Repertory

A weekly roundup of what else is screening around town.

by Matt Prigge

Ambler Theater
$3.50-$8.50. 108 E. Butler Ave. 215.345.7855. www.amblertheater.org

Bound to Lose: The Holy Modal Rounders
(2006) (Shown on video): A cult-worthy ’60s psych-folk outfit probably best known for appearing on the Easy Rider soundtrack, the Holy Modal Rounders get their own doc that reveals, among other things, if they never had the success of their colleagues, they did have enough clout to score no less than Sam Sheppard as their drummer for a spell. Filmmaker Paul Lovelace will be present for the screening. (Not reviewed.) Thurs., May 8, 7pm.

Andrew’s Video Vault
Free. Rotunda, 4014 Walnut St. 215.573.3234. www.armcinema25.com

Vincent & Theo
(1990) (Shown on DVD): Before 1992’s The Player officially brought him back, Robert Altman kept a foot out of oblivion by working in TV, notably the fake doc campaign-trail HBO series Tanner ’88 and this epic take on the van Gogh brothers. Originally a four-part miniseries for the BBC, Vincent & Theo had 90 minutes whittled off for its theatrical release; the latest AVV is kind enough to show the original off a Spanish DVD. Tim Roth’s the quietly intense painter, and Paul Rhys is his nebbishy art-dealer brother, who tries and fails to secure him a reputation. Altman occasionally plays up the tragedy of Vincent’s posthumous success, opening with footage of his paintings being sold at Sotheby’s, then letting the auction chatter hang over Roth and Rhys’ first scene. But he’s more interested in exploring the relationship between art and commerce. Vincent & Theo’s four hours give it plenty of room to let these ideas bounce around, and if it sometimes doesn’t even feel like an Altman film—odd for this stubborn a filmmaker—it projects a wisdom that comes only with the filmmaker’s own experiences. B+ Thurs., May 8, 8pm.

Bryn Mawr Film Institute
$3.50-$9.25 (unless otherwise noted). 824 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr. 610.527.9898. www.brynmawrfilm.org

Titus
(1999) (Shown on film): Julie Taymor (Frida, Across the Universe) made a deranged and promising film debut with this phantasmagoric take on Shakespeare’s first tragedy—a nasty revenge saga with elements that would pop up, more refined, in the likes of King Lear, Richard III and Macbeth. Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Lange and Alan Cumming scream and pose in Taymor’s aggressively time-warped vision of ancient Rome, and if nothing else get your attention. B+ Wed., May 7, 7pm.

Colonial Theatre
$4-$7. 227 Bridge St., Phoenixville. 610.917.0223. www.thecolonialtheatre.com

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon/ The Scarlet Claw
(1943/1944) (Shown on film): Carrying on from last week’s Hound of the Baskervilles, the Colonial offers two more of the 13 Holmes movies starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. The Secret Weapon, their fourth, adapts Dancing Men for WWII, with the pair rescuing an inventor desperately sought by the Nazis. The Scarlet Claw, an original story and often considered the best of the series, finds them in Canada battling what appears to be a monster. (Not reviewed.) Sun., May 11, 2pm.

County Theater
$3.50-$8.50. 20 E. State St., Doylestown. 215.345.6789. www.countytheater.com

Romeo + Juliet
(1996) (Shown on film): Baz Luhrmann is no Julie Taymor. C+ Mon., May 12, 7pm.

International House
$5-$7, unless otherwise noted. 3701 Chestnut St. 215.387.5125. www.ihousephilly.org

Still Lives: Films of Pedro Costa
See A-List

Down to Earth
(1994) (Shown on film): Pedro Costa wasn’t always a super-minimalist. His debut The Blood (already screened) was a cinephilic explosion, with a milky black-and-white look borrowed from Jacques Tourneur and a noir plot diced up into intentional incoherence. Down to Earth is his real debut. Here’s where you find the social consciousness, the mix of documentary and fiction, the narrative and visual starkness that would pop up in the even more demanding likes of Colossal Youth. Down to Earth feels like a unique vision, with a Portuguese nurse traveling to the volcanic island of Cape Verde and becoming bewitched by the primal landscapes and the destitute but tight-knit community. But Costa, like his heroine, gets lost in the island, shucking plot at every turn so as to immerse us in the unforgiving area. Following Earth will be Costa’s 2007 short Tarrafal, which revisits the island to wax, at least verbally, on a harsh prison that ran there for four decades under the Salazar regime. Wed., May 7, 7pm.

