MEL BROOKS, 'HECKLEVISION' & MORE AT THE FRIDA
Santa Ana in California is home to The Frida Cinema where this May they are spotlighting Director Mel Brooks as well as some choice film noir classics. Not to mention a very innovative 'Hecklevision' style Mothers Day event....
THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW (1975): Live Shadow Cast by K.A.O.S.!
Friday May 12th 11:30 pm
Every 2nd Friday of the month is THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW night at The Frida Cinema, featuring a LIVE performance by the all-costumed, all-dancing, all-lip syncing "shadow cast" troupe K.A.O.S.!! Pre-Show is at 11:30pm; the legendary Midnight Movie starts - appropriately - at Midnight! Sing and dance along as the longest-running feature film in history comes to life at The Frida Cinema!
CHINATOWN (1974)
Saturday May 13th 5:00 pm
When Los Angeles private eye J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is hired by Evelyn Mulwray to investigate her husband's activities, he believes it's a routine infidelity case. Jake's investigation soon becomes anything but routine when he meets the real Mrs. Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), and realizes he was hired by an imposter. A sudden and mysterious death sets Gittes on a tangled trail of corruption, deceit, and sinister family secrets.
MOMMIE DEAREST (1981)
Mimosas & MuVChat Mother's Day Screening!
Sunday May 14th 1:30 pm
It's that time again! On Sunday, May 14, The Frida brings back a Frida favorite for the third year in a row - 1981 cult phenomenon MOMMIE DEAREST, in thrilling audience participation MuVChat!!! What is MuVChat!? Known as "HeckleVision" to sell-out crowds at the Alamo Drafthouse, MuVChat allows audience members - particularly those who know and love the movie (you know who are you are...) - to share your witty quips and riffs with texts from your cell phone! Your insults, jokes, and witty one-liners appear immediately on the big screen! Flirt with someone in the audience! Tell the girl behind you to stop kicking your chair! Suggest the next MuVChat title! Warn Christina that Joan is about to walk into the room! (it won't help...) For just these two hours, your in-theatre texting is actually ENCOURAGED! (We mean it - for *JUST* these two hours! Use this opportunity to get it out of your system, theatre texters!)
Directors Series: Mel Brooks
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974)
Wed May 17th & Thurs May 18th 8pm
What do you do when you want to be celebrated as a respected scientist, but your grandfather was one of the most notorious mad scientists in history? If you're medical lecturer Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder), you start by changing the pronunciation of your last name, and hope for the best. But what happens when you inherit your infamous grandfather's estate in Transylvania, and stumble upon his private library outlining his various revolutionary experiments? With the help of servants Igor (Marty Feldman), Inga (Teri Garr), and the fearsome Frau Blücher (Cloris Leachman), Frederick creates his own living monster (Peter Boyle), a lumbering oaf who is soon introduced to fire, hot soup, and song numbers. ...And that's before the arrival of the doctor's fiancée, Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn).
TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME (1992)
Fri May 19th 11:00 pm
David Lynch takes his cult TV show to the big screen in this dark and unsettling 1992 film, starring Sheryl Lee as the doomed Laura Palmer, most of the show's cast, and new faces including David Bowie and Chris Isaak.
Classics - Film Noir
SUNSET BLVD (1950)
Sat May 20th & Sun May 21st 1:30 pm
Featuring a legendary performance by Gloria Swanson as fading silent movie star Norma Desmond, Sunset Blvd. stars William Holden as Joe Gillis, an unsuccessful screenwriter who stumbles upon the driveway of a decaying Hollywood mansion, only to find himself entering the twisted and sad world of the vamping, manipulative, and ultimately deeply depressed Desmond. Learning that Gillis is a writer, Desmond milks his talents to create her fantasy screenplay of Salome which she envisions as a DeMille-scale epic that will relaunch her career. As Gillis and Demond become increasingly tethered in their shared lust for success, director Wilder weaves a tale that alternates between melodrama, pitch-black comedy, and more than a few stabs at Hollywood both old and new.
