35mm print “This is the authentically bloody chronicle of the last Apache leader, as recorded in the memoirs of one of the cavalrymen who hunted him down. It’s a film about the land and who owns it, the clash between incompatible cultures, and the telescoping of history with the apparently inexorable progress of ‘civilisation’. Although Wes Studi (Geronimo) is only fourth billed in the title role, he has roughly equal screen time with the other three principals: Southern cavalry officer Gatewood (Patric), General Crook (Hackman) and chief scout Al Sieber (Duvall). This being a John Milius story, you’d expect to find some unspoken bond between enemies, and there is, but it’s a surprise how uncompromisingly the film conveys the ruthlessness of both sides, the racism and hypocrisy of the white men, and the ferocity with which the Apache respond… Walter Hill makes the red earth of the Moab desert burn with blood and shame.” – Time Out (London)

35mm print “Continuing his love affair with movies that go bang in the night, Hill here gives us a futuristic rock fantasy which is, at heart, a Western. An itinerant soldier (Paré) returns to his home to discover that his former girlfriend, the local girl who’s made it big in the rockbiz (Lane), has been kidnapped by a villainous street-gang. Cue for fisticuffs and fireworks as Paré, aided by a tough-talking female sidekick (Madigan), hikes over to the bad part of town and unlocks Ms Lane from the bed to which she’s been handcuffed. Result? Showdown. STREETS OF FIRE is fast and loud, with music from Ry Cooder… it is also violent, though its violence lies not in the depiction of blood and entrails, but in the sheer energy and speed with which the dark and brooding images rush after one another. The message is that there is no message; if this isn’t action cinema in its purest form, then it’s pretty close.” – Time Out (London)

High-definition digital projection (DCP) “As an artist, Alfred Hitchcock surpassed this early achievement many times in his career, but for sheer entertainment value it still stands in the forefront of his work. Robert Donat is the dapper young man who stumbles across a spy ring; Madeleine Carroll is the cool, luminous blond with whom he shares a pair of handcuffs. The ideas established in this 1935 feature lead in two different directions in Hitchcock’s later work—toward the interpersonal themes of the “couple” films (Marnie, Frenzy, The Paradine Case) and the metaphysical adventures of the chase pictures (North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much). With Lucie Mannheim, Peggy Ashcroft, and Godfrey Tearle.” – Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

High-definition digital projection (DCP) “One of the most lightweight (and not even particularly deceptively so) of Hitchcock’s comedy-thrillers; a retreat from the implications of Rear Window into the realm of private jokes and sunny innuendo, with a Côte d’Azur romance that hinges on Kelly’s testing of retired high-line thief Grant, to find whether ‘The Cat’ has indeed been neutered or is still able to prowl the Riviera rooftops. Even determined analysts Rohmer and Chabrol had to take comfort in celebrating Hitch’s ‘flowers of rhetoric’: the famous image of the cigarette stubbed out in an egg, and the cheeky cliché of cross-cutting foreplay and fireworks.” – Time Out (London)

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“Universally despised on its first release, MARNIE remains one of Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest and darkest achievements. Tippi Hedren, in a performance based on a naked, anxious vulnerability, is a compulsive thief; Sean Connery is the neurotically motivated southern gentleman who catches her in the act and blackmails her into marriage. The examination of sexual power plays surpasses Fassbinder’s films, which Marnie thematically resembles, going beyond a simple dichotomy of strength and weakness into a dense, shifting field of masochism, class antagonism, religious transgression, and the collective unconscious. The mise-en-scene tends toward a painterly abstraction, as Hitchcock employs powerful masses, blank colors, and studiously unreal, spatially distorted settings. Theme and technique meet on the highest level of film art.” – Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

35mm print “Most of Walter Hill’s WILD BILL takes place during the last days of Wild Bill Hickok’s life, as he grapples with the residue of his rip-snorting, showdown-filled career. ‘Maybe you can help me,’ mutters the gunfighter to the Chinese woman who runs an opium den, though she doesn’t understand him. ‘Where the hell did things go wrong?’

“That gives WILD BILL the makings of a sunset western, mournfully dedicated to a hero’s regrets and the taxidermic perfecting of his legend. But Mr. Hill’s film turns out to be much more interesting than that, bristling with a vitality that belies the nearness of Hickok’s doom. This imaginatively offbeat western, on a par with Mr. Hill’s Long Riders, tries to embrace the full range of pride, sorrow and doubt prompted by Hickok’s exploits. Along the way, it assesses the glare of celebrity that made Hickok both star and target, ruefully calculating the price of fame.

“WILD BILL is impressive for a thoughtful, daring spirit and a charismatic hero, so unapologetically larger than life… Hickok is played with fierce, leonine presence by Jeff Bridges, who gives a beautifully nuanced performance in a tricky role. Though it begins with Hickok’s funeral, the film reaches far enough back in time to watch him as an intrepid young frontiersman whose reputation had yet to be made. It also moves forward to find him sodden and bleary, fending off his private demons while trying to maintain the gruff exterior for which others prize him. Throughout it all, Mr. Bridges gives Hickok enormous physical authority while still finding room to explore his private faltering, though it by no means overwhelms the finished portrait. WILD BILL is unusual in suggesting that its hero, though finally well aware of his shortcomings, might not have chosen to live his life any other way.” – Janet Maslin, The New York Times

35mm print “Hill’s film holds its head high in a distinguished company of movies about the Jesse James/Cole Younger gang, refusing to bother too much about historical facts or psychological motivation, instead serving up a potted commentary on the conventions of the genre itself. Concentrating on familiar rituals – the funeral, the hoe-down, the robbery (a stunning tour de force in slow motion) – Hill pays tribute to such directors as Ford, Hawks and Ray, emphasises the mythic aspects of the Western, and focuses on the subjects of kinship and the land (probably suggested by Scotsman Bill Bryden’s screenplay). This last theme is emphasised by Hill’s coup of casting real-life brothers as the members of the gang. A beautiful, laconic and unsentimental film.” – Time Out (London)

35mm print “Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte reteam as the convict and the cop in this savage sequel centering around their efforts to nail a drug kingpin before his gang ices them. Director Walter Hill revs up the violence to the max, with brutal shoot-ups at close range taking precedence over storyline, characterizations and comic relief. Excessive violence, continuous raw language and brief nudity.” - U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Director in person! He was the most famous athlete of his time, whose stunning triumph at the 1936 Olympic Games captivated the world, even as it infuriated the Nazis. Despite the racial slurs he endured, his grace and athleticism rallied crowds around the world. Yet when the four-time Olympic gold medalist returned home, he couldn’t even ride in the front of a bus. Jesse Owens is the story of the 22-year-old son of a sharecropper who triumphed over adversity to become a hero and world champion. But his story is also about the elusive, fleeting quality of fame and the way Americans idolize athletes when they suit our purpose, and forget them once they don’t. Produced and directed by Laurens Grant and written and produced by Stanley Nelson, the team behind the Emmy Award-winning documentary Freedom Riders.

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“A dark night at the Bates Motel, in the horror movie that transformed the genre by locating the monster inside ourselves. Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 masterpiece blends a brutal manipulation of audience identification and an incredibly dense, allusive visual style to create the most morally unsettling film ever made. The case for Hitchcock as a modern Conrad rests on this ruthless investigation of the heart of darkness, but the film is uniquely Hitchcockian in its positioning of the godlike mother figure. It’s a deeply serious and deeply disturbing work, but Hitchcock, with his characteristic perversity, insisted on telling interviewers that it was a ‘fun’ picture. With Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, and Janet Leigh.” – Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader