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Cinémathèque screenings are open to members and their guests. Membership is simple and available at the door. Full program details are available in a separate program from the foyer. Admission 18+.
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Director: Vincente Minnelli. Cast: Ethel Waters, Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Rex Ingram, Kenneth Spencer, Duke Ellington and his orchestra. After being seriously injured in a barroom brawl, an idle gambling husband is reformed by a dream of his own death, with God and Satan battling for his soul. Minnelli’s directorial debut, based on a Broadway musical, featured an all African-American cast. Although it falls prey to the stereotyping typical of the representation of black characters in popular culture at the time, Minnelli’s sensitivity towards the material and the combined talent of the cast redeems the film. Despite its limited potential for distribution (few Southern theatres of 1943 would touch it), MGM still applied it’s A-plus production values to the film turning out sumptuous dreamlike sets and production numbers. + OREOS WITH ATTITUDE (USA/1990/Colour/27mins/16mm/NFVLS) Director: Larry Carty. Cast: Jackie Roberts, Keith Smith, Larry Maxwell. This satire of racial stereotyping, produced by uber-indie producer Christine Vachon and director Todd Haynes, follows Janet and Richard, a black yuppie couple living in New York. After calculating that the risk of producing a dark-skinned baby is too great they decide to adopt a white child ‘to promote racial harmony’. But it seems that little Jimmy has other ideas.
Director: Vincente Minnelli. Cast: Ethel Waters, Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Rex Ingram, Kenneth Spencer, Duke Ellington and his orchestra.
After being seriously injured in a barroom brawl, an idle gambling husband is reformed by a dream of his own death, with God and Satan battling for his soul. Minnelli’s directorial debut, based on a Broadway musical, featured an all African-American cast. Although it falls prey to the stereotyping typical of the representation of black characters in popular culture at the time, Minnelli’s sensitivity towards the material and the combined talent of the cast redeems the film. Despite its limited potential for distribution (few Southern theatres of 1943 would touch it), MGM still applied it’s A-plus production values to the film turning out sumptuous dreamlike sets and production numbers.
+ OREOS WITH ATTITUDE (USA/1990/Colour/27mins/16mm/NFVLS)
Director: Larry Carty. Cast: Jackie Roberts, Keith Smith, Larry Maxwell.
This satire of racial stereotyping, produced by uber-indie producer Christine Vachon and director Todd Haynes, follows Janet and Richard, a black yuppie couple living in New York. After calculating that the risk of producing a dark-skinned baby is too great they decide to adopt a white child ‘to promote racial harmony’. But it seems that little Jimmy has other ideas.
With a new baby boom upon us, this timely program presents a selection of quality educational films about raising children. Terrible Twos and the Trusting Threes (Canada/ 1950/ Colour/ 22mins/ 16mm/ NFVLS) A study of how child behaviour at two and three years showing how parents can deal constructively with problems presented by this age group. The Time Has Come: An Approach to Non-Sexist Parenting (USA/ 1977/ Colour/ 22mins/ 16mm/ NFVLS) Dir: Jamil Simon. Demonstrates the ease and accessibility of a non-sexist approach to child rearing. Explores the non-sexist elements of the home environment as well as influences from outside such as television and school. Suggests ways for parents to expand options for their children. Misbehaviour: What You Could Have Done but Didn’t (USA/ 1977/ Colour/ 29mins/ 16mm/NFVLS) Dir: Skip Farmer. Identifies the four goals of the disruptive and discouraged child; attention seeking; power; revenge; and inadequacy. Adults who have identified these goals can respond in constructive ways that will encourage behaviour improvement in the child. New Relations: A Film about Fathers and Sons (USA/1980/Colour/34mins/16mm/NFVLS) Dir: Ben Achtenberg. As his son’s first birthday approaches, the filmmaker explores the costs –both economical and emotional- as well as the rewards of having decided to become a father in his mid-thirties, and of choosing to share childcare responsibilities equally with his wife, who also has a career. “Handled with extraordinary subtlety, and with full respect for the perspectives of both sexes.” Robert S. Weiss, PhD
With a new baby boom upon us, this timely program presents a selection of quality educational films about raising children.
Terrible Twos and the Trusting Threes
(Canada/ 1950/ Colour/ 22mins/ 16mm/ NFVLS)
A study of how child behaviour at two and three years showing how parents can deal constructively with problems presented by this age group.
