TRIVIA QUESTION Who wrote this song and which beat author does the title reference? Cinderella, she seems so easy 'It takes one to know one' she smiles and puts her hands in her pockets Bette Davis style And in comes Romeo, he's moaning 'You Belong to Me I Believe' And someone says, 'You're in the wrong place, my friend You better leave'

Answer to Who is the official supplier of Books for the Queen of England? Alden & Blackwell, Eton College, Windsor, Berkshire SL4 6DF

There have been a few questions on when we lock up on event nights, we like to lock up around midnight on week-nights, around 3:30 on Friday Nights, and on weekends around 6 pm unless something special is going on.

Tuesday 16 Oct. 9 pm The Innocents' (1961)

Thursday 18 Oct. 8:00 pm 8:00 Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares 9:30 pm The Book Group (Series Two part 2 of 2)

Friday 19 Oct. Dinner 9pm Movie about 11pm Tonight we will be showing two Versions of Shirley Jacksons "The Haunting of Hill House" Two very different films based on the same story.... The Haunting (1962) Robert Wise The Haunting (1999) Jan de Bont

Sunday 21 Oct. 14:00 Bridge and Brunch The Wireless in the back.... "The Museum of Everything" Card Games, Board Games and Word Games come by today at 14:00 for our Bridge Afternoon, Learning, playing and making lots of mistakes if Alan is your partner. All is possible great fun for all.

Tuesday 23 Oct. 9 pm Peeping Tom (1960) Michael Powell

Thursday 25 Oct. 8:00 pm

Something convulsive, something repulsive Something for everyone: a comedy tonight Something aesthetic, something frenetic Something for everyone: a comedy tonight

8:00 Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares 9:30 A Comedy Tonight Weeds, Aliens in America, and South Park

Friday 26 Oct. Halloween Party Halloween is on Wed. this year so we will be having our Halloween Party the Friday before on the 26th of October. This is always a special night at the bookshop and should not be missed so please get on the list that you are going to come, Start planning your costume now and come as your favorite fictional person. If you are at a loss on who to be, Alan will be glad to help you come up with someone special.

Sunday 28 Oct. 14:00 Bridge and Brunch The Wireless in the back.... "The Ten Scariest Radio Episodes of All Time" Card Games, Board Games and Word Games come by today at 14:00 for our Bridge Afternoon, Learning, playing and making lots of mistakes if Alan is your partner. All is possible great fun for all.

Tuesday 30 Oct. 9 pm Come morn the death and celebrate the life of Werner von Trapp 13 Oct. 2007 The Sound of Music (1965) Robert Wise from the Director of "The Curse of the Cat People" and "Star Trek the Movie" Nothing more to be said, come make fun, boo the evil Nazis, cheer the singing Nuns and sing along .... the hills are alive with the sound of Music...

Thursday 1 November The bookshop will have its first Workshop Reading of a new Play THE HARVEST CHAMBER Welcome to GensInc, an online police state 100 years in the future. GI5949 and GI3317 have relatively calm lives with cyber-jobs, cyber-partners and cyber-hobbies. One day, they receive a task: They must meet in the flesh and develop an intimate relationship. The conflict? Neither of them have ever seen another person before.
No compassion. No desire. Only a book. How strong is fear propaganda?

Readers: Mala Ghedia and Cornell Adams Writer/Director: Ashley Brandt Produced by: 3 of Cups Productions

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There have been a few questions on when we lock up on event nights, we like to lock up around midnight on week-nights, around 3:30 on Friday Nights, and on weekends around 6 pm unless something special is going on.

Halloween is on Wed. this year so we will be having our Halloween Party the Friday before on the 26th of October. This is always a special night at the bookshop and should not be missed so please get on the list that you are going to come, Start planning your costume now and come as your favorite fictional person. If you are at a loss on who to be, Alan will be glad to help you come up with someone special.

The bookshop will host a workshop reading with the director of a new science fiction play on the 1st of November. This should be fun and seating will be limited more info to follow.

