City Club Cinema
Past Programs 2001

December 10
Five Films of Joseph Cornell curated by Bruce Cooper
1) CORNELL (1965) a biographical documentary
2) COTILLION
3) MIDNIGHT PARTY (1940)
4) CHILDREN'S PARTY
5) CENTURIES JUNE

The evening's discussion of Cornell's work will be facilitated by Colleen Ludwig.

December 3
War on Film w/Philip Harder
An evening of motion pictures on, about, for, and against WAR!

November 26
an evening of films by Buster Keaton
 

November 5
The 7th Annual National Projects Two-Minute Film Trials
Don't miss the pre-eminent "Battle-Royale" of film short sport competitions. An evening of films clocking in at under 120 seconds with filmmakers competing for respect, prestige, and gigantic prizes!

October 29
Halloween Scarefest

October 8
A Nous La Liberte

September 24
Lord of the Flies

September 17
National Projects presents Worst of the Worst
If you've ever seen a 'bad' film, then you'll be in good company for the National Projects' Worst of the Worst feast. Local film curators Philip Harder and Mike Dust square off for a night of head-to-head, bad movie memory making. The curators have each chosen a number of films from their extensive collections that are designed to leave you with an impression you'll wish you could forget. All audience members will be granted a gong pass, which they will be allowed to use to cease the projection of any film during mid-reel. At the close of each film, the opposing curator will discuss the merits of the film and attempt to sway the audience to an appreciation of its form. The presenting curator will have the last remarks and the audience the final say. Join us for this unique, romping tribute to the critic in all of us. All films guaranteed BAD!

Doors open at 8pm; show starts at 8:30pm, all drinks are $1 off during Worst of the Worst.

September 10
The National Projects Learning Academy Fall Workshop #1: The Rise of Big Business in America
The National Projects Learning Academy returns for a series of fall workshops that stretch the brain and the imagination through a tuition free, educational experience that draws from the wealth of knowledge held in a series of 16mm informational film masterworks.

Workshop #1: The Rise of Big Business in America
A thorough study of the values, aspirations, and achievements of the new breed of businessman in 19th century America. Students will learn about the Industrial Revolution in America and the conditions which have led to our current situation today. Discussion will center on capitalist culture, past and future trends in wealth and spending and the American Economic System in General.

Tuition is free. Bring an apple for the teacher and a pencil for notes. Doors open at 8pm, Class begins at 8:30pm, all drinks are $1 off during workshop session.

August 27
Nagasaki

August 20
Boudo Saved from Drowning (1932)

July 30
Celebrity Curators: M. Dust presents
Place yourself in the hands of one of City Club Cinema's Celebrity Curators in this series of short, long, and in between, 20th century film masterworks. Each evening is a unique and never before seen look into the treasure troves of private collections the world over. Join frequent guest curator, Mike Dust (National Projects Academy of Learning, Postwar Foreign Policy Investigation, Explorer's Club) as he presents a program of film titles, hand selected to guarantee you a wonderful time.

July 23
Celebrity Curators: P. Harder presents
Place yourself in the hands of one of City Club Cinema's Celebrity Curators in this series of short, long, and in between, 20th century film masterworks. Each evening is a unique and never before seen look into the treasure troves of private collections the world over. Join frequent guest curator, Philip Harder (Design in Motion I&II, Trains in Motion) as he presents a program of film titles, hand selected to guarantee you a wonderful time.

July 16
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934, 74 min.)
This is the first version of this film done by Hitchcock. The story of an eyewitness to a murder whose daughter is kidnapped to keep him from telling his secrets to the authorities. Starring Leslie Banks, Edna Best, and Peter Lorrie.

July 9
The Documentary Movement
City Club will look into the Early Modern Documentary films of Robert Flaherty the "Father of Documentary" and the to The Grierson School in Britain, onward to Holland, and then the United States and tonight only Minneapolis. Personal messages from 60 plus years past. Truly a remarkable offering of these pioneering efforts to document the world through motion pictures.

Films to include:

Industrial Britain (Britain)1931, 25 minutes
Song of Ceylon (Britain) 1934, 20 minutes
Night Mail (Britain) 1936, 23 minutes
The New Earth (Holland) 1934, 25 minutes
The Plow that Broke the Plains (United States of America) 1936, 27 minutes

July 2
National Projects Academy of Learning: Program #5
Colonial America and the Revolution
National Projects invites you to exercise your body of knowledge at the National Projects Academy of Learning. Classes are completely free and open to the public in this voluntary, media rich school experience held in the City Club Cinema.

Study under the tutelage of renowned experts and immerse yourself in the vast resources of the National Projects Educational Film Archive. Witness cinematic masterworks from the learning film glory years of the 1950's-'80's. Re-discover your favorite obscure topics and re-live your adolescence with the film experiences of your youth. Make cinematic history by joining motion picture and filmstrip technologies with learning based science curriculum. This is guaranteed fun!

