February 3 - CITY CLUB CINEMA PRESENTS A CONTROVERSIAL DOCUMENTARY
City Club Cinema presents a highly controversial feature length documentary from the 1960's. This film was kept for years from the public eye and this evening's screening is a unique opportunity to see it screened. WARNING: Be advised this film contains strong content!!

2002

December 22 - Seven films by Colorado filmmaker Tony Gault
1) Somewhere, I Was Born - A comic study of religion and evolution, the film documents the filmmaker’s brush with mortality after a cancer diagnosis. Shot on Super 8 film and blown up to 16mm - 8 minutes - Completed September 2000.

2) Housesitting - An exploration of the relationship between body, landscape and the intrusion of Anglo culture on the American continent. 16 mm film, 14 minutes - Completed September, 1999.

3) Tabernacle - A honeymoon film explores the visceral act of traveling and living in our bodies and the scientific/religious representations of corporeality. 16mm film, 10 min. - Completed September 1998.

4) The Gift - Four generations of a family plagued by alcoholism and drug addiction. 16 mm film, 12 minutes - Completed September, 1997.

5) Millions of Acres - A narrative comedy that explores the proliferation of Prozac and its effects on our perception of the American Dream. 16mm film, 22 minutes - Completed June, 1994.

6) Picture #4 - A personality test becomes the catalyst for an experimental documentary that explores imposition of multiple interpretations to an image. 16mm, 6 min. - June, 1993.

7) Hats Can Be A Scary Thing - A documentary that explores the acculturation of boys in middle America. 16 mm film, 4 minutes - Completed December, 1992.

Biographical info: Tony Gault teaches media production and criticism at the University of Denver and is currently working on a film about language and how it influences our perception of "reality."

December 16 - San Francisco, Experimental Films
(Guest Curator - Scott Miller)

December 9 - The Structural Films of Peter Kubelka
(Guest Curator - Tony Remple)

Peter Kubelka (b. 1934) is a multifaceted artist and theoretician who has worked in the art forms of film, cuisine, music, architecture, speaking and writing. Since the beginning of the fifties he has been a leading exponent of the international avant-garde film and has had screenings in all the European countries as well as in the USA and Japan.

"Kubelka's achievement is that he has taken Soviet montage one step further. While Eisenstein used shots as his basic units and edited them together in a pattern to make meanings, Kubelka has gone back to the individual still frame as the essence of cinema. The fact that a projected film consists of 24 still images per second serves as the basis for his art.

I know of no other cinema like this. The ultimate precision that Kubelka's films achieve frees them to become objects that have some of the complexity of nature itself - but they are films of a nature refined and defined, remade into a series of relationships. Those rare and miraculous moments in nature when the sun's rays align themselves precisely with the edge of a rock or the space between two buildings, or when a pattern on sand or in clouds suddenly seems to take on some other aspect, animal or human, are paralleled in single events of a Kubelka film. The whole film is forged out of so many such precisions with an ecstatic compression possible only in cinema." - Fred Camper

Films: Mosaik im Vertrauen (1955), Adebar (1957), Schwechater (1958), Arnulf Rainer (1960), Unsere Afrikareise (1966), Pause! (1977)

December 2 - Harder on Harder
(Guest Curator - Phil Harder)

A series of short works by father, on son.

October 14 - Birds, Birds, Birds
Ornithologists and Obscure Cinema Lovers will delight to this evening of fascinating bird motion pictures shown in conjunction with the Bird by Bird Avian Portrait Project at Radiator Art Exhibition Company.

The program will, along with others, include filmic bird masterworks such as:

Ruby Throated Hummingbird (16mm, color, 1946)
Cultivate Your Garden Birds (16mm, color, 1947, International Film Bureau)
Bobolink and Bluejay (16mm, color, 1949)

ALSO!
Don't miss Bird by Bird, an Avian Portrait Project to Benefit the Minnesota Wildlife Haven. Art by more than 43 artists represents more than 600 birds that have been admitted throughout the season. Each bird has been acknowledged through photography, print, drawing, or sculpture

Reception and Art Auction
Saturday, October 5th, 6-10pm
Preview, 6-7pm; Silent Auction, 7-9pm
Radiator Art Exhibition Company
2911 Aldrich Avenue So. (One Block North of Lake Street)
Minneapolis, MN

The Minnesota Wildlife Haven is a non-profit medical facility serving orphaned and injured wildlife of the twin cities.

September 30 - Who'll Stop the Rain (1978)
All are invited to join CITY CLUB CINEMA in welcoming back alumni curator Mark Har as he unspools another treasure from his collection of 16mm 70's cinema. Tonight we will be treated to a tour de force performance by American cinema everyman Nick Nolte while being drenched in the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival and Slim Whitman.

