INTANGIBLE ASSET NUMBER 82 : Monday — June 11 at 6:30PM

Welcome. Each film is free to the public and offers fascinating, unique glimpses into the world of motion pictures.

The series is an eclectic mix of independent, non-mainstream, off-Hollywood productions, and special screenings.

Some films are NOT available through Netflix!
All text in orange are links that connect you to pertinent information.

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Below you’ll find the upcoming schedule.


2008.
90 minutes.
Documentary.
Not available on Netflix!
Directed by Emma Franz.
Some dialogue is in Korean with English subtitles.

What lengths will people go for their music? How do they discover the tools of self-expression and develop an individual voice? Where does the calling come from? What does it mean to be a musician in modern times?

Tackling these questions and more, Australian singer/filmmaker Emma Franz follows close friend and colleague, Simon Barker – an Australian drummer (acclaimed as one of the most important drummers today) – as he searches for enigmatic Korean shaman, Kim Seok-Chul; a man he believes to be one of the world’s great musical improvisers.

After hearing an audio recording over 8 years ago, Barker made a commitment to find and learn from the shaman. Yet despite his official designation as South Korea’s 82nd Intangible Asset, Kim Seok-Chul had remained elusive.

After 7 years of setbacks and obstacles, and with the shaman in his 80′s, Simon Barker’s commitment had intensified and he returned to Korea for a 70th time! It’s at this point that Emma Franz’s award-winning documentary journey begins. Official selection at the South by Southwest Film Festival, Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival, among many others.

Special Thanks to Mallory Jacobs (of Kino Lorber Inc.) for making this screening possible.

* Must be at least 18 years-old.

* All films are FREE to the public (members and non-members of the library). No registration is required.

* Films introduced by award-winning filmmaker Jeff M. Giordano, and an open discussion follows each screening.

* FREE light refreshments.

* All films are digitally projected from DVD.

She’s Gotta Have It — Tuesday, June 12 at 6:30PM

1986.
84 minutes.
Fiction.
Directed by Spike Lee

She’s Gotta Have It was Spike Lee’s first feature length motion picture as a writer/director and a landmark independent film of American cinema. The film contributes to countless African American elements and popular film language. In addition, it represents the first movie of the 1980′s to place the achievement of individual desire at the forefront of the black liberation movement, in the same manner the individual is at the center of the hip-hop revolution (i.e., the rapper). The movie also gave blackness a universal face, through the eyes of the character Mars (played by Spike Lee) and a universal home, Brooklyn.

It is the story of Nola Darling, a young black woman, a source of conversation both in and out of the film. The film’s narrative style is taken from the challenges and pleasures of the competing views on who Nola truly is. This signifies the major source of controversy of the sexism in the movie as the viewer is reluctant to accept Nola’s voice as authoritative. Nola idealizes having what men in the black community have—multiple sex partners—which symbolizes her as an individual struggling against the group.

“A woman (or, at least Nola) can be a sexual being, doesn’t have to belong to a man, and perhaps shouldn’t even wish for such a thing.” Above all, Nola’s voice is the most revolutionary element in the film, a representation of the struggle of African American women in society at the time.

Special Thanks to Sue Meyer (of Movie Licensing USA) for making this screening possible.

Shoot The Piano Player : Monday — July 2 at 6:30PM

1960.
81 minutes.
Fiction.
Directed by  François Truffaut
In French with English subtitles.

Popular French director François Truffaut is drunk on the possibilities of cinema in this, his most playful film. Part thriller, part comedy, part tragedy, Shoot the Piano Player relates the adventures of mild-mannered piano player Charlie as he stumbles into the criminal underworld and a whirlwind love affair. Loaded with gags, guns, clowns, and thugs, this razor-sharp homage to the American gangster film is pure 1960’s French New Wave.

Because no funding was available from any studios, director Francois Truffaut and his crew shot the film on the fly in the streets of Paris, often making up the script as they went along. Shoot The Piano Player has influenced many important filmmakers, such as Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas), the Coen Brothers (Fargo), and Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights).

Special Thanks to Brian Belovarac (of Janus Films) for making this screening possible.

Blast of Silence : Monday — July 16 at 6:30PM

1961.
77 minutes.
Fiction.
Directed by Allen Baron

Blast of Silence was long unavailable on DVD or any format until released by the Criterion Collection in 2008. Allen Baron’s swift, brutal, and black-hearted New York City noir is a sensational surprise. Baron’s feature-debut is a low-budget, non-studio film which carefully crafts a portrait of a hit man (played by Baron himself) on assignment in Manhattan during Christmastime, and follows its stripped-down narrative with mechanical precision, yet also with an eye and ear for the oddball idiosyncrasies of urban living — and the imposing beauty of the city. At once visually ragged and artfully composed, and featuring rough, poetic narration performed by Lionel Stander, Blast of Silence is a stylish triumph.

