Sydney screenings - now 'til the end of May

Feels like a while since this blog served it's original purpose, huh? Here are a bunch of screenings throughout May that I deem worthy of notice. Lemme know if I've forgetten any!

All at the Chauvel cinematheque: Tod ‘Freaks’ Browning’s The Unholy Three (May 31^st); the Sjostrom/Lon Chaney Jr. flick He Who Gets Slapped (pictured above, 24^th May) which aside from having one of the best titles ever, is also allegedly awesome and impossible to find anywhere; The Penalty (May 17^th), a 1920 silent with this eye-catching plot summary:

A man, who as a boy had his legs needlessly amputated, swears revenge on the surgeon. He has become the master of the San Francisco underworld and contrives to take the surgeon's daughter as hostage in order to force him to graft on new legs - the legs of her fiancée.

…and Rossellini’s Rome, Open City (3^rd May) + the still-not-on-R4 Germany Year Zero (10^th May), arguably the Italian neorealism’s most despairing outcry.

Also at the Chauvel, a self-explanatory series called 80’s Memories, for all yr misbegotten nostalgic cravings. The Return of the Living Dead (”Send… more… cops”) and Breakin’ double bill (30^th Apr, 7pm) being my personal pick of the bunch.

Last and least/most for the Chauvel, The Room is getting a run, every Saturday 10pm until the 29^th of May. Arguably the most nakedly personal movie ever made, for better/worse.

So, Nashville still hasn’t been released on DVD (or VHS!) in this country. Whether you think the film is Altman’s master statement or a quaint, hokey time capsule, this is an appalling fact. Fortunately, it’s screening in 35mm at AGNSW’s Archibald Prize series on 19^th of May (2pm & 7:15pm) and then again on Sun 23^rd of May (2pm). Also part of the series: A 35mm print of Sunset Blvd. on the 26^th and 30^th (same times), and some other readily available titles in the link. And they’re all FREE.

On now and continuing til the 2^nd of May is the German Film Festival (my pix: Haneke’s The White Ribbon & Fatih Akin’s Soul Kitchen, although both get a general release in May... so I say Akin's hard-to-find 1997 feature Short Sharp Shock is a must-see) & the Spanish Film Festival (intriguing-sounding stalker/janitor flick Gigante, and a new Julio Medem flick for the pervs).