In Who'll Stop The Rain, Ray Hicks (Nick Nolte) first mistake was in trying to do a buddy a favour by bringing a little package for him from Southeast Asia. If he makes a second mistake, Ray and his buddy's wife are unlikely to survive the consequences.

August 26 - Paint Your Wagon (1969)
Directed By Joshua LoganMarvin and Eastwood star as California prospectors during the Gold Rush of 1849-50. Jean Seberg is the link in this interesting love triangle set in the old west. Marvin set up a prospectors town, No Name City, and hijacks a wagon full of prostitutes for the rest of the town. Setting himself up in business at the town saloon.

The budget originally assigned to the film was a huge fourteen million dollars; it went wildly over this and ended up costing twenty million. Eastwood was enraged at the waste he witnessed during the filming.

This was not Clint's first singing role: as Rowdy Yates, he sang in at least one episode of Rawhide ("The Pitchwagon").

There were rumours in the press of an affair between Clint and co-star Jean Seberg.

Clint rented a farm for the duration of the film where he would look after the animals and barbecue with Lee Marvin.

August 19 - Careful (1992)
Director Guy Maddin
Starring: Kyle McCulloch, Gosia Dobrowolska, Sara Neville, Paul Cox I

In the remote Alpine village of Tolzbad at the turn of the century, people talk quietly and restrain their movements lest avalanches come and kill them. This atmosphere lends itself to repressed emotions - shown through the parallel stories of butler student Johann lusting after his mother (an old flame of the mysterious Count Knotkers) and Klara's attraction to her father (who lusts after his other daughter), leading to duels and suicidal plunges galore. All this is shot in the style of an early German sound film, complete with intertitles, deliberately crackly soundtrack and 'hand-tinted' colour effects.

Film Notes:
Paul Cox I directed the motion picture Molakai: The Story Of Father Damien(1999), Vincent (1987).

August 12 - Mutiny On The Bounty (1961)
Director Lewis Milestone and Carol Reed
Starring: Marlon Brando (1st Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, Master's Mate)
Trevor howard (Capt. William Bligh)

The Bounty leaves Portsmouth in 1787. Its destination: to sail to Tahiti and load bread-fruit. Captain Bligh will do anything to get there as fast as possible, using any means to keep up a strict discipline. When they arrive at Tahiti, it is like a paradise for the crew, something completely different than the living hell on the ship. On the way back to England, officer Fletcher Christian becomes the leader of a mutiny.

A daring challenge to the original, from 1935, starring Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian.

Film Notes:
Trevor howard was Major Calhan in Carol Reeds The Third Man

August 5 - Go Ask Alice (1972)
The Mark Har Collection brings another fabulous film from the 70's…

Director John Korty
Starring: William Shatner (as Alice's Father), Ruth Roman (Psychiatrist), Andy Griffith (Priest), Robert Caradine (Bill)

A high school girl gets heavily involved in drugs, finally realizes she needs help. A must see for anyone who was ever a teenager.

This film was originally adapted from the book, author anonymous, editor Beatrice Sparks, who now seems to be credited with the successful book. The book was reissued in 1998 by popular demand and now stands as the number one best seller in Baldwin, New York. The number two and three slots in Baldwin are respectively; American Psycho and Weight Watchers Simply the Best: 250 Prize Winning Family Recipes.

Film Notes:
William Shatner's first big roll was in the Brothers Karazamov, that starred Yul Brynner and Claira Bloom in 1958. He played the Brother Alexi Karazamov. Ruth Roman's first big roll was in Strangers on a Train, Hitchcock 1951. She played the female lead as Anne Morton.

July 29 - IS THIS WHAT YOU WERE BORN FOR? (1981-87)
Dir. Abigail Child
Is This What You Were Born For? Is conceived as a way to bracket my ongoing film investigations in the context of the aggressions of the late Twentieth Century; the title is from an etching by Goya, part of the Disasters of War series. The work is in seven detachable parts, each one of which can be viewed by itself for its own qualities. The films don't form a single line, or even an expanding one, but rather map a series of concerns in relation to mind, to how one processes material, how it gets investigated, how it gets cut apart how something else (inevitably) comes up.

July 22 - Haxan
with live orchestration by Naomi

July 15 - George Kuchar brought to us in conjunction with the REDEYE Cinema.

Leisure (1966, 16mm, b&w/so)
A dramatized social commentary with the horrifying impact of a three-hundred ton chunk of margarine.

A Reason to Live 1976, (16mm, b&w/so, 30m)
This film is about depression, although it's not that depressing. I suppose it has a message of faith and hope in it ... it does for me .... But then again my interest may not match yours. It was shot in San Francisco and in Central Oklahoma with a cast of one man and four women. Crushing emotions are indulged in against a massive meteorological background that brings inspiration and terror to the characters involved.

