Wicked in Dolby Vision

The Birds in 35mm

Academy Museum

Gardena Cinema is the oldest and only vintage single-screen stand-alone movie cinema in Southwest Los Angeles.

In 1862, Amsterdam Vallon returns to the Five Points area of New York City seeking revenge against Bill the Butcher, his father's killer.

GANGS OF NEW YORK (2002)(Sat 1/3)8:30p (Sun 1/4)3:00p 6:30p (Mon 1/5)11:30a

Gardena Cinema

Join us for a screening of three short documentary films about about Aaliyah, Psychic TV, R.E.M, and Bo Diddley .

**

*So Much More Than A Woman*, 2004 (1h)**

***Easrsay TV Excerpt, 1984*** **(9m)**

***Past Present Future,*** **1992** **(21m)**

***The Story of Bo Diddley,*** **2024 (25m)**

Aaliyah, Psychic TV, R.E.M, Bo Diddley Documentary Screening

Heavy Manners Library

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

*In Italian with English subtitles.*

When nymphomaniac Maria Zani is murdered, her ex-husband and insurance broker Paolo Zani becomes the prime-suspect of Inspector Tellini. Then the saleswoman Mirta Ricci is murdered in the same modus operandi—both victims had been paralyzed by acupuncture needles with poison introduced in their necks and their bellies had been ripped open with a knife with the victims still alive, in the same way that tarantulas are killed by tarantula hawks. As suspects keep dying, the Inspector directs his attention to a spa all the victims had a connection with…

FORMAT: 35mm

DISTRIBUTOR: VIGGO SRL

COUNTRY: Italy

Co-presented by Celluloid Dreams Vintage 35mm print! Special thanks to Guido Henkel for the print ‘Cinematic Void’

Cinematic Void Presents BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANTULA

### **ABOUT THE FILM: **

In 1974, acclaimed photographer Peter Hujar describes the routines and rituals that define an artist’s life to his friend, the writer Linda Rosenkrantz, capturing a single day’s activities in touching and funny detail: from interactions with cultural icons of the day, including Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Susan Sontag, to the texture and energy of downtown New York in its heyday. Ben Whishaw and Rebecca Hall star in the elegant and intimate new piece from filmmaker Ira Sachs (PASSAGES) — a dazzling showcase for the two performers at its centre — that is both a masterful portrait of a time & place and a captivating film about the way art emerges from the intimate details of everyday life.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Janus Films

COUNTRY: USA

PETER HUJAR'S DAY

Los Feliz Theatre

Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife / The Smiling Lieutenant

New Beverly Cinema

**Screenwriter**: Edward Yang

**Producers**: Shinya Kawai,  Osamu Kunota,  Naoko Tsukeda

One of the greatest masterpieces of this century, Edward Yang&#8217;s sweeping family epic captures the essence of life itself from its banalities to its humor, offering a life-affirming treasure for even the most jaded cinephile. Each member of a family in Taipei asks hard questions about life&#8217;s meaning as they live through everyday quandaries. NJ is morose: his brother owes him money, his mother is in a coma, his wife suffers a spiritual crisis when she finds her life a blank and his business partners make bad decisions. A wondrous cinematic event that must be seen on the big screen, and won Yang the Cannes Best Director award, this is a triumph of humanity as well as cinema.

**Picks from the Video Store**

We&#8217;ve got an Edward Yang director&#8217;s section and you can take home more tonight!

*A Brighter Summer Day, Taipei Story, The Terrorizers*

**Accessibility Options**: Open Captions, Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Yi Yi

Vidiots

No Other Choice

Vista Theatre

*For our first screening of 2026, Acropolis is thrilled to welcome director Oliver Laxe, who will be in person for an extended introduction to tonight's screening beginning at 7:30pm.*

With *Fire Will Come*, Oliver Laxe, director of this year's highly acclaimed *Sirāt*, brings us to his ancestral home of Galicia. Here, in this remote Spanish region, where the grandeur of nature is both beautiful and terrifying, Laxe unfolds a story of the uncontrollable forces of nature on human lives.

After serving two years in prison for arson, Amador (Amador Arias), returns to his mountainside village in north-west Spain, where he resumes a serene, if mostly solitary, existence tending cabbages and injured cows with his ageing mother, Benedicta (Benedicta Sánchez). Life resumes for the two following the rhythm of nature despite the suspicious glares of the unforgiving locals—until one night a devastating fire ignites that threatens to engulf the entire region. Stunningly captured on 16mm by DP Mauro Herce, this quietly explosive drama was the winner of the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival.

TRT: 85min. In person: Oliver Laxe

Acropolis Cinema: Oliver Laxe's Fire Will Come

2220 Arts + Archives

### **ABOUT THE FILMS:**

**BUGONIA, 2025, Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos, 120 Min, Focus Features, UK**

Two conspiracy obsessed young men kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth.

FORMAT: DCP

**I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS, 2020, Dir. Charlie Kaufman, 134 Min, Netflix, USA**

Nothing is as it seems when a woman experiencing misgivings about her new boyfriend joins him on a road trip to meet his parents at their remote farm.

FORMAT: DCP

Q&A with actor Jesse Plemons. Moderated by Adam Scott.

BUGONIA / I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS

Aero Theatre

### **ABOUT THE FILM: **

*In Tagalog with English subtitles.*

An embittered law student commits a brutal double murder; a family man takes the fall and is forced into a harsh prison sentence; a mother and her two children wander the countryside looking for some kind of redemption. Lav Diaz’s epic reimagining of Dostoevsky’s *Crime and Punishment* is both an intimate human drama and a cosmic treatise on the origin of evil. Unfolding across the sun drenched fields and dark city streets of the Filipino island of Luzon, NORTE, THE END OF HISTORY is a tale of murder, hate and hope from one of the world’s most uncompromising cinematic visionaries.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: The Cinema Guild

COUNTRY: Philippines

Q&A with filmmaker Lav Diaz ‘Lav Diaz: An American Cinematheque Retrospective’

NORTE, THE END OF HISTORY

**Screenwriter**: Aaron Sorkin

**Producers**: Rob Reiner,  Andrew Scheinman,  David Brown

*You can&#8217;t handle the truth!* Celebrate Rob Reiner&#8217;s legacy with his supreme courtroom drama with an all-star cast. When cocky military lawyer Lt. Daniel Kaffee and his co-counsel, Lt. Cmdr. JoAnne Galloway, are assigned to a murder case, they uncover a hazing ritual that could implicate high-ranking officials such as shady Col. Nathan Jessep. A masterclass in powerhouse performances with superstars Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, and Demi Moore playing off each other and bringing gravitas to Aaron Sorkin&#8217;s fiery dialogue with expert orchestration by maestro Reiner!

**Remembering Rob Reiner**

There are no words to appropriately tribute the artist and activist Rob Reiner. His impact over nearly 70 years, on so many, from those of us who first met him through the comfort and familiarity of our TV sets, to those who’ve grown up under the magical and inspiring influence of his film work, to those of us that have benefited from his tireless activism, makes him feel like a member of the family. Thank you for everything you gave us. Thank you for the stories you told, that have helped make us who we are and will undoubtedly continue to shape new generations.