Sunday 14 Oct. 14:00 Bridge and Brunch Old time radio "Sherlock Holmes" Card Games, Board Games and Word Games come by today at 14:00 for our Bridge Afternoon, Learning, playing and making lots of mistakes if Alan is your partner. All is possible great fun for all.

Tuesday 16 Oct. 9 pm The Innocents (1961) Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr) isn't a very experienced governess so she can't be certain, but surely orphans Miles (Martin Stephens ) and Flora (Pamela Franklin) aren't like other children. They're polite, of course, to the point of being patronising ('my dear,' they call her), and their dark, placid eyes defy suspicion, but there's something unsettling in his self-possession, macabre in her delights ('Oh, look, a lovely spider. And it's eating a butterfly!'). Having already experienced weird apparitions on her arrival at Bly, the beautiful country estate to which the children's indifferent uncle has consigned them, the governess learns of the violent deaths of her wanton predecessor and her cruel lover, and begins to suspect a supernatural cause for her charges' unsettling behaviour. And so Miss Giddens' war on terror begins; but does Bly have nothing to fear but fear itself? Adapted (byTruman Capote and John Mortimer, among others) from Henry James's 'The Turn of the Screw', Jack Claytom's 1961 chiller lives up to the story's title, incrementally tightening the nerves through suggestive technical artistry in a way that few contemporary ghost stories manage. The story's profound, unsettling ambiguity is perfectly served by George Auric's soundtrack of laughs and whispers and the constricting or fleeting forms at the edges of Freddie Francis 's B&W 'Scope frame (seen here in a new print). Meanwhile, slow fades and a bravura dream sequence hint at the blurring of boundaries – between life and death, rationality and imagination – that so disturbs Miss Giddens, endowed by Kerr with a frisson of hysteria from the start. Whatever is happening, she knows it is 'something secretive and whispery and indecent'. review by

Thursday 18 Oct. 8:00 pm 8:00 Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares La Lanterna The venue for the first programme is La Lanterna in Letchworth, Hertfordshire. Twenty-eight-year-old owner and head chef Alex offers modern Italian cuisine, a taste of Little Italy in England's first garden city, and the restaurant is run by his best mate, maitre d' Gavin, helped by Alex's ex-air hostess girlfriend Emily. Alex has no customers, cookers that don't work and an expensive menu that's about as authentically Italian as a Hawaiian Pizza. He re-mortgaged his house to buy the business, it's losing £1,000 a week, he hasn't slept for months but still runs round town in a flash car (number plate: A1CHEF) that's worth more than the restaurant. Running out of money, inspiration and energy, Alex is on the verge of losing EVERYTHING. It's a prime restaurant for a dose of TOUGH LOVE - Ramsay-style. But can a strict diet of brutal honesty, radical food surgery and undiluted energy turn things round, or is it only a matter of time before the lights go out at La Lanterna for good? D Place Gordon Ramsey looks to turn aruond the trendy cafe bar D PLACE Momma Cherri's Soul Food Shack Gordon Ramsey travels to the Brighton sea front to Momma Cherri's Soul Food Shack La Riviera Gordon Ramsey travels to Inverness, Scotland to turn around La Riviera

9:30 pm The Book Group (Series Two part 2 of 2) Drowning After Lachlan's accident – he fell into an empty pool while wooing Jean – he's behaving helplessly and driving Claire mad. Meanwhile, Jean moves in with Fist and Janice is troubled by her feelings for Rab. Research With the group all reading a book about sex (The Sexual History of Catherine M by Catherine Millet), Fist decides to organise an orgy involving Dirka and their husbands. A'Salaam Insh'Allah (Peace, God Willing) Clare prepares to dump Lachlan, as he prepares to propose marriage (by singing a karaoke version of Gilbert O'Sullivan's Clair). Meanwhile, Jean lands a deal for her book, Getting Over People, and a drunken Janice makes another move on Rab.