Wild Night in El Reno (1977, 16mm, color/so, 6m)
This film documents a thunderstorm as it rages in full fury above a motel in May on the southern plains. There's sun, wind, clouds, rain and electrical pyrotechnics ... with perhaps a glimpse of a fleeting human figure. But only a glimpse.

Forever and Always (1978, 16mm, color/so, 20m)
A marriage on the rocks that hurts the heart almost as much as the colors hurt the eye. "... a full color portrait of a break-up that comes closer than any other to being an operetta." - B. Ruby Rich

The Mongreloid (1978, 16mm, color/so, 10m)
A man, his dog, and the regions they inhabited, each leaving his own distinctive mark on the landscape. Not even time can wash the residue of what they left behind.

July 1 - Trevor Adams and Scott Miller
Two of Minneapolis' master filmmakers power their way through an evening of abstract, experimental, expressionist, genius genre cinema. New work from the minds and sprockets of some the hometown's best. Don't miss this riveting exploration of pure perfection on film. Cinema gone wild in front of your very eyes!

July 8 - The Mark Harr collection presents…1970's Film Trailers
The beautiful, the horrifying, and all the action you might remember from 70's cinema. Bring your short attention span and a thirst for your favorite beverage.

June 24 - Phil Harder presents Poetry in Motion
Join guest curator, Philip Harder for a night of Poetry in Motion, an evening of films that are poetic, poignant, moving, and memorable. Films to be shown include, Ray and Charles Eames', House; Philip Lipset's 21-87; NFL films: Vikings vs. Colts; Skinny Skiing; Mindscape; and Pas de Deux, among others. Don't miss this delightful opportunity to get in sync with things and put a little poetry in your motion...

June 17 - National Projects presents Jazz on Film: Part II
Join National Projects for Part II of this cinematic stomp off from the early Harlem Strut, to the era of Groovin' High. The second in a series of four evenings scheduled throughout the coming year featuring classic Jazz on film from the late 1920's through the 1960's. Turn up the heat, swing, brother, swing and shuffle your way down to the City Club Cinema for your movie history of the greatest joys of jazz.

June 10 - The Essential Brothers Quay
Nocturna Artificialia (1979) 21min.
The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer (1984) 14min.
The Epic of Gilgamesh or (This Unameable Little Broom)(1985)11min.
Street of Crocodiles (1986) 21min.
Rehearsals For Extinct Anatomies (1987) 14min.
Anamorphosis (1991) 15min.

June 3 - Blue Sunshine (1976)
Dir. Jeff Lieberman Starring: Zalman King, Mark Goddard, Robert Walden and Deborah Winters As a horror film this is a great example of 70's B cinema, as for an anti-drug movie it may or may not have got the thumbs up from the censors. A classic cult film about a group of students who "party" and takes acid one day, an especially potent flavor, and has a great time. Over the years they grow up and go on with their lives when all the sudden to the day, to the moment, exactly ten years later they all loose their minds, pull their hair out (or off!) and psychaotically kill everyone around them. Jerry, played by Zalman King, is one of the fated partiers, and he traces all the facts back to one congressman, played by Mark Goddard (from Lost in Space fame), who gave them this blotter acid with the blue sun shining on it which, as we know, they all took.

May 20 - Curator Bruce Cooper returns…Found Footage Films
Cosmic Ray (1961), Dir. Bruce Conner
Cosmic Ray seems like a reckless collage of fast moving parts: Comic strips, dancing girlsm flashing lights. It is the dancing girl-hardly dressed, stripping or nude-which provides the leitmotiv for the film. …Of course, the title also refers to musician Ray Charles whose art Conner visually transcribes onto film as a potent reality, tough and penetrating in its ability to affect some pretty basic animal instincts. - Carl Belz, Film Culture

The Exquisite Hour (1989) (revised 1994), Dir. Phil Solomon
Partly a lullaby for the dying, partly a lament at the dusk of cinema. Based on the song by Reynaldo Hahn and Paul Verlaine.

Funk, Dir. Lyle Pearson
In 1979 Andy Young claimed the King of Morocco would soon be deposed. He wasn't but this may be your last chance to see him, along with Kurt Waldheim and the Queen of England. A Moroccan newsreel bought in the casbah in Fez, reedited for ten years, also features a genuinely painted desert wedding, JFK at the United Nations and an Olympics. Hindi/Arabic soundtrack. Perhaps contains some Beatles music. An international TERROR TRAIL.

MM (1996), Dir. Timoleon Wilkins
The recovery of film lab detritus inspired this contemplation of the personal and cinematic past and future. Somber and farcical in tone. MM follows an imagistic stream-of-consciousness back to the imagined (and real) circumstances of my birth. In part an homage to Bruce Conner's work.

