For over fifty years, Judy Blume's classic and groundbreaking novel Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. has impacted generations with its timeless coming of age story, insightful humor, and candid exploration of life's biggest questions. In this big-screen adaptation, 11-year-old Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson) is uprooted from her life in New York City for the suburbs of New Jersey, going through the messy and tumultuous throes of puberty with new friends in a new school. She relies on her mother, Barbara (Rachel McAdams), who is also struggling to adjust to life outside the big city, and her adoring grandmother, Sylvia (Kathy Bates), who isn't happy they moved away and likes to remind them every chance she gets. The film also stars Benny Safdie (Licorice Pizza, Good Time) and is written for the screen and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig (The Edge of Seventeen), based on the book by Judy Blume.
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
After a thrilling fight to save Han Solo (Harrison Ford) from the clutches of the evil Jabba the Hutt, Luke (Mark Hamill), Leia (Carrie Fisher) and the rest of the Rebel Alliance head to the forest moon of Endor, join up with the cuddly Ewoks, and set about trying to destroy the newest Death Star. The concluding film in this three-part series might just be the most emotionally involving of all the films, as Luke finally confronts Darth Vader, and urges him to join the side of good, and to be a real dad for once. Much less dark than its predecessor, "The Return of the Jedi" is a crowd-pleasing epic of the highest order.
DCP - Walt Disney Pictures
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
BONUS SCREENING ADDED Tuesday May 30th, our Monday May 22nd screening is sold out!
Had there ever been a more anticipated sequel than THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK? And one that not only met expectations, but exceeded them? Producer George Lucas hired relatively unknown director Irvin Kershner and paired him with screenwriters Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett (she helped write The Big Sleep), and the result is a film that is at once soap opera, cliffhanger, swashbuckler and sci-fi masterpiece. From its startling opening on the ice planet to Luke & company meeting the awesome Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) in Cloud City, The Empire Strikes Back is one incredible set piece after another, and arguably the best Star Wars of them all.
DCP - Walt Disney Pictures
Professor Karin (Arturo de Cordova) is a scam artist, luring impressionable women to his fortune telling parlor, and, later, blackmailing them with the secrets they so eagerly revealed. But the Professor takes his con a bit too far, as a vindictive widow (Leticia Palma) seeks an ultimate revenge. A massive hit, "In the Palm of Your Hand" was nominated for 11 Ariel Awards (Mexico's highest cinematic honor) and won 8, including Best Picture, Director and Actor.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
This screening made possible through Fundacion Televisa and Filmoteca UNAM.
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
BONUS SCREENING ADDED Saturday June 3rd, our Sunday June 4th screening is SOLD OUT!
All new program! Presented in 35mm prints from The Library of Congress!
The enormously popular LAUREL AND HARDY FESTIVAL returns for what will undoubtedly be another sell-out screening. Five classic short films in one side-splitting afternoon: THE LAUREL - HARDY MURDER CASE (1930), BLOTTO! (1930), THEM THAR HILLS (1934), TIT FOR TAT (1935), and THICKER THAN WATER (1935). No matter if you're 9 or 90, the manic comedy of Laurel and Hardy is guaranteed to have you laughing.
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
NEW RESTORATION!
Upstairs in a luxurious estate, a group of indifferent bourgeoisies gather for hunting, gossip, and backstabbing affairs. Downstairs, the help endure their own petty intrigue, and the two collide with devastating results. Renoir's astonishing comedy of manners was loathed in its time, banned by the Nazis, and had over 30 minutes removed in a desperate attempt to make it more palatable to audiences. When the full 106-minute cut was discovered in the mid 1950s, it screened at film festivals and has since influenced generations of filmmakers and screenwriters (perhaps most notably in Downton Abbey) and was named at the 13th greatest film of all-time in the 2022 Sight & Sound poll.
In French with English subtitles
DCP - Janus Films.
Antonio is an aristocrat (Arturo de Cordova), utterly dissatisfied in his marriage to Elena (Rosario Granados). He falls hard for Raquel (Maria Felix), a woman of remarkable beauty, but she rejects his advances. Attempting to try and resurrect his marriage, he gifts his wife a statue of "The Kneeling Goddess", and then is driven to near madness when he discovers the artist used a very nude Raquel as his model. In no time, Elena has died under mysterious circumstances and Antonio and Raquel are plunged into an obsessive, and deadly, relationship. An almost uncategorizable admixture of noir, melodrama and surrealist fever dream, "The Kneeling Goddess" is a film unlike anything you've ever seen.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
This screening made possible through Fundacion Televisa and Filmoteca UNAM.
