The Week in Review

FILMS:

• Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955)
• A Dios Momo (Goodbye Momo, Leonardo Ricagni, 2005)
• Mi Mejor Enemigo (My Best Enemy, Alex Bowen Carranza, 2005)
• A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951)
• What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (Robert Aldrich, 1962)
  

BOOKS I'M READING:

• A Spanish Labyrinth: The Films of Pedro Almodovóvar (Mark Allinson, 2001)

Friday Screen Test

Adam Ross from DVD Panache has come up with a novel idea - certainly one that has appeal to this blogger. Each Friday he posts an interview with a different film blogger which he posts as his Friday Screen Test. This week's was with a talented new blogger on the scene from Melbourne, Australia... you guessed it, yours truly.

Adam's notes on the idea are as follows:

As a child, The Oregonian's entertainment magazine A&E was something I looked forward to every week, not only for movie reviews by Shawn Levy, but for their weekly Film Freak. Each week, the paper would profile someone on their movie tastes -- it was usually someone in the local entertainment field, but sometimes it was a baker, or city official or a nobody. I was always praying that the Film Freak would somehow pluck me out of Madeleine Elementary for a quick interview. Little things like that were cherished in the pre-Internet age. I'm hoping Friday Screen Tests will inspire similar enthusiasm -- each week, a new blogger or critic. I've been planning this for awhile and have a good corps of my favorite writers onboard with me. Enjoy.

I saw a post somewhere about Friday Screen Test and volunteered. Adam sent a questionnaire that I filled in. Questions included 'Can you give a singular answer to the question "what is your favorite movie?"' and 'Are there any movies that have left you dumbfounded as to why you like them? Dislike them?'

Of course it's nice to have your own interview published elsewhere, but as a cinephile, it's very interesting to read the answers of others. I find Adam's approach a little novel, as he provides the answer but not the question. The result is he gets to poke a little light-hearted fun at the interviewee by slightly distorting the context of the answer. Go on, go check it out.

Lost Highway Script

I was excited to open a package via Amazon today to find the published script of Lost Highway by David Lynch and Barry Gifford. Amazon doesn't actually have the book in stock, but it's available through a third-party company.

As I mentioned in my review of the film, the idea for Lost Highway was inspired by those two words appearing in Gifford's novel, Night People. I have recently received that book from Amazon as well as Gifford's Wild at Heart, which Lynch made into another wild film with Nicholas Cage and Laura Dern.

I've never bought a film script before, and first became acquainted with the idea from reading Cinematic Storytelling by Jennifer van Sijll. Hers was my first cinema book, which I bought from a sales assistant's suggestion at ACMI earlier in the year (or was it last year? Time has passed strangely since my son Abhi died late last year).

I haven't written about Sijll's book yet, and won't go into detail here. As a cinema amateur with no formal academic background in the field, I found it a great introduction.

So here I am with three Lynch/Gifford books and wondering how the hell am I going to find time to read them. I'm nearly finished A Spanish Labyrinth: The Films of Pedro Almodovóvar by Mark Allinson, but I've ordered another three on the same director that should come any day soon. It's all part of personal research I am doing that's consuming me more than I'd intended. I've also ordered every DVD that's available (14 of his 16 films) so that I can re-view them. I'm not sure what I'm going to write about Almodovóvar - this guy really perplexes me. I've never been so consumed by a director whose work I find so many faults with.

Back to Lynch - here's someone who's work I find truly sublime. I'm just happy to have the script to what is my all-time favourite film. Aside from the above-mentioned ongoing research, there's a huge amount of films coming up in the near future: the Melbourne Latin American Festival started today, running to Sunday, there's some repertory screenings I want to catch at The Astor* in addition to Melbourne Cinémathèque's regular screenings at ACMI.

Next week, I have invites to five media screenings (and I'm planning to go to all of them, taking some time off work) as well as a two weeky festival La Mirada - Jewels of Spanish Cinema that I'm planning to blitz because - wait for it - Almodovóvar curated the five classic films screening. They're all films he considers important and I'm keen to see his taste and influences.