On Your Own (1981), Dir. James Otis
Into my hands fell a 20-minute exhortation to find the right job after highschool. Struck by its fierce redundancy, I undertook a distillation, editing the optical track, aiming for conversational cadenc, choosing image only when silent.

passage a l'acte (1993)
Given context: a Hollywood text from the early sixties; a family breakfast with husband,wife, son and daughter. Inscribed: a repetition of what is diminished, set apart and alien; a symptom.

Winterwheat (1989)
Winterwheat was made by bleaching, scratching and painting directly on the emulsion of an educational film about the farming cycle. I wanted to manipulate the found footage to create lulling, hypnotic visuals while also suggesting an apocalyptic narrative. Though the images can be viewed purely for their graphic idiosyncracy, a quiet but persistent theme of destruction winds its way through the film.

Vervielfaltigung (1996)
"Duplication [many-making] is in as much progress as it broadens the possibilities for simplifying." -Karl Kraus
William Sheldon's crackpot body typing, based on the superficially convincing fiction of universal endo-, ecto-, and mesomorphic components of the human form, gave each person three numbers from 1 to 7, one for each of these three components, interpretable as coordinates of a point in a cubic parameter space. The result of decades of obsessive recording, his Atlas of Men contained standardized pictures of 1200 individuals, obvious animation fodder. Attending to fundamental cinematic concepts of cut, shot and motion, I employed a computer to reduce Sheldon's three dimensions to the one of time. Further programs turned the coordinates of bodily form into notes, giving endomorphy, ectomorphy, and mesomorphy each their own voice. Thus each point in Sheldon's parameter space implies a type of himan and, by my contrivance, a frame of film and a musical chord.

May 13 - The Trial
Directed by Orson Welles

Cast:Anthony Perkins (Joseph K), Arnoldo Foà (Inspector A), Madeleine Robinson (Mrs Grubach), Jeanne Moreau (Miss Burstner), Orson Welles (Advocate)

The fable tells us that the film is about a man caught in a web. This not only applies to K, but to everybody in the film. Clinging to integrity: at first, it seems that Joseph K is the little man, the man of integrity, but as we listen to him moan about the situation and act improperly, we see that no one in the movie has any integrity at all. So, this is not a theme of the movie, and perhaps the reason why so many Welles fans react against it. Abuse of power: the Advocate uses his position to play with Rudy Block's emotions. Joseph K also bullies Rudy Block. Corrupt authority: when the policemen interview K, they want to take his record collection. The police accept corruption as a natural part of the system. Servile acceptance: all the power exerted by the system is accepted by everybody in the movie except K. In this way, he is the hero. However, he is not a perfect person. He is not a nice man. The screen: the parable is told via a movie projector, so we get a story within a story.

Welles spent one day in 1959 shooting his scenes for Abel Gance's Austerlitz (1960), where he met producers Alexander and Michael Salkind. They gave Welles a list of 15 classic books for him to direct and he picked The Trial by Franz Kafka. The Salkinds were so broke that they had to borrow money to visit Welles to discuss the project. Over a period of time, money was secured from mysterious sources in Germany, France and Italy, giving a budget of $1.3 million.

Welles always found this film hilarious. To him, Joseph K is guilty of everything. K is an up and coming executive, an ambitious man, and he deserves everything he gets. K comes on to all the women in the movie - he wants them. He exerts his power over others, as others exert it over him. However, K is so up-and-coming, so fast, that he neatly bypasses all the thousands of other numbered men waiting in fields and in corridors, on his way to his death sentence. This is the blackest of black comedies where the law uses its power to play on people's innate sense of guilt. Welles: "Kakfa hates the law. What I hate are the abuses."

May 6 - Alien Anomalies outta Other Cinema (aka Crack in' short Experimental Films)
Curated by San Francisco's Other Cinema programming director Craig Baldwin. These films are the cream of the Bay Area's alternative film scene. Baldwin describes these filmmakers as "media savages". Set on ransacking the "cargo cult of debris left over from corporate producers".

This best describes the found footage artists like Baldwin (Tribulation, 5min excerpt), Thad Povery (Thine Inward Looking Eyes), the Scratch film Junkies (St. Louise), and Gibbs Chapman (An Examination of Exhibits).

Filmmaker Greta Snider interviews punk rockers and homeless men (Hard Core-Home Movie, and Urine Man).

Other bright lights in this blinding program are Kerry Laitala, James Hong and Martha Coldburn. These visionaries swing us through a biological love scene (Hallowed), or hammer the viewer with the weight of the Orient (Behold the Asian) and wrap us in the raunchy San Fran web of Desire ( Spiders in Love). This is a exceptional program and is here exclusively at City Club Cinema.

