Oscar-nominated doc on Daniel Ellsberg / Pentagon Papers premieres locally
Though it didn’t win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature this past Sunday, THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: DANIEL ELLSBERG AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS was one of only five movies even nominated. (It would have won the award for Longest Title, if that had been a category.) Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith’s film recounts how Ellsberg, a high-level Pentagon official and Vietnam War strategist, leaked 7000 pages of top secret documents to The New York Times in 1971 after concluding that the war was based on decades of lies and was wrong. See it Saturday or Sunday.

Weird enough for you? David Lynch produces new film by Werner Herzog
Willem Dafoe, Chloë Sevigny, Brad Dourif, Michael Shannon, and Udo Kier star in the new film directed by Werner Herzog and produced by David Lynch. MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE? (the strangeness starts with the title) tells of an unstable actor (Shannon) who so identifies with the role of Orestes in Sophocles’ Electra that he actually kills his own mother with a sword! Two detectives try to find out why he did it. (It’s based on a true case.) Read this rave review from Time Out New York http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/film/81295/my-son-my-son-what-have-ye-done-film-review, and then see the movie Friday, Saturday, or Sunday.

Original, uncut RED CLIFF concludes with action-packed second half
We showed the first part of John Woo’s original, two-part, five-hour historical epic RED CLIFF (released in America as one two-and-a-half-hour movie) last weekend. This Thursday and Friday you can see the conclusion. Tony Leung stars in what is the most expensive and highest-grossing Chinese film ever made. It chronicles a 208 A.D. military campaign in which the powerful Han Dynasty takes on two insurgent warlords and their rebel armies in the south. From all reports, most of the action is in this half of Woo’s spectacle. But if you missed Part 1, you may not want to attend a movie that’s half over. Well, we think it’s better to see some of this dazzling film than none of it. And to make that option more attractive, print this email and present it at the box office and see “Red Cliff, Part 2″ for only $6 ($5 if you’re a Cinematheque member). It’s our Deal of the Week! (Limit two discount admissions per print-out)

“Best British film of 20th century” returns
Named the “Best British Film of the 20th Century” by the British Film Institute in 1999, Carol Reed’s celebrated, suspenseful 1949 film noir THE THIRD MAN is set in rubble-strewn, polyglot, post-WWII Vienna, where a naïve American writer of pulp fiction (Joseph Cotten) searches for his old friend Harry Lime, who may be dead—or worse. Orson Welles, Alida Valli, and Trevor Howard co-star in this classic that also features Oscar-winning camerawork by Robert Krasker and an immortal zither score by Anton Karas. Graham Greene wrote it and you can see it in a new print this Saturday or Sunday.

Sergei Paradjanov and Ron Holloway : a joint requiem
In his 1994 documentary PARADJANOV: A REQUIEM , Berlin-based film writer Ron Holloway paid tribute to the great Armenian-Georgian filmmaker and folklorist Sergei Paradjanov (“Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors,” “The Color of Pomegranates”) who died in 1990. But we’re showing this movie more as a tribute to Holloway, co-founder of the Cleveland Cinematheque, who died in December. Because it’s only an hour long, tickets will cost only $6, Cinematheque members $5. Catch it Thursday only.

