Inside Hollywood

GUN CRAZY
1949, Joseph H. Lewis, USA, 86 min.
With Peggy Cummins, John Dall

An important element of the Hollywood commercial structure, the "B" picture also occasionally provided a platform for under-the-radar artistry and subversiveness, as demonstrated by this sexy and stylish cult film about a hayseed (Dall) and a carnival sharpshooter (Cummins) whose shared passion for firearms sends them outside the law and into each other's arms. Dynamically directed (including a celebrated single-take bank robbery filmed from the back seat of the getaway car), GUN CRAZY often seems like a New Wave film ten years ahead of its time. 35mm. (MR)

ON THE WATERFRONT
1954, Elia Kazan, USA, 108 min.
With Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint

Government investigations of communist influence in Hollywood had a massive impact on the film industry in the postwar era. Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg's blistering tale of corruption and honor among Hoboken dockworkers is one of the most celebrated and controversial American films ever made: celebrated for Brando's Oscar-winning performance, the legendary taxicab scene, and the vivid waterfront locations; controversial for its purported self-justification of HUAC names-namers Kazan and Schulberg. 35mm. (MR)

Archival print!
RIVER OF NO RETURN
1954, Otto Preminger, USA, 91 min.
With Marilyn Monroe, Robert Mitchum

A 25-year-old process embraced by desperate Hollywood executives to offset plunging revenues, CinemaScope was at first perceived as a gimmick, but its widescreen ratio has proven to be an enduring element of film art. Preminger's frontier saga of a saloon girl (Monroe) stranded in the wilderness with a revenge-bent homesteader (Mitchum) is cited in Charles Barr's seminal article "CinemaScope: Before and After" as a key film in the evolution of widescreen style. Archival 35mm widescreen print courtesy of 20th Century Fox. (MR)

THE PLAYER
1992, Robert Altman, USA, 124 min.
With Tim Robbins, Greta Scacchi

After being exiled from Hollywood during the post-HEAVEN'S GATE purge of the 1980s, Altman had his cake and ate it, too, with this acclaimed insider satire of the movie business. Robbins plays a hot-shot studio executive who finds his job threatened by an even hotter shot (Peter Gallagher) and his life threatened by a disgruntled screenwriter. The huge roster of clever cameos ranges from Cher and John Cusack to Bruce Willis and Julia Roberts. 35mm. (MR)

SPIDER-MAN
2002, Sam Raimi, USA, 121 min.
With Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst

Sam Raimi brought low-budget smarts to this big-budget tent-pole based on the cult comic-book series that applied the Clark Kent-Superman dynamic to adolescent angst. The story recounts the empowerment of nerdy teenager Peter Parker (Maguire) by a radioactive spider bite, his awkward romance with sassy girl-next-door Mary Jane (Dunst), his high-flying combat with tycoon/supervillain the Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), and his harassment by cigar-chomping newspaper publisher J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons, who steals the movie). 35mm. (MR)

CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON
2000, Ang Lee, Taiwan/Hong Kong/USA/China, 120 min.
With Zhang Ziyi, Chow Yun-fat

This borders-spanning film, a Chinese-Hong Kong-U.S.-Taiwanese co-production, blended American indie cinema (director Lee and screenwriter James Schamus) and Asian action cinema to create the biggest-grossing foreign language film in U.S. history. The complex plot concerns a stolen sword, a master swordsman (Chow), the female warrior he loves (Michelle Yeoh), a desert bandit (Chang Chen), and a willful governor's daughter (Zhang) who moonlights as a thief. The famous fight scenes choreographed by Yuen Wo-ping are filled with lyricism and grace. In Mandarin with English subtitles. 35mm widescreen. (MR)