They are: El Espíritu de la Colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive, Víctor Erice, 1973), La Tia Tula (Aunt Tula, Miguel Picazo, 1964), El Extraño Viaje (Strange Voyage, Fernando Fernán Gómez, 1964), El Sur (The South, Victor Erice, 1983) and El Verdugo (The Executioner, Luis García Berlanga, 1963). I'm also wanting to catch as many of the new releases as possible as we get little Spanish cinema outside of festivals.

But wait, there's more...

Melbourne Queer Film Festival starts March 16, French Film Festival starts March 20 (I'm hoping to catch about eight films this year), Festival of German Films starts April 20, and I haven't even mentioned new releases.

Did I mention I'm feeling rundown? I'll get around to my new books. I'm just not committing myself just yet.

P.S. It's always great to have an excuse to post a Lost Highway image - that's Bill Pullman as Fred, lost as hell.

* Including All About Eve - which Almodovóvar's All About My Mother references - and which screens with Hitchcock's Lifeboat, which All About Eve references.

The Host

The Host (Gwoemul) is the third and latest film by Korean director Bong Joon-ho, and fits squarely in the monster genre, along with Alien, Godzilla and Jaws (all of which it is being compared to). His previous films (neither of which I have seen) were Memories of Murder (Salinui chueok, 2003), a crime thriller, and Barking Dogs Never Bite (Flandersui gae, 2000) a dark comedy.

Unfortunately, we don’t see many Korean films distributed in this country. Those I have seen have been arthouse or festival screenings and hold in high esteem such as Kim Ki-Duk’s Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter… and Spring (Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom) and Address Unknown (Suchwiin bulmyeong), and Chang-dong Lee’s Oasis. Korea reportedly has a strong culture of supporting it’s own film industry, so it is a matter of regret that we don’t get to see more of the country’s output.

The Host is by no means an arthouse release, sharing more in common with Hollywood productions, though clearly superior to that derivation. There are clear political sub-themes in the film, some anti-American, with references to US exploitation and environmental irresponsibility, political deceit and images reminiscent of SARS.

The Host is a curious creature (pun not intended). On the one hand it employs beautifully realistic cinematography, perhaps with a slight blue tint to emphasise coldness and an environment favourable to the creature and subtly hostile towards humans. Neither the colouration nor the contrast are overused as seems to be par for the course in such films these days.

The creature effects by Weta (Lord of the Rings) and The Orphanage (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) are also very effective. The CGI is used to extremely good effect with excellent attention to detail, and is not overused (as is often the case in the genre). The creature itself is creepy and believable. The story pans out with a palpable sense of tension; this is edge-of-your seat for much of the action.

On the other hand, the film suffers from playing too close to its genre, as if the genre demands a certain level of unintelligible plot and characterisation. A comedic element tends to soften the blows that the horror hits the audience with. At times it becomes a little slapstick, to the film's detriment. There is a high level of realism so I would have preferred if the film had been played straight and serious, playing down the humour. It would have made the film even scarier and allowed greater scope for emotionally buying into the story.

By making unlikely heroes of a madcap, dysfunctional family, the film loses some plausibility, and thus some of the audience. That these guys could succeed (and I don’t think I’m giving anything away in saying this) where the military fails is a tad unlikely. But this type of contrivance is au fait in the genre, so I don’t think the target audience will mind it.

To the film’s credit, it avoided the shock tactics employed by many films in the genre, using thriller devices rather than bloody scenes of carnage. Well, there is some carnage – think Jaws. Running at just on two hours, the film is a little long. Perhaps it was trying to cover too many bases (politics, family drama, thriller and horror).

If you’re looking for Korean arthouse, you may want to give this one a miss. But if you’re young, and/or a fan of the horror genre, this is the film for you, definitely superior to its American counterparts.

