Events

Following Jack Nicholson’s breakout supporting turn in Easy Rider,director Bob Rafelson devised a powerful leading role for the new star in the searing character study Five Easy Pieces. Nicholson plays the now iconic cad Bobby Dupea, a shiftless thirtysomething oil rigger and former piano prodigy immune to any sense of responsibility, who returns to his upper-middle-class childhood home, blue-collar girlfriend (Karen Black, in an Oscar-nominated role) in tow, to see his estranged, ailing father. Moving in its simplicity and gritty in its textures, Five Easy Pieces is a lasting example of early 1970s American alienation.

Home from college, Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) makes an unsettling discovery: a severed human ear, lying in a field. In the mystery that follows, by turns terrifying and darkly funny, writer-director David Lynch burrows deep beneath the picturesque surfaces of small-town life. Driven to investigate, Jeffrey finds himself drawing closer to his fellow amateur sleuth, Sandy Williams (Laura Dern), as well as their person of interest, lounge singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) — and facing the fury of Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), a psychopath who will stop at nothing to keep Dorothy in his grasp. With intense performances and hauntingly powerful scenes and images, Blue Velvet is an unforgettable vision of innocence lost, and one of the most influential American films of the past few decades.

It's been called “shocking” (Film Comment), “blistering” (Filmmaker), and “a flat-out masterpiece” (The Playlist) yet remained virtually unseen for over 40 years. Now experience this “haunting portrait of juvenile delinquency that ranks among the most powerful in American cinema” (Chicago Reader) from actor/director/co-writer Dennis Hopper as it’s never been seen before: Linda Manz “gives one of the greatest teenage performances of all time” (Film Comment) as a 15-year-old who idolizes Elvis, punk rock, and her ex-con father (Hopper), is surrounded by junkies and predators, and follows them all down a one-way road to oblivion. Sharon Farrell (THE STUNT MAN), Don Gordon (THE LAST MOVIE) and Raymond Burr co-star in “a film about extremes, directed by an extremist” (Time Out) featuring music by Neil Young.