**Picks from the Video Store**:

We’ve got a Rob Reiner director’s section so you can take home his whole filmography tonight, including these gems:

*The Princess Bride, Misery, Stand by Me*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

A Few Good Men

Out of the Fog/Invisible Ghost

In pre-internet 1987, Conor and his dog Sandy live a life of seclusion, lost in the slow-rendering graphics of early Macs and televisions aglow with late-night horror movie marathons.

But when he begins playing *OBEX*, a new and mysterious, state-of-the-art computer game, he finds himself trapped in a low-tech but high-stakes analog hellscape, as the line between reality and game begins to blur.

Audacious and uncanny, writer-director **Albert Birney**’s *OBEX* is a delightfully skewed lo-fi fantasy. Shot in striking black and white, this surreally nostalgic nightmare revisits the dawn of personal computing to reflect on the loneliness of our always-online present day.

OBEX

Brain Dead Studios

Monthly short film festival. Watch and vote. Audience award to the best short film each month. Annual championship in DECEMBER.

MOVIE SCREENERS CLUB (Thu. 1/15) 7:30pm

The Long Goodbye / Night Moves

A brilliantly funny, tender & vibrant shape-shifting animated doc where family memories and Indigenous stories collide with everyday chaos!

ENDLESS COOKIE  (2025)— A Totally Unique New Animated Documentary!

Philosophical Research Society

An evening of wildly innovative, genre-bending writing with Carmen Maria Machado. Machado is a fiction writer and memoirist whose signature blend of horror writing, sci-fi, fantasy, and psychological realism has worked to transform our contemporary literary landscape. In 2018, *The New York Times* listed Machado’s *Her Body and Other Parties* as a member of “The New Vanguard,” one of “15 remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century.” Machado’s acclaimed memoir, *In the Dream House* (2019), mixes styles and breaks conventions to tell the tale of an abusive relationship, and was hailed as “breathlessly inventive” by *The New Yorker*. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award and the winner of the Bard Fiction Prize, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction, the Brooklyn Public Library Literature Prize, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize.

Unknown Event

REDCAT

**Screenwriters**: Dan O&#8217;Bannon, Jon Povill, Gary Goldman from the story by Philip K. Dick

**Producers**: Buzz Feitshans, Ronald Shusett

Co-presented by community programming partners **ACE** and featuring a conversation with editor **Frank Urioste**

*Get ready for a surprise!* The mighty Paul Verhoeven&#8217;s adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story is the kind of endlessly entertaining and subversive content that only gets more prescient as the years go by. Construction worker Douglas Quaid (The Governator) has a beautiful wife, a lovely house, but at night he dreams of Mars and an enigmatic brunette. While undergoing a virtual vacation, something goes wrong and throws him into a high-stakes adventure with an entire planet at stake. But is it just the implanted memories, or is it all too real? A thrilling, violent, and mind-bending science fiction classic with the incomparable talents of Arnold Schwarzenegger and a smorgasbord of brilliantly crafted practical effects, *Total Recall* is still one of the most entertaining films ever.

**About ACE** ([American Cinema Editors](https://americancinemaeditors.org/about-ace/))

American Cinema Editors is an honorary society celebrating excellence within the art of motion picture editing. Our objective is to advance the prestige and dignity of the editing profession by elevating recognition for our creative contributions, promoting mutual respect among our peers, supporting diversity and inclusion, and endeavoring to be ambassadors for our unique art.

Total Recall

Cluny Brown/Trouble in Paradise

Holiday Inn

The VVitch

50 years after a nuclear war, the two superpowers handle territorial disputes in a different way. Each fields a giant robot to fight one-on-one battles in official matches, each piloted by a man inside, known as robot jockeys or jox. The contest for possession of Alaska will be fought by two of the best. The conscientious Achilles fights for the Americans. Opposing him is a Russian, Alexander.

Robot Jox

In a filthy-perfect future, cabbie action hero shmuck Bruce Willis meet-cutes the saviour of planet earth (Milla Jovovich, naturally) who crashes into his back seat. Colourful, sexy and stupid adventures ensue as a fiery trash comet of evil brings imminent destruction.

The Fifth Element

The Story of a Small Town

Hammer Museum

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

*In Japanese with English subtitles.*

Zatoichi triumphs at a village wrestling match, much to the chagrin of his yakuza opponents. The defeated gang members pay a hotheaded ronin to take out the masseur; unbeknownst to them, the hired assassin is married to a former flame of Zatoichi’s, further complicating matters.

FORMAT: 35mm

DISTRIBUTOR: Janus

COUNTRY: Japan

Get your ticket for just $7.74 at the box office! ‘Film by the Foot’

ZATOICHI THE FUGITIVE

Blue Velvet

The Breakfast Club / Pump Up the Volume

Death Proof

Celebrating Lynch's earliest experiments w/ "moving paintings – but with sound," feat. his early short films and monumental debut feature!

MOVING PAINTINGS—WITH SOUND: Early Short Films of DAVID LYNCH + ERASERHEAD

**Screenwriter**: Guillermo del Toro

**Producers**: Arthur Gorson,  Bertha Navarro

We&#8217;re in for a killer night with Guillermo del Toro&#8217;s dark fantasy debut. Nobody loves or understands movie monsters more than Guillermo del Toro, and in his debut film he gave us his skin-crawling take on the most enduring monster of them all: the vampire. Antique dealer Jesús (Federico Luppi) comes across a centuries-old contraption that inserts a needle into his skin and injects him with something terrible, and he soon feels like a young man again. But he’s tormented by cravings for blood that threaten his close relationship with his granddaughter Aurora (Tamara Shanath), and he’s targeted by an unscrupulous businessman (Claudio Brook) and his enforcer (del Toro regular Ron Perlman) who want the device to achieve immortality. Del Toro takes these familiar elements and weaves them into something that feels thrillingly new and achingly melancholy, like you’re seeing the vampire movie for the first time.

**Picks from the Video Store**:

Hungry more Mexican horror? Check out these killer flicks from our video rental collection!

*Alucarda, Poison for the Fairies, We Are What We Are*

**Accessibility Options**: Open Captions, Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Cronos

**Screenwriter**: Rajee Samarasinghe

**Producers**: Maggie Corona-Goldstein,  Solomon Turner,  DaManuel Richardson,  Tabs Breese, Rajee Samarasinghe

Join us in the microcinema for Rajee Samarasinghe&#8217;s visually astonishing, deeply moving, and haunting masterpiece of visionary world cinema with director **Rajee Samarasinghe in conversation** after the screening. If you are looking for a cinema experience like no other, one that blends lyricism, documentary, the supernatural, and mesmerizing visuals, do your eyeballs a favor and don&#8217;t skip this unforgettable triumph of film.

Fusing allegorical magic realism and investigative documentary and made collaboratively with impacted locals clandestinely in a region still occupied by the military, this film is a lyrical examination of these missing persons through 26 years of civil war in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka ranks among the highest in the number of enforced disappearances in the world and most of the disappeared are Tamils. The nonfiction elements in this film are structured by a fictional narrative thread which tells the surreal tale of a mother who loses her son to a supernatural entity plaguing her community—a nod to the actual disappearances in the region.