Official website / IMDB

Dir: Bong Joon-Ho Rating: M Duration: 119 min Genre: horror/drama/comedy Language: Korean Country: South Korea Release: 8/3/07 Dist: Madman Entertainment Prod Co: Cheongeoran Film Prod: Choi Yong-bae, Kim Woo-taek, Jeong Tae-sung Scr: Bong Joon-ho, Hah Joon-won, Baek Chul-hyn Sound Des: Choi Tae-young Phot: Kim Hyung-goo Ed: Kim Sun-min Prod Des: Ryu Seong-hee Mus: Byeongwoo Lee Cast: Song Kang-Ho, Byun Hee-bong, Park Hae-il, Bae Doo-na, Ko A-sung

The Week in Review

FILMS:

• AFTRS short film screenings at ACMI
• The Host (Gwoemul, Joon-ho Bong, 2006)
• Eyes Without a Face (Les Yeux Sans Visage, Georges Franju, 1959)
• The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961)
• Kanyini (Melanie Hogan, 2006) + Babakiueria (Don Featherstone, 1986)
• We of the Never Never (Igor Auzins, 1982)
• The Violin (El Violin, Francisco Vargas Quevedo, 2006)
• America, America (Elia Kazan, 1963)
  

BOOKS I'M READING:

• A Spanish Labyrinth: The Films of Pedro Almodovóvar (Mark Allinson, 2001)

Senses of Cinema no. 42

The latest issue (no. 42) of the online film journal Senses of Cinema (published quarterly) is now out. I have read the occasional article but I'm going to try to read most if not all the articles over the next three months. For the first time, I submitted my top 10 films of the past year, which were published along with those of 80 others as 2006 World Poll. A summary of the year's first edition is below.

Senses of Cinema issue no. 42 Jan-Mar 2007

2006 World Poll Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

---

Mann’s World

Gravity of the Flux: Michael Mann’s Miami Vice by Jean-Baptiste Thoret
Mann’s film is more than a mere transposition of the 1980s television series onto the big screen; it extends the thematic and stylistic complexities of Mann’s œuvre in ways that, at first, may seem less than apparent.

---

The Moral of the Auteur Theory

American Triptych: Vidor, Hawks and Ford by Tag Gallagher
Three legendary classical directors are put under the spotlight, and the results of Gallagher’s analysis are always illuminating and surprising.

“The Moral of the Auteur Theory”: Frank Borzage’s Moonrise (and Theodore Strauss’ Source Novel) by Holger Römers
Borzage’s 1948 film is often acknowledged as his last masterpiece; Römers argues it “remains a particularly elusive movie in film history” and speculates on the reasons why.

“What I Really Want to do is Direct”: Directors as Depicted on Film and Television by Richard Franklin
The director of, among others, Roadgames, Psycho II and Hotel Sorrento, offers an insightful reflection on an issue close to his heart and profession.

Art Variables and Life Variables in La Belle noiseuse by Tony McKibbin
An extensive reappraisal of Jacques Rivette’s mesmerising study of a painter and his model, and the ethical divide between life and art.

Re-engaging with Life: Walerian Borowczyk’s Lost Film, “L’Armoire” by Scott Murray
The recent release on DVD of the long-lost and unlamented Collections Privées has Murray exploring the labyrinthine world of Walerian Borowczyk's remarkable episode, “L’Armoire”, based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant.

---

Cinema Engagé

Cinema in a State of Conflict: An Interview with Amos Gitaï by Damon Smith
The fabled Israeli filmmaker speaks at length about his cinema, the tortured history and politics of the Middle East, his interest in landscape, architecture, and the stories of people caught within and between State-imposed geo-political boundaries.

Tender Speaking: An Interview with Christoph Hochhäusler by Marco Abel
French critics coined the term Nouvelle Vague Allemande in response to the rise of a new wave of filmmaking in Germany. In this wide-ranging interview, the filmmaker and co-editor of the magazine Revolver discusses the current state of German cinema in the light of its history, and the cultural and æsthetic ideas that impact on his films and thinking.

