What’s Screening: March 1 – 7

~ Lincoln Spector

Movie music is central this week.

Festivals & Series

The Week’s Big Event: A Fistful of Music!

Over the next two weeks, the 4-Star will play two films a day scored by the maestro of cinematic music, Ennio Morricone.

A A Fistful of Music, 4-Star, running two weeks

Can you imagine The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly without music? Filmmaker Ruggero Longoni shows us how the great Morricone scored films, turning strings and brass into emotions. Here are a few of the films scored by Morricone:

A+ Days of Heaven (1978), 4-Star, Wednesday, 7:30pm

The story seems a better fit for a 74-minute, 1940s B noir, but Terrence Malick’s masterpiece isn’t about story, and only moderately about character. It’s about time, place, atmosphere, and arguably the Bible. The time is around 1916, and for most of the film, the place is a large, uniquely beautiful wheat farm in the Texas panhandle. Through the yellow of the wheat fields, the haze of the sun, and the smoke of early 20th-century technology, Days of Heaven creates a sense of something that is not quite nostalgia, and not quite a dream, but a reality seen through the haze of distant memory. See my longer commentary.

B+ A Fist of Music, An Ennio Morricone Restrospective (1968), 4-Star, Thursday, 4:30pm

After The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Sergio Leone had a much bigger budget for his follow-up western. This time, he could afford Claudia Cardinale, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, and Charles Bronson in the Clint Eastwood part. Leone even shot part of the film in Monument Valley. The movie starts with what is probably the best opening sequence in western history, followed by a scene where Fonda – the blue-eyed icon of decent America – murders an unarmed young boy in cold blood. With the bigger budget, Leone could create a sense of epic grandeur. But the story, which involves the coming railroad and who owns the land, is something of a mess.

Here are some other films scored by Morricone:

New films opening

A They Shot the Piano Player, Opera Plaza, opens Friday

This very serious animated drama begins with a love of jazz and ends with fascistic horrors. In the ’70s, the USA turned South America into a bloodbath. The film begins when a musicologist (voiced by Jeff Goldblum) sets out to find the brilliant pianist Francisco Tenório Júnior (a real person who disappeared in 1976). In those days, Uncle Sam worked hard to destroy democracy. The animation isn’t Disney smooth, but it’s beautiful in bright colors. An excellent film.

Movies that play over & over

Vintage films on the big screen

A Show People (1928), Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Saturday, 7:30pm

Marion Davies showed her comic abilities in this film with little slapstick and a lot of laughs. King Vidor’s 1928 backstage-in-Hollywood comedy proves considerable comic talent. It’s the old story of knockabout slapstick versus self-consciously arty cinema. Comedy, of course, always wins. Cliff Retallick will accompany on the piano. With two shorts I don’t know: One is Business, The Other Crime and The Show.

A In the Mood for Love (200), Roxie, Tuesday, 9:00pm

Wong Kar Wai’s brilliant film about adultery has no sex, little touching, and we never see who we believe are the adulterous couple. A handsome man and a beautiful woman live in the same apartment building. Both of their spouses are out of town, and they just may be out of town together. Inevitably, the two protagonists fall slowly in love. While there’s no sex, almost every shot is filled with deep eroticism. Starring Maggie Cheung, Tony Chiu-Wai Leung, and the color red.

A Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Quest Fest), New Parkway, Wednesday, 9:30pm

Bump your coconuts and prepare the Holy Hand Grenade, but watch out for the Killer Rabbit (not to mention the Trojan one). The humor is silly and often in very bad taste, and the picture has nothing of substance to say beyond ridiculing the romantic view of medieval Europe. But the Pythons’ first feature with an actual story (well, sort of) keeps you laughing from beginning to end. Arguably the funniest film from the 1970s, and certainly the funniest from the 1370’s.

A- Israelism (2023), Roxie
֍ Sunday, 6:10pm
֍ Monday, 6:15pm

This documentary starts like a commercial for Israel, but then reality soon takes over. There’s the army veteran who discovered he’s lost his humanity. There’s the young American activist. There’s the Palestinian tour guide who will show you things you won’t see on a Birthright trip. Soldiers break into homes without warrants. Jeremy Ben Ami, Noam Chomsky, and Cornel West tell the filmmakers what they think. But it’s mostly young adults who tell their stories. This documentary shows how right-wing Americans, raised to love Israel, attack those who refuse to believe that a Palestinian is human.

Double bill at the Stanford
B+ The Gay Divorcee (1934) & C Flying Down to Rio (1933)
Double bills start as 3:50pm, 5:50pm, 7:30pm, & 9:30pm

Flying Down to Rio: This is the picture that accidentally created the Astaire/Rogers movie. Neither of the actors were stars, but when they danced together, film history was made.
The Gay Divorcee: This is the first intentional Astaire/Rogers movie. The plots were used over and over, but the jokes, songs, and dances were always different.

Too long ago to remember

Movies I can’t review

Published by Lincoln Spector

Lincoln Spector writes about cinema, technology, and cinema technology. From 1986 through 2008, he wrote Gigglebytes, the first technology-oriented humor column. From 1977 through 2016, he wrote PC World's Answer Line column and blog.