Tuesday 11 Sept. 9 pm

-Plan 9 From Outer Space (1970) -Flying Saucers Over Hollywood: The Plan 9 Companion (1992)

Often billed as the worst movie ever made, and not entirely undeserving of the title, this is a masterpiece of Ed Wood's making. Download your copy here!

The Ed Wood Guide The Ed Wood Appreciation page "Necromania" - The lost porn films of Ed Wood

Thursday 13 Sept. 9 pm STAMMTISCH & TV

Downstairs and the the Front Room Come over, bring a friend, play Backgammon, Chess or Risk with the champions or have a drink with those strange people we call "the regulars". Make a new friend or just ask all the questions about Berlin you been wanting to ask.

On the big Screen in the Back Room... Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! does Judy! Judy! Judy! (2007) TV Judy Garland was already a 'gay beacon' - as Rufus Wainwright puts it - before her death. But on the night of her wake in June 1969, when New York's Stonewall Inn was raided by police, some of the mourners rioted, kicking off the modern gay rights movement. Operatic and witty, the son of folk singers Loudon Wainwright (who played with Garland as a child) and Kate McGarrigle, Rufus has been open about his sexuality from the start of his career. But his friendship with Judy is more obviously located in Oz. He used to sing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' at his own gigs. More recently he created more parallels by going off the rails on drugs, then staging a triumphal return with 2005's Want Two.

He recreated Judy's famous New York Carnegie Hall gig of 1961 in the same venue last year, and has now brought it to London's Palladium, scene of a number of Garland shows. Keane are here, as well as old school showbiz fans, and many 'friends of Judy'. In a sparkly yellow Viktor & Rolf suit for the first half, then a dove-grey one in the second, Wainwright croons and clowns his way through Judy's set, He tells great anecdotes. One is about dressing up in his mother's shoes and recreating the witch's melting scenes. All that collapsing into shoes might have had some bearing on his later fondness for drugs, he quips.

Wainwright forgets a few words of this marathon set and balances what could easily be grand folly with self-deprecation. Thank goodness: to do this two-hour set straight would be unbearable. Garland may have had a killer vibrato in her prime, but it was allied to some of the cheesiest guff in the American canon at Carnegie Hall. Tonight, you find yourself wondering whether Rufus will do anything from The Sound of Music, normally resident in the Palladium, and admire the ceiling a bit. But Wainwright - a tremendous performer, whatever his material - always brings you back. His crooning is infinitely more powerful than his belting, making songs like 'Do It Again' intimate billets doux. And 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' finds him wiping away tears, only half-joking.

review by Kitty Empire The Observer Sunday February 25 Oct

The IT Crowd (BBC-Sitcom, 2007) Season 2 - Episodes 2 &3 (The return of the Golden Child / Moss and the German)

Friday 14 Sept. Dinner 9pm Movie about 11pm

Ed Wood (1994) As one of the most overlooked films ever made, "Ed Wood" does for Tim Burton what "Malcolm X" did for Spike Lee and "JFK" did for Oliver Stone, it ruins any expectations one can have of Tim Burton, because he has set a standard here that he will never achieve again. An interest in the period in which it is set is essential, given the set decoration is the film's greatest triumph. It's not surprising that Burton's first "biopic" is about someone revered in the b-movie heyday of the 1950s - that spawned Burton himself. Burton must have felt he had to make this picture because without filmmakers like Ed Wood, Burton himself would have never existed. Set in seedy B-movie Hollywood in the mid 1950s - and wisely and beautifully shot in black-and-white, Johnny Depp plays the titular character; a young, talentless, but optimistic auteur who dreams of being a film director; going so far as to model himself after his idol, Orson Welles. Despite an over-reliance on stock footage, a tin ear for dialogue, and a fondness for wacky, exploitative horror and sci-fi fare, Wood wiggles his way into B-moviedom. Casting anyone willing to step before his camera, Wood cranks out a series of cheesy movies.

When he has a chance encounter with horror film legend Bela Lugosi, now a 74 year-old, foul-mouthed morphine addict wrecked by his lost fame, Ed sees his meal-ticket. Quick for his next fix, Lugosi doesn't seem to mind that Wood is also an out-and-proud transvestite with a particular fondness for Angora sweaters, and soon begins starring in Wood's features. Lugosi, played by Martin Landau, gives the story its biggest jolts of energy. Landau is hysterical in scene after scene utilizing the "dirty old man" routine. Remember, there is nothing funnier on earth than an old man who likes profanity. A gentle - albeit somewhat fictionalized - bond forms between Wood and Lugosi. Depp does a spectacular job of fleshing out Wood's quirky innocence and unbridled passion for moviemaking. This may also be the only Johnny Depp film where you actually see him smile!

