Brightest Young Things

Say what you will but AFI Silver is one of the finest cinematic institutions in the US. And with Visions no longer existent, it is also the only proper repertoiry theater DC has on its hands.
In any case, after the Janus retrospective it is now hosting (run time: Dec 15th to January 10th) a 10th Anniversary celebration of Rialto Pictures.

For the uninitiated, for a decade now Rialto Pictures has been (tirelessly) reviving a significant number of classic films not seen in theaters since their original runs and by premiering extraordinary films never before distributed in America. Taking care to release fresh, and often restored, 35mm prints with new English subtitles, Rialto has given a new generation of film-goers the opportunity to experience the works of masters such as Robert Bresson, Luis Buñuel, Jules Dassin, Federico Fellini, and Carol Reed--to name a few--as they were meant to be seen, while inviting those who saw these films years ago to revisit them.

I mean, I am misty eyed just reading that paragraph.
And any other true blue film fan is probably feeling the same as well.

Ticekts are available online (a ref="http://www.afi.com/silver/new/default.aspx">http://www.afi.com/silver) and Movies shown are to include:

THE THIRD MAN
Roger Ebert said: "One great scene after another! One great shot after another! I've seen it 50 times and it's still magic." And I have to agree. Not to mention on of the singularly

Famous for its climactic Vienna chase sequence and its unforgettable theme music, Carol Reed's dazzling collaboration with Graham Greene features Joseph Cotten as a novelist trying to puzzle through what's become of his old friend, Harry Lime (Orson Welles). Robert Krasker's Oscar-winning cinematography is a symphony of angled shots and slashing shadows.

Tuesday, December 18, 7:00, Saturday, December 22, 5:30, Sunday, December 23, 8:15*, Tuesday, December 25, 4:15, 9:15*

MOUCHETTE
A favorite of directors from Ingmar Bergman to Jim Jarmusch, Bresson's adaptation of Georges Bernanos's novel plays out 24 hours in the life of Mouchette, a lonely, inarticulate fourteen-year-old girl living in a French backwater. She alternates between acts of kindness and vengeful petulance, until a rare moment of joy at a fairground gives way to a fateful encounter that leaves her even more alone. Loneliness, shame and other tragedies universal to human experience are evoked with compassion and subtlety by Bresson's nonprofessional actors.

Sunday, December 16, 1:00; Monday, December 17, 9:45*; Tuesday, December 18, 9:10*; Wednesday, December 19, 9:10*

MAFIOSO
Alberto Lattuada's 1962 mob caper-black comedy was hugely influential on a young Francis Coppola, who would make a particularly memorable mafia movie a decade later. Alberto Sordi gives one of his greatest performances as Nino, a successful foreman in a Milanese car factory who takes his wife and children to visit his Sicilian roots and finds himself obliged to do an old patron a favor.

Wednesday, December 19, 7:00; Sunday, December 23, 6:05; Wednesday, December 26, 7:00; Thursday, December 27, 4:45

AU HASARD BALTHAZAR
Often considered Bresson's "supreme masterpiece," AU HASARD BALTHAZAR is a religious allegory conveyed through the life and death of a donkey. Baptized "Balthazar" by three young children, the donkey is thrown into a life of successive labors and abuses at the hands of different owners.

Saturday, December 22, 1:00; Monday, December 24, 5:05; Tuesday, December 25, 2:15; Wednesday, December 26, 5:00

RIFIFI

The American noir crime thriller was widely appreciated in France, and the best translations are BOB LE FLAMBEUR and Jules Dassin's highly-acclaimed heist film. The action is an arc--with a meticulous and silent 28-minute safe-cracking scene that is the center of the film, though not its climax. While the film takes place in Paris and exhibits classic French finesse, a particularly American tenacity adds the bite necessary to make it a perfectly balanced film noir.

Thursday, December 27, 7:00; Friday, December 28, 2:15; Sunday, December 30, 5:00; Wednesday, January 2, 4:40

ARMY OF SHADOWS
Director Melville's 1969 masterpiece received a long-overdue US release, to great acclaim, in 2006. Drawing on his own World War II experiences, Melville depicts the calculated and covert maneuverings of French resistance fighters with an ambiguous sense of heroism. Friendship, loyalty and honor - nothing is sacred under the harsh interrogation light, and in war, there are no winners, only survivors.

Friday, December 28, 4:40; Saturday, December 29, 4:45; Tuesday, January 1, 2:45

BOB LE FLAMBEUR
An aging gambler known more for his unerring code of street morals than his criminal success assembles a team of honorable hoods for one last heist. Shot on the streets of Montmartre over a period of three years, Melville's tale presents the Parisian neighborhood as the glamorous realm of gamblers, pimps and ladies of the night.
DIR/SCR/PROD Jean-Pierre Melville; SCR Auguste Le Breton; PROD Serge Silberman. France, 1956, b&w, 98 min. In French with English subtitles. RATED PG

Saturday, December 29, 12:40; Sunday, December 30, 1:00; Wednesday, January 2, 9:00; Thursday, January 3, 4:40

GODZILLA
A sci-fi classic that also serves as a time capsule for 1950s nuclear anxiety, Godzilla was available in the US for years in only its comically dubbed and re-cut version. For the film's 50th anniversary Rialto restored 40 minutes of original footage, reestablishing the film as a dark comment on postwar Japan.

Sunday, December 30, 7:20; Monday, December 31, 4:45; Tuesday, January 1, 4:45

TWO OR THREE THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER
"In order to live in Paris today, on no matter what social level, one is forced to prostitute oneself," said Jean-Luc Godard in 1966, as the narrator addressing the audience of this film in a conspiratorial whisper. Inspired by a newspaper article on housewives dabbling in prostitution, Raoul Coutard's camera follows Marina Vlady on a typical day as she lunches, shops and goes off with johns; meanwhile the camera picks up conversations in the cafés, or follows a news crew interviewing a man on the street. The stunning Cinemascope photography juxtaposes elegant Parisian landmarks against the jumble of cranes, scaffolding and concrete slabs going up at the city's outskirts, while Godard as narrator delivers essays on architecture and modernity over images of both the city's streetscapes and Vlady's streetwalking. One of Godard's most experimental and successful films, it's thought-provoking, gorgeous to look at and occasionally quite funny - not least when the film, and Godard, poke fun at themselves.

Friday, January 4, 2:30; Saturday, January 5, 12:45; Sunday, January 6, 7:45

NIGHTS OF CABIRIA
Fellini's touching tragicomic follow-up to LA STRADA was his second collaboration with wife Giulietta Masina, who won Best Actress at Cannes for her portrayal of a resilient prostitute. Betrayed by her respectable lover, she holds on to her belief in the goodness of life. The Rialto re-release restores a seven-minute sequence cut before the film's premiere.

Friday, January 4, 4:20; Saturday, January 5, 9:20; Sunday, January 6, 5:25; Tuesday, January 8, 7:00; Wednesday, January 7, 7:00

MASCULINE, FEMININE
New Wave Master Godard captures "the children of Marx and Coca Cola" in this strikingly honest portrait of youth and sex in 1960s Paris. Godard's innovative camera takes to the streets, mixing documentary-style interviews about sex, love and politics with characters responding to actual events: suicides, homicides and a film-within-the-film.

Saturday, January 5, 4:45; Monday, January 7, 7:00; Thursday, January 10, 9:20

print and use accordingly.