Marcos (Pedro Armendariz) is an arrogant, yet brilliant pelota (jai alai) player, admired throughout Mexico for his skill both on and off the court. An unconscionable ladies man, he'll lie, cheat and steal his way through the hearts of any attractive woman who crosses his path. But when he promises marriage and then abandons Rebecca (Rebeca Iturbide), who happens to be pregnant, his conceit proves to be his undoing, and his downfall is as twisted as it is satisfying.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
This screening made possible through Fundacion Televisa and Filmoteca UNAM.
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
35MM TECHNICOLOR DYE-TRANSFER PRINT!!
One of the greatest motion pictures of all-time is one of our most popular events and sells out year after year. As always, we're screening the rare 35mm Technicolor Dye Transfer print, whose astounding colors must be seen to be believed. Has there ever been a more essential piece of movie magic than the journey of Dorothy and Toto? Never. And the lush Technicolor makes the colors so rich it's like seeing a painting.
Want to know more about the Technicolor Dye-Transfer process Click here.
Luisa (Pina Pellicer) is a small-town girl who has big dreams. Working at a pastry shop owned by a widower who secretly loves her, she instead agrees to marry a chauffeur from a wealthy home, and her future seems assured. But when he abandons her on their wedding day, Luisa concocts an entire new life for herself, which includes a husband, a child, a home - and utter despair. One of Gavaldon's most heartbreaking films, "Autumn Days" ranks with the finest melodramas of Sirk and Fassbender.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
This screening made possible through Fundacion Televisa and Filmoteca UNAM.
Wes Anderson returns with what many are calling his best film yet! World-changing events spectacularly disrupt the itinerary of a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention in an American desert town circa 1955.
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
For its 100th anniversary, we are proud to present Harold Lloyd's silent comedy classic SAFETY LAST, with live accompaniment by Andy McCormick on the Heights Mighty Wurlitzer!
Lloyd plays the hapless "Boy", a young man eager to make good a a department store so he can marry his "girl". From this slim premise, Lloyd fabricated a veritable hurricane of disaster, as our hero managed to irritate the police, climb 12-story buildings, and, in the most famous sequence, dangle from an enormous clock.
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
Steve McQueen was never better than in this iconic 1960s cop film that was the very definition of cool. Tasked with protecting a witness from the mob, pressured by a powerful Congressman, Bullitt (McQueen) tries to keep it all under control. But when he's double-crossed and the witness is murdered, Bullitt pretends the witness survived, and has the body kept under wraps in the hopes of flushing out the killers. McQueen produced this film and changed the lead detective from a frumpled cop into a fashionably dressed man-about-town, a jazz-loving hipster with a stunning girlfriend (Jacqueline Bisset), and whose quiet manner radiated confident masculinity. Featuring one of, if not the best, car chase scenes ever, BULLITT has rarely been screened in town, and should be enjoyed on the big screen.
DCP - Warner Bros.
Nolan's Mobius strip of a film involves Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a pair of high-level thieves with a very special trick - they steal information from the victim's dreams. But now they have a new challenge - to perform "inception", the placing of an idea in a person's head while sleeping, to make them do something they don't want to do, in this case wreck a competitor's corporation. Nolan's dreamworld is a master class in pacing and complex narrative meant to keep you guessing (and keep your feet on the ground). Nominated for eight Academy Awards, it won four for its incredible technical achievements.
35mm print - Park Circus.
When Batman (Christian Bale) forms a secret alliance with police chief Gordon (Gary Oldman) and D. A. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), it seems like a good plan - but every deck of cards has a joker, and in THE DARK KNIGHT, that Joker is chaos personified. In the world of superhero films, there was before "The Dark Knight", and after - Nolan's very dark, very menacing film changed the genre forever. With the character of the Joker, come to life through Heath Ledger's astonishing, and Oscar-winning, performance, The Dark Knight set a standard for antagonists that none have been able to surpass.
35mm print - Park Circus.