Your Touch Makes Others Invisible

**Screenwriters**: Marcell Jankovics,  Laszlo Gyorgy

One of the great psychedelic masterpieces of world animation, *Son of the White Mare* is a swirling, color-mad maelstrom of mythic monsters and Scythian heroes, part-Nibelungenlied, part-*Yellow Submarine*, lit by jagged bolts of lightning and drenched in rivers of blue, red, gold and green. A massive cosmic oak stands at the gates of the Underworld, holding seventy-seven dragons in its roots; to combat these monsters, a dazzling white mare goddess gives birth to three heroes – Treeshaker and his brothers – who embark on an epic journey to save the universe. Directed by Hungarian animator Marcell Jankovics (famed for his 1974 Oscar-nominated short *Sisyphus*), *Son of the White Mare* has been restored in 4K using the original 35mm camera negative and sound elements by Arbelos in collaboration with the Hungarian National Film Institute – Film Archive.

**Picks from the Video Store**

Craving more mind-bending animation? Check out these hallucinatory masterpieces:

*Fantastic Planet, Allegro Non Troppo, Belladonna of Sadness*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Son of the White Mare

High Anxiety

Night of the Juggler

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace in 4K

The George Stevens Lecture on Directing presents The Greatest Story Ever Told with Guillermo Del Toro

Piranha with Alligator

A quiet young English girl named Alice finds herself in an alternate version of her own reality after chasing a white rabbit. She becomes surrounded by living inanimate objects and stuffed dead animals, and must find a way out of this nightmare- no matter how twisted or odd that way must be. A memorably bizarre screen version of Lewis Carroll’s novel ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’.

Alice

A Horror-Musical, featuring claymation sequences from the master Takashi Miike.

The Katakuri family has just opened their guest house in the mountains. Unfortunately, their first guest commits suicide and in order to avoid trouble, they decide to bury him in the backyard. Things get way more complicated when their second guest, a famous sumo wrestler, dies while having sex with his underage girlfriend. The grave behind the house starts filling up more and more. Love. Music. Horror. Volcanoes. Cinema was never meant to be like this!

The Happiness of the Katakuris

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

Gangsters never refer to themselves as gangsters. They are made-men, wiseguys or Goodfellas. Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese exposes the fascinating, mysterious and violent underworld of New York’s Mafia families through the life of insider Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) as he rises from smalltime thug to mobster under the guidance of Jimmy Conway (Academy Award winner Robert De Niro) in this searing, epic crime drama based on the chilling true-life best seller *Wiseguy* by Nicholas Pileggi.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Bros.

COUNTRY: USA

Q&A with producer Irwin Winkler and co-screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi. Moderated by Scott Foundas. 35th Anniversary

GOODFELLAS

Egyptian Theatre

Tuesday–Friday, Sunday 10am–6:30pmSaturday 10am–9pmMonday Closed

The Baddest Feminists: The Guerrilla Girls and Roxane Gay in Conversation

Getty Center

A Nice Place / Parasite

Located on the Pacific Rim, LACMA is the largest art museum in the western United States, with a collection of more than 150,000 objects that illuminate 6,000 years of artistic expression across the globe. Committed to showcasing a multitude of art histories, LACMA exhibits and interprets works of art from new and unexpected points of view that are informed by the region’s rich cultural heritage and diverse population. LACMA’s spirit of experimentation is reflected in its work with artists, technologists, and thought leaders as well as in its regional, national, and global partnerships to share collections and programs, create pioneering initiatives, and engage new audiences.

Dive into a powerful educational series bridging generations through film, dialogue, and critical media literacy. Curated and facilitated by legendary KAOS Network founder Ben Caldwell, L.A. Rebellion filmmaker Alile Sharon Larkin, and LACMA assistant curator of film Matazi Weathers, this series spotlights bold works by local filmmakers, surprise guest appearances, and unfiltered conversations on the role of storytelling in shaping cultural consciousness, both locally and globally.

Our January session will focus on honoring the life and work of Nigerian L.A. Rebellion filmmaker, painter, and author Ijeoma IIoputaife (1951–2025), also known as Omah Diegu and ‘oma ‘taife The first African woman to study film at UCLA, she was part of the second generation of the Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers, also called the L.A. Rebellion. Today, her short film *African Women, U.S.A.* (1980) is one of the standard works of feminist African-American cinema. After returning to Nigeria, she lived in Germany for a while which led to the autobiographical documentary *The Snake in my Bed* (1995) made in collaboration with Das kleine Fernsehspiel.

Co-presented by KAOS Network and LACMA’s Aspect Ratio.

KAOS/LACMA Cultural Literacy Collider

LACMA

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman, Alan Arkin and Jude Law star in this engrossing sci-fi thriller about an all-too-human man who dares to defy a system obsessed with genetic perfection. Hawke stars as Vincent, an “In-Valid” who assumes the identity of a member of the genetic elite to pursue his goal of traveling into space with the Gattaca Aerospace Corporation. However, a week before his mission, a murder marks Vincent as a suspect. With a relentless investigator in pursuit and the colleague he has fallen in love with beginning to suspect his deception, Vincent’s dreams steadily unravel.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures

COUNTRY: USA

GATTACA

### **ABOUT THE EPISODES:**

**Episode 5 “Mors in Tabula,” 1997, ****Dir. Lars von Trier and Morten Arnfred, ****63 Mins, MUBI, Denmark**

*In Danish with English subtitles.*

After witnessing Moesgaard’s shocking tour of the hospital, the director orders the secret Brotherhood to investigate the hospital’s problems. A sudden accident sends the reluctantly discharged Drusse back to the neurosurgery ward. Despite a difficult birth, Judith prepares to meet her newborn son.

FORMAT: DCP

**Episode 6 “Birds of Passage,” 1997, ****Dir. Lars von Trier and Morten Arnfred, ****79 Mins****, MUBI, Denmark**

*In Danish with English subtitles.*

After he poisons Krogshøj, Dr. Helmer fears another investigation will be launched so comes to his aid. Recovering from her surgery, Mrs. Drusse attends a meeting with the restless spirits, but not everyone’s presence is well received by them. Judith’s son continues to grow at an alarming pace.

FORMAT: DCP

**Episode 7 “Gargantua,” 1997, Dir. Lars von Trier and Morten Arnfred, 77 Mins****, MUBI, Denmark**

*In Danish with English subtitles.*

Dr. Krogshøj’s life is hanging by a thread. Moesgaard manages to avert conflicts in the ward, but the Kingdom is still in danger of falling apart.

After coming face to face with Satan incarnate, Mrs. Drusse must depend on Bulder’s knowledge about the deepest and darkest corners of the Kingdom.
FORMAT: DCP

**Episode 8 “Pandæmonium,” 1997, ****Dir. Lars von Trier and Morten Arnfred, ****78 Mins****, MUBI, Denmark**

*In Danish with English subtitles.*

The hospital is rapidly deteriorating. What is happening in the deepest darkness of the Kingdom seems to be directly related to the neurosurgery department, and Mrs. Drusse draws closer to solving the riddle. Amidst his malpractice investigation, more skeletons emerge from Dr. Helmer’s closet.

FORMAT: DCP

### **ABOUT THE SERIES:**

**THE KINGDOM II, 1997, MUBI, Denmark**

The troubled Kingdom Hospital continues to be plagued by the rise of a greater evil. The motley crew of physicians and administrators continue to squabble among themselves, unaware of the profound evil rising from the bowels of the haunted Copenhagen hospital.

Co-presented by Beyond Fest ‘Udo Kier Remembered’

THE KINGDOM II

The Rocketeer

Jacob’s Ladder

Incredibly rare theatrical screening of Richard Beymer's candid documentary following Lynch as he retraces the Maharishi's steps in India!

