Part of the Northside Film Festival, All the Light in the Sky includes the BFC short, Amateur, and a Q&A after the film with Sophia Takal.

Jane Adams plays a woman living in a house perched precariously on stilts above the beach in Malibu who clings to her life’s ambitions in much the same way. With her age exempting her from more and more acting opportunities, her future is uncertain. That’s when her young niece — a superb Sophia Takal — comes for a weekend stay. The film captures their night conversations, fears and stories that emerge in the witching hours. Swanberg has become a master at eliciting inspired performances from his actors. Here, he’s working at the height of his powers and, with Adams, he’s clearly tapped into an actor with creative reserves. Negotiating the language and relationships of 21st century Americans, Swanberg’s alchemy is at its best. [Synopsis courtesy of Lane Kneedler and AFI Fest]

Part of the Northside Film Festival, A Teacher includes a Q&A with Hannah Fidell and Lindsay Burdge after the film.

Part psychological thriller and part provocative character study, A Teacher explores the unraveling of a young high school teacher, Diana (Lindsay Burdge), after she begins an affair with one of her teenage students, Eric (Will Brittain). What starts as a seemingly innocent fling becomes increasingly complex and dangerous as the beautiful and confident Diana gets fully consumed by her emotions, crossing boundaries and acting out in progressively startling ways. Lindsay Burdge delivers a deeply compelling and seamlessly naturalistic performance that brings us into the mind of an adult driven to taboo against her better judgment.

Nitehawk will be hosting the Opening Party for A Teacher in our downstairs bar after the film (9pm – 1am).

Nitehawk Cinema Presents Beer, Dinner and a Movie: The Goonies with our partner Captain Lawrence Brewing Company.

The discovery of a treasure map takes a group of young friends called “The Goonies” on wild adventure.

For Nitehawk’s June Beer, Dinner and a Movie, we’ve teamed up with Captain Lawrence Brewing Company to present The Goonies (and that includes a special Nitehawk collaboration beer brewed just for the event). This screening will include select delicious Captain Lawrence drafts paired with a food menu inspired by the film. The best part? You’ll be served each course during the specific moments that inspired the film so you can experience edible sensations while watching the action unfold on-screen!

With golf course developers threatening to displace an entire neighborhood, “The Goonies” set out to find hidden treasure in the hopes that they can buy off the construction. They find the map to “One-Eyed” Willy’s hidden pirate fortune but, unfortunately, it’s housed in a cavern underneath the evil thief Mama Fratelli and her sons. Traps, pirate ships, and danger awaits! Fortunately “Sloth” (one of the Fratelli brothers) befriends the group and helps them to vast treasures! Goonies never say die!

MENU with Beer Pairings by Captain Lawrence Brewing Company

First Course: Truffle Shuffle
Hen of the Woods and Truffle Arancini, lemon aioli
Beer Pairing: Sunblock

Second Course: Mama Fratelli’s Veal Scallopini
Veal Tongue, Pepsi braised Apples, Marion Berry Demi Glace
Beer Pairing: Golden Delicious American Triple

Third Course: “Baby Ruth” Tamale
Pork, peanut, masa, chocolate mole, savory caramel
Beer Pairing: Sloth*

Fourth Course: Captain Chunk
Fresh Baked Chocolate Chunk Cookies, Peanut butter ice cream
Beer Pairing: St. Vincents Dubbel

*Pilot Beer, brewed by Nitehawk staff especially for this film

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The true story of Richard Kuklinski, the notorious contract killer and family man.

Inspired by actual events, The Iceman follows notorious contract killer Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon) from his early days in the mob until his arrest for the murder of more than 100 men. Appearing to be living the American dream as a devoted husband and father; in reality Kuklinski was a ruthless killer-for-hire. When finally arrested in 1986, neither his wife nor daughters have any clue about his real profession.

Frances Ha is a modern comic fable that explores New York, friendship, class, ambition, failure, and redemption.

Frances (Greta Gerwig) lives in New York (Brooklyn to be exact) but she doesn’t really have an apartment. Frances is an apprentice for a dance company, but she’s not really a dancer. Frances has a best friend named Sophie, but they aren’t really speaking anymore. Frances throws herself headlong into her dreams, even as their possible reality dwindles. Frances wants so much more than she has but lives her life with unaccountable joy and lightness. Frances Ha is Noah Baumbach’s contemporary version of Woody Allen’s NY classic, Manhattan.

Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Anita Ekberg, Anouk Aimée, Yvonne Furneaux, Magali Noël, Alain Cuny

From the opening sequence of two helicopters transporting a Christ sculpture over Rome to the very last vision on the beach, Fellini’s La Dolce Vita is a captivating sequence of events revolving around one man, Marcello Rubini. A playboy both confident and unsure, we follow one week of his “sweet” life of bizarre characters such as fading aristocrats, second-rate movie stars, aging playboys and rich women. There are suicidal fiancees, alluring mistresses, and a lecherous father; all of these people affirm the centering around a man who is fruitlessly looking for love and purpose.

