A Fritz Lang restoration, Not2Bad, David Bordwell in person and Raiders!
Wednesday
Moderato Cantabile (7:00p — 4070 Vilas Hall)
(FREE admission).
Thursday
David Bordwell on The Rhapsodes + The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (7:00p + 8:00p — 4070 Vilas Hall)
After hanging at New York’s Museum of the Moving Image, UW Professor Emeritus David Bordwell is back on university turf for the July block of Cinematheque program. Each week, C’tek will host a Bordwell reading and a subsequent screening, pairing portions of his new book on revolutionary film critics of the 40s with a companion film. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre brings with it James Agee, whose review of the Mexico-set adventure proclaimed director John Huston as second only to Charlie Chaplin at the time. Bordwell will also celebrate the work of Agee. Agee passed away at 45 from a heart attack, though not before collaborating with Houston himself on another Bogart adventure, The African Queen. (FREE admission.)
Not2Bad (7:30p — Barrymore Theatre)
One doesn’t need to be familiar with the likes of pro downhill racer Casey Brown or X-Games gold medalist Brett Rheeder to enjoy Not2Bad‘s opening, which is little more than the 30-minute short’s featured riders making fools of themselves in a casual soccer game, missing headers and whiffing on bicycle (get it?) kicks. The rest of Anthill Films’ shenanigan-filled travelogue is filled with the expected vignettes, like an introductory sprint between trees in the Spanish countryside, with requisite Sony Action Cam footage; or bikers zipping up the makeshift quarterpipes of abandoned, graffiti-covered houses to the tune of “Good Day.” In between, riders take in the sights, go-karting during down hours and wolfing ice cream. Not2Bad (and its predecessor Not Bad, which Trek is revisiting for its fundraiser) is ultimately still mountain bike porn, but the carpe diem philosophy at which it’s captured can be breathtaking even for an outsider. ($10.)
Friday
Raiders! (7:00p — Sundance)
Eric Zala, Jayson Lamb, and Chris Strompolos got way too into Raiders of the Lost Ark. So much so that they wanted to recreate the entire thing shot-for-shot, and save for the plane hangar fight, that’s exactly what they did. Fast forward over two decades to Butt-Numb-a-Thon, (Ain’t It Cool News‘ mega movie marathon) which publicly featured a copy of this mostly-finished adaptation. Coasting off the inevitable festival momentum which included a stop at the Wisconsin Film Festival in 2012, Zala, Lamb and Strompolos raised over $20,000 to finally shoot their missing sequence. This weird, heartwarming slice of true movie magic is all documented in Raiders!, which will feature alongside the trio’s finished product. Q&A sessions will follow both films.
Destiny (7:00p — 4070 Vilas Hall)
As C’tek notes in their calendar, Luis Buñuel and Alfred Hitchcock both famously admired Fritz Lang’s international breakthrough, wherein a young woman (Lil Dagover) must save the life of one of three men in order to spare her own lover’s soul from the clutches of Death (Bernard Goetzke). Lang reuses actors across stories to encourage the connections already suggested by the Brothers Grimm influences and solid-for-their-time effects. After a formal reintroduction at the Berlinale, Kino and the FW Murnau Foundation’s newly recolored treatment comes complete with a new score by Cornelius Schwehr. (FREE admission).
Tuesday
Jaws (8:30p — The Edgewater Plaza)
Journalistic detritus aside, The Edgewater is adding to Madison’s “peak state” of outdoor movies with the original summer blockbuster. And yes, their screen is near water. (FREE admission.)