Hidden’s Disinherited Children by Helen Macallan and Andrew Plain
A thorough examination of Michael Haneke’s troubling film about the sins of the past and their effects on the present.

Le Gai savoir by Steve Jankowiak
Reflections on Jean-Luc Godard’s 1969 essay-film and his avowed “return to zero” as a filmmaker.

---

Independent Australian Cinema

Noir by Day: Interview with Jonathan Ogilvie on Emulsion by Hussain Currimbhoy
After having his first two short films screened at respective Cannes Film Festivals in the mid-1990s, a decade later director Ogilvie has shot his first feature on Super 8.

Turnstyled, Junkpiled: On High or Dry by Bill Craske

Bill Craske looks at one of the best low-budget feature documentaries about the vicissitudes of the drug life.

---

DVD Reviews

Mauritz Stiller on DVD: Sir Arne’s Treasure; Gösta Berlings Saga; Erotikon (Kino DVD) review by Peter Hourigan

6 or 7 DVDs: Jean-Luc Godard in Region 4 review by Matthew Clayfield

The Prisoner of Shark Island (Masters of Cinema) review by Peter Hourigan

Dust Devil – The Final Cut: Two DVD versions review by James Rose

Alice (Lusomundo) review by Paul Jackson

---

Festival Reports

Syndromes of an Inland Film Snob Empire: The 44^th New York Film Festival by Kevin B. Lee

The Pick of Pusan: The 11^th Pusan International Film Festival by Alan Stanbrook

“Queers Being” and “Being Queer”: The 9^th Annual queerDOC Documentary Festival by Maija Howe

Where Life is a Film: The 12^th Sarajevo Film Festival by Tamara Plakalo

New Asian Ventures: The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival by John Orr

The State of the World According to the 2006 Thessaloniki Film Festival by Richard Porton

Film Culture… and How to Make a Festival of It!: The 24^th Torino Film Festival by Olaf Möller

The Last Picture Shows: Midnight Madness Films at the 31^st Toronto International Film Festival by Brandon Wee

Why are We in Vancouver? by Geoff Gardner

Elusive Reality: The 25^th Vancouver International Film Festival by Bérénice Reynaud

Void in the Voices: The 44^th Vienna International Film Festival (Viennale) by Martina Lunzer and Barbara Wurm

---

Book Reviews

figures traced in light: On Cinematic Staging and The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies by David Bordwell feature review by John Orr

Jean Cocteau by James S. Williams review by Patrick Ellis

The Encyclopedia of British Film and The Cinema of Britain and Ireland edited by Brian McFarlane review by Daniel Gritten

Bombay by Lalitha Gopalan review by Megan Carrigy

The Modern Amazons: Warrior Women On-Screen by Dominique Mainon and James Ursini review by Catherine Gomes

---

Also new the issue

5 profiles have been added to the Great Directors critical database:
Guy Debord • Alejandro Jodorowsky • Rouben Mamoulian • George A. Romero • King Vidor

13 new annotations have been added to the Cinémathèque Annotations on Film section:
Au hasard Balthazar • Beau travail • Bitter Victory • Jacques Rivette - Le veilleur • The Naked Kiss • Park Row • Rebel Without a Cause • Il Vangelo secondo Matteo • Les Yeux sans visage
Krzysztof Kieslowski: Blind Chance • Camera Buff • Three Colours: Blue • Three Colours: Red

14 new lists have been added to the Top Tens section.

The Week in Review

After a dearth of films to start the year, the past week has had too many films to see them all. I've caught three of ACMI's Land and Freedom season which continues next week, as well as some advance screenings (Half Nelson is due for release April 19, and The Notorious Bettie Page comes out on March 8).