La Dolce Vita straddles Fellini’s previous neo-realist films and his future carnivalesque style of filmmaking. Some narratives are straight while others are winding out of control. A comedy-drama, it is expressive in design (those costumes!) and in eccentric characters who wear them. One can never visit Rome without wanting to dive into Trevi Fountain crying, “Marcello! Marcello!” An unforgettable Italian cinematic experience.

Starring: Cher, Karen Black, Kathy Bates, Sandy Dennis

Based on the play by Ed Graczyk (also directed by Robert Altman), Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean is an inventive low budget American classic that reveals the hidden secrets, regrets, and obsessions of women who are reunited after twenty years. Centering around their passion for Jimmy Dean, they meet at a Woolworth’s five and dime just down the road from where Giant was filmed as they promised to do decades before. There’s Mona (Sandy Dennis) who claims to have given birth to James Dean’s child after being an extra on Giant, Sissy (Cher in her breakout dramatic performance) who is a snappy waitress unaware of her sex appeal, and Joanne (Karen Black) who has the most shocking revelation of all. Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean contains a feminist-driven narrative that addresses patriarchy and the changing dynamic of women’s roles during this time period.

Filmed on Super-16 color and then transferred to 35mm, Come Back to the 5 and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean is a theatrical production. The past and present of these women’s lives are represented through the two-way mirror that punctuates the space; one side features them young and naive while the other side shows the present-day unfoldings. This meant that the actors had to precisely navigate that space to render this doubling while viewers must also be agile in processing what happens on screen. 

Starring: Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, Fred Draper

Mabel (Gena Rowlands) is a young wife and mother whose increasing mental illness presents a real challenge to her husband Nick (Peter Falk) and their blue collar Italian family. Her madness is subtle; what first appears simply as eccentric and quirky behavior soon delves into increasingly dangerous situations for Mabel. Revealing the range of emotional bursts, it becomes clear in A Woman Under the Influence that Mabel’s actions are a potential danger to her children and that’s when her husband has to make the difficult decision to have her institutionalized.

As with the majority of Cassavetes films, the improvisational style of acting lends a realistic quality and while the instability of the main character remains steady, this method makes the viewer feel as if the film itself could go anywhere. The performances by Peter Falk and Gena Rowlands are nothing short of electrifying. Rowlands is breathtakingly beautiful even in her most painful episodes while Falk’s loving devotion to his wife, even at her ugliest, is palpable. It is unequivocally one of the greatest romances of modern cinema.

Starring: Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Robert Helpmann

Containing a story within a story, Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes parallels the ambitions of a young ballerina with the narrative of the ballet she is performing (also called The Red Shoes based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale). Shown in one of the most stunning sequences in cinematic history, the ballet within the film features a young woman purchasing a pair of gleaming red ballet slippers that start her off on a beautiful dance but are ultimately destructive. The dancer, Victoria Page (played by Moira Shearer), also her own demons to confront; does she continue with the passion for her art or cease altogether for the love of a man? In both instances, there is only one way it can end.

Boris Lermontov: Why do you want to dance?
Victoria Page: Why do you want to live?
Boris Lermontov: Well I don’t know exactly why, er, but I must.
Victoria Page: That’s my answer too.

Incorporating a risky material like ballet as the core subject matter and rumored to have gone way over budget, The Red Shoes was met with little fanfare until it debuted in New York and was distributed by Universal. After that, the British audiences got on board and it became one of the highest grossing films in UK history. And with good reason, it’s an artwork unto itself. Painfully beautiful and larger than life, The Red Shoes is a sincere representation of the difficulties one faces when melding art and life together. Pure magic.

In a galaxy very, very, very, very far away there lived a ruthless race of beings known as… SPACEBALLS.

I don’t exercise. If God had wanted me to bend over, he would have put diamonds on the floor. – Joan Rivers

In Mel Brooks’s masterful spoof of Star Wars, the planet Spaceball has run short on breathable air, forcing the evil empire to kidnap prissy Princess Vespa in order to coax her father, King Roland of the planet Druidia, to surrender his planet’s air supply over to them. Roland responds by hiring two down-and-out mercenaries – Lone Starr and Barf, a man-dog hybrid – to rescue the princess, but in order to save the galaxy for good, the team must learn the ancient secrets of The Force. Er…Schwartz. Joan Rivers appears in voice-only as Dot Matrix, the princess’s guardian android and mobile chastity alarm. It’s the perfect role for Rivers, because if she were given the option to be dipped in solid gold and live to crack jokes, she certainly would have taken the plunge. May the Swartz be with you!

Part of Nitehawk’s summer program COMEDIANS IN FILM (Women in Comedy).