Philadelphia Weekly

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Academy of Natural Sciences
$6-$12. 19th St. and the Pkwy. 610.649.5220. www.geographicalsociety.org

Inside Ireland
(2005) (Shown on DVD): The Emerald Isle gets the deluxe travelogue treatment. (Not reviewed.) Wed., Oct. 24, 2pm and 7:30pm.

Ambler Theater
$4.50-$8. 108 E. Butler Ave. 215.345.7855. www.amblertheater.com

Day of Wrath
(1943) (Shown on film): Carl Theodor Dreyer was one of the few filmmakers who was as artistically successful after the silent era as he was during it, and this terrifying portrayal of witch-burnings in a remote 17th-century village is only a scintilla less effective directorially than The Passion of Joan of Arc. Dreyer filmed this drama during the German occupation of Denmark and, though he denied them in interviews, it's easy to find parallels between Naziism and the film's depiction of a small group that instills a climate of fear and torture to root out any apparent witchcraft. With its eerie, hypnotically slow camera movements, minimalist sound design and disgust with organized religion, it's not hard to picture Ingmar Bergman taking notes. A- Thurs., Oct. 25, 7pm.

Bryn Mawr Film Institute
$4.50-$9.25 (unless otherwise noted). 824 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr. 610.527.9898. www.brynmawrfilm.org

Day of Wrath
(1943) (Shown on film): See Ambler Theater. A- Wed., Oct. 24, 7pm.

Storm of Emotions
(2006) (Shown on DVD): The Israeli disengagement from Gaza in 2005 is the subject of Micky Rabinovitz's doc, which views the evacuation from the perspective of Israeli army officers and the police border unit. Rabinovitz will be present at the screening. (Not reviewed.) Sun., Oct. 28, 10am.

La Strada
(1954) (Shown on film): Not quite Italian neo-realism and not quite the phantasmagoric clusterfucks of his later work, Federico Fellini's tearjerker stars Giulietta Masina, his Chaplinesque wife, as a mousy woman sold into the service of soulless muscle man Anthony Quinn. B Wed., Oct. 31, 7pm.

Chestnut Hill Film Group
Free. Screening room at the Chestnut Hill Branch of the Free Library, 8711 Germantown Ave. 215.248.0977. www.armcinema25.com

Boom
(1968) (Shown on film): Ask most people to name their favorite Tennessee Williams screen adaptation and they 'll say Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire, Mankiewicz's Suddenly, Last Summer or Brooks' A Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. But Williams' own favorite was this 8-megaton bomb, which took one of his own flops (1963's The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore) and turned it into a grand folly for Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton--so hated it almost wrecked the former's career. Directed by onetime blacklistee Joseph Losey (The Servant) during his jet-set period, the film finds Taylor as an aging, dying multimillionaire living in a ridiculously opulent manse on a cliff on her own private island. (How ridiculously opulent? One headdress is at least as ludicrous as any of the ones from Cleopatra.) Richard Burton plays the mysterious man who happens upon her estate and endures her overheated and pathetic wooing. There's also No�l Coward, a servant in a turban and a dwarf. And man-eating dogs. Pretentious, overdesigned and oozing budget, it's easily written off as camp; indeed, the last remaining 35 mm print is owned by no less than staunch fan John Waters. (This screening will be projected from a 16 mm print.) But like Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (or Showgirls), the director's not incompetent. He's perfectly in control, and possibly nuts. Losey carries on with the experiments he started in Modesty Blaise, obsessing over the fakeness of the indispensably wealthy like no one had since Douglas Sirk. Every 'Scope shot (by cinematographer Douglas Slocombe) is perfectly framed, positioning its usually still actors as though they were objects--mere parts of Taylor's collection. Taylor herself hems and haws as her aggressively monologuing rich bitch, giving an intriguingly reflective turn--basically Martha from Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf with Taylor's looks. (One popular way to read the film has Taylor as an aging homosexual, like Williams, who's appalled to find the best she can attract is an aging ham like Richard Burton.) Bewilderingly pretentious it may be, but it's a vision, and one nearly as transporting as another of 1968's class acts: 2001: A Space Odyssey. B+ Tues., Oct. 30, 7:30pm.