I'm nearing the end of my viewing of all of Almodóvar's catalogue (16 films) but suspect I will want to re-view each of them for an article I'm planning on Almodóvar. All these films have taken their toll and I've not written a review for a while. Hopefully I'll get one up this week, most likely for The Fountain.

FILMS:

• Little Children (Todd Field, 2006)
• Half Nelson (Ryan Fleck, 2006)
• The Notorious Bettie Page (Mary Harron, 2005)
• Encounter Point (Ronit Avni & Julia Bacha, 2006)
• Devils on the Doorstep (Guizi Lai Le, Wen Jiang, 2000)
• I Am Cuba (Soy Cuba, Mikheil Kalatozishvili, 1964)

VIDEO:

• Live Flesh (Carne Trémula, Pedro Almodóvar, 1997)

DVD:

• The Short Films of David Lynch (David Lynch)

BOOKS I'M READING:

• A Spanish Labyrinth: The Films of Pedro Almodovóvar (Mark Allinson, 2001)

The Week in Review

FILMS:

• Rescue Dawn (Werner Herzog, 2006)
• Breaking and Entering (Anthony Minghella, 2006)
• Stranger Than Fiction (Marc Forster, 2006)
• I Am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth (Soy Cuba, O Mamute Siberiano, Vicente Virraz, 2005)
  

VIDEO:

• High Heels (Tacones Lejanos, Pedro Almodóvar, 1991)
• Kika (Pedro Almodóvar, 1993)
• The Flower of My Secret (La Flor de Mi Secreto, Pedro Almodóvar, 1995)

BOOKS I'M READING:

• A Spanish Labyrinth: The Films of Pedro Almodovóvar (Mark Allinson, 2001)

Top films of last 10 years

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to list my top film for each of the previous ten years. I’ve been collected my movie tickets since 1995, but unfortunately, I don't have a record of every film I've seen in that period, as computerised ticketing only became ubiquitous in the last five years or so.

When I started watching films in 1992, only the cinemaplexes printed the film title on the tickets. These tickets were the basis for my film database when I started. As the more artistic films tend not to screen at these establishments, the pre-2002 years may not be entirely accurate.

For the purpose of this post, I originally intended to keep it as simple and succinct as possible by only including my favourite film of the year. This was OK for say, 1997, where Lost Highway easily beat Romeo & Juliet. But then in 2000 and again in 2002, there’s only a hair’s breadth separating my favourite three or four films. So I settled on listing the contenders.

I think this kind of list is interesting, at least to me, as it is indicative of evolving taste. My favourite films of the last five years have tended more towards dark and gritty social realism, whereas the previous five years favourites – while still including some dark stories – were clearly lighter and more mainstream. Feel free to post your own list.

The years correspond to when I viewed a film, typically the year of Australian release.

	2006: Em 4 Jay (Alkinos Tsilimidos) Contenders: The King (James Marsh), Ten Canoes (Rolf de Heer), The Child (L’enfant, Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne)
	2005: Good Night and Good Luck (George Clooney) Contenders: 2046 (Wong Kar Wai), The Proposition (John Hillcoat)
	2004: Monster (Patty Jenkins) Contenders: Donnie Darko - The Director's Cut (Richard Kelly), Tom White (Alkinos Tsilimidos)
	2003: Elephant (Gus van Sant) Contenders: Edi (Piotr Trzaskalski), Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson), Kill Bill vol.1 (Quentin Tarantino)
	2002: The Circle (Dayereh, Jafar Panahi) Contenders: Pollock (Ed Harris), Beneath Clouds (Ivan Sen), Bowling For Columbine (Michael Moore)
	2001: Monsoon Wedding (Mira Nair) Contenders: Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky), Memento (Christopher Nolan)
	2000: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Wo Hu Cang Long, Ang Lee) Contenders: Bringing Out the Dead (Martin Scorsese), American Beauty (Sam Mendes)
	1999: Fight Club (David Fincher) Contenders: Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer), High Art (Lisa Cholodenko)
	1998: The Boys (Rowan Woods) Contender: The Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan)
	1997: Lost Highway (David Lynch) Contender: Romeo & Juliet (Baz Luhrmann) - not really in contention, though.

