December 8, 2004
Contact: George Yatchisin
(805) 893-3494
e-mail: yatchisin-g@ sa.ucsb.edu
UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Winter Cinema 2005:
12 evenings of film from around the globe
Summary Facts:
- UCSB Arts & Lectures Winter Cinema 2005
- Twelve evenings of international films, including 4 Santa Barbara premieres
- Thursday, January 6 through Thursday, March 3
- Series features a screening of the original, uncut Japanese version of Godzilla; a new print from the 1994 restoration supervised by Stanley Kubrick of Dr. Strangelove; and a film and filmmaker evening with Jessica Yu and her documentary In the Realms of the Unreal
- All screenings at 7:30 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall unless noted
- General public: $6 / UCSB students: $5; except for Godzilla and Dr. Strangelove, which cost $8 for the general public and $6 for UCSB students and Wild Style, for which UCSB students get free admission.
- Tickets may be purchased in advance at the UCSB Arts & Lectures Ticket Office and at the door, if available, beginning at 6:30 pm
- Charge by phone, (805) 893-3535, or by fax, (805) 893-8637
- For tickets and information, phone UCSB Arts & Lectures: (805) 893-3535
UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Winter Cinema 2005, twelve evenings of film, featuring four Santa Barbara area premieres and spanning both the globe and cinematic history.
The series begins with a “Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!” on Thursday, January 6 with End of the Century—The Story of the Ramones. Tracing the history of this seminal punk band from its unlikely origins through its star-crossed 22-year career, the film is a vibrant documentary chockfull of exciting live footage, great music and candid interviews, including ones with Joey, Johnny and Dee Dee before their untimely deaths. Box Office calls the movie “one of the most searing, disturbing and oddly celebratory depictions of popular artists ever committed to film.” Screenings at 7:30 & 10 pm. (Michael Gramaglia & Jim Fields, 2003, 108 minutes)
Next the series will feature the acclaimed international hit Hero on Monday, January 10. An epic tale of love, loyalty, jealousy and intrigue set during China’s Warring States period in the third century B.C., Hero features a cast of Asia’s hottest talent, including Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung Man Yuk and Zhang Ziyi. The Chicago Tribune exults, “Swooningly beautiful, furious and thrilling, Zhang Yimou’s Hero is an action movie for the ages.” Screenings at 7:30 & 9:30 pm. In Mandarin with English subtitles. (2002, 96 minutes)
On Thursday, January 13 the series presents the monster of mass destruction Godzilla, presented in its original Japanese version. To mark the 50th anniversary of the release of Godzilla, the film is at last being presented in the United States uncut, undubbed, ripe with apocalyptic nuclear foreboding, and without the addition of the Raymond Burr character. “Smashing in every sense of the word,” writes The New Yorker. “Time has not diminished this movie’s tabloid docu-horror allure.” In Japanese with English subtitles. (Ishiro Honda, 1954, 98 minutes)
Maria Full of Grace, screening on Thursday, January 20, takes audiences deep into the risky and ruthless world of international drug trafficking. Powered by a career-establishing performance by newcomer Catalina Sandino Moreno, this drama is about a young Colombian woman gambling for a better life by working as a cocaine “mule.” The New York Times claims the film “sustains a documentary authenticity that is as astonishing as it is offhand. Even when you’re on the edge of your seat, it never sacrifices a calm, clear-sighted humanity for the sake of melodrama or cheap moralizing.” In Spanish and English, with English subtitles, as necessary. (Joshua Marston, 2004, 101 minutes)
The series next features Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Stanley Kubrick’s classic Cold War satire, on Tuesday, February 1. The Americans and Russians must put aside their distrust to stop a rogue general, obsessed with the purity of his bodily fluids, from launching a nuclear strike, while one intrepid U.S. B-52 crew struggles to drop its payload. Terry Southern’s biting script comes to life via fantastic performances by George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, Slim Pickens and Peter Sellers in three roles. We will screen a new 35-mm print of the 1994 restoration supervised by Kubrick himself. (1964, 93 minutes)
