News: Screen Sect Program for March 2009

This month SCREEN SECT present a variety of cult and classic cinema, including Harry Kumel's arty 1970's lesbian vampire flick Daughters Of Darkness, and David Lynch's nightmarish prequel Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.

THE BIG HEAT
(Fritz Lang, 1953)
02 March 2009
Stripped back, lean-and-mean policier, with Glenn Ford as a stand-up cop surrounded by corruption on all sides and in danger of succumbing to his own dark impulse for revenge. Striking, sharp dialogue and direction, with brilliant supporting performances from a young Lee Marvin and the great Gloria Grahame.

DEAD MAN
(Jim Jarmusch, 1995)
09 March 2009
Jarmusch drops his New York hipster style and delivers this extraordinary existential, metaphysical western, inspired by the works of William Blake. The stunning beauty of Robby Muller's monochrome cinematography is matched by the haunting guitar soundtrack by Neil Young and a great, perplexing central performance from Johnny Depp.

DAUGHTERS OF DARKNESS
(Harry Kumel, 1970)
16 March 2009
An impressively elegant blend of European art flick and lesbian vampire horror. Set at a sea front resort in Ostend, a newlywed couple find themselves under the spell of Countess Elizabeth Bathory (Delphine Seyrig, best known for her role in Resnais’ Last Year In Marienbad).

TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME
(David Lynch, 1992)
23 March 2009
This vastly underrated prequel to Lynch's cult TV series is due for some serious reassessment, or at least another look, and in fact points the way to some of the more subjective, fragmentary narrative approaches he has employed in more recent efforts such as Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire. Shearing away the series' humour (and culinary gags), the result is a bleak, terrifying masterpiece.

SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS
(Alexander MacKendrick, 1958)
30 March 2009
Brilliant, toxic satire of showbusiness and the media, in which Tony Curtis’ slimy press agent and Burt Lancaster’s omnipotent, monstrous newspaper columnist join forces to destroy the relationship between a jazz guitarist and Lancaster’s sister, for whom he has incestuous desires. This dark, cruel film is dazzlingly scored by Elmer Bernstein and Chico Hamilton.

SCREEN SECT is a film-night in Melbourne - devoted to rarely seen, obsessively loved and criminally neglected cult classics of cinema. Revisit old favourites, uncover hidden celluloid gems, indulge guilty pleasures, or just get yourself an education.

SCREEN SECT
Monday Nights, 7:00pm - 10:00pm
Bar Open (Upstairs)
317 Brunswick Street
Fitzroy, Australia

Source: Adam Kyle Spellicy