Organized locally by intermedia artist Mark Wojahn. This program recently screened at the 40th Ann Arbor Film Festival in Michigan to the yelps and squeals of the avant garde audience. Wojahn, who was in Michigan creating art for the festival says "the impact of these films is still felt on my retinas and in my dreams....never before have I witnessed a series of films that dismembered my ideas of the cinematic future".

Apr. 29 - The Essential Lotte Reiniger, with a special live performance from JETPACK Theater.
Come witness the ultimate in wearable puppet stages as local puppeteer Karen Haselmann presents The Jetpack Shadow Theater. Haselmann will perform an original piece that celebrates the history of shadow theater and shadow film.

Lotte Reiniger was Born June 2, 1899, Berlin; Died June 19, 1989. Her film career spans 65 years from 1916 to the 1970's. She was an animator of shadow puppets. Reiniger began working on intertitle design for Paul Wegener's films at the age of sixteen. Her titles were made of hand-cut silhouettes, and in 1919 she developed this technique to create a complete animated silhouette film. In 1921, Reiniger married Carl Koch, who served as her producer and camera operator for the next 40 years.

Between 1923 and 1926, Rieniger and Koch, with assistance from animators Walter Rutmann, Bertolt Bartosch, and Alex Kardan, created The Adventures of Prince Achmed. One of the world's first feature-length animated films, The Adventures of Prince Achmed displayed Reiniger's ability to create captivating characters through intricate design and an amazingly graceful sense of movement. The film remains unsurpassed as a demonstration of animated art.

With the advent of sound, Reiniger made a series of short films set to the music of Mozart. Through the 1930's, with the rise of Disney, Fleischer, and Warner Bros., character-based cel animation became the dominant animation form. As animated cartoons, with their costly and labor-intensive production requirements, became the standard, the works of filmmakers like Reiniger became less marketable. But because silhouette animation requires considerable patience and individual skill, but not necessarily the the production costs of cel animation, Reiniger was able to continue creating her unique animation.

These films are small handful of her short works. The City Club is proud to present the following selections:

Harlequin (1931)
The Stolen Heart (1934)
Papegano (1935)
The Magic Horse (1953)
Snow White and Rose Red (1953)
The Frog Prince (1954)
The Gallant Little Taylor (1954)

Apr. 22 - Twin City Artist Front presents an evening of experimental film projection
The Twin City Artist Front, the metro area's only active "artist army", will perform a happening of experimental film. The 'artists' will be filmic howitzer's- exploding various genres of cinema, with spoken word performances on Secretary of Defense - Donald Rumsfield, Michael Moore, and Noam Chomsky. They will transcend the City Club Cinema theater into a sing-a-long of creative battlefields and visual smart bombs. This "action" will occur for this one night only.

the "Artist Front" was formed in the weeks after 9/11, to support dialogue and artistic expression on social and political issues. Thus far, the Front has done projects in various galleries, Shoppe's and restaurants. It work has been distributed locally but also nationally in New York , Los Angeles and globally as far away as Berlin. No place is safe from the pincers of these Artists' assault. Grumpy's bar is just the latest of venues willing to brave their new world of expression. films include:

Just A Gigolo (1932) USA, Dir. Max Fleischer
Come sing along with Irene Boroni and Betty Boop.

Dream of Wild Horses (1960) FRANCE, Dir. Janusz Majewski
An experimental film in which slow motion turns footage of wild horses into a haunting dream world.

The Running, Jumping, Standing Film (1956) BRITIAN, Dir. Richard Lester, Featuring; Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan
An early film by the director of HELP!. This wacky 12 min short film may have you laughing out of your seat.

Felix See's 'em In Season (1927) USA, Dir. Otto Messemer
Beautiful spring melts ugly old Winter away. Felix sees a mouse and fives chase, but spring fever overcomes them both…

Meditation on violence (1948) USA, Dir. Maya Deren
An experimental work on the dynamic principles of Wu Tang boxing choreographed as dance performance and filmed and edited in a structure of continuous beginnings. The essence of Wu Tang boxing is said to be that it never extends boxing to the extreme but always rounds it about. No movements are ever completed they merely lead again into a new movement. Maya Deren saw this principle as metaphoric and the very principle of life.

Jungle Hell (1953) INDIA, Dir. Norman Cerf
An Indian Sci-Fi Movie about strange seeds being tended by flying saucers ,an English Doctor who is introduced to them by a boy who had a run in with one of the seeds and the beautiful K.T. Stevens, as of course, the Doctors able bodied assistant who falls in love with him.