Cinémathèque 2007 Calendar

Melbourne Cinémathèque kicks off the new year on February 14 with Franju's Eyes Without a Face (1959) and Clayton's The Innocents (1961).

Below is a summary of the 2007 Cinémathèque calendar. Cinémathèque screenings at ACMI at Federation Square on Wednesday evenings, and typically start at 7pm with two feature length films. Sometimes there are short films as well. You can pick up a large colour copy of the calendar (including film details) from ACMI. I've also provided a permanent link to this post on the sidebar at the right.

Full annual membership of Cinémathèque is $90 or $75 concession. With 39 weeks of screenings this year (there are breaks over summer and during the Melbourne International Film Festival), if you catch one film each week, it works out at only $2.31 per film (or $1.92 concession). And for that price, you can see two films for the price - $1.15/0.96c per film! All this for rare screenings of films you may never get the chance to see on the big screen again.

If you want to 'test the water', you can also take out a four week membership for $20 full/$15 concession.

Personally, I'm keen to see the three week seasons of Krzysztof Kieslowski, Jacques Rivette, Russian and Czech cinema as well as a two week season of post-war German cinema and a week of Ingmar Bergman. But with my annual membership, I'll be trying to cram as many films in as I can, and hopefully pick up an appreciation of works by directors I've never seen before.

Though I am a committee member of Cinémathèque, I have no vested interest in anyone joining. If you're in Melbourne, I highly recommend taking advantage of this unique facility.