IT'S A BEAUTIFUL WORLD (2014)  — An Intimate Doc of David  Lynch in India!

**Screenwriters**: Richard LaGravenese,  Elizabeth Chandler from the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett

**Producer**: Mark Johnson

Get lost in a wondrous tale of boundless imagination in Alfonso Cuarón&#8217;s magical adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett&#8217;s beloved book. In the midst of WWI, with her father off in battle, young Sara finds herself at a boarding school where she spins fanciful tales for her classmates. When tragedy falls and Sara is forced into penniless servitude, she only has her imagination to brighten her days, until she discovers a secret that may turn her luck around. Cuarón lovingly adapts the page with plenty of beautiful and whimsical sequences of breathtaking magical realism that bring the source material beyond life into fantasy!

**Picks from the Video Store**:

Want more family friendly literary adaptations? We&#8217;ve got you covered!

*The Secret Garden, Bridge to Terabithia, The Indian in the Cupboard*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

A Little Princess

**Producers**: Maria Chiu,  Ben Klein,  Violet Columbus

Vidiots celebrates the life and legacy of underground documentary legend **Christine Choy** with a rare screening of the brilliant portrait of her work and its resonance &#8211; *The Exiles*.

Brash and opinionated, Christine Choy is a documentarian, cinematographer, professor, and quintessential New Yorker whose films and teaching have influenced a generation of artists. In 1989 she started to film the leaders of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests who escaped to political exile following the June 4 massacre. Though Choy never finished that project, she now travels with the old footage to Taiwan, Maryland, and Paris in order to share it with the dissidents who have never been able to return home. Get a glimpse into the life and work of this underground legend and the impact of dissent in the face of authoritarianism.

**Picks from the Video Store**

We&#8217;ve got a whole section of Cinema Docs to rent, including these treasures:

*The Bronze Screen: 100 Years of the Latino Image in Hollywood, Andre Gregory: Before and After Dinner, Double Dare*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

The Exiles

**Screenwriters**: Robert Roy Pool,  Tony Gilroy,  Shane Salerno,  Jonathan Hensleigh,  J.J. Abrams

**Producers**: Gale Anne Hurd,  Jerry Bruckheimer,  Michael Bay

Michael Bay is stepping up to save the world with this all-out action onslaught of asteroids, astronauts, young love, and male bonding. With an asteroid threatening Earth, NASA&#8217;s got to call on the only man who can drill a nuclear bomb into it before it strikes. It&#8217;s also the perfect time for him to size-up his daughter&#8217;s cocky boyfriend &#8211; in space. Non-stop relentless action with a side of young love from the kings of the summer blockbuster Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer, it&#8217;s the perfect popcorn fodder and explosive entertainment for your Saturday night!

**Picks from the Video Store**:

Craving more intergalactic action? Check out these interstellar gems from our video rental collection!

*Starship Troopers, Rollerball, Silent Running*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Armageddon

**Screenwriter**: Erin Cressida Wilson from the short story by Mary Gaitskill

**Producers**: Andrew Fierberg,  Amy Hobby,  Steven Shainberg,  Michael Roban

Vidiots wants to add a little spice to your January as we welcome back **Vidiots** **Hornyfest**. Join us for a month of movies that will keep you smoldering all winter long. Is it an extra hot winter, or is it just **Vidiots Hornyfest**?

Get kinky with Vidiots as we submit to the twisted laughs and thrills of this indie cult classic that explores the complexities of sexuality &#8211; with a wink *and* a kink. Maggie Gyllenhaal is remarkable as Lee, a woman who goes from a stint in a mental institution, to the office, to the bedroom, and still manages to command the screen and the off-kilter material. James Spader plays her boss-cum-dom and balances perfectly between professionalism and sadomasochism. It&#8217;s simultaneously a dark comedy, a character study, and a kink-positive rom com and it rides the line expertly. Leave your latex at home, but bring your bestie or your daddy for a fun, freaky night at Vidiots.

**Picks from the Video Store**:

Craving more kinky comedies? Check out these bangers from our video rental collection!

*Score *(1974)*, The Telephone Book, Supervixens*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Vidiots Hornyfest: Secretary

A Boy Named Charlie Brown (I.B Tech)

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Filmmaker in person. Q+A after the screening with Greg Ruben.

*Wind Journal* (2025) is LA-based artist Neil ‘cloaca’ Young’s newest near-feature length film since co-directing the critically acclaimed film *Milford Graves Full Mantis* (2018).

“A diary of one breather’s untrained brass and woodwind explorations on different coasts of the (mostly) same continent. Sometimes alone, sometimes with others. Usually for ritual, occasionally for demonstration - as in a recital or a recording session. The practice is play and the play is practice in the pursuit of an ecstatic countervirtuosity. The environment, human and nonhuman bodies and camera all participate as audience and performer.”

Significant passages of the piece feature the official and unofficial antics of the wind collective LAWWSS (Los Angeles Wood Wind Skill Share) who are celebrating the release of their first full-length LP on *Radical Documents*.

This matinee preview screening is being held in conjunction with a special LAWWSS record release concert at Human Resources later that evening.

Neil Cloaca Young’s Wind Journal

Los Angeles Filmforum presents *Filmforum 50, program 5: Real Life, with the Millennium Film Journal.*

Los Angeles premieres! Works by Claudia Hart, Elise Rasmussen, Zachary Epcar, Justin Jinsoo Kim, Michael Robinson, Matthew Lax, and Kate Lain.

Complete program notes at: https://www.lafilmforum.org/schedule/

∆

Over the last half-century, the *Millennium Film Journal* has charted seismic transformations in the way we create and look at moving pictures—from 16mm celluloid to magnetic videotape to digital “content creation,” and now the strange new world of AI-generated deepfakes and simulations. All along, we’ve kept an eye on the Hollywood Dream Factory, which has often thrived in the chaos of technological change—though of late its fortunes are fading, with studio workers and artisans suffering most.

It is a curious impasse. Compared with the narcotics of Netflix “autoplay” or the debut of virtual actors, like the imaginary Tilly Norwood, the fantasies of the industry’s erstwhile Golden Ages seem vivid, achingly human, recalcitrantly real. As we drift into a surreal future, we want to glance backward, or at least collect the traces of our cinematic pasts. *Real Life*—the latest edition of MFJ—is a study of this diachronic gray zone, and the Journal joins with Los Angeles Filmforum in showcasing a handful of works discussed in its pages, along with others we admire.

LA Filmforum: Real Life, with the Millennium Film Journal

The Snake Pit in 35mm

Prophecy with Wolfen

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

*In French with English subtitles.*

In one of Akerman’s most penetrating character studies, Anna, an accomplished filmmaker (played by Aurore Clément), makes her way through a series of European cities to promote her latest movie. Via a succession of eerie, exquisitely shot, brief encounters—with men and women, family and strangers—we come to see her emotional and physical detachment from the world.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Janus Films

COUNTRY: Belgium/France/West Germany

‘Chantal Akerman: An American Cinematheque Retrospective’

LES RENDEZ-VOUS D'ANNA

Ko, a motorbike enthusiast from the city wandering the Japanese countryside, falls for the carefree local Miyo and teaches her how to ride. When Miyo proves herself a biker prodigy, Ko begins to fear she&#8217;s destined to crash.