Directors Series: Mel Brooks
HIGH ANXIETY
Wed May 24th & Thurs May 25th 8:00 pm
Having already skewered westerns, classic monster films, and silent movies, in 1977 Mel Brooks turned his satiric gaze towards a director with an iconic roster of films of his own: Alfred Hitchcock. High Anxiety marks the first film in which Brook gave himself the speaking lead role, that of Dr. Richard Thorndyke, a psychiatrist who arrives at the Psycho-Neurotic Institute for the Very Very Nervous as a replacement for a doctor who has died under mysterious circumstances. Of course, under Brook's direction this will be a very zany hospital, filled with Brooks regulars such as Harvey Korman and Cloris Leachman (a scene-stealer as Nurse Charlotte Diesel). When femme fatale Victoria Brisbane arrives (a hilarious Madeline Kahn), Thorndyke sets out to solve an increasingly absurd mystery, reunite the sultry Victoria with her father, and make it out of the hospital alive - that is, if the pigeons don't get him first...
Friday Night Freakouts:
POLTERGEIST
Fri May 26th 11:00 pm
In celebration of the amazing filmmaking career of Jonathan Demme, whose body of work included such iconic films as Philadelphia, Beloved, Married to the Mob, Something Wild, and Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense before his death on April 26 of this year, we present Demme's 1991 genre-changer, and the film for which he won his Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director, The Silence of the Lambs.
An adaptation of Thomas Harris' 1988 page-turner, The Silence of the Lambs follows dedicated and ambitious FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Oscar-winner Jodie Foster) who is on the hunt for an elusive serial killer who skins his female victims, nicknamed Buffalo Bill. As a means to try to extract information that may be helpful to their search, the FBI assign Starling to interview Hannibal Lecter (Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins), a notorious imprisoned cannibal who is otherwise a brilliant psychologist. Lecter's dazzling criminal genius unearths clues, but at the price of deadly mind games with the vulnerable Starling, who must race against a ticking clock to save Buffalo's next victim while indulging Lecter's crafty psychological whims.
Classics - Film Noir
THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)
Sat May 27th 7:30pm & Sun May 28th @ 1:30 pm
In this noir classic, based on Dashiell Hammett's 1929 novel of the same name, detective Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) gets more than he bargained for when he takes a case brought to him by a beautiful but secretive woman (Mary Astor). As soon as Miss Wonderly shows up, trouble follows as Sam's partner is murdered and Sam is accosted by a man (Peter Lorre) demanding he locate a valuable statuette. Sam, entangled in a dangerous web of crime and intrigue, soon realizes he must find the one thing they all seem to want: the bejeweled Maltese Falcon.
Directors Series: Mel Brooks
BLAZING SADDLES
Wed May 31st & Thursday June 1st @ 8:00 pm
When crafty railroad worker Bart (Cleavon Little) is handed the job of the first black sheriff of Rock Ridge - a frontier town that is traditional, conservative, and decidedly white - he definitely has his hands full. Not only does he have to save the town from the dastardly schemes of a corrupt Governor, but he has to get his community to believe in him and follow his lead. Enter Jim (Gene Wilder), a former gunslinger who has turned to a constant state of inebriation after an unfortunate duel gone wrong. When he meets Bart, Jim finds a new raison d’etre – to help Jim win over the locals and save the day. A brilliant satire of the Western genre co-written by Brooks and Richard Pryor, Blazing Saddles is widely considered one of the funniest – and most quotable – comedies of all time. The very definition of an un-PC film that would surely have a hard time being produced today (get ready for some uncomfortable laughs...), the 1974 gem is a kaleidoscope of laughs featuring many of Brooks' regulars as supporting players, including Madeline Kahn (nominated for an Oscar for her work as the sultry Lili Von Shtupp), Harvey Korman, and Dom DeLuise.
Program notes by The Frida Cinema