Students of the Academy will be graded on their achievements and those with passing grades will be graduated to the next class. Students passing all classes will participate in a graduation ceremony and receive diplomas on the final night of classes. Registration is not required. Bring school supplies, maybe an apple for the teacher and remember, "Curiosity is the desire of knowledge".

see the films for Program #5: Colonial America, the Revolution and Beyond

June 25
Ugetsu Monogatari/ Ugetsu; Tales After The Rain
Ugetsu Monogatari/ Ugetsu; Tales After The Rain (1953)
Japan, director Kenji Mizoguchi
The Tale of two men in seething 16th century Japan, one a potter (Masayuki Mori) who gets involved with a phantom princess (Machiko Kyo), and the other a merchant (Sakae Ozawa) who yearns to be a samuri warrior, are unfolded during clan wars. A masterpiece of world cinema! Mizoguchi approached his films with the eye of a painter and the soul of a poet. Shunning frequent camera set ups and disruptive close-ups, he developed a visual style rich in beauty and physical and psychological detail.

June 11
Robert and Marion present "The Son of the Sheik" starring Rudolph Valentino.

June 4
Design in Motion #2
Featured screenings include:
"Powers of Ten" & "A Computer Glossary" Ray & Charles Eames
"Notes On Popular Arts" Saul Bass
"Cosmic Zoom" Eva Szasz
"Chicago's Modern Architecture"
"Expressionism"
"Non-objective Art"
"Up Is Down" Millie Goldsholl
"Boundary Lines" Philip Stapp
"American Time Capsule" Charles Braverman

May 21
National Projects Academy of Learning: Program #4
The Art and Study of the Social Sciences
National Projects invites you to exercise your body of knowledge at the National Projects Academy of Learning. Classes are completely free and open to the public in this voluntary, media rich school experience held in the City Club Cinema.

Study under the tutelage of renowned experts and immerse yourself in the vast resources of the National Projects Educational Film Archive. Witness cinematic masterworks from the learning film glory years of the 1950's-'80's. Re-discover your favorite obscure topics and re-live your adolescence with the film experiences of your youth. Make cinematic history by joining motion picture and filmstrip technologies with learning based science curriculum. This is guaranteed fun!

Students of the Academy will be graded on their achievements and those with passing grades will be graduated to the next class. Students passing all classes will participate in a graduation ceremony and receive diplomas on the final night of classes. Registration is not required. Bring school supplies, maybe an apple for the teacher and remember, "Curiosity is the desire of knowledge".

see the films for Program #4: The Art and Study of the Social Sciences

April 30
Hampton Alexander (1974, USA, 56min.)
Director: Timothy McKinney
Starring: Ralph Stafford
The film tells the story of Hampton Alexander, Vietnam vet., returning to his former home of St. Paul, MN to avenge his fathers death at the hand of a wealthy city developer. The city raised his old neighborhood to build the Highway 94 East. The film's shoe-string budget provided enough money to create this image rich document of St. Paul and the communities in the inner city in the early seventies. The Inner City Youth League provided crew, talent and vision for the films director to work 3 years to complete it. A first film that shows the inventive and young voice of Minnesota's first feature film by a Black Director. This film is being lent by the Minnesota Historical Society who now care for the original 16mm print.

April 23
National Projects Academy of Learning: Program #3
Life Lessons & Career Choices
National Projects invites you to exercise your body of knowledge at the National Projects Academy of Learning. Classes are completely free and open to the public in this voluntary, media rich school experience held in the City Club Cinema.

Study under the tutelage of renowned experts and immerse yourself in the vast resources of the National Projects Educational Film Archive. Witness cinematic masterworks from the learning film glory years of the 1950's-'80's. Re-discover your favorite obscure topics and re-live your adolescence with the film experiences of your youth. Make cinematic history by joining motion picture and filmstrip technologies with learning based science curriculum. This is guaranteed fun!

Students of the Academy will be graded on their achievements and those with passing grades will be graduated to the next class. Students passing all classes will participate in a graduation ceremony and receive diplomas on the final night of classes. Registration is not required. Bring school supplies, maybe an apple for the teacher and remember, "Curiosity is the desire of knowledge".

see the films for Program #3: Life Lessons & Career Choices

April 16
The Blind Director (1985, Germany, 113min.)
Director: Alexander Kluge
Guest Curator Michael Cronenbusch presents.......
An episodic film, an essay on time, history and the way in which the present can devour both the past and the future. A rich and exciting kaleidoscope of ideas and images, constantly shifting from fact to fiction and back again as it reflects on art and the destruction of illusion.

