film series
July-December Schedule
ow S o m e L i ke it Hot • H
M ov i e d i v A
M ov i e d i v A film series
TICKETS $7
All screenings at 7pm on Wednesdays
July 7/10
BALL OF FIRE
October 10/2
HOW TO STEAL A MILLION
Directed by William Wyler
7/24
10/23
Directed by George Cukor
Directed by Joan Micklin Silver
PR
CROSSING DELANCEY
te a to S
Directed by Howard Hawks
HOLIDAY
CAROLINATHEATRE.ORG/MOVIEDIVA FACEBOOK.COM/MOVIEDIVA
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November
LAUREL AND HARDY SHORT COMEDIES
WORKING GIRL
8/7
September 9/4
11/6
Directed by Mike Nichols
11/20
MUSIC AND LYRICS
Directed by Marc Lawrence
SOME LIKE IT HOT
Directed by Billy Wilder
9/18
THAT NIGHT IN RIO
Directed by Irving Cummings
FOLLOW US
TICKETS $7 All screenings at 7pm on Wednesdays For more information go to:
CAROLINATHEATRE.ORG/MOVIEDIVA FACEBOOK.COM/MOVIEDIVA
what is the moviediva film series?
Those of you who know me from my nineteen years as Film Curator at the North Carolina Museum of Art, or, from my monthly WUNC Radio appearances on The State of Things with Frank Stasio and Marsha Gordon, have an inkling about my taste, already. This series will focus spirit-lifting comedy, with strong female characters. They don’t play second fiddle to men, selfsabotage, fall down for no reason or settle for less. There will also be an end of summer celebration with the sure-fire hilarity of Laurel and Hardy. – Laura Boyes Curator, Moviediva Film Series
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309 W MORGAN ST, DURHAM, NC 27701 919.560.3030 / CAROLINATHEATRE.ORG
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WEDNESDAYS
j u l y - d e c e m b e r, 2 0 1 9
Wednesday, July 10 BALL OF FIRE (1941, 111 min)
DIRECTED BY HOWARD HAWKS. GARY COOPER, BARBARA STANWYCK, HENRY TRAVERS, S. Z. SAKALL, TULLY MARSHALL
Nightclub songbird Sugarpuss O’Shea is a veritable jive talk dictionary, exciting a tweedy professor completing his encyclopedia entry on slang. Winkingly modelled on Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by screenwriters Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, this modern fairy tale explores the social and sexual awakenings of Princess and Professors alike. This was Wilder’s last film before taking the director’s reins: next year; Stanwyck in Double Indemnity. Cooper melts ever so slowly under Stanwyck’s heat. Your vocabulary will surely improve with choice swing era palaver. Brooklyn-born former chorus girl Stanwyck wasn’t even a top choice for Sugarpuss, but she struts confidently to Gene Krupa’s Orchestra in sequined fringe, “Root, zoot and cute—and solid to boot.” 100% ON ROTTEN TOMATOES
Wednesday, July 24 HOLIDAY (1938, 95 min)
DIRECTED BY GEORGE CUKOR. KATHARINE HEPBURN, CARY GRANT, DORIS NOLAN, LEW AYRES
These days, we tell our children to follow their dreams. Not so during the Depression. Free-spirited Johnny rubs his high society fiancee’s clan the wrong way when he says there are more important things than making money. Grant and Hepburn’s sizzling chemistry kindle cinematic joy as they recognize each other as soul mates. Supporting eccentrics Edward Everett Horton, Jean Dixon, and Ayres as the alcoholic (secretly gay??) family heir complete the irreverent family circle. “Often underrated by comparison with The Philadelphia Story (both are based on plays by Philip Barry), but even better because its glitteringly polished surface is undermined by veins of real feeling, it is one of Cukor’s best films” (Time Out).