His Motorbike, Her Island

Deliveryman Jong-su is out on a job when he runs into Hae-mi, a girl who once lived in his neighborhood. She asks if he&#8217;d mind looking after her cat while she&#8217;s away on a trip to Africa. On her return, she introduces to Jong-su an enigmatic young man named Ben, who she met during her trip. One day Ben tells Jong-su about his most unusual hobby.

Burning

After her suicide, a woman returns as a vengeful ghost to haunt her unfaithful actor-husband on the set of his new film. Desperate, he and his crew enlist a stagehand skilled in Taoist magic for help. Miss Magic is a quintessential example of the popular *jiangshi* (“hopping vampire”) films of the 1980s and 1990s. The juxtaposition of Qing dynasty-clad *jiangshi* within a modern setting reflects Hong Kong’s anxieties over its impending 1997 “handover” from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China.

Director: Fung Hak-on. Screenwriter: Pang Chi-Ming. With: Petrina Fung Bo-Bo, Billy Lau Nam-Kwong, Norman Tsui Siu-Keung, Pauline Wong Yuk-Wan.

This legendary *chanbara* (samurai sword-fighting) film is an English-dubbed, recut amalgamation of the first two Japanese *Lone Wolf and Cub* films (1972). Based on the manga series of the same name (1970–76), the films are widely credited with popularizing the trope of a grizzled, vengeful warrior charged with protecting a young child. The film gained notoriety in the U.K. in 1983 during the “Video Nasties” moral panic over its perceived obscene content, causing it to fall out of circulation for more than a decade.

35mm, color, English, 90 min. Director: Misumi Kenji, Robert Houston. Screenwriters: Koike Kazuo, Kojima Goseki, Robert Houston. With: Wakayama Tomisaburō, Matsuo Kayo, Kobayashi Aki, Tomikawa Akihiro.

*—guest programmer Janet Louie*

Miss Magic / Shogun Assassin

Conceived as a cinematic experience that mirrors the sonic textures of a record album, *BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions *(2025) is a genre-bending documentary adapted from Kahlil Joseph’s renowned video art installation. The film’s unique soundscape is mastered in stereo, with featured guest artists interwoven across its 21 tracks, each adding their distinct perspective.

Following the screening, a panel including Joseph and collaborators will discuss the filmmaking process and editorial power of *BLKNWS*.

**About the Film**

Committed to the portrayal of Black brilliance in all its chaotic, symphonic permutations, *BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions *gives what co-screenwriter Saidiya Hartman describes as “the everyday anarchy of Black lives.” Blink between frames and you’ll miss the film warping ahead, techno thumping as the audience is sped through moving image representations of the pages of *Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African-American Experience*, as notable Black figures, movements, countries, activities, animals of the continent flash across the screen. The visuals seamlessly switch between moving and still images, black and white and color, quiet and loud, past, present, and future.

This program is co-presented with Rich Spirit.

BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions with Kahlil Joseph and Special Guests

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

*In Japanese with English subtitles.*

Kaji (Tatsuya Nakadai) is sent to the Japanese army labeled Red and is mistreated by the vets. Along his assignment, Kaji witnesses cruelties in the army and revolts against the abusive treatment against the recruit Obara. He also sees his friend Shinj0 Ittohei defecting to the Russian border, and he ends in the front to fight a lost battle against the Russian tanks division.

FORMAT: 35mm

DISTRIBUTOR: Janus Films

COUNTRY: Japan

### **ABOUT THE EVENT:**

Masaki Kobayashi’s mammoth humanist drama is one of the most staggering achievements of Japanese cinema. Filmed and released in three parts, the nine-and-a-half-hour THE HUMAN CONDITION (NINGEN NO JOKEN), adapted from Junpei Gomikawa’s six-volume novel, tells of the journey of the well-intentioned yet naive Kaji (handsome Japanese superstar Tatsuya Nakadai) from labor camp supervisor to Imperial Army soldier to Soviet POW. Constantly trying to rise above a corrupt system, Kaji time and again finds his morals an impediment rather than an advantage. A raw indictment of its nation’s wartime mentality as well as a personal existential tragedy, Kobayashi’s riveting, gorgeously filmed epic is novelistic cinema at its best.

In remembrance of Tatsuya Nakadai ‘Sunday Print Edition’

THE HUMAN CONDITION 2: ROAD TO ETERNITY

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

*In Portuguese with English subtitles.*

Considered by many to be João César Monteiro’s masterpiece, and often described as a visual poem, RECOLLECTIONS OF THE YELLOW HOUSE is the first and most celebrated appearance of João de Deus, an aged, Nosferatu-like drifter who spends his days between an old boarding house and Lisbon’s historic, decadent neighborhoods. Monteiro’s onscreen alter ego is both humorous and doomed, thanks to his marginal, outcast status, an attraction to sensual purity—either in music or younger women—and an unexpected dementia diagnosis.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: The Cinema Guild

COUNTRY: Portugal

L.A. Premiere of New 4K Restoration ‘João César Monteiro: An American Cinematheque Retrospective’

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE YELLOW HOUSE

Celebrate the master of gothic horror master's birthday with a dramatic reading, short films, and a screening of a new film restoration!

EDGAR ALLAN POE'S BIRTHDAY feat. THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (1928)!

**Screenwriter**: William Goldman

**Producers**: Rob Reiner, Andrew Scheinman

*Inconceivable*! In this enchantingly cracked fairy tale, the beautiful Princess Buttercup and the dashing Westley must overcome staggering odds to find happiness amid six-fingered swordsmen, murderous princes, Sicilians and rodents of unusual size. But even death can&#8217;t stop these true lovebirds from triumphing.

**Remembering Rob Reiner**

There are no words to appropriately tribute the artist and activist Rob Reiner. His impact over nearly 70 years, on so many, from those of us who first met him through the comfort and familiarity of our TV sets, to those who’ve grown up under the magical and inspiring influence of his film work, to those of us that have benefited from his tireless activism, makes him feel like a member of the family. Thank you for everything you gave us. Thank you for the stories you told, that have helped make us who we are and will undoubtedly continue to shape new generations.

**Picks from the Video Store**:

We’ve got a Rob Reiner director’s section so you can take home his whole filmography tonight, including these gems:

*The Princess Bride, Misery, Stand by Me*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

The Princess Bride

**Screenwriters**: Chris Clark,  Suzanne De Passe, Terence Mc Cloy, from the autobiography by Billie Holiday and William Dufty

**Producers**: Jay Weston,  James S. White

Who better to play a legendary groundbreaking diva than another legendary groundbreaking diva! Diana Ross channels the great Billie Holiday &#8211; through the rise of her star to the shadow of her heroin addiction. Beginning with her traumatic youth, this jazzy biopic depicts her early attempts at a singing career and her eventual rise to stardom, as well as her difficult relationship with Louis McKay, her boyfriend and manager. Casting a shadow over even Holiday&#8217;s brightest moments is the vocalist&#8217;s severe drug addiction, which threatens to end both her career and her life. Produced by Motown Productions with an all-star supporting cast including Scatman Crothers, Richard Pryor, and Billy D. Williams, this showstopper was nominated for 5 Academy Awards, including Diana Ross for her phenomenal performance.