Oscar wrap-up, Tim & John’s Cleveland Film Festival picks, etc.
We were gratified this past Sunday night to see Kathryn Bigelow become the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Director. Bigelow is another on the long list of major filmmakers whose work was first shown in Cleveland at the Cinematheque. (We premiered her debut feature “The Loveless” in September of 1986.) We also are proud to have been the only local theatre to have shown this year’s Oscar-winning documentary feature, “The Cove,” which we played three times in November. (Now are you sorry you didn’t review it, PD?) Dave Polak of South Euclid is the winner of the grand prize package of movie-related goodies that we promised the person who picked the most correct Academy Award winners at our February 2 event, “Oscars 2010: Cleveland Reacts.” Dave got seven of the eight categories right, missing only “Best Foreign Language Film.” Five other people also picked seven of the eight winners correctly, missing Foreign Language Film, so Dave’s ballot was picked at random from the six that tied. By the way, in an Oscar poll conducted by CWRU’s student newspaper The Observer and printed in the current 3/5 issue, Cinematheque Director John Ewing was the only one of the eight people surveyed whose picks were 100% right! Ewing is also one of 14 nationwide participants in a Critical Symposium on Repertory Film Programming in the Spring 2010 issue of Cineaste magazine. He’s even pictured in a color photo, and a second picture shows an unusually crowded Aitken Auditorium. You can buy Cineaste at select newstands. Below are Tim Harry and John Ewing’s top 10 film picks for the upcoming 34th Cleveland International Film Festival, taking place March 18-28 at Tower City Cinemas in downtown Cleveland. The choices (listed alphabetically) were made independently, with no consulation. Harry: Accident; Applause; Cow; For the Love of Movies; The Girl; The Girl on the Train; I Am Love; Lourdes; A Room and a Half; The Two Horses of Genghis Khan. Ewing: Eyes Wide Open; For the Love of Movies; The Happiest Girl in the World; Jan Hrebejk retrospective; The Last Days of Emma Blank; Lourdes; My Year Without Sex; Please, Please Me!; The Two Horses of Genghis Khan; Ward 6. (He believes that other essential titles like The Girl on the Train, I Am Love, Looking for Eric, Mid-August Lunch, A Town Called Panic, and Vincere will probably open commercially.)

This Weeks Films
Thu., March 11, at 6:45 pm PARADJANOV: A REQUIEM A Tribute to Ron Holloway Thu., March 11, at 8:00 pm Fri., March 12, at 9:30 pm RED CLIFF (Part 2) Conclusion of original, uncut Chinese version! Fri., March 12, at 7:30 pm Sat., March 13, at 9:15 pm Sun., March 14, at 8:40 pm MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE? Werner Herzog Directs; David Lynch Produces! Sat., March 13, at 5:15 pm Sun., March 14, at 4:00 pm THE THIRD MAN 60th Anniversary! New 35mm Print! Sat., March 13, at 7:20 pm Sun., March 14, at 6:45 pm THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: DANIEL ELLSBERG AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS 2010 Oscar Nominee for Best Documentary Feature!

Next Weeks Films
No films 3/18! Cleveland Cult Film Festival Fri., March 19, at 7:00 pm Sat., March 20, at 8:40 pm WILD WOMEN OF WONGO Fri., March 19, at 8:30 pm Sat., March 20, at 10:10 pm A BOY AND HIS DOG Fri., March 19, at 10:15 pm Sat., March 20, at 6:45 pm BRONSON The Cinematheque at the 34th Cleveland International Film Festival Sun., March 21, at 7:20 pm Mon., March 22, at 2:15 pm LOURDES Shown at Tower City Cinemas; Special ticket prices apply

The Cinematheque
The Cleveland Institute of Art
11141 East Boulevard
Cleveland, OH 44106
Phone: (216) 421-7450
http://cia.edu/cinematheque

Bela Tarr’s back and the Cinematheque’s got him! See THE MAN FROM LONDON
Three years after it debuted at Cannes, we’ve finally landed Bela Tarr’s THE MAN FROM LONDON , his first (and only) feature since his 2000 masterpiece “The Werckmeister Harmonies.” Moodily, beautifully shot in black-and-white with long takes and serpentine camera movements (what else would you expect from the director of “Satantango”?), Tarr’s new film is based on a Georges Simenon crime novel. It tells of a railroad worker who witnesses a waterfront murder and ends up with a suitcase full of cash, which he hides from his wife (Tilda Swinton). Though Tarr is Hungarian, Simenon was Belgian, so we will show a new 35mm print of Tarr’s preferred version, which is in French (and English) with subtitles. Watch the trailer , and then see a new 35mm print of the whole two-hour-and-15-minute film (short by Tarr’s standards) this Saturday or Sunday night.

UNMADE BEDS: young foreigners live the bohemian life in London’s East End
In UNMADE BEDS , two young transplants, a Spanish man and a French woman, living the Boho life in the same London East End warehouse eventually cross paths. This lovely, lyrical movie by young Argentine director Alexis Dos Santos evokes the spirit of the French New Wave (and other youth cinema), as you can see from the British trailer. Although we designated it “subtitled” in our printed calendar, the movie is mostly in English. Catch it Thursday or Friday in the only 35mm print in the U.S.!