April 9
Sultry Sirens of the Silent Screen: Clara Bow
IT (1927, United States, 72 min.)
Adapted from the novel by Elinor Glyn
Director: Clarence G. Badger
Curated by Amy Sanders and Mike Dust of National Projects

March 26
National Projects Academy of Learning: Program #2
Mathematics, Metrics and You, an Introduction to Number Systems
National Projects invites you to exercise your body of knowledge at the National Projects Academy of Learning. Classes are completely free and open to the public in this voluntary, media rich school experience held in the City Club Cinema.

Study under the tutelage of renowned experts and immerse yourself in the vast resources of the National Projects Educational Film Archive. Witness cinematic masterworks from the learning film glory years of the 1950's-'80's. Re-discover your favorite obscure topics and re-live your adolescence with the film experiences of your youth. Make cinematic history by joining motion picture and filmstrip technologies with learning based science curriculum. This is guaranteed fun!

Students of the Academy will be graded on their achievements and those with passing grades will be graduated to the next class. Students passing all classes will participate in a graduation ceremony and receive diplomas on the final night of classes. Registration is not required. Bring school supplies, maybe an apple for the teacher and remember, "Curiosity is the desire of knowledge".

see the films for Program #2: Mathematics, Metrics and You

March 19
Strongman Ferdinand & The Oyster Princess
Guest Curator Michael Cronenbusch presents.......
The Oyster Princess (1919) Germany, with live musical accompaniment, director: Ernst Lubitsch
The Oyster King Quaker's (Victor Janson) daughter is desperate to marry an aristocrat, so her father has decided to marry his spoiled daughter to prince Nucki, an aristocrat who is a poor but very class-conscious man-about-town. The prince wanting to check this princess out goes undercover as his servant. To his astonishment she is gorgeous and when they run into a priest and the princess rebelliously forces the priest to marry them you know its gonna work out in the end.

Strongman Ferdinand(1975-76) Germany, directed by Alexander Kluge
Directed by Alexander Kluge, is the story of an ex-cop who got the boot and lands himself a job as the head of security at big corporation. Life is perfectly boring until an explosion rocks the factory. Ferdinand sets to work at discovering the cause! Tightening security to the point of frustrating his employer, Director Wilutzki, who then becomes Ferdinands prime suspect and enemy. Ferdinand, turning to criminal methods, plans a raid on the company to arrest Wilutzki of high treason!

March 12
2001 MARC Student Show
Guest Curator Bruce Cooper presents the Midwest Artists Resource Center's latest students final projects.

March 5
Innocents Abroad
Innocents Abroad, Documentary feature directed by Les Blank. Guest Curator Mark Wojahn presents a night of travel through motion pictures. Selected travelogues from differing backgrounds and times reflect from the screen to present passion, sentiment, and the uncertainty of journeying. Impressioning cinema at its finest.

February 26
Hitchcock Double Feature
The 39 Steps (1935)
The greatest of all spy movies. Canadian rancher (Robert Donat), embroiled in an English military secret plot, is simultaneously fleeing an accusation of murder and hunting down the leader of the gang of spies. In his searching through Scotland's hills and moors, he has a series of spectacular escapes and encounters, the love interest Madeline Carroll.
Sabotage (1936)
With Sylvia Sydney, Oscar Homolka, Desmond Testor, John Loder, and Joyce Barbour. The Plot revolves around a secret organization that hires people to plant bombs in crowded sections of London. Both films exemplify the lessons in suspense that Hitchcock employed expertly in his later films.

February 19
The National Projects Academy of Learning: Program #1
Adventures in Science
National Projects invites you to exercise your body of knowledge at the National Projects Academy of Learning. Classes are completely free and open to the public in this voluntary, media rich school experience held in the City Club Cinema.

Study under the tutelage of renowned experts and immerse yourself in the vast resources of the National Projects Educational Film Archive. Witness cinematic masterworks from the learning film glory years of the 1950's-'80's. Re-discover your favorite obscure topics and re-live your adolescence with the film experiences of your youth. Make cinematic history by joining motion picture and filmstrip technologies with learning based science curriculum. This is guaranteed fun!

Students of the Academy will be graded on their achievements and those with passing grades will be graduated to the next class. Students passing all classes will participate in a graduation ceremony and receive diplomas on the final night of classes. Registration is not required. Bring school supplies, maybe an apple for the teacher and remember, "Curiosity is the desire of knowledge".

see the films for Program #1: Adventures in Science

February 12
Sex Madness
Manhattan Madness (1916)
All that remains of a rare pre-1920's Douglas Fairbanks features. Doug hits the big city and mentions to friends he is rather bored and could do with a little action. An elaborate and mad scheme by his friends succeeds beyond his plans in relieving him.
Falling In Love Again (1931)
Marlene Dietrich sings the top musical number from THE BLUE ANGEL.
Au Fou (Japan, 1970)
Director Yoji Kuri Reminiscent, in mood, of that of James Thurber in his depiction's of the battle of the sexes, with added touches of grotesquely. Possibly one of the best known Japanese animators.
Paradise (1932)
Pola Negri the silver screen star sings a number from the film A WOMAN COMMANDS.
Sex Madness (1937)
FLAMING YOUTH! CHEAP THRILLS! MOCKED MORALITY! UNBRIDLED PASSION! SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE! A campy feature warning of the evils of lust.