Saturday, 6th: Crystal Ball Gallery, Schönleinstrasse 7, Berlin, 8 p.m.:

Art: Veronika Schumacher - In prison for being vicious- Vernissage Music: Kapaikos

Sunday, 7th: -Flohmarket at Wonderbar, Wiener Str. 45, starts at 1 p.m. -Bridge & other games at Another Country

Friday 5 Oct. Dinner 9pm Movie about 11pm The Others (2001) There are horror movies like The Silence of the Lambs or Alien that make you scream, clutch your date, or cover your eyes. Less typical is the film that draws you in so subtly you're almost unaware of being frightened until you feel the hair on the back of your neck suddenly rise. Jack Clayton's The Innocents (adapted from Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, the mother of all modern ghost stories) produces that kind of atavistic fear response. So too does Alejandro Amenábar's The Others, which parallels The Innocents' premise of a woman desperately trying to save the two children in her care from the hellhounds that have invaded their house.

High-strung and devoutly religious, Grace (a blond Nicole Kidman, looking like a more attenuated Grace Kelly) lives in a huge Victorian house on the Isle of Jersey with her daughter and son. World War II is nearing its end, and although Grace's husband has been reported as missing in action, she refuses to accept that he's not coming home. Because the children are afflicted with a mysterious allergy to light, Grace spends most of her time frantically racing from room to room, closing doors and curtains against the sun, only to find that someone has carelessly opened them again. Are the peculiarly condescending new servants to blame? Or, as her daughter claims, are there strangers living secretly among them?

Beneath the supernatural goings-on is an au courant tale of motherhood, madness, and religious repression. While occasionally using the children as foils, Amenábar filters most of the narrative through Grace's perception. From beginning to end, Grace exists in a state of barely suppressed hysteria punctuated by moments of abject terror, all of which Kidman registers with extreme delicacy. We've seen her play this kind of trapped character before—most notably in The Portrait of a Lady—but not with such sustained, unnerved intensity. This is one scary movie, not because we see ghosts or monsters, but because Kidman makes us feel her fear as our own.

by Amy Taubin in the VIllage Voice (NYC)

Sunday 7 Oct. 14:00 Old time radio in the Backroom come by today at 14:00 for our first Bridge Afternoon, Learning, playing and making lots of mistakes if Alan is your partner. All is possible great fun for all. Boardgames for the Bridge Illiterate and those who refuse to learn.

Tuesday 9 Oct. 9 pm Blithe Spirit (1945)

Blithe Spirit was the second of three Noël Coward adaptations produced by Lean's new company Cineguild. Ronald Neame, co-founder of the company alongside producer Anthony Havelock-Allan, was again the director of photography, and the film was another Technicolor production. Coward himself performed the witty introductory voice-over. With its cast of distinguished comedy actors, the film did well with post-war audiences, but Coward professed himself disappointed with the result, although Lean had warned him that 'high comedy' was not really his forte.

The film is stylish. The action is set at the Condomines' comfortable upper middle-class home in Kent, and great care was taken to ensure the right look for the set. An actor like Rex Harrison was quite at ease in the world of the play, but Lean himself reportedly found it not to his own taste. The special effects are convincing and Lean's lighting and framing give it visual interest. The action is stagey, so all depends on the cast and they play wonderfully, even though Harrison was considered by some to look too young for the role of the middle-aged Charles. Kay Hammond and Margaret Rutherford had created their roles on the stage; the play premiered at London's Piccadilly Theatre on 1941 and was still running when Coward invited Lean to make a film version.

Hammond, in her floaty green chiffon gown, green hair and pale make-up, is a sexy and mischievous Elvira, employing her throaty, theatrical drawl to good comic effect. The American actress Constance Cummings' Ruth, by contrast, is brisk and sensible. Margaret Rutherford's performance of Madame Arcati has passed into theatre legend and she recreates the role of the eccentric and rather incompetent medium effectively for film. Her joy at the realisation that she has actually managed to summon up a spirit is beautifully judged.

review by Janet Moat from the bfi Screenonline

Great location for a party..down to the roots, proper shoes recommended..strictly dubstep more info

Tuesday 25 Sept. 9 pm Georgy Girl (1966) GEORGY GIRL, a world-wide smash, was a ground-breaking film -- one of the first to deal with the sexual revolution of the '60s. There was considerable pressure to censor the film's "frank and ultramodern" portrayal of complex relationships. It was also part of the leading edge of European films invading American theaters. And, of course, it marked the auspicious debut of its star, Lynn Redgrave, who won the Golden Globe® for Best Actress, the New York Film Critics Award for Best Actress, and was nominated for the Academy Award® for Best Actress of 1966.

