Each week repertory films will be presented on 35mm prints and DCP in The Charles’ original 362 seat theatre. There are three showings of a movie each week.
| Fitzcarraldo | Thursday, December 12 |
| Frozen — KID’S SHOW | Saturday, December 14 |
| Edward Scissorhands | Monday, December 16 |
| Die Hard | Thursday, December 19 |
| The Red Shoes | Saturday, December 21 |
| Goodfellas | Thursday, December 26 |
| The Third Man | Saturday, December 28 |
| The Royal Tenenbaums | Thursday, January 2 |
| Sweet Smell of Success | Saturday, January 4 |
| Caliber 9 | Thursday, January 9 |
| Lancelot du Lac | Saturday, January 11 |
| Daughters of Darkness | Thursday, January 16 |
The focused madness of Werner Herzog’s filmmaking obsession found its purest expression in his account of a European (Klaus Kinski) who hatches an elaborate scheme to bring grand opera to the backwaters of the early 20th-century Amazon. All he has to do is drag a steamship over a mountain. Animating feat aside, it remains one of more »
True story: Yours truly saw Disney’s quasi-Nordic animated juggernaut in the theater the Saturday afternoon of its opening weekend, and as soon as the end credits rolled, the little girl in the row behind us leapt to her feet to bellow along to “Let It Go”—she already knew the words. Such is the precision-tuned power of Disney. more »
Tim Burton followed up Batman, his boffo Hollywood breakout, with one of his most Tim Burton-y films ever—a tale of a childlike loner with Tim Burton hair and slashing blades for fingers, played by a rarely better Johnny Depp. All of the director’s quirks and tics work for him here in a harmony he would rarely find again. more »
Die Hard is famous for badass one-liners, but the reason the film remains so watchable is woven deep in the sharp script, credited to Hollywood pros Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza. For one example, there’s a weird throwaway line in the very first scene from a character you never see again. Around 20 minutes in, it pays off. A more »
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger not only made their best film here, they set a new standard for cinematic art at the time. Moira Shearer plays the young ballet dancer torn between art (Anton Wallbrook’s imperious impresario) and love (Marius Goring). It’s a masterpiece by any standard, but if you’ve never seen “The Red Sho more »
Martin Scorsese made better, more Important films, but he never made any more seductive than Goodfellas. That’s the point—his camera glides over the clothes and clubs and crimes so that it’s impossible to miss what Ray Liotta’s around-the-way kid and Lorraine Bracco’s mob wife see in them, until the whole thing collapses in lies more »
With all due respect to Casablanca, The Third Man makes it look like a soap opera. They’re remarkably similar in many respects—a wartime liminal zone, an attractive woman looking for transit papers, various nationals playing various sides against each other. But Carol Reed’s made a sardonic mystery with a noir-black core, not a more »
Wherein Wes Anderson’s movies turned into Wes Anderson Films. Fortunately, the director was able to hire Gene Hackman for a vigorous pre-retirement turn as the Peter Pan patriarch of a New York clan straight out of the pages of yellowed old issues of The New Yorker, which is where Anderson copped it all in the first place. -Lee more »
There was once a time when newspaper columnists were powerful and feared hahaha. Burt Lancaster plays the Manhattan scribbler with the juice to make or break. Tony Curtis is the hustling press agent trying to curry favor and not lose his soul in the bargain. They battle it out with Clifford Odets’ zingy dialogue amid James Wong more »
Italian crime films from the ‘70s tend to overpromise and underdeliver, but not Caliber 9. Icy-eyed Gastone Moschin (The Conformist, The Godfather Part II) plays a hood fresh out of prison for swiping a pile of cash. The cops and his old cronies both want him to cough up his stash. Does he care? What do you think? RIYL tough guy more »
The quest for the Holy Grail has failed, and without a quest, King Arthur’s knights turn on each other. Lancelot (Luc Simon) is both their model and their shame, thanks to his affair with Queen Guinevere (Laura Duke Condominas), which makes him a target. Robert Bresson’s deadpan realism imbues fresh power to this oldest of tales more »
There’s been an spurt of nerd interest in arty Euro exploitation auteurs like Dario Argento and Walerian Borowcyzk, but props to Belgian dark-horse Harry Kümel for making the greatest nekkid-vampire film ever. Fassbinder diva Delphine Seyrig captivates as a mysterious countess who cozies up to a pair of hot honeymooners at an of more »