Lucky 13 (1981) USA, Dir. Robin Madin
Lets just say this film begins with a test dummy at an auto testing facility and ends with the dummy somewhere else!

Spooks (1932) USA, Dir. Ub Iwerks
Flip the Frog takes shelter in a haunted house during a thunderstorm, and under goes a series of adventures.

Fire (1986?), Dir. Phil Costa Cummins
An attempt to capture beauty too volatile, too fleeting and too dangerous; a thing with a life of its own.

Eureka (1974), Dir. Ernie Gehr
This is a re-filming of a remarkable movie depicting Market Street, San Francisco, around the turn of the century. The original film was one long shot taken from the front of a moving trolley from approximately Seventh Street all the way to the Embarcadero. I extended each frame six to eight times, full-frame, and increased the contrast and the light fluctuations.

Apr. 15 - Los Olvidados (The Young and the Damned), 1950
Guest Curator from the Red Eye Cinema: Tony Remple presents:

Los Olvidados (The Young and the Damned) (1950), Directed by Luis Bunuel, Starring Estelle Inda. After a 15 year hiatus from directing Luis Bunuel returned to the big screen with this harsh look at man and his civilization of the planet. Through out this time Bunuel continued working on films suggested to him by producers. It seemed as though he was adjusting to the main stream tastes of audiences. Yet disguised here in this film come Bunuel's criticism of social institutions and life. Set in Mexico, Los Olvidados, is the story of a small town youth's struggle to stay alive despite the neglect of the living.

along with...

Song of the Prairie (1949), Directed by Jiri Trnka. Trnka was a graduate of Prague's School of Arts and Crafts, in 1936 he created a puppet theater, which was disbanded after the outbreak of WWII. During the war he designed stage sets and illustrated children's books. In 1945 he set up an animation unit with several collaborators at the Prague film studio; they called the unit "Trick Brothers." Trnka specialized in puppet animation, a traditional Czech art form, of which he became the undisputed master. He also created animated cartoons, but it was his puppet animation that made him an internationally recognixed artist and the winner of film festival awards at Venice and elsewhere.

Tell-Tale Heart (1953), Directed by Ted Parmelee, Narrated by James Mason. A delightfully dark adaptation of the Edgar Allen Poe short story..

Apr. 8 - Girls, Girls, Girls
Calling all Girls (1935)
Clips from great musicals.

Girls in Danger (1929)
This film explores the heroine and her screen life in early cinema.

Blonde Bombshell (1955)
Marilyn Monroe goes up against Jean Harlow in an all out woman to woman competition.

Plus other exciting short films about Girls.

Apr. 1 - National Projects Learning Academy: Simple Civics
Rights, Roles, and Responsibilities
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.

Simple Civics will focus on your government and the role you can play in making the world a better place for all. Come prepared to change the world.

The Right to Privacy (16mm, color, 1976, 18m., A Bernard Wilets Film)
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, paper, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized.

The Story of a Trial (16mm, color, 1976, 21m., A Bernard Wilets Film)
A realistic introduction to the procedures which protect the rights of all citizens, as guaranteed by our Constitution with its Bill of Rights. Two young men are accused of a misdemeanor offense. The film follows them from the arrest through their arraignment and trial. It stresses the importance of due process of law and explains why constitutional safeguards are important to the accused.

The Congressman at Work (16mm, color, 1965, 18m., Encyclopaedia Britannica)
David Brinkley narrates this fascinating documentary about a comprehensive management analysis that was made of the United States Congress by the A.D. Little Consulting Firm in the mid-1960's. We follow Olin Teague, Senior Democrat from Texas and other Congressmen in an effort to better understand the roles and responsibilities of our Representatives. Finally, recommendations are made on how to make the Government function better.

Speech and Protest (16mm, color, 1967, 20m., Churchill Films)
Part of the Politics and Progress: 1960-70 series. You are an American. You have rights. You can speak your mind. You can organize. You can protest, but what exactly are your rights? What should and shouldn't be prohibited? Ideas and the expression of opinion are studied in this examination of freedom of speech and what it means to you and me. A, group directed, motion picture project made by Pieter Van Dansen and Les Blank among others.

America in 1968: Government and Politics (16mm, color, 1979, 22m., Corporation of Entertainment and Learning, Inc. and BFA)
1968, a war year, was also a presidential election year. Opinion on the nation's course was sharply divided among the electorate and within the political parties. What should be America's policy on the Vietnam War, on civil rights, on crime and gun control, on the balance of power within the Supreme Court, on protest and dissent? The year was marked by the assassination of Nobel peace prize winner Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and by the violent confrontations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

Mar. 25 - Ringside
Jab and duck your way through 15 rounds of extraordinary boxing films from the PR Film Library of Boxing History.