Thursday 27 Sept. 9 pm The Book Group (Series One first three episodes) On The Road Claire from Cincinnati, Ohio hosts the first meeting of the book group, with her favourite book, On The Road by Jack Keroac, under discussion. But being bossy (banning smoking and mobile phones, for example), she struggles to win over the rest of the group – wheelchair user Kenny, footballers wives Dirka, Fist and Janice, stroppy Rab and dishy student Barney. And her clumsy pass at Barney results in embarrassing rejection. The Alchemist Dirka hosts the group for a discussion of new-age classic The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Fist has taken the book's message to heart by leaving her husband, Rab is impressed to be in the company of footballers, and the Playstation proves to be more popular than literature. Meanwhile, after turning down two admirers, Kenny has no luck when he tries it on with Claire. Magical Realism Kenny is writing a book set in a mountain cabin, with his heroine resembling Fist, while Claire is writing a novel, envisaging Barney as her dashing professor hero. Barney and temporary flatmate Fist host the group's discussion of Gabriel Garcia Márquez but Claire's criticism upsets Barney so much he has to go to the toilet to shoot up on heroin.

Friday 28 Sept. Dinner 9pm Movie about 11pm The Bad Seed (1956) review from Horror.com

I must confess to a weakness for horror films with kids who either start out perfect, or look perfect, then turn out to be horribly evil or morally corrupt. I love Village of the Damned, The Exorcist, The Omen, Audrey Rose, The Good Son, and so on. The Bad Seed was one of the first horror movies I saw as a child, so maybe that's the reason for my penchant. I liked it so much, I even sought out the book it was based on (and delightfully discovered the much darker ending in the William March novel).

Ten year old ice princess Rhoda Penmark (Patty McCormack) is pretty as a picture and polite as you please, but behind the blonde, pigtailed facade lurks a sinister and slippery sociopath. Her long-suffering mother Christine Penmark (Nancy Kelly) can barely keep up with her precocious offspring as Rhoda goes from one crime to another (of course, she doesn't want to believe her daughter is bad and wears the proverbial parental blinders). The only one who really knows that Rhoda isn't sugar and spice and everything nice is the slow-witted janitor of her apartment building, LeRoy (Henry Jones). Unafraid, he underestimates the girl and eggs her on -- when one of her classmates winds up dead, LeRoy taunts Rhoda about blue electric chairs for little boys and pink electric chairs for little girls. As Rhoda's roster of victims grows, Mrs. Penmark can no longer turn a blind eye. With Mr. Penmark conveniently away, the lives of a suspicious mother and a dangerous daughter spiral into a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Most of the cast of The Bad Seed played their roles in the hit Broadway play, clocking in hundreds of hours as these characters. As you watch them onscreen, you can see the ease in which they embody their fictional skins -- mostly, this works to the movie's advantage but the acting is often very theatrical, and certainly by today's standards is well over the top. For adults seeing The Bad Seed for the first time it may come off as slightly campy, but with all of the creepiness and suspense mostly well intact (I say "mostly" because decades ago, The Bad Seed was rare in its depiction of a child as evil -- now, it's old hat and viewers are jaded). As I mentioned before, the moralistic Hollywood of the 1950s forced the filmmakers to tack on a feel-good ending (the play retained the book's chilling climax), but it doesn't ruin the overall impact of the story. Sunday 30 Sept. 14:00 We are going to have a planning meeting about bridge today, if you are interested in playing or learning bridge please come by or talk to Alan any time except Friday.

