The Mark of Zorro
Sunday 5 May – 5 pm
Tyrone Power’s Birthday
(USA 1940) 94 min. Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Basil Rathbone. Dir: Rouben Mamoulian.
This is perhaps the best of the many Zorro films as Tyrone Power gives an outstanding performance as the alternately swishing and swashbuckling son of a 19th century California aristocrat. As a champion of the oppressed, Zorro must face a wicked governor portrayed by J. Edward Bromberg, who, of course, has a beautiful niece whom our hero loves. Basil Rathbone is a delightfully evil assistant to the governor. Based on Johnston McCulley’s novel The Curse of Capistrano, The Mark of Zorro was a remake of the 1920 silent film and by far superior to all the Zorro incarnations. Interspersed with humor and one-liners but still keeping up with the highest of swashbuckling traditions, it is an action-packed story of one man standing against a corrupt, oppressive government on behalf of those less able to bear their burdens.
Original Version (English) with Spanish Subtitles.
Hitchcock
Wednesday 8 May – 7 pm
(USA 2012) 98 min. Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson. Dir: Sacha Gervasi.
In 1959, Alfred Hitchcock and his wife, Alma, are at the top of their creative game as filmmakers amid disquieting insinuations about it being time to retire. To recapture his youth’s artistic daring, Alfred decides his next film will adapt the lurid horror novel, Psycho, over everyone’s misgivings. Unfortunately, as Alfred self-finances and labors on this film, Alma finally loses patience with his roving eye and controlling habits with his actresses. When an ambitious friend lures her to collaborate on a work of their own, the resulting marital tension colors Alfred’s work even as the novel’s inspiration haunts his dreams. Smartly directed and sharply written, Hitchcock is an entertaining, emotionally engaging drama with a pair of tremendous performances from Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren.
Original Version (English) with Spanish subtitles.
Psycho
Sunday 12 May – 5 pm
(USA 1960) 109 min. Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin. Dir: Alfred Hitchcock.
In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock was already famous as the screen’s master of suspense (and perhaps the best-known film director in the world) when he released Psycho and forever changed the shape and tone of the screen thriller. From its first scene, in which an unmarried couple balances pleasure and guilt in a lunchtime liaison in a cheap hotel (hardly a common moment in a major studio film in 1960), Psycho announced that it was taking the audience to places it had never been before, and on that score what followed would hardly disappoint. Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is unhappy in her job at a Phoenix, Arizona real estate office and frustrated in her romance with hardware store manager Sam Loomis (John Gavin). One afternoon, Marion is given $40,000 in cash to be deposited in the bank. Minutes later, impulse has taken over and Marion takes off with the cash, hoping to leave Phoenix for good and start a new life with her purloined nest egg. 36 hours later, paranoia and exhaustion have started to set in, and Marion decides to stop for the night at the Bates Motel, where nervous but personable innkeeper Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) cheerfully mentions that she’s the first guest in weeks, before he regales her with curious stories about his mother. There’s hardly a film fan alive who doesn’t know what happens next, but while the shower scene is justifiably the film’s most famous sequence, there are dozens of memorable bits throughout this film.
Original Version (English) with Spanish subtitles.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
TUESDAY 14 May – 7.30 pm
ATTENTION: SPECIAL DATE/TIME
George Lucas’ Birthday
(USA 1981) 115 min. Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Kate Capshaw. Dir: Steven Spielberg.
Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is no ordinary archeologist. When we first see him, he is somewhere in the Peruvian jungle in 1936, running a booby-trapped gauntlet (complete with an over-sized rolling boulder) to fetch a solid-gold idol. He loses this artifact to his chief rival, a French archeologist named Belloq (Paul Freeman), who then prepares to kill our hero. In the first of many serial-like escapes, Indy eludes Belloq by hopping into a convenient plane. So, then: is Indiana Jones afraid of anything? Yes, snakes. The next time we see Jones, he’s a soft-spoken, bespectacled professor. He is then summoned from his ivy-covered environs by Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott) to find the long-lost Ark of the Covenant. The Nazis, it seems, are already searching for the Ark, which the mystical-minded Hitler hopes to use to make his stormtroopers invincible. But to find the Ark, Indy must first secure a medallion kept under the protection of Indy’s old friend Abner Ravenwood, whose daughter, Marion (Karen Allen), evidently has a “history” with Jones. Whatever their personal differences, Indy and Marion become partners in one action-packed adventure after another, ranging from wandering the snake pits of the Well of Souls to surviving the pyrotechnic unearthing of the sacred Ark. A joint project of Hollywood prodigies George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, with a script co-written by Lawrence Kasdan and Philip Kaufman, among others, Raiders of the Lost Ark is not so much a movie as a 115-minute thrill ride. Original Version (English) with Spanish subtitles.
Original Version (English) with Spanish subtitles.
Life of Pi
Sunday 19 May – 5 pm
(USA 2012) 123 min. Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Adil Hussain. Dir: Ang Lee.
Director Ang Lee creates a groundbreaking movie event about a young man who survives a disaster at sea and is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While cast away, he forms an amazing and unexpected connection with another survivor…a fearsome Bengal tiger. A gorgeous and accomplished rendering of the massive best-seller, Ang Lee’s thrillingly audacious film transforms this inconceivable premise into visual poetry, high adventure and sheer enchantment. Magical realism was rarely so magical and never before so real.
Original version (English) with Spanish subtitles.
Lincoln
Wednesday 22 May – 7 pm
(USA 2012) 150 min. Daniel Day-Lewis, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Dir: Steven Spielberg.
Steven Spielberg directs Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln, a revealing drama that focuses on the 16th President’s tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln pursues a course of action designed to end the war, unite the country and abolish slavery. With the moral courage and fierce determination to succeed, his choices during this critical moment will change the fate of generations to come. “The portrait of Lincoln transcends conventional judgments; it’s a complete creation, perfect on its own terms.” – Wall Street Journal.
Original Version (English) with Spanish subtitles.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Sunday 26 May – 5 pm
(USA/New Zealand 2012) 169 min. Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage. Dir: Peter Jackson.
In this long-awaited follow-up to the Oscar-winning Lord of the Rings series, Director Peter Jackson returns to Middle Earth to depict the splendor and majesty of Tolkien’s The Hobbit. In “An Unexpected Journey”, a younger and more reluctant Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, sets out to the Lonely Mountain with a spirited group of Dwarves to reclaim their stolen mountain home from a dragon named Smaug. The return to Middle-earth is an earnest, visually resplendent trip – a must see for fans of the original trilogy and the novel.
Original Version (English) with Spanish subtitles.
Bookmark Or Email This Page