Mar. 18 - National Projects presents Jazz on Film: Part I
Join National Projects in this cinematic stomp off from the early Harlem Strut, to the era of Groovin' High. The first in a series of four evenings scheduled throughout the coming year featuring classic Jazz on film from the late 1920's through the 1960's. Turn up the heat, swing, brother, swing and shuffle your way down to the City Club Cinema for your movie history of the greatest joys of jazz.

Rhapsody in Black and Blue (16mm, b&w, 1932)
Louis Armstrong, wearing a leopard skin and standing waist-deep in soap bubbles, as the king of a mythical musical land, plays "Shine," and "I'll Be Glad When You're Dead".

Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life (16mm, b&w, 1935, 16m., Paramount Pictures)
This is the classic short in which the Duke writes a "Jazz Symphony" and superimposed on each movement we see appropriate action on the screen. Includes the numbers "Jealousy," and the four parts of the composition in order: "The Laborers," "A Triangle (Dance, Jealousy and Blues)," "A Hymn of Sorrow" and "Harlem Rhythm." Appearances by Bessie Dudley, an uncredited eighteen year-old named Billie Holiday and Earl "Snakehips" Tucker. Filmed in New York in late 1934. Directed by Fred Waller.

Jungle Jive (16mm, color, 1944, A Walter Lanz cartoon)
A "Swing Symphony" with the terrific jazz track made by the great pianist and exponent of boogie-woogie, Bob Zurke only a month before he died. Directed by James Culhane, a talented, innovative animator who worked with most of the major animation studio during his career.

The Sliphorn King of Polaroo (16mm, color, 1945, A Walter Lanz cartoon)
Famous jazz performer Jack Teagarden plays trombone on the soundtrack of this charming cartoon. Directed by DIck Lundy.

A Date with Duke (16mm, color, 1947, George Pal Productions)
A delightful George Pal Puppetoon, with Duke appearing live, and playing his "Perfume Suite."

Follow that Music (16mm, b&w, 1946, 18m., RKO Radio Pictures)
A musical featurette highlighting Gene Krupa as Gene King, an Orchestra leader trying to make it in New York. His orchestra features Marty Napoleon, tunes include "Boogie Blues," "Dark Eyes," "Opus 145" and "Up and Atom." Directed by Arthur Dreifuss.

Woody Herman: Rhapsody in Wood (16mm, color, 1947, 9m., George Pal Productions)
A George Pal Puppetoon, with Woody Herman's orchestra on the track. Woody Herman explains the origin of his clarinet and its effects on his grandfather's life, while playing clarinet solos throughout, with members of the First Herd. Music composed by Ralph Burns.

and more....

Parts II, III, and IV coming this spring, summer, and fall to the City Club Cinema!

Mar. 11 - Cosmic Zoom
Expand your horizons with an evening of physical, fundamental, geographic, scientific and intensely personal concentation on the inner and outer space, in and around each and every one, and the greater whole of us.

Mar. 4 - The National Projects Explorers Club presents: Around the World in 80 Minutes
 Let the National Projects Explorers Club take you there in this cinematic circumnavigation of terra incognita. Join us in our exploration of peoples and places both charted and uncharted as we investigate the outermost reaches of our many faceted world. Mix equal parts travelogue, adventure and anthropological study and you’ve got an evening of film that promises excitement and exhilaration for each and every audience member. Don’t miss this thrilling evening of provocative footage from all four corners of the globe.

some of the evening's films:
OUTPOSTS OF THE FOREIGN LEGION (1931)(Narrated by Claude Fleming)
This is a very rare and interesting travelog released by the Educational Film Exchange, which was more noted for its collection of early comedies. It was shot in the rare Multicolor Process, one which competed unsuccessfully with the other color processes available in the early 1930's. The film is about Morocco when it was still a French colony. We see natives in the marketplace watching sellers of all kinds of wares; as well as acrobats, snake charmers, etc. The camera visits one of the desert cities ruled by a local emir whose harem residents watch local dancers and singers from their barred windows in the palace. The French Foreign Legion drills and parades in front of the nearby camera.

MICHIGAN SKI-DADDLE (1945)(Dir. by Andre de la Varre)
Beautiful Lake Makatawa near Holland, Michigan is the site of some spectacular stunts on water skis, as performed by experts as well as by some beauteous blonde bimbos. This is a lovely Technicolor print.

ALI AND HIS BABY CAMEL (1960)
This film was made in the desert area of West Pakistan. Young Ali is given a baby camel to care for and train. It is a growing experience for both, as Ali learns to accept reponsibility and the camel learns its niche in the scheme of life. The film is a demonstration of the interdependence of man and his animals and how they have learned to adapt themselves to their environment.

