Repertory

A weekly roundup of what else is screening around town.

by Matt Prigge

Ambler Theater
$6.50-$8.50. 108 E. Butler Ave. 215.345.7855. www.amblertheater.org

Romeo + Juliet
(1996) (Shown on film): Baz Luhrmann is no Julie Taymor. C+ Thurs., May 15, 7pm.

Best of the Diamond Screen Film Festival
(Shown on film and video): Spread over three nights and venues (see the County Theater and, next week, the Ambler Theater), Temple University’s film department once again offers up its senior-year and graduate wares to the general public. (The name refers to the street where the school resides.) Note for the time-pressed: Each evening offers a different program, so either pick a night or gorge on the whole lot. Wed., May 21, 7pm.

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
(1970) (Shown on film): No longer required to be Hollywood’s No. 1 comic director, an out-of-vogue Billy Wilder tossed off this lovingly thoughtful what-if, whose contribution to the Holmes legend is treating him like a human being, plagued by his legend and drugs. Robert Stephens and Colin Blakely do a marvelous Holmes and Watson, caught up in intrigue involving morphine, the detective falling in love and the Loch Ness Monster. Execs chopped off 40 minutes from the beginning, but once it gets to the main plot, it’s something to behold. With Genevieve Page and Chrisopher Lee. B+ Sun., May 18, 2pm.

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Best of the Diamond Screen Film Festival
(Shown on film and video): See Bryn Mawr Film Institute. Mon., May 19, 7pm.

From Mambo to Hip-Hop
(2006) (Shown on video): Henry Chalfant, co-director of the seminal 1983 doc Style Wars, finally returns with another look at New York musical and cultural trends. This time he charts the evolution of both mambo into salsa and hip-hop into what it is today, at least as they grew in the South Bronx. The film, originally made for TV, will also feature a live DJ set by DJ Rahsaan, B-boy throwdown by Y-Not of the Rocksteady Crew, and performances by Patty Dukes and Reph-Star. (Not reviewed.) Thurs., May 15, 7pm.

Tokyo Story
(1953) (Shown on film): Yasujiro Ozu never cared much for his drama about an elderly couple visiting their indifferent spawn in the big bad city. Sure enough it became his best-known work and helped introduce him to American audiences. There are better Ozus—I’m a Late Spring guy, myself—but that shouldn’t take anything away from this slightly more accessible version of his shtick, which patiently observes the multitude of fissures in familial relationships. Just because Tokyo Story’s totally and thoroughly heartbreaking when most of his work is more sneakily so, don’t hold it against it. Featuring one of cinema’s great duos, Ozu regulars Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara, the film will be followed by a group discussion with I-House’s Robert Cargni. A- Sat., May 17, 7pm.

The Great Debaters
(2007) (Shown on DVD): Wouldn’t it be awesome if Denzel Washington the director didn’t have a yen for shamelessly uplifting fare? (See also: Antwone Fisher.) (Not reviewed.) Fri., May 16-Sat., May 17, 8pm; and Sun., May 18, 8pm.

Street Movies!
Held at the Attic Youth Center, which caters to LBGTQ youth, the latest Street Movies! programs a night of appropriate fare, including Scribe’s own A Glance Into the Life, which follows the lives of several LBGTQ youth ages 16 through 22, the transgendered-themed I’m Not a Boy and On the Low, the tale of two high school boys in love who fight off homophobia and other forms of ostracization. Fri., May 16, 6:30pm.

Bon Voyage II: More Vintage Travel Films
(Shown on film): Traveling to Fiji, Siam, Venezuela and Hawaii is one thing. Seeing them in the distant past is something wholly different. The latest Secret Cinema unearths a night’s worth of proto-travelogues, most of them hailing from the first half of the century. That way, not only do you get to see Korea, you get to see it when it was still unified, as well as New Orleans back before Mardi Gras was beset upon by the Girls Gone Wild crew. Along with exhibiting the works of early travel film rivals Burton Holmes and James A. FitzPatrick, the night’s selections will also surely reveal the condescension and casual racism of ethnography at the time. Not for nothing is there a film called The Mystic East (as part of a series entitled “Quaint People in Queer Places,” yet). Fri., May 16, 8pm.

Hard Candy
(2005) (Shown on DVD): Minutes before Juno, Ellen Page had already established herself with her ferociously smarty-pants turn in this stagy thriller, in which she plays a teen who relentlessly fucks with the head of a well-off pederast (Patrick Wilson). Part endless theatrical two-hander, part dumbed-down Michael Haneke ripoff, try imagining it with, say, Miley Cyrus. C+ Mon., May 19, 6:30pm.

The Wind That Shakes the Barley
(2006) (Shown on DVD): Ken Loach’s insightful, mournful look at the genesis of the Troubles in Ireland scored him a Palme d’Or at Cannes, and deservedly so: It walks a fine line between triumphing the cause that invented the IRA while lamenting what it quickly devolved into. A shockingly un-flamboyant Cillian Murphy plays the young Irishman who joins up against the British, only to watch as infighting cripples their cause. B+ Sat., May 17, 7:30pm.