action films and won the film four Oscars - Best Editing, Best Sound, Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects.
#66 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills: America's Most Heart-Pounding Movies.
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Eclectic and diverse, AFI at ArcLight is an accessible, year-round program of film series, retrospectives and exclusive advance screenings presented by AFI at the ArcLight Hollywood and ArcLight Sherman Oaks.
AFI at ArcLight programs screen classic and contemporary cinema from around the world in a supremely comfortable theater, featuring the best possible picture and sound. Completing the experience, movie-lovers have an opportunity to listen to and engage in thoughtful discussion with directors, actors and other film experts following the film. In keeping with the AFI FEST tradition of hosting the international film community in the film capital of the world, AFI presentations attract LA's film enthusiasts while representing the cultural diversity of the city.