Melbourne Cinémathèque 2007 Calendar Summary

Feb 14	Opening Night: Classic Horror
7:00	Eyes Without a Face (Georges Franju) 1959 France 88 mins
8:45	The Innocents (Jack Clayton) 1961 Britain 100 mins PG
Feb 21	Nicholas Ray
7:00	Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray) 1955 USA 111 mins M
9:05	Bitter Victory (Nicholas Ray) 1957 France/USA 103 mins
Feb 28	Cinema’s Compassionate Gaze
7:00	Au Hasard, Balthazar (Robert Bresson) 1966 France 95 mins
8:45	The Gospel According to Matthew (Pier Paolo Pasolini) 1964 Italy 142 mins
Mar 7-21 – The Moral Matrix of Krzysztof Kieslowski
Mar 7
7:00	Blue (Krzysztof Kieslowski) 1993 France/Switzerland/Poland 100 mins M
8:50	.Blind Chance (Krzysztof Kieslowski) 1981/87 Poland 122 mins MA
Mar 14
7:00	White (Krzysztof Kieslowski) 1994 France/Switzerland/Poland 91 mins M
9:05	.Camera Buff (Krzysztof Kieslowski) 1979 Poland 117 mins MA
Mar 21
7:00	Red (Krzysztof Kieslowski) 1994 France/Switzerland/Poland 99 mins M Preceded by Bricklayer (Krzysztof Kieslowski) 1973 17 mins
9:05	A Short Film About Love (Krzysztof Kieslowski) 1988 Poland 86 mins M
Mar 28	Sam Fuller
7:00	The Naked Kiss (Sam Fuller) 1964 USA 93 mins M Preceded by two Kieslowski shorts: Refrain 1972 10 mins & Factory 1970 17 mins
9:10	Park Row (Sam Fuller) 1952 USA 84 mins
Apr 4	Outer Limits
7:00	Wittgenstein Tractatus (Péter Forgács) 1992 35 mins Meanwhile Somewhere… 1940-43 (Péter Forgács) 1994 52 mins
8:40	Charlemagne 2: Piltzer (Pip Chodorov) 2002 22 mins Parallel Space: Inter-view (Peter Tscherkassky) 1992 18 mins
9:45	Outer Space (Peter Tscherkassky) 1999 14 mins Interkosmos (Jim Finn) 2006 USA 71 mins
Apr 11	Claire Denis
7:00	Beau Travail (Claire Denis) 1999 France 90 mins M
8:40	Jacques Rivette, the Nightwatchman (Claire Denis & Serge Daney) 1990 France 125 mins
Apr 18 - May 2 – It’s A Mann’s World: The Cinema of Michael Mann
Apr 18
7:00	Manhunter (Michael Mann) 1986 USA 121 mins
9:15	The Insider (Michael Mann) 1999 153 mins M
Apr 25
7:00	Crime Story: Top of the World (1987) USA 49 mins
8:00	.Heat (Michael Mann) 1995 USA 172 mins MA
May 2
7:00	Thief (Michael Mann) 1981 USA 122 mins
9:15	Collateral (Michael Mann) 2004 USA 120 mins MA
May 9	Nagisa Oshima
7:00	Naked Youth (Nagisa Oshima) 1960 Japan 97 mins
8:50	Three Resurrected Drunkards (Nagisa Oshima) 1968 Japan 80 mins
May 16	Performing Lives
7:00	Opening Night (John Cassavetes) 1977 USA 144 mins
9:35	Lumière (Jeanne Moreau) 1975 France 95 mins
May 23 - Jun 6 – Jacques Rivette’s Fantastic Realism
May 23
7:00	Paris Belongs to Us (Jacques Rivette) 1960 France 140 mins
9:30	Duelle (Jacques Rivette) 1976 mins 121 mins
May 30
7:00	Le Coup du Berger (Jacques Rivette) 1956 France 28 mins
7:40	Celine and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette) 1974 France 193 mins
Jun 6
7:00	La Belle Noiseuse (Jacques Rivette) 1991 France 236 mins M
Jun 13	Johnnie To
7:00	Focus on Ryan Larkin: Syrinx (1965) 3 mins, Cityscape (1966) 2 mins, Walking (1968) 5 mins, Street Musique (1972) 8 mins, Ryan (2004) 14 mins
7:40	Exiled (Johnnie To) 2006 Hong Kong 100 mins M
9:30	Election (Johnnie To) 2005 Hong Kong 101 mins MA
Jun 20	Of Rivers and Philosophy
7:00	The Ister (David Barison & Dan Ross) 2004 Australia 240 mins
Jun 27 - Jul 11 – From the Tsars to the Stars: Russian Sci-Fi of the 20th Century
Jun 27
7:00	Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka (Aleksandr Rou) 1961 USSR 69 mins
8:35	The Heavens Call (Mikhail Karyukov & Aleksandr Kozyr) 1959 USSR 80 mins
Jul 4
7:00	To the Stars by Hard Ways (Richard & Nikolai Viktorov) 1981/2001 USSR 118 mins