**Picks from the Video Store**

Want more Diana Ross to take home tonight? We&#8217;ve got these bops and more:

*The Wiz, Double Platinum, Mahogany*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Lady Sings the Blues

Stormy Weather in 4K

Blue Velvet in 4K with Kyle MacLachlan

### **ABOUT THE FILM: **

Bob Crane has long maintained a psychic connection to his twin sister, Jessica, who works as a fashion model in Milan. When Bob senses that his sister might be injured or killed, he travels to Italy to look for her, only to discover that she’s vanished without a trace. Enlisting the help of about-to-retire Commissioner Danesi, Bob soon finds himself embroiled in a web of mystery and terror, when a scissors wielding killer begins to strike and all clues lead back to Jessica. A highly entertaining and unexpectedly raunchy late period giallo, clearly taking a cue from the American slasher craze, Carlo Vanzina’s NOTHING UNDERNEATH amps up the mid-80s excess and stars prolific TV actor Tom Schanley (DEXTER), Danish fashion model Renée Simonsen, and Donald Pleasence (HALLOWEEN).

FORMAT: 35mm

DISTRIBUTOR: AGFA

COUNTRY: Italy

Q&A with actor Tom Schanley Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive Special thanks to Phil Blankenship for the print ‘Cinematic Void’

Cinematic Void Presents NOTHING UNDERNEATH

Long Arm of the Law IV: Underground Express / The Train Robbers

**Screenwriters**: Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass

**Producer**: Mark Duplass

Vidiots is excited to welcome back Founding Members and multi-hyphenate indie legends **Jay Duplass, Katie Aselton, **and** Mark Duplass** for a special 20th Anniversary screening of their mumblecore classic *The Puffy Chair*.

Hop in and join the road trip with the Duplass Brothers&#8217; breakthrough indie hit. Shot for reportedly $15,000 and filmed in Katie Aselton&#8217;s hometown, this no budget road movie marked the feature debut of the Duplass brothers and paved the way for a new era of independent cinema. After winning an eBay auction in another state, Josh hops in his car with his girlfriend and embarks to pick up the oversized piece of nostalgia, then joined by his hippie brother along the way. Smart, heartfelt, and hilarious &#8211; and now fully restored! &#8211;  don&#8217;t miss your chance to laugh along with the filmmakers and a bunch of Vidiots 20 years after it first hit the road!

**Picks from the Video Store**

Love a road movie? Drive away with these treasures tonight!

*Rubin and Ed, Paris, Texas, Y Tu Mamá También*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

The Puffy Chair

*A dream of dark and troubling things . . .*

Tonight we honor the late, great **David Lynch** (on what would have been the director’s 80th birthday) by screening his first feature *Eraserhead* on 35mm, alongside Suzan Pitt’s experimental animated short film *Asparagus*.

Originally programmed together by film producer and distributor **Ben Barenholtz** (considered the father of the midnight movie), the two films played together for nearly two years at the Waverly Theater in New York City and the Nuart Theatre in Los Angeles.

Both films, unique in their visionary artistry, vividly bring to life rich and twisted psycho-sexual interior worlds. The enduring midnight screenings of *Eraserhead* from the late ’70s through early ’80s quickly cemented David Lynch as a cult icon, and eventually launched his film career by bringing his vision into the mainstream.

About the films:

**ERASERHEAD**

**Director:** David Lynch

**Runtime:** 89 mins

**Format:** 35mm

**Release Year:** 1977
David Lynch’s 1977 debut feature, *Eraserhead*, is both a lasting cult sensation and a work of extraordinary craft and beauty. With its mesmerizing black-and-white photography by Frederick Elmes and Herbert Cardwell, evocative sound design, and unforgettably enigmatic performance by Jack Nance, this visionary nocturnal odyssey continues to haunt American cinema like no other film.

**ASPARAGUS**

**Director:** Suzan Pitt

**Runtime:** 18 mins

**Format:** DCP

**Release Year:** 1979
Suzan Pitt&#8217;s animated short throws open the doors of perception onto a shape-shifting vision of polymorphous sexuality. A landmark in the history of independent animation, *Asparagus* is a mesmerizing exploration of the artist&#8217;s inner world, and a viewing experience like no other.

[Trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=9LLS_IB6GU0)

PHANTASMAGORIA: Eraserhead & Asparagus

### **ABOUT THE EPISODE:**

**Episode 2, “Traces to Nowhere,” Dir. Duwayne Dunham, 46 Mins**

Agent Cooper enjoys the comforts of the Great Northern Hotel. Bobby Briggs and Mike Nelson are released from jail. Doctor Hayward hands over the autopsy report on Laura Palmer.

FORMAT: DCP

### **ABOUT THE SERIES:**

**TWIN PEAKS, 1990, Paramount, USA**

A crime drama mixed with healthy doses of the surreal, this series is about FBI Agent Dale Cooper, who travels to the small logging town of Twin Peaks to solve the murder of seemingly innocent high schooler Laura Palmer. Almost nothing is as it seems, however, and the show’s sometimes eerie visuals, oddball characters and wild dream sequences drive the point home.

“Traces to Nowhere” ‘TWIN PEAKS: The Complete Series’

TWIN PEAKS: Season 1, Ep. 2

A Streetcar Named Desire / The Fugitive Kind

Coinciding with the Los Angeles premiere of *Vermont, India*, Now Instant presents Monologues on Films, a curated series by playwright Luca Casson Milstein. *Vermont, India* runs for two weeks beginning January 22 at New Theater Hollywood, 6500 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles.

*Please note: seating is limited. Box Office opens thirty minutes prior to the listed showtime. Guests may add their name to the standby list upon arrival. Online ticket sales will be honored up until 15 minutes after the scheduled showtime; at that time, any unclaimed seats will be released for in-store purchase on a first-come, first-served basis. All Sales Final.*

Monologues on Films

Now Instant Image Hall

In honor of David Lynch's birthday, a screening of his late masterpiece + panel discussion of its esoteric & philosophical currents!

TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN — PART 8 & THE ALCHEMY OF DARKNESS Screening + Panel

**Screenwriter**: Robert Downey Sr.,

**Producers**: Robert Downey Sr.,  Henri Pachard

An unforgettable masterpiece of late-’60s counterculture, Robert Downey Sr.’s *Putney Swope* remains a vital provocation on race, pop culture, consumerism, and America at large. Putney Swope, the only African-American exec at his firm, is unexpectedly elected its president and turns the industry on its ear through a series of outrageous, taboo-busting TV commercials (strewn throughout the film like comedic landmines.) As Swope becomes the Generalissimo of Madison Avenue, Downey takes no prisoners and skewers the entire political spectrum. Essential viewing for any cinephile, don&#8217;t miss this underground masterpiece restored on the big screen!

Restoration by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation, with funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation.

**Picks from the Video Store**:

Craving more late 60s anarchy? Give these weirdos a whirl!

*Wild in the Streets, Mr. Freedom, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Putney Swope

Beauty and the Beast

Mezzanine presents *Comfort and Joy*, directed by Bill Forsyth (1984, Scotland, 106m). Introduced by actor Colin Burgess and filmmaker Alec Moeller.

∆

We are excited to ring in the new year with master Scottish humanist Bill Forsyth’s warmly lovesick winter comedy. Forsyth’s underseen followup to LOCAL HERO follows Glasgow morning-radio host Alan "Dicky" Bird (Bill Paterson) who comes home on Christmas Eve to learn that his girlfriend (Eleanor David) is leaving him. Stifling his depression, Alan is determined to become a documentary journalist, when he witnesses a raid on an ice-cream truck that brings him into a turf war between two rival Italian dairy vendors. Forsyth’s midlife-crisis comedy is filled with soulful performances and offbeat grace notes, and deserves to be appreciated as another gem in his impeccable 1980s run.