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, over three hours of Russian and Soviet history, of love and war, unfolding on massive sets with thousands of extras, is the type of blockbuster roadshow entertainment Hollywood just doesn't make any more. Omar Sharif is Yuri Zhivago, a doctor and secret poet, and Julie Christie is his life's love. The two are married to others, and their secret and torrid love affair unfolds against the tumult of the Russian Revolution. David Lean's epic production wasn't meant to be streamed on TV (no matter how big your TV is), so don't miss this sure to sell out program!
DCP - Warner Bros.
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
NEW 70MM PRINT!
AIRPORT ushered in the era of the modern blockbuster, and features an all star cast including Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean Seberg, George Kennedy, and Helen Hayes, who won an Oscar! All these stars descended on the Minneapolis - St. Paul International Airport to film the disaster movie to launch all disaster movies, which involves a bomb and a stowaway and a first class cabin the likes of which you will never see again on a modern airliner! You will not want to miss this all time classic, especially in eye-popping 70MM!
70mm print courtesy Universal Pictures.
Not content to rest on his laurels, Nolan conceived a story of considerable pain, humor and social critique for his final Batman. This time the Dark Knight (Christian Bale) takes on Bane (Tom Hardy) a villain so awful he's been excommunicated from a league of criminals; the alluring Catwoman (Anne Hathaway); and Talia al Ghul (Marion Cotillard), who vows to avenge her father's death. The plot, complex though it is, is truly secondary to Nolan's phenomenal world-building, his work with brilliant actors, and his vibrant camerawork.
35mm print - Park Circus
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
You may think you know King Kong, but unless you've witnessed the breathtaking spectacle on the big screen, you haven't seen anything! The story of eponymous ape, who is captured and hauled to New York City, not only features startling special effects, but is a rousing and emotional story that will leave you shaken. King Kong has withstood CGI to emerge as one of the great special effects films in history. Don't miss this rare 35mm screening!
35mm print - Park Circus.
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
"Ride into the...DANGER ZONE!" Tom Cruise's Maverick did just that, in this crazy story of Air Force pilots surreptitiously flying their Tomcat fighters against Soviet MiG's in this proxy war over the Indian Ocean. A whole crew of dudes nicknamed "Maverick", "Goose", "Viper", and, of course, "Iceman" (Val Kilmer) strut about and try to get dates or do daring stunts in their planes. Kelly McGillis was there to keep Cruise honest, and they made "Top Gun" 1986's biggest hit and the embodiment of Reagan's America. You've seen TOP GUN: MAVERICK, now check out the original!
DCP - Paramount Pictures
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
For a brief moment in the 1980s, some of the most crass, sidesplitting comedies came to us from Walt Disney Pictures, and most of them starred Bette Midler. RUTHLESS PEOPLE, from the team that brought us "Airplane!", might be the crassest and funniest of them all. Sam Stone (Danny DeVito) married his wife, Barbara (Bette Midler) for her money, and is plotting to kill her for that inheritance. Enter Ken and Sandy Kessler (Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater), two hapless kidnappers, who've taken Barbara and want a big ransom, or they'll kill her. To their chagrin, Sam ignores them, Barbara might be the worst person they have ever met, and everything goes haywire. "Ruthless People" opened modestly, then spent the entire summer of 1986 sending audiences into an uproar, becoming Disney's highest grossing film of the year.
35mm print - Walt Disney Pictures
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
Disney's second feature-length animated film may rightly be considered their greatest, a triumph of animation and one of the most beautiful, moving and dark stories in their canon. Geppetto, an elderly toymaker, wishes he had a boy of his own. His prayers are answered with Pinocchio, a marionette whom the Blue Fairy brings to life. She assigns Jiminy Cricket to follow him and keep him from trouble. But the curious little puppet cannot help but fall into the clutches of various evildoers in their village, culminating in his escape from the terrifying Pleasure Island and into the mouth of the great whale, Monstro. This story has moved families for generations, and its score and song "When You Wish Upon a Star" both won Oscars. A timeless classic, not seen on Minnesota screens for decades.
DCP - Walt Disney Pictures
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
In a small, French mining town, a young couple is married, to the delight of friends and family. They are deeply in love, and set up house, barely able to separate from one another to work. But when a mining accident leaves the husband with a grotesque facial deformity (hidden under a silver mask), he rejects her, and the lonely woman falls in love with another. This simple summary can only fail to capture the utter majesty of this gorgeous production, which was hailed as a masterpiece by French filmmakers Jean Cocteau and Jean Renoir. Charles Vanel, who was famous as a French actor (Diabolique, The Wages of Fear), wrote, directed and starred in this wondrous masterpiece, lost to time. Released to incredible acclaim in France, its timing was awful - it came out a year after sound films were launched, and it vanished from public view, remaining Vanel's only directing credit. The Heights is proud to screen DANS LA NUIT'S Midwest premiere.
