Crosstown Theater

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.

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.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1990 Sundance Film Festival — yet criminally under-seen for over three decades — Chameleon Street recounts the improbable but true story of Michigan con man Douglas Street, the titular “chameleon” who successfully impersonated his way up the socioeconomic ladder by posing as a magazine reporter, an Ivy League student, a respected surgeon, and a corporate lawyer.

Glamour has never been more grotesque than in Female Trouble, which injects the Hollywood melodrama with anarchic decadence. Divine, director John Waters’ larger-than-life muse, engulfs the screen with charisma as Dawn Davenport, the living embodiment of the film’s lurid mantra, “Crime is beauty,” who progresses from a teenage nightmare hell-bent on getting cha-cha heels for Christmas to a fame monster whose egomaniacal impulses land her in the electric chair.

Experience a transformative selection of Black, Indigenous, and Queer voices from Bahia, Brazil, through this MicroCinema event curated by the Black Freedom Fellowship’s Odù Film Festival. These films intertwine the preservation of our planet, ancestral heritage, and queer identity to craft an action-inspiring path toward a future vital to our collective survival. This Indie Memphis x Black Freedom Fellowship MicroCinema event happens two days before the in-person “Odù Film Festival” takes place in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, featuring two days of film screenings from all over the world as well as art exhibitions, art markets, and music concerts. 

Fassbinder’s biggest international box-office success and the first part of his “postwar trilogy,” The Marriage of Maria Braun is a heartbreaking study of a woman picking herself up from the ruins of her own life, as well as a pointed metaphorical attack on a society determined to forget its past.

Indie Memphis & Crosstown Arts are excited to present our next Shoot & Splice: Screen Acting hosted by Akono Dixon. Akono will lead a presentation and discussion on the craft of acting; from building a character and working with a director, to script analysis, auditioning technique, and more. A Memphis native, Akono is a rising filmmaker with credits including DOLEMITE IS MY NAME, EUPHORIA, and the lead role in the upcoming Hallmark film, SPRING BREAKTHROUGH directed by Mykelti Williamson.