What ultimately makes this film so stellar is the impeccable production and costume design and the crisp B&W cinematography; it literally transports you back to the clean-cut, wide-eyed days of the 1950s. I cannot recommend this film enough if you have an interest in the world of 1950s B-movies that produced titles like "Teenagers From Outer Space" and "Project Moonbase". This film functions quite well as a time warp. I liken "Ed Wood" to epics like "JFK" because like those films, this movie doesn't seem to be about what happens as much as how it FEELS to be there; and that's what draws me to the film every time I see it. With "Ed Wood", I'm not always interested in following the story, but I'm totally fascinated with being inside that world. Tim Burton did the best job that anyone could in taking you there.

reviewed by JawsOfJosh from IMDB

Tuesday 18 Sept. 9 pm Black Orpheus (1959) From the moment of its first appearance, at the Cannes Film Festival in 1959—where it won the Palme d'Or—it was clear that Black Orpheus was a very special film. Taking the ancient Greek myth of a youth who travels to the land of the dead to bring back the woman he loves, and transporting it to the slums of modern day Rio de Janeiro, this bittersweet romantic tragedy has charmed audiences the world over with its beauty, color, and—above all—its music. In fact, so important is Black Orpheus' musical dimension that you might say the film's roots aren't in images but in sounds.

The first shot shows an ancient frieze of the lovers, Orpheus and Eurydice. But what grabs your attention as it hits the screen is the sound of the music playing underneath it—a guitar softly strumming the chords of the film's main musical theme. A mood of quiet reverie is created only to be shattered almost immediately as the frieze explodes before our eyes, only to be replaced by a series of fast-moving shots of dancers preparing for Carnival. But even these colorful sights are undercut by a sound that, beginning here, runs through the length of the film—the eruptive, convulsive, infectious beat of the Latin American pop sound known as "bossa nova."

Though bossa nova had been the cornerstone of Latin American music for many years, it's safe to say that prior to the release of Black Orpheus the world at large had never really heard it before. The film changed the world of music overnight. Its composers, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Luis Bonfá, became international stars. The film's main themes, "Manha de Carnival" and "O Nossa Amor," permeated the public consciousness in a way that hadn't been seen since Anton Karas' unforgettable zither theme for The Third Man. But make no mistake, none of these musical glories would have been possible without the film that holds them all together—Black Orpheus.

The Orpheus of myth was the son of the god Apollo and Calliope, a muse. His singing tamed wild beasts and quieted raging rivers. The Orpheus of the film is a lowly streetcar conductor whose singing makes him a favorite of the slum neighborhood where he lives. The original Eurydice was likewise high-born when compared to the film's heroine—a simple country girl visiting the big city of Rio for the first time in her life. Ordinarily saddling such everyday characters with mythological barnacles would make for dramatic awkwardness. But thanks to the context of Carnival it all works perfectly. A once-a-year blowout where rich and poor alike can masquerade in whatever identities they choose, Carnival is the ideal setting for sliding a mythical mask over commonplace reality. And director Marcel Camus proves to be quite adept at juggling this balancing act between the fantastic and the real.

The figure of Death that pursues Eurydice through the streets of Rio could be the literal personification of fate—or the sort of everyday maniac found on the streets of any major city. Likewise, Eurydice's death from a streetcar cable is a neat transposition of the original legend in which she died from a serpent's bite on her leg. Best of all is the film's climax, in which Orpheus visits the underworld—here represented by Rio's Bureau of Missing Persons—and a Macumba ceremony in which he tries to make contact with his dead love. As in the legend, the story of the film ends on an unhappy note. Still this nominally sad conclusion is undercut by the spirit of the largely unprofessional cast (Breno Mello was a champion soccer player, Marpessa Dawn a dancer from Pittsburgh); director Camus' obvious love for Rio and its people; and the joyous, rapturous, unforgettable musical score.

by David Ehrenstein for the Criterion Collection David Ehrenstein has been writing about film, the arts, and politics since 1965, for such publications as Film Culture, Cahiers du cinéma, Positif, and the Advocate. He is the author of Film: The Front Line—1984, The Scorsese Picture: The Art and Life of Martin Scorsese, and Open Secret: Gay Hollywood 1928–2000. Born in New York, he lives in Los Angeles.