Wednesday, August 7 LAUREL AND HARDY SHORT COMEDIES
(1927-1933, 92 min) Before school starts, bring the kids (of all ages!) to see some of Stan & Ollie’s most hilarious short films. We will screen the silent comedy (with music) “The Battle of the Century,” newly restored, with the biggest pie fight of all time, the surreal “The Busy Bodies” in which they take on ill-advised jobs in a sawmill, “Their First Mistake” in which they adopt a baby in a mock soap opera, and their Oscarwinning “The Music Box” in which they carry a piano up a daunting flight of stairs. “Stan and Ollie can convert a group of normal people into a mass of pie-slingers, shin-kickers and pants-pullers. They bring out the worst in everybody” (Gerald Mast in The Comic Mind)
Wednesday, September 4 SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959, 121 min) DIRECTED BY BILLY WILDER. MARILYN MONROE, TONY CURTIS, JACK LEMMON. JOE E. BROWN
Two broke musicians accidentally witness the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre and don flapper attire to join Sweet Sue’s Society Syncopators in order to escape the vengeful mob. Marilyn Monroe positively glows onscreen, even if she drove her director to distraction, and Curtis as ladylike Josephine and Lemmon as rowdy Daphne redefine midcentury drag. A comic masterpiece of gender fluidity blooming smack dab in the uptight 1950s, the Legion of Decency rated it “Morally objectionable in part for all.” The sparkling 4K restoration of this exquisitely constructed comedy is a pleasure from start to finish, never giving you the fuzzy end of the lollipop. “The greatest comedy ever made in America. Nobody’s perfect, but this movie is” (Entertainment Weekly)
Wednesday, September 18 THAT NIGHT IN RIO (1941 ,90 min) DIRECTED BY IRVING CUMMINGS. ALICE FAYE, DON AMECHE, CARMEN MIRANDA
Nightclub crooner Larry Martin looks exactly like Baron Duarte--and no wonder, since they are both played by Don Ameche. He finds himself entwined with both a fiery Brazilian samba goddess (Carmen Miranda) and a discontented countess (Alice Faye) with ample opportunity for dazzling Technicolor musical interludes. If you’ve never seen flamboyant Miranda Ay-yi-yi-yi-yi, you’re in for a special treat. World War II’s “Good Neighbor Policy,” had a splendid effect on 1940s musicals, filling them with jubilant Latin numbers blended with the infectious rhythms of the jitterbug era. Faye’s blonde curls and lush curves anticipate Marilyn Monroe’s and her sensual songs add to the erotic confusion over which Ameche is really her husband, unusual for strictly censored Hollywood films of the Production Code Era.
Wednesday, October 2 HOW TO STEAL A MILLION (1966, 122 min)
DIRECTED BY WILLIAM WYLER. AUDREY HEPBURN, PETER O’TOOLE, HUGH GRIFFITH.
Nicole is the heir to a grand collection of forged art, courtesy of her rascally father and grandfather. When a “Cellini” Venus is leant to an exhibition and is unexpectedly subject to examination for the gallery’s insurance, she hatches a plan with a society burglar to heist it. Audrey is impossibly chic in her Givenchy wardrobe, O’Toole drives a yummy butter yellow Jaguar, and the whole Parisian confection (filmed in August, when the city was empty) is simply delicious 1960s glam. Venerable production designer Alexander Trauner commissioned the best art forgers in Paris to create a museum of “masterpieces.” Love me a low tech robbery, too, with a boomerang, a magnet and a mop bucket. 100% ON ROTTEN TOMATOES
Wednesday, October 23 CROSSING DELANCEY (1988, 97 min) DIRECTED BY JOAN MICKLIN SILVER. AMY IRVING, PETER RIEGERT, REIZL BOZYK
Izzy is perfectly fine. She has a nice rent-controlled apartment on the Upper East Side, a fulfilling job at a cozy book shop and a friend with benefits. Her flirtation with an urbane European writer seems to be making progress. The last thing she needs is her Bubbe making an appointment with a matchmaker hiding a Lower East Side pickle maker in her back pocket. On its 30th anniversary, the underappreciated Crossing Delancey “feels suffused with female energy, putting women’s concerns first, and it’s simultaneously sharp and affectionate.” Forget Dirty Dancing, this Valentine to “nice” 1980s New York City is the best Jewish rom com of all time.
Wednesday, November 6 WORKING GIRL (1988, 113 min) DIRECTED BY MIKE NICHOLS. MELANIE GRIFFITH, HARRISON FORD, SIGOURNEY WEAVER
Tess is a Wall Street secretary with big hair and even bigger ambitions. Derided for her Staten Island style, she is taken under the wing of a smoothly sophisticated mentor, but quickly learns to bear her own velvet claws in order realize her dreams. Harrison Ford, as a dishy colleague (the girlfriend part, really) understands consent, which is refreshing for an 80s movie. Griffith takes her own derided public image as a sexpot, and asks to be revaluated for her talent, even if the film never asks why there is room for only one woman at the top. Working Girl points to the future, “a modern Cinderella story where the heroine is blessed with an iron will, not glass slippers” (Amy Nicholson).
Wednesday, November 20 MUSIC AND LYRICS (2007, 96 min) DIRECTED BY MARC LAWRENCE. HUGH GRANT, DREW BARRYMORE, KRISTEN JOHNSON.
A has-been 80s pop music heart throb, reduced to playing nostalgia gigs at amusement parks and high school reunions, meets cute with a struggling poet. She just might be able to supply him with lyrics desperately for his tune, commissioned under a ticking deadline for a Christina Aguilera–ish teen sensation. The wickedly witty musical parodies by Adam Schlesinger (Crazy ExGirlfriend) are surprisingly as catchy as actual hit songs. Music and Lyrics boasts solid characters, whose creative work is meaningful to them, and whose Act 3 argument is NOT about a cascade of avoidable rom com lies. And, as much as we love boyish, stammering Hugh Grant, we love seedy, washed-up Hugh Grant even more.