Cinematheque Blog

7/31-8/2: Three Monkeys, Sleep Dealer, And More!

07/28/09  |  Posted by Cinematheque  |  Posted in Cinematheque

European art cinema lives in gripping Turkish drama THREE MONKEYS Fast-rising Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan ("Distant," "Climates") won the Best Director prize at Cannes for his most recent feature, the masterful THREE MONKEYS. It's a James M. Cain-style film noir in which a man working as a chauffeur for a prominent politician agrees to take the fall when his boss is involved in a hit-and-run accident. More indignities follow. This is a dark and riveting film, beautifully shot in desaturated digital video and shown in widescreen scope. Cinematheque Director John Ewing says it may have been his favorite film at last year's Toronto Film Festival. New Yorker Films was originally going to release it in the U.S. (and you may know their reputation for quality), but when the company suddenly went out of business, Zeitgeist Films heroically stepped in. Watch the trailer here and don't miss the whole film Saturday or Sunday. SLEEP DEALER: sci-fi south of the border The new Mexican-American science fiction film SLEEP DEALER, showing Friday and Saturday, imagines a future in which underpaid laborers in impoverished countries can relay their manual labor electronically to factories in the First World, without crossing any geographic borders! A young computer hacker leaves Oaxaca for Tijuana and enters this high-tech work environment, but soon discovers that exploitation isn't limited to just his job. Director Alex Rivera has been interviewed on NPR about this new movie, which you can catch on Friday or Saturday. Watch the trailer here. Roman Polanski hears our cry: Please, sir, we want some more OLIVER TWIST Join international attendees of the 103rd International Dickens Fellowship Conference (held this year in Cleveland) when we screen Roman Polanski's little-known 2005 film version of Charles Dickens' OLIVER TWIST on Friday night. As you can see from the trailer, Ben Kingsley plays Fagin in this recent film version of the famous tale of thieves and pickpockets in 19th-century London. Print this out and present it at the box office on Friday night and see "Oliver Twist" for only $6 ($5 if you're a Cinematheque member). It's our Deal of the Week! Peter Sellers plays Inspector Clouseau in Blake Edwards' A SHOT IN THE DARK 1964's A SHOT IN THE DARK is the second and best of the Pink Panther comedies. Peter Sellers returns as bumbling French police detective Inspector Clouseau, while series regulars Commissioner Dreyfus and Kato/Cato makes their first appearance. Elke Sommer and George Sanders co-star, the music is by Henry Mancini, and the print is 35mm, color, and scope. Give it a shot on Saturday or Sunday!

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