Despite its absence of star actors, the movie had a bit of success, though, even in 1961. It was picked up for distribution by Universal (which opened it on the bottom of double bills), was generally well reviewed, and won a critics’ prize at the Locarno Film Festival. And over the years, Blast of Silence has, like a particularly scary local hoodlum, acquired a small reputation.

Martin Scorsese, who was studying film at NYU when the picture came out, regularly cites it as a key New York movie, and periodically it gets “rediscovered” and dragged out of the shadows into the glare of the international film festival circuit: it impressed the cineastes in attendance at the Munich Film Festival in 1990, and was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006.

Once hailed as the new “Orson Welles” upon the release of Blast of Silence, Allen Baron never achieved the fame or popularity he deserved, as his feature film career never blossomed. Nevertheless, he went on to achieve great success directing a variety of network television shows in a career that spanned four decades, including Jericho, Arnie, The Brady Bunch, Love: American Style, Fantasy Island, Charlie’s Angels, House Calls and many more.

Special Thanks to Sue Meyer (of Movie Licensing USA) for making this screening possible, and the Criterion Collection for releasing Blast of Silence on DVD in 2008.

HAROLD AND MAUDE : Monday — July 23, 2012 at 6:30PM

1971.
91 minutes.
Fiction.
Directed by Hal Ashby.

With the idiosyncratic American fable Harold and Maude, countercultural director Hal Ashby fashioned what would become the cult classic of its era. Working from a script by Colin Higgins, Ashby tells the story of the emotional and romantic bond between a death-obsessed young man (Bud Cort) from a wealthy family and a devil-may-care, bohemian octogenarian (Ruth Gordon).

Equal parts gallows humor and romantic innocence, Harold and Maude dissolves the line between darkness and light along with the ones that separate people by class, gender, and age, and it features indelible performances and a remarkable soundtrack by Cat Stevens. Do not miss this American masterpiece!

Harold and Maude will be shown from the upcoming June 2012 Criterion DVD version.

Special Thanks to Sue Meyer (of Movie Licensing USA) for making this screening possible, and the Criterion Collection for re-releasing Harold and Maude on DVD.

And Everything is Going Fine : Monday — July 30 at 6:30PM

2010.
89 minutes.
Documentary.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh.

A documentary about Spalding Gray. Best known for his haunting role in The Killing Fields (1984), and his own monologue films Swimming to Cambodia (1987), Monster in a Box (1992), and Gray’s Anatomy (1996) – which feature Gray sitting at a microphone telling autobiographical stories. After his death in 2004, director Steven Soderbergh (Ocean’s Eleven, Traffic, Erin Brockovich) pieced together a narrative of Gray’s life to create the documentary And Everything Is Going Fine.

Brilliantly and sensitively assembled entirely from footage of Gray, taken from interviews and one-man shows from throughout his career, it is a rich, full portrait—an autobiography of sorts—of a figure who was never less than candid, but retained an air of mystery.  This film was a personal project of Soderbergh, whom was a close friend of Spalding Gray.

Special Thanks to Justin DiPietro (of IFC Films) for making this screening possible, and the Criterion Collection for releasing Everything Is Going Fine on DVD.

DRIVE: May 21, 2012

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***PLEASE NOTE THIS SPECIAL SCREENING BEGINS AT 6:00PM*** 2011. 100 minutes. Fiction. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. The unnamed Driver (Ryan Gosling) lives in a low-rent apartment building and works as a mechanic, stuntman and getaway driver. The Driver works anonymously, never for the same people twice, and allows them only five minutes to do [...]

FORTY GUNS : May 14, 2012

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1957. 79 minutes. Fiction. Directed by Samuel Fuller. Directed by famous Hollywood filmmaker Samuel Fuller (Pickup On South Street, Shock Corridor, The Big Red One). This explosive Western is an underseen gem, showcasing an authoritarian rancher (Barbara Stanwyck) who rules an Arizona county with her private posse of 40 hired guns. When a new marshal [...]

I DON ’ T HATE LAS VEGAS ANYMORE : May 7, 2012

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1994. 70 minutes. Documentary. Not available through Netflix. Directed by Caveh Zahedi. I Don’t Hate Las Vegas Anymore is a controversial, unorthodox real-life documentary comedy about Iranian-American filmmaker Caveh Zahedi (director of the indie-documentary hit I am a Sex Addict (2005) — who takes a road trip to Las Vegas with his father and half-brother in [...]

Plan 10 From Outer Space : April 30, 2012

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1995. 80 minutes. Fiction. Not available through Netflix. Directed by Trent Harris. Neither a sequel, nor remake of Ed Wood’s 1959 film Plan 9 From Outer Space, yet even more bizarre and imaginative — this outrageous science-fiction comedy follows a woman who accidentally discovers the Plaque of Kolob which leads her to discover an insidous [...]