9:10	The Amphibian Man (Gennadi Kazansky & Vladimir Chebotaryov) 1962 USSR 95 mins
Jul 11
7:00	Cosmic Voyage (Vasili Zhuravlyov) 1936 USSR 70 mins
8:20	Ruslan & Ludmilla (Aleksandr Ptushko) 1972 USSR 159 mins
Jul 18	Kings of Comedy
7:00	Sherlock Jr (Buster Keaton) 1924 USA 44 mins Preceded by The Frozen North (Buster Keaton & Eddie Cline) 1922 15 mins
8:10	The Bellboy (Jerry Lewis) 1960 USA 71 mins G
9:30	Errand Boy (Jerry Lewis) 1961 USA 92 mins G
BREAK – MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Aug 22	Gloria Swanson
7:00	Sunset Blvd. (Billy Wilder) 1950 USA 110 mins PG
9:00	Queen Kelly (Eric von Stroheim) 1928 USA 96 mins
Aug 29	Raoul Walsh
7:00	The Strawberry Blonde (Raoul Walsh) 1941 USA 101 mins
8:55	What Price Glory (Raoul Walsh) 1926 USA 122 mins
Sep 5	Nouvelle Vague
7:00	Le Petit Soldat (Jean-Luc Godard) 1960/63 France 88 mins
8:40	Muriel ou le Temps d’un Retour (Alain Resnais) 1963 France 116 mins
Sep 12-26 – East of Eden: The Imaginary in Czech Cinema 1964-1983
Sep 12
7:00	The Ear (Karel Kachyna) 1970 Czechoslovakia 94 mins
8:45	The Cremator (Juraj Herz) 1968 Czechoslovakia 87 mins
Sep 19
7:00	Jan Svankmajer shorts: Castle of Otranto (1973-79) 20 mins. The Fall of the House of Usher (1981) 15 mins. The Pit, the Pendulum & Hope (1983) 15 mins
8:00	Daisies (Vera Chytilová) 1966 Czechoslovakia 76 mins
9:30	Valerie & Her Week of Wonders (Jaromil Jires) 1970 Czechoslovakia 77 mins
Sep 26
7:00	A Case for the Young Hangman (Pavel Juracek) 1969 Czechoslovakia 102 mins
8:55	Late August at the Hotel Ozone (Jan Schmidt) 1967 Czechoslovakia 77 mins
Oct 3	Russia’s Children At War
7:00	Ivan’s Childhood (Andrei Tarkovsky) 1961 USSR 95 mins M
8:45	Come & See (Elem Klimov) 1985 USSR 142 mins M
Oct 10	Val Lewton & His Legacy
7:00	I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur) 1943 USA 69 mins PG
8:10	Cat People (Jacques Tourneur) 1942 USA 73 mins M
9:35	Blood (Pedro Costa) 1989 Portugal 95 mins
Oct 17	German Roots of Noir
7:00	The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene) 1919 Germany 54 mins PG
8:15	Spione (Fritz Lang) 1928 Germany 145 mins
Oct 24	Youths of Italy
7:00	I Vitteloni (Federico Fellini) 1953 Italy 103 mins G
8:55	In the Name of the Father (Marco Bellocchio) 1972 Italy 107 mins
Oct 31	Ingmar Bergman
7:00	Now About All These Women (Ingmar Bergman) 1964 Sweden 80 mins
8:30	Scenes from a Marriage (Ingmar Bergman) 1973 Sweden 168 mins M
Nov 7	Beds Are Burning
7:00	Bitter Springs (Ralph Smart) 1950 Britain 89 mins G
9:10	Dead Heart (Nick Parsons) 1996 Australia 101 mins MA
Nov 14-21 – From the War to the Wall: German Cinema 1945-1960
Nov 14
7:00	The Lost Man (Peter Lorre) 1951 West Germany 98 mins Preceded by Brutality in Stone Alexander Kluge (1960) 12 mins
9:00	The Bridge (Bernhard Wicki) 1959 West Germany 103 mins Preceded by Machorka-Muff Jean-Marie Straub/Danièle Huillet (1963) 18 mins
Nov 21
6:30	Murderers are Amongst Us (Wolfgang Staudte) 1946 East Germany 91 mins
8:10	Fanfares of Love (Kurt Hoffmann) 1951 West Germany 91 mins
9:50	Roses Bloom on the Grave in the Meadow (Hans H. König) 1952 West Germany 90 mins
Nov 28	Third Cinema
6:30	The Hour of the Furnaces (Fernando Solanas/Octavio Getino) 1968 Argentina 88/121/47 mins
Dec 5-19 – Wandering Star: The Films of Lee Marvin
Dec 5
7:00	The Professionals (Richard Brooks) 1966 123 mins PG
9:15	The Emperor of the North (Robert Aldrich) 1973 118 mins
Dec 12
7:00	Point Blank (John Boorman) 1967 92 mins
8:45	The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford) 1962 123 mins PG
Dec 19
7:00	The Wild One Laslo Benedek (1954) 79 mins
8:30	The Big Red One Samuel Fuller (1980) 158 mins