Before You Watch Contraband, Watch These Three Movies
Image courtesy Universal City Studios IncSure, you could see Mark Wahlberg tape wads of cash to those famous abs in this weekend's blockbuster release, Contraband. But here's three things we'd watch first:
Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians
If you’re a smug atheist like me, you’ll come into Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians
looking to shake your fist and roar “Hypocrisy!” at the screen, as you
watch this team of evangelicals (of the young, trendy, tattooed,
prolific-use-of-the-word-“awesome,” members-of-shitty-rock-bands
variety) winning millions of dollars at blackjack tables in Vegas while
babbling about “glorifying God.” But you won’t, because this is a pretty
good documentary, and so by the halfway mark, these kids will have
probably converted you with their genuine niceness, strong moral
convictions and infectious positivity—as evangelicals are wont to do... [read the full review here] RUTH BROWN
Clinton Street Theater at 7 and 9 pm Friday-Sunday and Tuesday-Thursday, Jan. 13-15 and 17-19.
The Godfather on 35 mm
Every possible aspect of The Godfather has been thoroughly assayed and diagramed—in some college library, there is surely a term paper titled Woltz Up, Doc?: Khartoum the Horse and the Art of Non-Verbal Communication—but
I’ll still point out my personal-fave performance. It’s Sterling
Hayden, who gets about six minutes of screen time as corrupt Capt.
McCluskey, and makes him the most repugnant policeman before the
pepper-spray era. Hayden made a magnificent career out of self-loathing
tough guys, but for two scenes he makes us loathe him, until we can’t
wait for Michael Corleone to send his soul to damnation on a plate of
veal Parmesan. The Academy Theater, 7818 SE Stark St.
Treasures From the
UCLA Film and Video Archive
The NW Film Center plundered
some heavy material from the UCLA
Film and Television Archive for this
week’s screenings—This is Your
Life: Holocaust Survivors (yup) and
Native Land (“paean to the labor
movement”)—but it scored some
perfectly aged Cecil B. DeMille
Cheez Whiz as well. The Crusades
(7 pm Sunday, Jan. 15), DeMille’s
1935 follow-up to Cleopatra, saddles
up with King Richard the Lionheart
as he throws in with the holy warriors
of the Third Crusade in order
to dodge an arranged marriage. It’s
not giving too much away to say
that he eventually falls in love with
the comely spawn of a cattle farmer,
because it’s fairly common knowledge
at this point that the Crusades
were all about scoring strange.
The film is a crosshatched mess of
silly romance, macho pageantry
and throne-room intrigue. In other
words, it’s precisely what you want
from a lavish historical epic that
blows its load on double entendres
before hurriedly tacking spiritual
redemption to the tail end. I suggest
taking notes during the screening, as
The Crusades is chock full of great
pickup lines. I call dibs on this one:
“This sword will enter Jerusalem
and rest on the tomb.” Hot. CHRIS
STAMM. NW Film Center’s Whitsell
Auditorium, 934 SW Salmon St. Saturday-Sunday, Jan.
14-15