“A glorious Christmas movie as well as a glorious movie in its own right….It's that rarest of beasts, a truly serious comedy.” -The Guardian

“\[Forsyth\] has made a specialty out of characters who are as real as you and me, and nicer than me… This is a wonderful movie.” -Roger Ebert

Mezzanine: Bill Forsyth’s Comfort and Joy

Deliverance

In a dystopian near-future Japan, law and order is enforced by a brutal paramilitary police unit known as the Kerberos Panzer Cops, aka ‘Watchdogs of Hell’, equipped with heavy weaponry and reinforced body armor called “Protect Gear.” However, when their extreme methods spark public outcry, the government moves to dismantle the unit. Disobeying orders to disband, a trio of officers stage a rebellion—but only one, Koichi Todome (Shigeru Chiba), escapes. 

Three years later, Koichi returns to Tokyo after living in exile, carrying a mysterious suitcase. He seeks to reunite with his former comrades and uncover the truth behind the crackdown, but he soon finds himself in a surreal and dreamlike city—a shadow of its former self, filled with strange characters, elusive memories, and Kafkaesque absurdity. As reality begins to unravel, Koichi descends deeper into paranoia, unable to tell friend from foe, truth from illusion. 

A philosophical blend of film noir, political allegory, and existential mystery, The Red Spectacles is a visually striking black comedy that meditates on justice, memory, and the cost of loyalty. It also serves as Mamoru Oshii’s foray into live-action filmmaking and his first feature installment in the Kerberos Saga.

The Red Spectacles

M*A*S*H

Frequently throughout the year we will be highlighting a few titles that are considered to be "stuck" on VHS, with no physical releases since the format (discounting VHS transfers on DVDs, etc.) for various reasons, i.e. legal ownership disputes, music licensing issues, or perhaps just perceived lack of interest.

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Kicking things off for 2026 comes IMAGE OF THE BEAST, the third installment in a series of proto-LEFT BEHIND style Christian apocalyptic fantasy movies from filmmaker Donald W. Thompson and Mark IV Pictures out of Des Moines, Iowa. Preaches the good word via guillotine decapitations, a truck smashing through a house, a giant locust monster, lots of stock footage, and quite possibly predicts an A.I. Antichrist?

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From the back of the box:

"IMAGE OF THE BEAST depicts the awesome story of the mid-years of the Great Tribulation foretold in biblical prophecy. The anti-Christ establishes a one-world government, while a small band of fugitives struggles to survive amid spectacular and terrifying judgements."

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**dir. Donald W. Thompson, 1981***United States, VHS projection*93 min

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## WEDNESDAY, 1/217:30 DOORS8:00 SCREENING

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Specially priced $5/$4 tickets for this series!

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*Whammy! is located in the REAR unit of 2514 Sunset Blvd, entrance access is via Rampart Blvd.*

STUCK ON VHS: Image of the Beast (1981)

WHAMMY!

Lightstruck presents F*red Worden: A Cinema of Pure Energy.*

Thursday, January 22, 2026

For their first event of 2026, Lightstruck is extremely excited to present a double feature of programs from one of their very favorite artists and individuals, Fred Worden. Since 1970, Worden has produced a wide range of experimental filmmaking in the purest sense of that term - his work engages in deeply thoughtful, endlessly exploratory investigations into the ecstatic adventure of primal perception and optical phenomena that are unique (elemental, even) to motion pictures. Probing the thrillingly audacious adventure of sight with his keen and playful sensibility, Worden has produced a career’s worth of magical filmmaking that, in his words, “tries hard to up the ante on the notion that film is a visual rather than literary art and that seeing as a perceptual process precedes and models thought.”

Longtime friend Ken Jacobs once stated that Worden’s work “loosens the brains good”, and we're not sure we can top that description. Many of Worden’s films thrive in a vast and cosmic space of pure experience, and beyond language, which makes them exceedingly hard to describe. But for any enthusiast of the fundamentals of cinema and the absolutely, irreducibly elemental psychedelia (if you will) of visual perception, Worden’s films are crucial documents. Our two-program overview of Worden’s world will consist of diverse 16mm and digital works produced over a nearly forty year career of lovingly nudging eyeballs and brains toward vistas of the infinite, and including his 1998 16mm film One, in which Worden manages to extrapolate a 20-minute-long cosmos from literally one frame of source imagery.

RIYL: Ken Jacobs, Stan Brakhage, abstraction, optical printing, monochrome psychedelia, hypnagogic cinema, complete transformation of objective reality

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Please note these programs contain multiple films with stroboscopic flicker.

Program 1 will begin at 7:30pm. Program 2 will begin at 9:15pm. One ticket is good for both!

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Programs by Mark Toscano and Zena Grey. Notes by Mark Toscano. 16mm prints and digital files courtesy of Fred Worden and Monique Ernst. Big thanks and big love to Fred, Monique, and Fred’s entire family.

Lightstruck: Fred Worden - A Cinema of Pure Energy

You Won’t Be Alone

Join us for an evening of chess and community at Heavy Manners Library. Play against friends and strangers, with all skill levels welcome. Free donuts will also be provided!

Echo Park Chess Club at Heavy Manners Library (1/22)

### **ABOUT THE FILM:**

*In Portuguese with English subtitles.*

This subversively poetic, scandalously perverse sexual comedy earned João César Monteiro a Silver Lion at the 1995 Venice Film Festival. The unofficial sequel to RECOLLECTIONS OF THE YELLOW HOUSE brings João de Deus (Monteiro) back as the assistant manager of a Lisbon ice cream shop owned by an ex-prostitute (a sublime Manuela de Freitas), where the young employees awaken his depraved impulses. GOD’S COMEDY is staggering in its celestial use of natural light and exquisite dialog, and disturbing for the repulsive behavior of a character who sees heaven and hell in all living things and refuses to obey a corrupt social contract and its clerical bodies, yet ultimately epitomizes its sins. Through João de Deus’s combination of sacred (he is enraptured by Camões, Wagner and Haydn) and the profane (he keeps a personal bible of pubic hair, and Queen Victoria’s is its most prized entry), Monteiro exposes the amoral perversity of being alive in a nefarious, cruel world.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: The Cinema Guild

COUNTRY: Portugal

GOD'S COMEDY

The Ugly Stepsister

I Shot Jesse James/The Baron of Arizona

Lost Highway in 4K

## Angel’s Egg (1985)

**Director:** Mamoru Oshii

**Artist:** Yoshitaka Amano

**Format:** 4K Restoration

**Release Year:** 1985

*Angel’s Egg* is a creative collaboration between acclaimed director Mamoru Oshii (*Ghost in the Shell*), who wrote and directed the feature, and revered artist Yoshitaka Amano (*Final Fantasy*, *Vampire Hunter D*).

The film combines Oshii’s masterful moodiness and philosophical commentary with Amano’s undeniable artistry, resulting in a haunting, hand-drawn masterpiece of animation.

To celebrate the **40th anniversary** and all-new **4K restoration** of the 1985 animated classic, Brain Dead has created exclusive merchandise that will be available for sale at the screening and later online.

