WITH A PIECE IN HIS HAND, HE TAKES ON THE MAN! The epochal cultural moment that first brought reggae to the international stage, made Jimmy Cliff a star, and demonstrated how music can change the world. Fifty years on, THE HARDER THEY COME is still electric with the feeling of discovery. This SCARFACE-y blend of crime drama and musical tracks Cliff’s country-boy-in-search-of-fame through Jamaica under the guises of laborer, recording artist, convict, ganja dealer, and outlaw folk hero. Before THE HARDER THEY COME, the collective perception of a “foreign film” was limited to the Bergmans and the Kurosawas of the world. This game-changer forever blew those doors off — and it still hasn’t lost a drop of its cool, its edge, or its way of making you dance.
In John Waters’ POLYESTER (JOHN WATERS/1981/86 minutes), Divine is a suburban housewife who turns to the bottle when life gets too hard. She has a husband who runs a porno theater and two lousy children with serious problems of their own. Teen pregnancy, murder, cocaine, booze, Edith Massey the egg lady as Cuddles Kovinsky!, Stiv Bators (RIP!). From the Dead Boys as Bo-Bo Belsinger, dogs dead by apparent suicide, macrame (the craft!), and TAB HUNTER AS TODD TOMORROW (!!), THIS MOVIE IS TOO GOOD TO MISS!! We are still unsure as to whether or not we will be able to present this film in its original format complete with Odorama, but we can assure viewers that there will be smells.
Lee Moses (1941-1998), a music prodigy, is considered one of the greatest unknown musicians among Baby Huey or Sixto Rodriguez (Sugar Man). He was part of a soul scene in Atlanta between the ’60s and the ’70s. His one album, Time and Place (1971), did not take off. During his time in New York, Moses played with greatest, including Jimi Hendrix and James Brown. His music has now garnered a community of appreciation. Songs such as “Bad Girl” was used in the 2014 French film House of Tolerance, and “If Loving You Is A Crime” was used in 2013 American film The Teacher. What makes his story remarkable is there’s not much to be found on Lee Moses. Even in his hometown of Atlanta, there are no physical traces of him. The locations where Moses once performed no longer exist. TIME AND PLACE aims to connect the time of Lee Moses with the place Atlanta is becoming now.
Considered by many to be one of the greatest and most influential silent-era films ever made, A TRIP TO THE MOON has turn-of-the-20th-century astronomers taking a proto-rocket to the moon and back to Earth. While on the moon, they are attacked and captured by moon natives who turn out to be surprisingly easy to kill and out-maneuver. In a similar tale of Earthmen hurling themselves into the void of space, AELITA: QUEEN OF MARS is a Russian silent film about a man who leaves his boring Earth wife behind to go to Mars and lead a revolution with the help of a Martian Queen named Aelita. These two silent-era classics will be live-scored by Alex Greene and The Rolling Head Orchestra!
Four years after Breathless, Jean-Luc Godard reimagined the gangster film even more radically with BAND OF OUTSIDERS (Bande à part, 1964, 95 minutes). Two restless young men (Sami Frey and Claude Brasseur) enlist the object of both of their fancies (Anna Karina) to help them commit a robbery — in her own home.
Winner of the Golden Bear at Berlinale, the latest from Nadav Lapid, SYNONYMS features a dynamic lead performance from newcomer Tom Mercier, whose feral intensity practically bursts out of the frame. Mercier plays Yoav, a disaffected young Israeli who flees Tel Aviv for Paris to start a new life.
