It’s getting to that time of year when the leaves change color, the air grows cold and crisp, and parents descend upon campus. Bring them down to the CFS to see “Raiders of the Lost Ark” on Friday and “Masculin Feminin” on Saturday. At least you can sit in peace and quiet for a couple hours before the nagging resumes about eating healthy and studying harder.
The change in weather also signifies the time of year when people dress up as ghouls, ghosts, and sluts. That’s right; we’re getting into the Halloween mode with some great old horror movies that will get you ready for pumpkin carving and trick-or-treating.
“Raiders of the Lost Ark”
(U.S., D.: Steven Spielberg,
1981)
Friday, Oct. 20, 8 p.m. $4
The unbuttoned khaki shirt. The unruly chest hair. The unshaven jaw line. The sweat. The dirt. THE WHIP. Come get hot and steamy this Friday night with Harrison Ford as the world’s sexiest archeologist. In this first installment of the Indiana Jones franchise, Indy fights off Nazis, wins back an old flame, and tries to find the powerful Ark. What else is there to say?
Masculin Feminin
(France, D.: Jean-Luc Godard, 1966)
Saturday, Oct. 21. 8 p.m. FREE!
At the most elementary level, this French New Wave film is a simple boy-meets-girl story. But, as is true of any Godard film, there is no such thing as simple. Paul is a young French Marxist, recently discharged from the army, who falls for wannabe pop singer Madeline. Eventually, the film becomes a survey of contemporary French youth and their interest in cultural politics. We become transported to the vibrancy of sex and politics in the 1960s through conversations on topics as diverse as Charles de Gaulle, Bob Dylan, James Bond, birth control, and communism versus democracy. Paris looks superbly boisterous and enthralling as the characters visit cafes, discotheques, arcades, and movie theaters. The most audacious and radical of the New Wave directors, Godard toys with conventions of film style and narrative with inside jokes, self-referential nuances, and absurd tangential interruptions. Godard is a true intellectual whose keen knowledge of film history, politics, philosophy, and popular culture makes him one of the most fascinating and complex of filmmakers.
The Phantom of the Opera
(U.S., D.: Rupert Julian, 1925)
Wednesday, Oct. 25, 8 p.m. $5
Halloween is around the corner and there is no better way to celebrate than with a classic horror film accompanied by live music. Not to be associated with Joel Schumacher’s ghastly 2004 adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, this original 1925 version is a fantastic silent film that is guaranteed to thrill and terrify. This eerie film is sensationalist to the core, with a narrative centering on the hideously disfigured Phantom, played by horror mainstay Lon Chaney, who haunts the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera House. The Alloy Orchestra, which has been hailed by Roger Ebert as the best live accompaniment to silent films in the world, works with an outrageous assemblage of peculiar objects and unusual instruments used to create soulful music. This is an opportunity not to be turned down.
The Black Cat
(U.S., D.: Edgar G. Ulmer, 1934)
Thursday, Oct. 26, 8 p.m. FREE!
Boris Karloff, best known for his iconic depiction of Frankenstein, is teamed up with fellow horror staple Bela Lugosi, the original Dracula, in this campy horror film. The two stars play rivals: Lugosi a crazy doctor and Karloff a famous architect and high priest of a satanic cult. Lugosi visits Karloff in his extremely creepy art deco mansion to take revenge for fifteen-years of imprisonment brought on by Karloff. When a newlywed couple on their honeymoon seeks refuge in the mansion after an accident, both the doctor and architect want the couple for their own sadistic purposes. As the two crazies battle for the couple over a game of chess, we learn of the darker history between the men. The film gets creepier and creepier, and more and more wonderfully bizarre, as Lugosi devises a plan to skin his rival alive. Oh, and the entire mansion may get transported to Hell. Who knew that there could be Satanism, sadism, torture, necrophilia, incest, and pedophilia found in a single film, let alone a film that is only about an hour long. Brilliant.
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