Summary
(Both 1980) (Shown on film): Cannibal Holocaust-which recently placed 20th on EW's "Most Controversial Movies Ever" list (right before Basic Instinct)-s Ruggero Deodato's proto-Blair Witch contribution to the Italian flesh-eater craze of the '70s and '80s. It also holds the record for being banned in the most countries (almost 60). Filmed on the border of Colombia, Peru and Brazil, Holocaust purports to show film shot by a quartet of callous young documentarians-modeled at least spiritually on Mondo Cane's Franco Prosperi and Gualtiero Jacopetti (see Reelblack Presents)-who were mutilated and eaten by their subjects. (Just in case there's any doubt, there won't be any refunds.) After being retrieved by anthropologist Robert Kerman, the grisly footage is reluctantly screened for ratings-hungry TV execs, who inevitably recoil in horror while Kerman shakes his head. As you can probably guess, we the audience are the execs, while Deodato imagines himself as Kerman, slapping us on the wrists for being intrigued by the film's ad campaign, which initially went so far as to have the actors contractually promising to lay low for a year after production. (Deodato has repeatedly had to prove the film's inauthenticity in court, at one point dragging the actors onto Italian TV to prove they were, y'know, alive.) Like Michael Haneke, Deodato wants to force the audience to question its complicity with what's onscreen, but once you unravel the knotty metastructure, the game is ultimately facile. The human deaths may not be real, but the animals'-including the demise of a muskrat and a turtle-sure are. That Deodato and company tell interviewers they regret these scenes, blaming their inclusion on youthful bravado, highlights not only the filmmakers' hypocrisy but their sloppy thinking. Feel free to debate the film's worth during the intermission, after which those still game will be rewarded with the surely less gruesome (if only by comparison) offering, City of the Walking Dead-an Exhumed favorite from Umberto Lenzi (Cannibal Ferox) that depicts a plane crash filled with knife-touting, heat-packing zombies. C-/ (Not reviewed). Sat, July 22, 8pm.
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Ambler Theater
$4.50-$8. 108 E. Butler Ave. 215.345.7855. www.amblertheater.comRear Window(1954) (Shown on film): Ever wondered what facial expressions Miss Lonelyheart sports? Possibly the niftiest byproduct of DVD technology is that it's now possible to bypass Hitch's masterful compositions altogether and zoom right in on the tiny frames within the big one-meaning today's audiences can get a closer look at Miss Torso than L.B. Jefferies ever could. Then again, you could always just see it on a big screen ... A Thurs., July 20, 7pm.Sense and Sensibility(1995) (Show...See the full content of this document
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