Tuesday 02 Oct. 9 pm The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) The passions and pitfalls of a lifetime in the military are dramatized in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's magnificent epic, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. The film follows the exploits of pristine British soldier Clive Candy (Roger Livesey) as he battles to maintain his honor and proud gentlemanly conduct through romance, three wars, and a changing world. Vibrant and controversial, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is at once a romantic portrait of a career soldier and a pointed investigation into the nature of aging, friendship, and obsolescence. The Criterion Collection is proud to present Powell & Pressburger's masterpiece in all its Technicolor glory. from the Criterion Collection website

Check out their music over here: Ella Stich and Agnethe Melchiorsen

Starts at 9

"GEORGY GIRL, a world-wide smash, was a ground-breaking film -- one of the first to deal with the sexual revolution of the '60s. There was considerable pressure to censor the film's "frank and ultramodern" portrayal of complex relationships. It was also part of the leading edge of European films invading American theaters. And, of course, it marked the auspicious debut of its star, Lynn Redgrave, who won the Golden Globe® for Best Actress, the New York Film Critics Award for Best Actress, and was nominated for the Academy Award® for Best Actress of 1966."

Starts at 8 p.m.

"The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers (facilitator Jeremy Dunn)

"With the publication of her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers, all of twenty-three, became a literary sensation. With its profound sense of moral isolation and its compassionate glimpses into its characters' inner lives, the novel is considered McCullers' finest work, an enduring masterpiece first published by Houghton Mifflin in 1940.

At its center is the deaf-mute John Singer, who becomes the confidant for various types of misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s. Each one yearns for escape from small town life. When Singer's mute companion goes insane, Singer moves into the Kelly house, where Mick Kelly, the book's heroine (and loosely based on McCullers), finds solace in her music.

Wonderfully attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South, McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated — and, through Mick Kelly, gives voice to the quiet, intensely personal search for beauty.

Richard Wright praised Carson McCullers for her ability "to rise above the pressures of her environment and embrace white and black humanity in one sweep of apprehension and tenderness." She writes "with a sweep and certainty that are overwhelming," said the New York Times . McCullers became an overnight literary sensation, but her novel has endured, just as timely and powerful today as when it was first published. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is Carson McCullers at her most compassionate, endearing best. Reviews: "To me the most impressive aspect of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is the astonishing humanity that enables a white writer, for the first time in Southern fiction, to handle Negro characters with as much ease and justice as those of her own race." Richard Wright, The New Republic

McCullers leaves her characters hauntingly engraved in the reader's memory." The Nation

[McCullers] writes with a calm and factual realism, and with a deep and abiding insight into human psychology. She does so without an iota of vulgarity and bawdiness, in a manner which many a present day novelist would do well to study." The Boston Globe

When one puts [this book] down, it is with...a feeling of having been nourished by the truth." May Sarton

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter has remarkable power, sweep and certainty....Her art suggests a Van Gogh painting peopled with Faulkner figures." The New York Times Book Review

There is not only the delicately sensed need that one might expect youth to know but an even more delicately sensed ironic knowledge." Chicago Tribune

About the Author Carson McCullers was born in Columbus, Georgia. She published her first novel, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, at the age of twenty-three. She died in 1967 at the age of fifty."

More over here...

this sunday 16.9.07 Geffen and KaKao Katze and a lot of others will give a concert at falkensteinstr. aka daft pankow.

start at 11am open endung. we will b on around 16pm.

come and have an age.

Thursday the 20th we will have another nice little concert. We're proud to present two very talented songwriters from Denmark who came all the way over here to play for free in our basement. This is going to be good. Reserve your seats in time. Check out their music over here: Ella Stich and Agnethe Melchiorsen

More over here....

PUTA / queer, performance artist, writer and madman in general will do something weird and unpredictable.

