Bigger Than Life @ the Charles Theatre this week

The Charles Theatre's Revival Series is proud to announce three screenings of a brand-new color cinemascope print of Nicholas Ray's legendary BIGGER THAN LIFE.


Showtimes:
Saturday, August 1 at Noon
Monday, August 3 at 7 PM
Thursday, August 6 at 9 PM



(1956 Nicholas Ray) James Mason, Barbara Rush, Walter Matthau. 95. Color. CinemaScope.

Mason's furrowed brow and brooding presence have rarely (never?) been used to better effect: 30 years on, his performance as the mild schoolteacher who is prescribed the wonder drug cortisone and becomes a raving megalomaniac addict remains profoundly disturbing. Suburbia is haunted by psychosis; family life torn apart by Oedipal bloodlust. Ray's direction (in 'Scope and Eastman Colour) is as moving as ever - delicate compositions and fluid camerawork contradicted by the image of weak men locked into obsessive self-destruction. At every level the banal props of '50s prosperity are turned into symbols of suffocation and trauma, from the X-ray machine used to diagnose Mason's 'disease' to the bathroom cabinet mirror shattering under a desperate blow. Trashed on first release, resurrected by Truffaut and Godard, lovingly imitated by Wim Wenders (in American Friend): this is Rebel Without a Cause for the grown-up world. (Time Out)

“One of the best, most radical, least known films in the 1950s. A canny retelling of the Jekyll and Hyde story, Father Knows Best as Greek tragedy. Still terrifying!” (Village Voice)

"Ray’s most powerful film, and in some respects his most important. A profoundly upsetting exposure..” (Jonathan Rosenbaum)

“Under Ray’s masterful direction, James Mason is given three or four of the most beautiful close-ups I have had the chance to see since the advent of CinemaScope… The slightest detail has an overwhelming beauty. A film of implacable logic and sanity, Bigger than Life uses both those very qualities as targets, and scores a bull’s-eye in every frame.” (François Truffaut)

ANTONIO GAUDÍ @ The Charles Theatre

Showtimes:
Saturday, July 25 at Noon
Monday, July 27 at 7 PM
Thursday, July 30 at 9 PM.

1984 Hiroshi Teshigahara. 72M.

This 1984 documentary about the architect essentially lets Gaudi's work speak for itself, and it couldn't be more eloquent. The cinematography by Junichi Segawa, Yoshikazu Yanagida, and Ryu Segawa provides perspectives you couldn't get on-site in Barcelona, guiding you at a perfect pace through intimate interiors or whisking you to aerial vantage points, alternating between minute details and comprehensive views. The often gently moving camera and the lyrical editing unobtrusively yet decisively shape what you see. The acutely perceptive sound track doesn't have to compete with continual voice-over—much of the historical information is provided in on-screen titles that barely disrupt the enveloping beauty of the images. Produced and directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara (Woman in the Dunes). (Chicago Reader)

Grundlehammer Fundraiser Night @ The Brewer's Art

Host: Baltimore Rock Opera Society
Thursday, July 23, 2009 at 9pm-2am
The Brewer's Art
1106 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD

Come to the first fundraiser! The Brewer's Art has graciously offered 20 percent of proceeds from the bar this Thursday night starting at 9pm. Just tell the bartender that you're there to support the Baltimore Rock Opera Society. This is such an easy and fun way to show your support.

The Baltimore Rock Opera Society (BROS) is currently gearing up for their premiere stage production, Gründlehämmer, an epic medieval rock opera featuring 15 original songs performed live by a 7-piece metal orchestra. The production will be staged at the 2640 Space October 2-4, 2009.

Highlights from the Sondheim Semi-Finalist Show @ MICA

Two Can Collective

Alyssa Dennis

R L Croft

Travis Childers

Liz Ensz

Christian Herr

Lisa Moren

Rachel Bone

Sebastian Martorana

Ellen Nielsen

Jason Horowitz

Katherine Mann

Jessica Braiterman

It was kind of funny when the Alzaruba monsters blocked the entrance.

The Sondheim Semi-Finalist Exhibition is on view at the MICA Fox Building through August 2.

Sondheim Prize Discussion on Bmore Art

For anyone who hasn't read it yet, Cara Ober and Kriston Capps wrote an awesome summary of the 2009 Sondheim Finalist Exhibition and the recipients of the prize, the Baltimore Development Cooperative.

Community Youth Exhibition @ the Hexagon

Opening Reception this Wednesday, July 15 from 6-8pm at the Hexagon (1825 N. Charles Street)

This exhibit will feature the work from Success Academy as well as Transformations, Harford House, Tuttie’s Place, Kanner House, Debuskey House and the Children’s Home. If you are unable to make the opening, the work can also be seen during Artscape at the open house on Saturday, July 18.

Abandon Ship Opens @ Current

Abandon Ship, the last exhibition at the 30 South Calvert location, is an ongoing installation and simultaneous, creative destruction of the building before its official tear-down. Artists are invited to continue to contribute to the exhibition up until the day before demolition, as long as they are willing to let their pieces get destroyed with the building. Both awesome and a little sad, highlight from the exhibition include Gary Kachadourian's wheatpasted backyard and dumpster, A row boat by Audrey Collins Petrich, a collaborative papier mache installation that explodes through the ceiling, and the slick, cut-out wall text. Be sure to check it out before its gone!

SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS @ The Charles Theatre

Showtimes:
Saturday July 11 at Noon
Monday July 13 at 7 PM
Thursday July 16 at 9 PM.

1957 Alexander Mackendrick. Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis, Susan Harrison, Martin Milner, Chico Hamilton, Barbara Nichols. 96m. bw.


A film noir from the Ealing funny man? But Mackendrick's involvement with cosy British humour was always less innocent than it looked: remember the anti-social wit of The Man in the White Suit, or the cruel cynicism of The Ladykillers? Sweet Smell of Success was the director's American debut, a rat trap of a film in which a vicious NY gossip hustler (Curtis) grovels for his 'Mr Big' (Lancaster), a monster newspaper columnist who is incestuously obsessed with destroying his kid sister's romance... and a figure as evil and memorable as Orson Welles in The Third Man or Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter. The dark streets gleam with the sweat of fear; Elmer Bernstein's limpid jazz score (courtesy of Chico Hamilton) whispers corruption in the Big City. The screen was rarely so dark or cruel. (Time Out)