Featuring live accompaniment by Katie Condon. Condon is a pianist, percussionist, teacher, and composer based in Minneapolis, whose score for "The Fire Brigade" stunned Heights audiences in 2022.
DCP courtesy of Institut Lumiere
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
Like Murder by Death before it, Clue (loosely based on the board game) is a spot-on parody of classic murder mysteries, with a star-studded cast of the 80s best comic actors, and featuring not one but three endings (each included at our screening!) Six strangers appear at an old mansion, are given pseudonyms (Col. Mustard, Mrs. White, etc., from the game), and soon, chaos and hilarity ensue! Tim Curry cements the whole thing as the crazed butler, while Martin Mull, Madeline Kahn, Leslie Ann Warren, Christopher Lloyd and even the Go-Go's Jane Wiedlin make appearances. A flop in its day, Clue has since gone on to be a hilarious cult classic!
DCP - Paramount Pictures.
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
In the heart of New York City, in one of its most high-end apartments, lurks an evil that sent filmgoers into a frenzy fifty years ago. Rosemary's Baby captured America's attention in 1968, a horrifying distraction from one of the most turbulent years in our history. The story of Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow), who moves into The Bradford Apartments with her actor husband Guy (John Cassavetes), only to discover a nightmare world of suicide, cults, and Satanism. At once a disturbing look at motherhood and power, Rosemary's Baby is also simply one of the most entertaining scary movies ever made.
DCP - Paramount Pictures.
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
Arguably Kubrick's best, and perhaps most personal film, The Shining has influenced scores of horror films, and its technical achievements with the Steadicam changed cinema forever. The story of writer Jack Torrence, whose personal demons collide with the haunted Overlook Hotel, which he and his family have been hired to occupy over the winter, is at once a mind-bending trip and a terrifying, and moving, destruction of a man's world. So bizarre it has spawned countless conspiracy theories, including explaining the moon landing, The Shining can be watched, interpreted and reinterpreted numerous times.
DCP - Warner Bros.
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
Deanna Durbin was once America's sweetheart, the girl who literally saved Universal Pictures from bankruptcy, and whose movies are now all but forgotten. This is a crying shame, because Heights' audiences have been utterly charmed whenever we've screened her movies. 100 MEN AND A GIRL, unavailable until now, is a delightful, charming and moving film that should be at the top of your moviegoing list for the year. Durbin plays Patsy, the daughter of the down-and-out trombone player, John Cardwell (Adolphe Menjou). John lies to Patsy that he's got a job with top conductor Leopold Stokowski (who plays himself). When Patsy finds out the truth, she's far from disappointed - instead, she cooks up a plan to land work for these 100 musicians and is determined to convince Stokowski to take them on. Durbin's emotional range is remarkable - only 16 at the time, she carries the picture with her wit and charm, her anger and frustration, her tears and her incredible voice. A star beyond compare, she would act for only 12 more years before retiring to France.
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
NEW DIGITAL RESTORATION!
Singin' In the Rain is one of our most popular events and sells out year after year! Considered by many to be one of the greatest screen musicals of all time, Singin' in the Rain is also a hilarious look at the chaos and turmoil that the switch from silents to talkies cast upon Hollywood in the late 1920's. Plus all that glorious TECHNICOLOR!
DCP - Warner Bros.
HEIGHTS 2023 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
NEW AGFACOLOR RESTORATION!
Banned by the German government in its day, GREAT FREEDOM NO. 7, named after the main thoroughfare in the red-light district in Hamburg, is a rich and honest look at the life of the "singing sailor", Hannes Kroger (Hans Albers) whose love of the sea conflicts with his desires for a farm girl (played by the amazing Ilse Werner) who was his deceased brother's companion. But she is in love with another man, and the heartbreak of Hannes is palpable as he weighs his options. Now considered a classic of German cinema, this bracingly honest look at the lives of the lower classes infuriated the German high command, and it was banned until the Allied forces won the war. Don't miss this gorgeous Agfacolor restoration of this super rare film on the big screen!
In German with English subtitles
DCP - Kino Lorber and the F. W. Murnau Foundation.
