The Guild Cinema

WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES (2000)
Jun 12 & 13
Fri and Sat 4:00pm only!
Bleak Week Special!
Dir. Bela Tarr & Ágnes Hranitzky - 2000 - 145m - Hungary - In Hungarian with English subtitles - Valid for Punch Cards

The Bela Tarr & Ágnes Hranitzky Hungarian epic, as part of American Cinematheque’s worldwide BLEAK WEEK!

AMERICAN CINEMATHEQUE’S BLEAK WEEK:  CINEMA OF DISPAIR  IS HERE!  AS ONE OF OVER A HUNDRED PARTICIPATING  MOVIE THEATERS AROUND THE WORLD, WE’RE OFFERING UP THREE DOUBLE FEATURES  (WERCKMEISTER HARMONIES / COME & SEE, IN A YEAR OF 13 MOONS / STROSZEK, CHRISTIANE F. / AU HASARD BALTHAZAR) & A CLOSING  7 PLUS HOUR  BELA TAR MONUMENTAL FEATURE  SATANTANGO!

NOTE:  THIS DOUBLE FEATURE WILL BE WITH THE NOTORIOUS RUSSIAN ANTI-WAR EPIC COME & SEE!

Staff member Don Sherry’s pick! 

 One of the major achievements of twenty-first-century cinema thus far, Béla Tarr’s mesmeric parable of societal collapse is an enigma of transcendent visual, philosophical, and mystical resonance. Adapted from a novel by the celebrated writer and frequent Tarr collaborator László Krasznahorkai, Werckmeister Harmonies unfolds in an unknown era in an unnamed village, where, one day, a mysterious circus—complete with an enormous stuffed whale and a shadowy, demagogue-like figure known as the Prince—arrives and appears to awaken a kind of madness in the citizens, which builds inexorably toward violence and destruction. In thirty-nine of his signature long takes, engraved in ghostly black and white, Tarr conjures an apocalyptic vision of dreamlike dread and fathomless beauty.

“Mesmerizing, haunting, deeply moving.” - Diane Carson, KDHX (St. Louis)

“It is an arduous task, but the film achieves a transcendent and ethereal beauty that only the few truly great masterpieces attain.” - Derek Smith, Cinematic Reflections

BLACULA (1972)
Jun 9 & 10
Tue and Wed 6:15pm only!
A BLAXPLOITATION MIDWEEK SPECIAL DOUBLE FEATURE!
Dir. William Crain - 1972 - 93m - Valid for Punch Cards

The William Marshall Drive-In Classic as part of our BLAXPLOITATION MID WEEK with author Josiah Howard!

It’s on!  Author of the the superb compendium Blaxploitation Cinema: The Essential Reference Guide Josiah Howard (who also curated all the chosen films for this midweek) will be in our cinema house to introduce & do a post screening discussion!  Welcome to BLAXPLOITATION MIDWEEK!

DOUBLE FEATURED (2-MOVIES-FOR-THE PRICE-OF-ONE, SEE ONE OR BOTH FOR THE SAME PRICE!) WITH THE GORDON PARKS JR. LEGENDARY BAD ASS ORIGINAL 70’S LANDMARK SUPER FLY (1972)!

The eternally cool William Marshall puts a fresh spin on the age-old legend of the vampire, condemned to wander the Earth with an insatiable lust for blood in these riveting Blaxploitation classics.

William Marshall (Twilight’s Last Gleaming, Pee-wee’s Playhouse, Maverick) stars as African Prince Mamuwalde in Blacula, the avant-garde blaxploitation horror film that’s both subversive and refreshingly entertaining. In 1780, Mamuwalde travels to Transylvania seeking Count Dracula’s (Charles Macaulay, Splash, Star Trek) support for the abolition of the slave trade between their countries. Instead, Dracula curses the prince by transforming him into a vampire and locking him in a coffin. Two centuries later, Blacula is set free in modern day Los Angeles to terrorize the city in his nightly quest for blood. William Crain (Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde, TV’s The Dukes of Hazzard) directs and Vonetta McGee (Hammer, The Eiger Sanction, Repo Man, The Great Silence), Denise Nicholas (Let’s Do It Again, TV’s In the Heat of the Night, Room 222), Elisha Cook (Rosemary’s Baby, The KIlling, House on Haunted HIll) and Thalmus Rasulala (Friday Foster, New Jack City, Above the Law) co-star!

“Blacula is beautiful, a totally entertaining movie that is not only a successful satire... but also provides a number of genuinely terrifying moments.” - Dick Lochte, Los Angeles Free Press

“Vibrant funking-up of Hammer bloodsuckers” - Fernando F. Croce, CinePassion