February 5
The Devil Made Me Do It
The evening kicks off with the temptation that lead man to do things he might not have done had the Devil not found his idle hands.

Daredevil Days (1942)
A look at daredevils, post WWII.
Yea, Verily! (1968)
Father Boris and Sister Madge become Father Fantastic and Wonder Nun, who successfully rid the world of SIN!
The Devils Assistant (1917)
A powerful film on the subject of...drugs!
Simon of the Desert (Spain, 1965)
Director Luis Bunuel tells the story of Simon who has stood on the top of a pillar in the desert for something over six years. His asceticism and purity has served as an inspiration for the people in the area. who proctically worship him as a living saint. Incensed at this, the Devil, in the guises of various women, tries to tempt him from his devotion to God and purity. Shamed and irritated by his example, the locals, including the clergy, evetually turn against him and the Devil spirits him away to a New York night club.
The Devil's Wanton (Sweden, 1960)
Director Ingmar Bergman tells the story of how the Devil sent Don Juan up from Hell to seduce a pastor's daughter, because her chastity is "a sty in Satan's eye". Failing in his attempt, he falls in love with her, abandons his mission, and returns to Hell. However his assistant, Pablo succeeds with the pastor's ...wife!?

January 29
FALSTAFF (spain, 1966) 119 min.
Director Orson Welles
Welle's true masterpiece will be shown in its entirety at City Club Cinema.
with Orson Welles (Falstaff), Keth Baxter (Prince Hal), John Gielgud (King Henry IV), Jeanne Moreau (Doll Tearsheet), Margaret Rutherford (Mistress Quickly).

Falstaff (aka. THE CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT) is taken from shakespeare's Henry IV part I, Henry IV part II, Henry V, MERRY WIVES OF WENDSOR, Richard II and a narration from Hollinshed's "Chronicles."

FALSTAFF takes the onlooker right into the hearts of the protagonists, and brings Shakespeare's words to life as if torn from the very souls of each character.
....The heartbreak of Falstaff when he is rejected by the newly-crowned King Henry V is one of the most poignant scenes in cinema, since Falstaff has been completely blind to the possibility that Hal could reject his gift of absolute love.
....The battle scenes in Falstaff compare favorably with any of the great ones in movie history, the editing ranking with that of Griffith (Birth of a Nation), Vidor (The Big Parade) or Eisenstein (Alexander Nevsky).
All in all, this, the eleventh feature-length film directed by Orson Welles, proved that he had lost nothing of his power, imagination, and poetry since his first and most famous film, Citizen Kane.

January 22
A Lee Marvin Fan Club Evening
Join the Minneapolis chapter of the Lee Marvin Fan Club for a special screening of:
CAT BALLOU (1965)
Director Elliot Silverstein. Starring Jane Fonda, Lee Marvin, Michael Callan, Dwayne Hickman, Nat King Cole, Stubby Kaye. Cat Ballou is comedic spoof of the old west. Stubby Kaye and Nat King Cole play travelling minstrels that tell the story of the west in spirited and tuneful songs composed by Mack David and Jerry Livingston. Jane Fonda plays the firey woman Cat who hires the gun slinger Kid Shelleen, played by Lee Marvin, who also plays the one of the bad guy gunmen, to protect her father from the no good cattle rustlers.

January 15
Two Films by Werner Herzog
STROSZEK (1977)
starring Bruno S., Eva Mattes, Clemens Scheitz, Wilhelm von Homburg, Burkahard Driest, Alfred Edel. The story of Bruno a,traveling musician, who is released from jail. Bruno falls in love with the prostitute Eva, who abused by her pimp, decides with Bruno to move to Plainfield, Wisconsin and begin a new life. Their neighbor, Mr. Scheitz, who has a nephew there, goes too. Together they dream of their new begining "Everyone can make money in AMERICA!"

LAND OF SILENCE AND DARKNESS (1971) (documentary)
Although Fini Straubinger has been deaf and blind throughout most of her 56 years, she decides to help others in the same situation. Werner Herzog's documentary shows her confront the world around her. The film is poetic and factual in its attempt to portray the state of being unable to see or hear.

"Film is not the art of scholars, but of illiterates." - Werner Herzog

January 8
Tree of Life
Guest Curator Bruce Cooper returns with this multilimbed look into life in the new year.