Cinematheque returns to Capitol Theatre with innovative indie drama UNCERTAINTY
A flip of a coin on the Brooklyn Bridge propels Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Lynn Collins into two distinct (and very different) narratives taking place on either side of the span in the innovative new indie drama UNCERTAINTY , showing Wednesday night at 7:30 pm at the Capitol Theatre at 1390 W. 65th Street (W. 65th and Detroit). Here’s the trailer . This is the third time the Cinematheque has shown movies at the Capitol; the last time, in January, the film “Collapse” sold out and we had to add a second show! But this time we’re back in the theatre’s big auditorium, so a sellout seems unlikely. But if you want to be safe, you can purchase advance tickets at the Cleveland Cinemas website http://www.clevelandcinemas.com/now_showing_mov.asp?ptID=21521. Regular Cinematheque admission prices apply.

ODD MAN OUT: another great noir thriller from the director of “The Third Man”
James Mason plays a wounded IRA gunman stumbling through the streets of Belfast, looking for help while avoiding the police, in Carol Reed’s 1947 suspense classic ODD MAN OUT . See this four-star movie (made two years before Reed’s “The Third Man,” which we will show in March) in a new 35mm print this Saturday or Sunday.

UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US illuminates twisted world of Norwegian “black metal”
Norwegian “black metal” was a 1990s Nordic offshoot of heavy metal that migrated from music, makeup, and pagan imagery to valdalism, church-burning, and killing. The new documentary UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US , showing to adults only on Saturday and Sunday, explores the black metal scene via interviews with some of the movement’s key players, one of whom is currently serving a 21-year prison sentence for arson and murder! Harmony Korine also makes an appearance.

Hirohito falls to earth in Sokurov’s THE SUN
A new film by the great Aleksandr Sokurov (“Russian Ark,” “Mother and Son”) is always an event, and THE SUN , the Russian director’s portrait of Japan’s Emperor Hirohito during the waning days of WWII, is one of his best. Sokurov depicts the soon-to-be-humbled-and-humanized “divine” ruler (a descendant of the sun goddess, according to Japanese tradition) in his isolated compound, as it is breached by invading Americans and General Douglas MacArthur himself. According to Fred Camper in the Chicago Reader, the film “is a melancholy meditation on power and its loss.” Print this email and present it at the box office on Thursday or Friday and see this movie that has an overall metacritic.com score of 84 for only $6 ($5 if you’re a Cinematheque member). It’s our Deal of the Week! (Limit of two discount admissions per print-out)

Films This Week
Wed., Feb. 17, at 7:30 pm UNCERTAINTY Shown at the Capitol Theatre, 1390 W. 65th St.Thu., Feb. 18, at 6:45 pm Fri., Feb. 19, at 9:45 pm UNMADE BEDS Thu., Feb. 18, at 8:40 pm Fri., Feb. 19, at 7:30 pm THE SUN Sat., Feb. 20, at 5:00 pm Sun., Feb. 21, at 4:00 pm ODD MAN OUT Sat., Feb. 20, at 7:15 pm Sun., Feb. 21, at 8:25 pm THE MAN FROM LONDON Sat., Feb. 20, at 9:50 pm Sun., Feb. 21, at 6:30 pm UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US

Films Next Week
Thu., Feb. 25, at 6:30 pm Fri., Feb. 26, at 11:45 pm WITCHCRAFT THROUGH THE AGES Thu., Feb. 25, at 8:10 pm Fri., Feb. 26, at 9:00 pm NIGHT AND DAY Sat., Feb. 27, at 5:15 pm Sun., Feb. 28, at 4:00 pm BRIGHTON ROCK Sat., Feb. 27, at 7:10 pm Sun., Feb. 28, at 8:45 pm MAMMOTH Sat., Feb. 27, at 9:35 pm Sun., Feb. 28, at 6:30 pm DISENGAGEMENT

The Cinematheque
The Cleveland Institute of Art
11141 East Boulevard
Cleveland, OH 44106
Phone: (216) 421-7450
http://cia.edu/cinematheque