Angel’s Egg

Two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, glide through the streets of Berlin, observing the bustling population, providing invisible rays of hope to the distressed but never interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with lonely trapeze artist Marion, the angel longs to experience life in the physical world, and finds &#8212; with some words of wisdom from actor Peter Falk &#8212; that it might be possible for him to take human form.

Wings of Desire

The Eastwood offers two versatile spaces for theatrical productions, film screenings, dance performances, and more: the 99-seat Eastwood Mainstage and the intimate, 40 seat Oxford Underground blackbox. Both spaces come equipped for various productions, catering to artists and audiences of all levels.

Two strangers find themselves trapped in a liminal space with no idea how they got there, where they came from or what lies ahead.

Written by Hope Lauren Starring Samuel Garnett & Hope Lauren

Directed by Claire Berger

#### About the Show

Clown Sh*t!

Eastwood Performing Arts Center

Rewriting History with Fabiola Jean-Louis

Cinema’s First Nasty Women returns to the Billy Wilder Theater! Its name a riff on the feminist cri de cœur that arose during the 2016 presidential election, Cinema’s First Nasty Women is an ongoing, curated project to rediscover and revel in the anarchic spirit of women comedians who brought a rebellious energy to the early silent screen. Organized by an international team of film archivists and scholars, Maggie Hennefeld, Laura Horak and Elif Rongen-Kaynakçi, this new travelling program of restored titles from the project comes with a special twist. Archival collections can inspire new research which in turn helps grow new audiences, but they can also inspire new films. Based in Australia, with The Physical TV Company, filmmaker and author Karen Pearlman has built a feminist film practice that puts cinema’s past and present in dialogue in brilliantly constructed, canon-busting short film essays. For “Cinema’s First Nasty Women: Breaking Plates and Smashing the Patriarchy,” Pearlman drew on the project's images and energy for her latest short, *Breaking Plates*. The Archive is thrilled to have Pearlman as our guest at the Billy Wilder Theater with a selection of her work along with the Los Angeles premiere of *Breaking Plates* and the silent slapstick female performers that inspired it. 

*Programmed by Paul Malcolm with Maggie Hennefeld, Laura Horak, Karen Pearlman and Richard James Allen. Notes written by Senior Public Programmer Paul Malcolm.*

***Special thanks to our community partner: [UCLA Center for the Study of Women | Barbra Streisand Center](https://csw.ucla.edu/)***

Total runtime: 103 min.

Channeling the explosive montage editing style of Soviet-era filmmaker Elizaveta Svilova, Karen Pearlman centers Svilova’s creative contributions in Dziga Vertov’s work, including *Man With a Movie Camera*, among their many other other documentary collaborations.

DCP. Director/Screenwriter: Karen Pearlman. With: Leeanna Walsman, Richard James Allen, Marcus Graham.

Director Karen Pearlman reclaims the “Kuleshov Effect” from the male theorist who named it for Esfir Shub and the other pioneering Soviet-era women editors who actually developed and deployed it on screen.

DCP. Director/Screenwriter: Karen Pearlman.

In this “speculative love letter to Russian constructivist women,” director Karen Pearlman reimagines how leading Soviet-era artists, including filmmaker Lilya Brik, designer Varvara Stepanova and editor Esfir Shub, transformed their kitchens into labs for collective creative exploration and production during a period of harsh repression and marginalization.

DCP. Director/Screenwriter: Karen Pearlman. With: Victoria Haralabidou, Inga Romantsova, Liliya May.

Galvanized by the anarchic energies on display in the films of the Cinema’s First Nasty Women project but also acutely aware of the course of film history from there, filmmaker Karen Pearlman and her on-screen collaborator Violette Ayad confront the question, “What happened to our revolution?” *Breaking Plates* is less an answer than a declarative, spirited act to reclaim silent cinema’s disrupted female agency and channel it into a new liberated cinema of today. 

DCP. Director/Screenwriter: Karen Pearlman. With: Violette Ayad, Karen Pearlman, Richard James Allen.

DCP, silent with original music by Gonca Feride Varol.

DCP, silent with original music by Renée T. Coulombe. Director: Romeo Bosetti.

DCP, silent with original music by Gonca Feride Varol. Director: George Albert Smith.

DCP, silent with original music by Gonca Feride Varol.

DCP, silent with original music by Veronica Leahy.

DCP, silent with original music by Gerson Lazo-Quiroga. Director: Laurence Trimble.

DCP, silent with original music by Gonca Feride Varol. With: Little Chrysia.

DCP, silent with original music by José María Serralde Ruiz. With: Robert Harron, Edward Dillon.

DCP, silent with original music by Renée C. Baker.

Cinema’s First Nasty Women: Breaking Plates and Smashing the Patriarchy

Join host Katja Bartholmess for an open writing studio at Heavy Manners Library from 1-3! No frills, no prompts, just write!**

Manuscripts, Screenplays, Articles … whatever you’re working on, let’s do it in each other’s company!

Afternoon Writing Session**

1:00pm to 3:00pm

Drop in and stay a while!

Writing Gets Lonely: Open Writing Studio (1/23)

### **ABOUT THE FILM: **

*In Japanese with English subtitles.*

The itinerant Zatoichi comes across a dying man, who begs the masseur to escort a young woman back to her family in Edo. The honorable swordsman agrees, but in so doing, he catapults himself between two warring yakuza clans, each with its own interest in kidnapping the girl.

FORMAT: DCP

DISTRIBUTOR: Janus Films

COUNTRY: Japan

Get your ticket for just $7.83 at the box office! ‘Film by the Foot’

ZATOICHI ON THE ROAD

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

**Screenwriters**: John Hamburg,  Drake Sather,  Ben Stiller

**Producers**: Stuart Cornfeld,  Scott Rudin,  Ben Stiller

Get ready to walk the catwalk as we celebrate 25 years of Blue Steel and Ben&#8217;s Stiller&#8217;s brilliantly idiotic comedy *Zoolander*! Can you believe it&#8217;s been 25 years since Derek Zoolander first lost male model of the year only to be brainwashed into an assassin by an evil designer? Time really does fly when you&#8217;re a successful male model! It&#8217;s time to bring one of the most brilliantly stupid comedies ever back to the big screen, so we can all laugh ourselves brainless&#8230; together!

**Picks from the Video Store**

Looking for deep cut comedies? LOL with these treasures tonight.

*Ishtar, Safe Men, The Last Days of Disco*

**Accessibility Options**: Amplified Audio, please see the box office for devices.

Monday, 1/5

Academy Museum

Wicked in Dolby Vision

2:30 PM

⭐

The Birds in 35mm

7:30 PM

⭐

Gardena Cinema

GANGS OF NEW YORK (2002)(Sat 1/3)8:30p (Sun 1/4)3:00p 6:30p (Mon 1/5)11:30a

11:30 AM

⭐

Heavy Manners Library

Aaliyah, Psychic TV, R.E.M, Bo Diddley Documentary Screening

7:00 PM

⭐

Los Feliz Theatre

Cinematic Void Presents BLACK BELLY OF THE TARANTULA

7:00 PM

⭐

PETER HUJAR'S DAY

10:00 PM

⭐

New Beverly Cinema

Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife

The Smiling Lieutenant

7:30 PM

⭐

Vidiots

Yi Yi

7:30 PM

⭐

Vista Theatre

No Other Choice

12:00 PM, 3:45 PM, 7:15 PM

⭐

Monday, 1/5