This weekend, the Brattle Theatre presents new restorations of two films about one of the most fascinating art scenes of the 20th century. Mary Harron’s “I Shot Andy Warhol” (1996), which screens Friday through Monday, stars Lili Taylor as Valerie Solanas, the militant feminist who gained notoriety both for her radical “SCUM Manifesto” (which called for a female overthrow of the government and elimination of the male sex) and for attempting to assassinate the titular artist, a onetime associate and collaborator. Less well-known, but no less fascinating, is the documentary “Tally Brown, New York” (1979), which screens Saturday and Sunday. Brown was an eccentric performance artist and chanteuse who was a staple of Warhol’s scene, appearing in several of his underground films and regularly performing in and around the Factory. In “New York,” German filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim interviews Brown and follows her through her New York domain of artists and scenesters, including the legendary Holly Woodlawn and Divine. Both films serve as a reminder that Warhol was as much an axis as he was an artist, and many of the figures in his orbit were as unique as the man himself.
In August, the Somerville Ciné-Club will present a pair of Americanized edits of influential Japanese films. The first, on Saturday, is “Gammera the Invincible” (1966), presented as a free outdoor screening at the Somerville Community Growing Center on Vinal Avenue. Kaiju fans know Gamera as a sort of off-brand Godzilla, a gigantic flying turtle whose lower-budget adventures only endear him to psychotronic film aficionados all the more. As was the custom at the time, international distributors dubbed the film into English (and, oddly, added an “M” to the titular beastie’s name) for American release. While the resulting feature might not be cinematically “pure,” it is how generations of western fans first experienced these films, and the nostalgic pull is hard to resist. Moviegoers are invited to bring their own picnic blankets, snacks and turtle repellent.
Saturday’s Midnight Special at the Somerville Theatre is a 20th anniversary screening of one of the most mind-bending efforts from one of America’s most daring filmmakers. “Inland Empire” (2006) found director David Lynch experimenting with the possibilities of digital filmmaking, in doing so pushing the limits of the medium itself. The plot, nominally speaking, casts longtime Lynch leading lady Laura Dern as an actress auditioning for an American remake of an unfinished — and possibly cursed — German film. This, however, is largely a springboard for a stream-of-consciousness narrative involving multiple overlapping timelines, musical numbers, a family of talking rabbits — voiced by the cast of Lynch’s previous film, “Mulholland Drive” (2001) — and more. At the center of it all is Dern in what is arguably the performance of her career, playing upwards of a dozen different characters (or is it just one?) with fearless commitment. Lynch famously campaigned for Dern’s Oscar chances by sitting at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and La Brea with a live cow. While she wasn’t nominated, she should have won.
Newscasters in movies tend to be either dogged crusaders for the truth or dimwitted, self-centered blowhards. In “Broadcast News” (1987), which screens Wednesday as part of the Brattle’s “TV Goes to the Movies” series, they’re both. Holly Hunter plays Jane Craig, the steely producer of a national nightly news program; Albert Brooks (no relation to director James L.) is cynical beat reporter Aaron Altman; and William Hurt plays fledgling anchorman Tom Grunick. While “Broadcast News” involves a love triangle between these three characters and is often screamingly funny, it would be incorrect to label it a rom-com. Rather, it’s an examination of its central trio’s ruthless ambitions, and the ways in which those ambitions shape their personal and professional lives — and the news itself. In a world in which America’s political reality is increasingly shaped by the 24-hour news cycle, “Broadcast News” remains startlingly relevant.
The Brattle’s month-long salute to independent powerhouse Carolco Pictures continues Thursday with one of the strangest neo-noirs of the 1980s. In “Angel Heart” (1987), Mickey Rourke plays private eye Harold Angel, who is hired by a mysterious businessman (Robert De Niro) to track down a crooner who disappeared sometime after World War II. Angel’s investigation takes him from Brooklyn to New Orleans, where he follows a trail of murder, voodoo rituals, and, quite possibly, the devil himself (I should add that De Niro’s character is literally named “Louis Cyphre”). “Angel Heart” is a wild bit of pulp fusion, mixing hard-boiled detective tropes with increasingly unhinged supernatural elements. They don’t make them like this anymore — and, come to think of it, they didn’t make them like this then, either.
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