Mike HAEF / a new kid on the block whose voice and words I could kiss. I listen to his myspace profile and his words/beats will melt your ears.

and last the live performance from another new kids on the electronic music scene: Psychonautilus...his first show in XBERG promises a lot.

hosted by lady gaby, FUEL has been labelled the hottest spokenword and performance show in BERLIN right now..(Exberliner, Sept 07)

Every Second Sunday of each month, FUEL is on at Trödler Bar, Dresdner str 123 XBERG 36....

free event starts at 9pm...dont be late or we will start without you.

Anyone interested in playing Bridge or learning to play Bridge, that has not yet let us know, please speak with Alan or send a note, write a comment etc. We are thinking of starting up soon.

Wikipedia: Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game of skill and chance (the relative proportions depend on the variant played). It is played by four players who form two partnerships (sides); the partners sit opposite each other at a table. The game consists of the auction (often called bidding) and play, after which the hand is scored.

The bidding ends with a contract, which is a declaration by one partnership that their side shall take at least a stated number of tricks, with specified suit as trump or without trumps. The rules of play are similar to other trick-taking games, with addition of the feature that one player's hand is displayed face up on the table as the "dummy"."

How to play Bridge

The Bridge World

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.

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". It's supposed to be a social evening!

I will bring tons of shit to choose from for the TV-nerds in the backroom (Hey, only four months until the next episode of "Lost"!).

Besides "Whenever the music died" we will have Episode 1 of Season 2 of the BBCs latest hit "The IT-Crowd". that's the gay episode, kids! There will also be a very special episode from the ultra-rare and totally hard to get "Muppets Tonight Show". More cameo-appearances than the "Spice Girls Movie" in 20 minutes!

Tuesday, 28th: Movie: "Komediant", 9 p.m. The glory days of the Yiddish stage are brought to life in this funny saga of a legendary theatrical family, the Bursteins. Arriving in New York in 1924, Pesach'ke Burstein, the dancing-singing comedian, quickly became a leading figure in the Golden Era of Yiddish theater. On stage, he met and fell in love with rising star Lillian Lux who would become his wife. Embarking together on triumphant overseas tours as a couple, soon the Bursteins became the parents of twins, Mike and Susan, who before long were given stage names and accompanied their parents regularly on stage as the family performed around the globe. In time, however, the pressures of theatrical life would take its toll on the family. Smoothly incorporating rare archival footage and interviews with Yiddish stage veterans (including Fyvush Finkel), this tightly edited, briskly paced documentary is as richly bittersweet – filled with laughter and tears, schmaltz and grit – as the Yiddish theater itself.

Thursday, 30th: Documentary - "Before the Music Dies", 9 p.m.

Narrated by Forest Whitaker. A great, great film about the music industry end of music as we know it: "With outstanding performances and revealing interviews Before the Music Dies takes a critical look at the homogenization of popular music with commentary by some of the industry's biggest talents like Eric Clapton, Dave Matthews, Elvis Costello, Erykah Badu, Branford Marsalis, Bonnie Raitt and more. Using historic footage the film looks at the evolution of American music and the artists who created it and pulls back the curtain (in a very creative way) to expose the sad truth behind today's "artificial" music stars. "The reality is that superficiality is in," says Marsalis. "And depth and quality is kind of out." IMDB: imdb.com Trailer: madscience.antville.org Homepage: www.beforethemusicdies.com

Friday, 31st: Dinner and "Forgotten Silver ", 9 p.m.