The Time Has Come: An Approach to Non-Sexist Parenting
(USA/ 1977/ Colour/ 22mins/ 16mm/ NFVLS) Dir: Jamil Simon.
Demonstrates the ease and accessibility of a non-sexist approach to child rearing. Explores the non-sexist elements of the home environment as well as influences from outside such as television and school. Suggests ways for parents to expand options for their children.
Misbehaviour: What You Could Have Done but Didn’t
(USA/ 1977/ Colour/ 29mins/ 16mm/NFVLS) Dir: Skip Farmer.
Identifies the four goals of the disruptive and discouraged child; attention seeking; power; revenge; and inadequacy. Adults who have identified these goals can respond in constructive ways that will encourage behaviour improvement in the child.
New Relations: A Film about Fathers and Sons
(USA/1980/Colour/34mins/16mm/NFVLS) Dir: Ben Achtenberg.
As his son’s first birthday approaches, the filmmaker explores the costs –both economical and emotional- as well as the rewards of having decided to become a father in his mid-thirties, and of choosing to share childcare responsibilities equally with his wife, who also has a career.
“Handled with extraordinary subtlety, and with full respect for the perspectives of both sexes.” Robert S. Weiss, PhD
Cinematheque curator Brett Garten presents this multimedia lecture on the classical exploitation film of the 30s, 40s and the 1950s. Using rare film excerpts, trailers, and slides. Brett will explore this colourful industry that grew in the shadow of Hollywood’s Hays code. Far from being just bad movies, films like Reefer Madness, Mom & Dad and Maniac, reveal a great deal about American culture and the issues they raise are still debated today.
Dir : Dwain Esper. Cast : Bill Woods, Horace Carpenter, Ted Edwards, Phyllis Diller.This truly bizarre no-budget exploitation film made by a husband and wife team is thinly disguised as a docudrama on madness with more than a passing nod to Edgar Allen Poe. The opening title proclaims fear to be a psychic disease. A mad scientist, Dr Meirschultz, experiments on dead bodies obtained from the morgue by his even more insane assistant, Maxwell, a former vaudeville impersonator, who turns out to be the true maniac. Maxwell’s bizarre versions include excerpts from Witchcraft Through the Ages and Siegfried.
From Emilie Cohl drawing stick men on his black board to Pixar’s Wall E, cartoon filmmaking has been the liveliest of movie production. Jamming a century of animation into one program makes for some strange bedfellows, but Felix and the Underground, TV and Technicolour, Hollywood and Japan all get a look in. Barrie Pattison’s introduction to the Cinematheque’s animation fortnight moves the viewer away from funny animals into adventures of the imagination.
United Productions of America were like a bomb burst in the conservative Hollywood animation industry. Instead of strip cartoon characters and nursery rhymes, they brought to the screen the sharp eye of James Thurber and Ludwig Bemelmans and a range of visual styles referencing Raoul Duffy and the New Yorker. The older studios struggle to catch up. In this program of extraordinarily hard to find copies, ‘toon fanatic Barrie Pattison follows producer Stephen Bosustow’s career through title sequences and industrial movies to the great one off cartoons and exploits of Gerald McBoing Boing and the near sighted Mr. Magoo.
The maddest of madcap animators piloted Droopy through his exploits at MGM and popularised lechery in cartoon form – Wolfie’s reaction to the Swing Shift Cinderlla is a touchstone of the WW2 years. Fred “Tex” Avery’s reputation was fading when the French took up his cause and moved him out of history and into legend. A program of the great Technicolour MGM cartoons in beautiful 35mm is a must see event. Includes Happy-Go-Nutty, Jerky Turky, The Screwy Truant, Swing Shift Cinderella, Lonesome Lenny, Northwest Hounded Police, Uncle Tom’s Cabana, King Size Canary, What Price Freedom, Daredevil Droopy, Symphony in Slang, Magical Maestro and more.
TICKET PRICING: Mini membership (1 month + 1 free guest pass) $18 /$15 Conc.3month membership (+ 3 guest passes): Full $36/$32 Conc.Annual membership (+ 12 guest passes): Full $85/$75 Conc.
Membership covers cost of tickets for duration of membership.
The Chauvel Cinémathèque acknowledges the assistance of the National film and Video Lending Service and the National Film & Sound Archive in creating this program.