The series shifts gears with a Santa Barbara premiere of master Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene’s Moolaadé on Thursday, February 3. This film is an enthralling and exhilarating portrayal of a courageous woman, one of the wives of a village tribesman, who offers protection to four young girls trying to escape the ancient African ceremony of female circumcision. Moolaadé is visually gorgeous, powerful, compassionate and often surprisingly humorous. Entertainment Weekly enthuses, “This great work of art has the potential to change the world.” In Jula and French with English subtitles. (2004, 124 minutes)
Filmed in 1982, Wild Style, screening on Wednesday, February 9, captures the true roots of the rap subculture. Enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of the Ten Best Rock & Roll Movies of All-Time, Wild Style captures the hard core South Bronx hip hop scene at its birth, featuring Grand Master Flash, Grand Wizard Theodore, Fab 5 Freddy and graffiti legend Lee Quinones. City Pages writes, “More vital than Breakin’ and Beat Street combined, this raggedy screen document of hip hop’s early Bronx origins reflects the scrappy, piecemeal nature of the turntable craft at its core.” Screening in 35 millimeter. (Charlie Ahearn, 82 minutes)
On Tuesday, February 22, the series continues with a special film and filmmaker event as Academy Award-winning director Jessica Yu (Breathing Lessons: The Life and Work of Mark O’Brien) will answer questions after the screening of her latest work In the Realms of the Unreal. This innovative feature length documentary explores the parallel lives of legendary Chicago outsider artist Henry Darger. Reclusive janitor by day, visionary artist by night, Darger’s 15,000 page graphic novel details the exploits of the Vivian Girls, seven angelic sisters who lead a rebellion against godless, child-enslaving men. Newsday calls the film “an exhilaratingly personal piece of cinema.... Just as Darger used his limited life to create and explore new worlds, so does Yu use Darger as a vehicle for expansion of the documentary form.” (2004, 81 minutes)
The series concludes with another re-invention of the documentary Tarnation—one of the most talked-about film debuts in recent memory—on Thursday, February 24. Thirty-one-year-old Jonathan Caouette’s inspiring memoir, chronicling his chaotic upbringing in a dysfunctional family and the unexpected relationship that develops with his mentally-ill mother, was originally put together for $218 on his Macintosh computer from footage he began filming when he was 11. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times writes, “It is a remarkable film, immediate, urgent, angry, poetic and stubbornly hopeful.” (2004, 88 minutes)
Arts & Lectures Winter Calendar includes two other film events so special that we will mail separate press releases to describe them in further detail. On Saturday, February 5 A&L and the Santa Barbara International Film Festival will present The Alloy Orchestra performing live musical scores accompanying Buster Keaton’s The General at 4 pm and Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail at 7:30 pm at UCSB Campbell Hall. On Wednesday & Thursday, March 2 and 3 A&L will present the Best of the 29th Annual Banff Mountain Film Festival at 7:30 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall.
All film screenings begin at 7:30 pm in UCSB Campbell Hall, except for End of the Century—The Story of the Ramones on January 6, which screens at both 7:30 and 10 pm, and Hero on January 10, which screens at both 7:30 and 9:30 pm. Tickets for all films are available in advance at the UCSB Arts & Lectures Ticket Office (893-3535) and may be purchased in person or charged by phone. Tickets can also be bought at the door, if available, starting at 6:30 pm. Tickets are $6 for the general public and $5 for UCSB students, except for Godzilla and Dr. Strangelove, for which admission is $8 for the general public and $6 for UCSB students, and for Wild Style, for which admission is $6 for the general public and free for UCSB students who show valid ID at the door.
The series is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures and sponsored by the Santa Barbara Independent, KCSB Radio 91.9 FM, Blue Agave and the Daily Nexus.
For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.
Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.