Bones
(1997) (Shown on film): The first in Costa’s “Vanda Trilogy”—so named for the presence of Vanda Duarte, a non-pro discovered in the films’ Fontainhas slum setting in this, In Vanda’s Room and Colossal Youth—finds Costa yet to discover his signature shtick. A dash of miserablism shot in miserably dark 35 mm, Bones follows two maids, a young man and an unwanted infant through a miserable plot. The delicate balance achieved in the rest of Costa’s work is pure oppression in this transitional work, though its mood is hard to shake off. B- Thurs., May 8, 7pm.

In Vanda’s Room
(2000) (Shown on film): Krzysztof Kieslowski once said, “There are spheres of human intimacy in which one cannot enter with a camera.” But a funny thing happened when Costa worked with non-pros on Down to Earth and Bones: He earned their trust, and the bubble popped. Bones’ Duarte returns, this time letting Costa and his DV camera film her as herself. Never leaving her tiny one bedroom flat, she talks shit with friends, smokes crack and hacks her lungs out for a disturbingly high percentage of the three-hour running time. (To shake things up, if only the teensiest bit, Costa periodically visits other parts of the neighborhood.) Costa films in unblinking static shots, sometimes in near total darkness, but the intimacy he achieves with his subjects makes this more than just the ultimate in authenticity. A- Fri., May 9, 7pm.

Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie?
(2001) (Shown on film): The acclaimed films of Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet (The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach) are near impossible to come by, but one doesn’t need to know about them to get a lot out of the film. Shot entirely within a dim editing suite as the two piece together 1999’s Sicilia!, Lie replicates the tedium of postproduction. It offers a lot to chew on, but it also paints a loving, hilarious portrait of the two as a couple. Straub, who paces back and forth around the doorway, prattles on endlessly on this and that. All the while, Huillet (who died in 2006) stays glued to the Steenbeck, clearly having learned to tune him out over their many decades together. B+ Sat., May 10, 2pm.

Colossal Youth
(2006) (Shown on film): Despite European acclaim since his start, Costa finally became a Western cinephilic craze with this equally acetic followup to In Vanda’s Room. Duarte is now clean and living in swankier duds, but Costa’s focus drifts mostly to a man named Ventura—a quiet, aging, intensely private native of Cape Verde who, when the film begins, was just left by his wife. Ventura spends Youth’s two and a half hours wandering around like a ghost—sometimes sitting and staring, sometimes visiting the many fellow residents he calls his so-called “children,” and far too often reciting the same wistful poem to himself. An experience surely more transporting in its way than Speed Racer, this, and the rest of the series, is required viewing. A- Sat., May 10, 7pm.

Reelback Presents: Best of Philly Short Film Showcase
(Shown on video): Reelblack ’s fifth season comes to an end with this broad survey of African-American filmmakers working in the tristate area. Among those represented—with everything from narratives and documentaries to music videos and PSAs—are Shannon Newby, Nadine Patterson, Tim Greene, Ben Foster, Joseph H. Lewis III and Reelblack’s own maestro Mike D. Tues., May 13, 7pm.

Wooden Shoe Books
Free. 508 S. Fifth St. 215.413.0999. www.woodenshoebooks.com

Sacco and Venzetti
(2006) (Shown on DVD): Tony Shalhoub and John Turturro lend their voices to Peter Miller ’s doc, which reinterprets the famous case—wherein two Italian immigrants were falsely tried and executed for a crime they almost certainly did not commit—for the age of post-9/11 xenophobia and legal injustice. (Not reviewed.) Sat., May 10, 7:30pm.