Andrew's Video Vault
FREE Screenings Continuous From 8 PM
on the Second THURSDAY of Every Month!
This program is made possible through the generous support of the
Cinema Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania.
March 12
PERFECT LIVES (1984 / 175 minutes) An
experimental opera for television in seven episodes, Perfect Lives
premiered on Great Britain’s Channel Four, and has been called “the most
influential music/theater/literary work of the 1980s.” At its center is
the hypnotic voice of Robert Ashley, whose continuous song narrates the
events of the story — a 1980s update of the mythology of small town
America.
Guest Host and Curator: Megan Bridge of fidget
April 9
LA VIE DE BOHÈME (1992 / 100 minutes)
Finland’s Aki Kaurismäki’s black & white bittersweet comedy,
loosely based on Henri Murger’s influential novel Scènes de la Vie de
Bohème. A poet, a painter, and a playwright pool their limited means to
pursue their art in this fable-like look at impoverished solidarity
among friends.
AMERICAN JOB (1996 / 90 minutes)
Writer/director Chris
Smith’s (1999′s American Movie) debut is a hilariously straight-faced
dark comedy about labor in the U.S. It follows the stork-like mumbler
Randy as he undergoes training and orientation at a variety of
low-paying, low-skilled jobs. The fictional film’s stark documentary
style gives the boredom of modern work a strange urgency in this unique
indie film.
Guest Host and Curator: Dan Buskirk of Phawker.com
May 14
DR. MABUSE, THE GAMBLER [DR. MABUSE, DER SPIELER – EIN BILD DER ZEIT] (1922 / 271 minutes)
The
most complete version of Fritz Lang’s two-part allegory, about a
criminal mastermind who is both the cause (and product of) economic
free-fall and social decadence in Weimar-era Berlin.
June 11
Two daring comedies that use blackface/whiteface to comment on race relations.
SOUL MAN (1986 / 104 minutes) New
World Pictures high concept teen comedy about a white kid (C. Thomas
Howell) who dons blackface in order to get a minority scholarship to
Harvard would be completely reprehensible if it weren’t such an accurate
snapshot of 1980s America. James Earl Jones slums it as a college
professor, and stars Rae Dawn Chong and Howell would marry after working
together on this film. Directed by Steve Miner.
WATERMELON MAN (1970 / 100 minutes)
Melvin Van Peebles became the second African-American to direct at a
Hollywood studio when he made this film about a bigoted white man
(Godfrey Cambridge—in whiteface) who wakes up one morning to discover he
has turned Black. Panned upon its initial release, it has became a true
cult classic.
Guest Host and Curator: Mike Dennis of Reelblack Cinema
July 9
CHAMELEON STREET (1989 / 94 minutes)
Writer/director/actor Wendell B. Harris Jr’s first and only feature
tells the true story of con man Douglas Street, a bored and ingenious
African American male who passes himself off to white society as a
journalist, doctor and scholar. A wicked and tragic satire on being
black and brilliant in America.
UFOria (1985 / 93 minutes)
Writer/Director John Binder’s satiric look at the Southwestern U.S. and
religion follows a Waylon Jennings-loving drifter (Fred Ward) hooking
up with a faith healer (Harry Dean Stanton) and a cashier who has
visions of a UFO communion.
Guest Host and Curator: Dan Buskirk of Phawker.com
August 13
TIE XI QU: WEST OF TRACKS: PART ONE: RUST (2003 / 240 minutes)
In part one of his three-part, nine hour documentary, Wang Bing
hypnotically charts post-industrial decay and its effects on
impoverished workers who live in northeast China. [Tie Xi Qu: West of
Tracks part two, Remnants, and part three, Rails, will screen at
subsequent seasons of Andrew’s Video Vault at The Rotunda.]
September 10
TO BE ANNOUNCED
Guest Host and Curator: Dan Buskirk of Phawker.com
October 8
THE INNOCENTS (1961 / 100 minutes)
Perhaps the most beautifully photographed black & white horror film
ever made, this suspenseful masterwork of Gothic atmosphere is an
exquisite adaptation of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw featuring
gripping performances by adult and child actors alike. An unforgettable
tour-de-force of supernatural terror and psychological repression.
THE SEVENTH VICTIM (1943 / 71 minutes)
The sense of dread is palpable in this moody and nightmarish tale of
urban devil worship from producer Val Lewton. Kim Hunter stars (in her
debut performance) as a young woman searching for her missing sister on
the menacing streets of 1940′s New York City, with plenty of striking
chiaroscuro lighting.
Guest Host and Curator: Mike Zaleski
November 12
MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW (1937 / 91 minutes) Heart-rending
in its truth and emotional beauty, Leo McCarey’s masterpiece and most
personal film was created both as a love letter to his recently deceased
father and as an exposé of what can happen to elderly Americans without
the support of Social Security (or their children). Orson Welles said
of the film: “It would make a stone cry.
”
EVERYBODY’S FINE [STANNO TUTTI BENE] (1990 / 118 minutes) Marcello
Mastroianni gives one of his best performances as an elderly widower
who traverses Italy to visit his distant offspring, each of whom had
given him an impression of their life which turns out to be very
different from the actuality. A powerful and beautiful rumination on the
relationship between elderly parents and their adult children.
Guest Host and Curator: Mike Zaleski
December 10
PERMISSIVE (1970 / 90 min)
At the end of the hippie era, a broke young woman arrives in London and
is initiated into the counter-culture and the seedy sex, drugs and rock
‘n roll lifestyle of a groupie. Psychedelic soundtrack by Comus and
Forever More.
DUFFER (1971 / 75 minutes) Joseph
Despins and William Dumaresq’s off-beat and lyrical character study of a
British teenage boy shuttlecocking between a sadistic old man and
motherly prostitute.
Admission is FREE