BRAZIL (1958) (Dir. Richard Lukin)
Anselmo, an Amazonian Indian teenager, paddles his canoe along the Amazon River to vist his grandparents, who live on the banks of the river in the style of their ancestors of hundreds of years ago. The next morning, Anselmo and his grandfather tap the wild rubber trees and collect the milky latex. Later, Anselmo and his grandmother scrape manioc root to extract tapioca for making into a sweet bread. ...But a mining company is uprooting the jungle because the poor topsoil covers a huge manganese deposit. Anselmo works as a trainee for the company, in order to understand a world his grandparents never dreamed of. (Color)

CORONATION OF QUEEN ELIZABETH II
Elizabeth II is crowned Queen of England (plus all her other titles!) in a magnificent ceremony as huge crowds gather to watch.

FRANCE PANORAMA #39
TROGLODYTES DE LUXE: An artist's family live in an underground cave which has been fitted up with all modern conveniences, including a swimming pool; THE MOST POWERFUL LASER IN THE WORLD: A laser factory in a rural setting; FRENCH ANTIPODES: A visit to Tahiti.... outrigger canoes, native dancer, naval officers and government buildings, a luau for tourists, a comparison of "Gauginesque" scenes with actual Gaugin paintings; BASKETVILLE AND ITS CHAMPIONS: A city entirely given over to basketball madness, starting with schoolchildren at an early age; CHATEAU RESTORATION: Reconstruction of ruined chateaux, with most of the labor performed by volunteering teenagers; AUTO-PORTRAIT DE LA MODE: Models parading new fashions amidst vintage automobiles.

Feb. 25 - The Third Man
starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles.

Feb. 18 - National Projects' Learning Academy: Bigger, Faster, Stronger
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.

Feb. 11 - Fragments - Desperate Orkestra

Feb. 4 - National Projects' Explorers Club: China
The Orient, brought to life through the eyes of the renowned traveler/adventurer extraordinaire tandem of Kevin Karpinski and Pat Picasso. A selection of films from China's past will be screened and dialogue will ensue. Don't miss this exciting opportunity to travel half-way around the world for absoloutely free!

Jan. 28 - The Essential Larry Jordan
Guest Curator Jayne Bowles presents

Bay area independent filmmaker Larry Jordan has been making films since 1952. He also helped found the Canyon Cinema Cooperative and is most widely know for his animated collage shorts. On January 28th, City Club Cinema will be serving up a plate of Jordan hors d'oeuvres, some collage, some experimental, all very enticing...haunting endless anti-chambers, animated acrobats, hallucinations, weightlessness, Eric Satie passages, the ocean, the moon, the sun, exuberance, light, mystical orbital heads, celestial effervescence...

Our Lady of the Sphere,1969, 16mm, color/so Animation. The mystical Lady with the orbital head moves through the carnival of life in a Surreal Adventure. A classic. Show it to anyone who likes movies. "A beauty ... a genuinely mystical exercise." - Howard Thompson, The New York Times

Once Upon a Time, 1974, 16mm, color/so, 12min. Animation. In many ways a more searching, and certainly a more complex film than OUR LADY OF THE SPHERE. "Pulsating lights, undulating objects, combined with a rich and full color sense." - Donald Miller, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Gymnopedies, 1965, 16mm, color/so, 6min. "It is impossible not to hallucinate on your own while watching it." - Lita Eliseu, East Village Other Awards: Fourth Prize, Ann Arbor Film Festival; Special Commendation, Yale Film Festival. Big Sur Ladies, 1966, 16mm, color/so, 3min. An "in-camera" document or journalistic writing on film, with no subsequent deletions or re-ordering. Made in 1966, it is the first partly pixilated "diary film"?

The One Romantic Adventure of Edward, 1956, 16mm, b&w/so, 8min. "This is the best of my very early films and includes my first footage." Award: Bronze Medal, Brussels Int'l Experimental Film Festival, 1958

Tryptych In Four Parts, 1958, 16mm, color/so, 12min. One of the few remaining authentically "Beat" films, made from the inside of that particular North Beach movement. Features artists Wallace Berman and family, poets Michael McClure and Phillip Lamantia, and artist John Reed, plus the growers of peyote in southern Texas.

January 21 - Coming Home
Guest Curator Mark Har plunders his film vaults for this rare show.

Coming Home, 1978, feature, dir. Hal Ashby
star. Jane Fonda, John Voight, Bruce Dern.
A Love triangle revealing the pain of coming home from the Vietnam War.

Hardware Wars, 1979, short, dir. Ernie Fosselius
A parody, of the 70's epic STAR WARS, using household kitchen appliances.

January 14 - National Projects' Learning Academy:
Saga of the Soil
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.

Past Film Exhibitions 2000
Past Film Exhibitions 2001