This dryly funny mockumentary about the lost work of a pioneering New Zealand film genius is probably one of the best examples of the faux-documentary genre. In fact, it was so successful that when it originally aired on New Zealand television, hundreds of viewers bought the premise hook, line, and sinker. If you didn't know any better yourself, it's entirely possible you might be duped into believing the extremely tall tale of one Colin MacKenzie, an ambitious filmmaker who made the world's first talking movie (years before The Jazz Singer), invented color film, and created a huge biblical epic that would put Cecil B. DeMille and D.W. Griffith to shame. Filmmaker Peter Jackson (Heavenly Creatures) shrewdly inserts himself into the film via his documentation of the "discovery" of McKenzie's lost epic, which for years was preserved in a garden shed. This hidden gold mine, which Jackson likens to finding Citizen Kane in an attic, will forever rewrite the history of film--a fact to which both critic Leonard Maltin and studio exec Harvey Weinstein eagerly attest. Jackson chronicles MacKenzie's fame through newspaper accounts, still photos, and keenly inventive footage showing both the behind-the-scenes shenanigans of MacKenzie's Salome as well as clips from that crowning film achievement; if you don't believe the filmmakers, actor Sam Neill is on hand to vouch for its importance. Jackson has the self-importance of film documentaries down pat, from the "re-creations" of past events through photos and voiceovers (the film's narration is properly stentorian), and never tips his hand once through the interviews with film historians as well as MacKenzie's "wife." Even nonfilm historians and aficionados will be won over by Jackson's subtle humor and inventiveness--you'll remember the story of Colin MacKenzie for a long time to come. -Mark Englehart

MySpace: Jane Walton

Tuesday, 21st: Movie: Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin), 9 p.m.

Finishing our series of movies about the old Berlin, we will show Wim Wenders' masterpiece from 1987 starring Bruno Ganz, Otto Sander, Nick Cave and Peter Falk. The film centers around the story of two angels wandering in a mixture of post-war and modern Berlin. Invisible to humans, they nevertheless give their help and comfort to all the lonely and depressed souls they meet. IMDB: imdb.com

Wednesday, 22nd: Concert - JANE WALTON, 8 p.m., 3 EU Entrance Fee

We are very happy to welcome one of Berlin's finest bands for a very special show in the basement. "Jane Walton" play a unique mix of country, polka, trash, rock'n'roll and circus musique. The space is not that big, as you might know. So, come in time please! If you spent the last year on mars and never heard of Jane Walton, check them out at myspace.com/janewalton

Thursday, 23rd: Documentary - "Before the Music Dies", 9 p.m.

Narrated by Forest Whitaker. A great, great film about the music industry and the end of music as we know it: "With outstanding performances and revealing interviews Before the Music Dies takes a critical look at the homogenization of popular music with commentary by some of the industry's biggest talents like Eric Clapton, Dave Matthews, Elvis Costello, Erykah Badu, Branford Marsalis, Bonnie Raitt and more. Using historic footage the film looks at the evolution of American music and the artists who created it and pulls back the curtain (in a very creative way) to expose the sad truth behind today's "artificial" music stars. "The reality is that superficiality is in," says Marsalis. "And depth and quality is kind of out." IMDB: imdb.com Trailer: madscience.antville.org Homepage: www.beforethemusicdies.com

Friday, 24th: Dinner and "The Magic Christian", 9 p.m.

IMDB: "This film takes a brilliant thrust at British notions of class and propriety, if not Western Society as a whole. Peter Sellers plays Guy Grand, a man with a perverse sense of humor, and to whom money is no object. The film begins as Grand legally adopts a young vagrant, (a monosyllabic Ringo Star), and the two set out to turn everyday life into a kind of black surreality worthy of Monty Python. Though Grand has no spoken manifesto, his overriding goal is to mock, humiliate, and freak-out his pretentious peers via elaborate practical jokes, revealing the underlying hypocrisy of polite society. Ultimately Seller's character is dismayed when his social-experiments prove his suspicions: respectable citizens will do ANYTHING for money and prestige. This movie is not for normal people, in fact, this movie hates you. Don't watch it. Go away." IMDB: imdb.com

Dinner at 9 and Film starts around 11

The Entertainer Tony Richardson 1960 "The Entertainer" is a fascinating film based on the play by John Osborne ("Look Back in Anger"); Osborne co-wrote the screenplay. Olivier plays Archie Rice, a fading entertainer in a fading medium (music halls) in a fading empire (the Suez crisis of 1956 figures into the action). Archie's speech to his daughter (Joan Plowright), onstage in an empty theater, about being dead behind his eyes, is especially memorable. Along with other fine actors, Alan Bates and Albert Finney as his sons flesh out this film, which is a must-see for fans of any of these actors.