The Criterion Collection

As we head into the dog days of August, summer classic movie series continue to light up theaters across the country. Austin’s movie palace, the Paramount Theatre, for instance, honors an annual tradition of showing great older films on its very big screen. This year—its thirty-sixth summer series—features such iconic titles as Federico Fellini’s Amarcord and Jacques Tati’s Playtime (both August 12–14) as well as more off-the-beaten-path art-house essentials like Milos Forman’s Loves of a Blonde (August 16 and 17), Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Mamma Roma (August 16 and 17), and Masahiro Shinoda’s Pale Flower (August 18) and Double Suicide (August 18). Of course, there’s a wealth of non-Criterion-related selections as well, so be sure to check out the schedule for the rest of the season.

Also in the Lone Star State: El Paso’s Plaza Classic Film Festival continues to boast quite a lineup. This week’s offerings include Basil Dearden’s jazzy, Othello-inspired All Night Long (August 12), Robert Aldrich’s delirious Kiss Me Deadly (August 12), Jules Dassin’s twilight tale Night and the City (August 12), Seijun Suzuki’s frenetic yakuza hit Tokyo Drifter (August 12), Louis Malle’s evocative noir Elevator to the Gallows (August 13), Nobuhiko Obayashi’s freaky House (August 13), D. A. Pennebaker’s concert classic Monterey Pop (August 13), Josef von Sternberg’s landmark gangland saga Underworld (August 13), John Ford’s regal Young Mr. Lincoln (August 13), and a very Kurosawa King Lear, Ran (August 14). Meanwhile, Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse Ritz celebrates the twentieth anniversary of Richard Linklater’s Slacker (August 17).

New Yorkers have an array of selections as well. The Museum of Modern Art, for instance, is in the middle of a series called Hot and Humid: Summer Films from the Archives, including Fellini’s I vitelloni (August 12); also on offer at the museum this week are Laurence Olivier’s battle-scarred Henry V (August 12) and Marcel Carné’s elegant Children of Paradise (August 17 and 18). Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon spins a good yarn—or four—at the IFC Center (August 12–14), while the Japanese master’s High and Low (August 13) and The Hidden Fortress (August 14) unfold on the Upper West Side at Symphony Space—along with Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (August 13). From uptown to upstate: in Annandale-on-Hudson, Bard College’s Ottaway Film Center wraps up its Scandinavian summer series with Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers (August 14) and two from Aki Kaurismäki, Shadows in Paradise (August 18) and The Match Factory Girl (August 18). There’s more Swedish cinema to be had at Tarrytown Music Hall when Bergman’s family saga Fanny and Alexander screens on August 13. And the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville has a trio of masterworks, from Jean Renoir (The Rules of the Game, August 12, 16, and 18), Preston Sturges (The Lady Eve, August 13 and 15), and Jean-Luc Godard (Pierrot le fou, August 14 and 17).

Elsewhere across the U.S.: The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston waltzes with Visconti’s The Leopard (August 12–14). The Man Who Fell to Earth (August 12–18) blasts off for a weeklong run at the Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge. Amarcord stays for a spell at International House Philadelphia (August 13). Raleigh, North Carolina’s Cinema Inc. opens Pandora’s Box, G. W. Pabst’s lasting testament to Louise Brooks (August 14). The Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, has a date with Eric Rohmer for My Night at Maud’s (August 16) and a vacation with Hiroshi Teshigahara with Antonio Gaudi (August 18). The Man Who Fell to Earth makes another appearance, at the Detroit Film Theatre (August 12–14), along with Kurosawa’s own Macbeth, Throne of Blood (August 13). Agnès Varda’s deceptively sunny Le bonheur blooms at the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (August 18). Chicago’s Music Box Theatre has a one-two punch of prison flicks, with Michael Bay’s The Rock (August 12 and 13) and Jules Dassin’s Brute Force (August 18). And two of Samuel Fuller’s early films hit the Windy City on August 17: I Shot Jesse James at DocFilms Chicago and The Steel Helmet at the Northwest Chicago Film Society.

Farther west, Omaha’s Film Streams digs up Trouble in Paradise (August 12–18), Ernst Lubitsch’s sparkling tale of pickpockets in love. Seattle’s Northwest Film Forum goes on Permanent Vacation for a few days, as Jim Jarmusch’s No-Wave debut—available on our Stranger Than Paradise DVD—shows August 12–14. San Francisco’s VIZ Cinema screens two of Kurosawa’s most somber contemporary dramas, Ikiru (August 12) and I Live in Fear (August 13). Kon Ichikawa’s The Makioka Sisters drifts along at Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive (August 17). And the Los Angeles County Museum of Art takes a flight of fancy with the Korda brothers’ The Thief of Bagdad (August 13).

On foreign soil, A Woman Under the Influence sets fire to the Pacific Cinematheque up in Vancouver, and in Toronto, the TIFF Lightbox offers Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria (August 14) and Children of Paradise (August 17 and 18). That Carné masterpiece also takes a bow at the Belgian Cinematek in Brussels, on August 14, as do Jean Vigo’s À propos de Nice (August 12), Nagisa Oshima’s In the Realm of the Senses (August 12), and I vitelloni (August 15). Zurich’s Filmpodium shows Jacques Becker’s tense Le trou (August 12 and 13) and Luis Buñuel’s brilliant offense Viridiana (August 15). London’s BFI Southbank gives voice to the oppressed with Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus (August 12) and Kenji Mizoguchi’s Sansho the Bailiff (August 14). The Danish Film Institute in Copenhagen pays tribute to Olivier Assayas in a series that includes Carlos (August 13) and Summer Hours (August 14). On August 16, it’s magic hour at the Institut Lumière in Lyon with Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven. The Eye Film Institute Netherlands in Amsterdam plays Five Easy Pieces (August 18). And finally, way down in Brisbane, Australia, the Queensland Art Gallery sweeps viewers away with Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast (August 12).