Halloween begins early at Cornell Cinema this week with the Ithaca premiere of "The Beyond," a masterpiece of horror recently brought back to the screen.
In lurid color and Cinemascope, this restored print brings Italian director Lucio Fulci's gory classic to American audiences, thanks to the efforts of American filmmaker and Fulci fan Quentin Tarantino.
"The Beyond" will be screened Friday, Oct. 23, at midnight in Willard Straight Theatre, and Saturday, Oct. 24, at 11:30 p.m. in Uris Auditorium. Admission is $4.50, $4 for students and seniors.
This over-the-top flick is the perfect warm-up for the ghoulish season. Catriona MacColl stars as a woman who inherits a New Orleans hotel, which also happens to contain one of the seven gates of hell. If you're into metal spikes hammered into human flesh, acid baths, zombie invasions and the like, this film will surpass your expectations. "Garish, goofy and gross, gross, gross," said the New York Post. The first 10 audience members in line at each screening receive free souvenir eyeballs!
And on Halloween itself, Oct. 31, anyone in costume gets in free to any Cornell Cinema movie. The schedule includes the classic "Night of the Living Dead" (9:45 p.m., Willard Straight Theatre) and the recent release "Halloween H20" (9:50 p.m. and midnight, Uris Auditorium). Be there and be scared.
Cornell Cinema also presents the Ithaca premieres of two new documentaries this month. "Arguing the World," which looks at the role of Jewish intellectuals in changing academic culture, will be shown Saturday, Oct. 24, at 7:15 p.m., and Sunday, Oct. 25, at 7:30 p.m., both in Willard Straight Theatre. And "Dear Jesse," "a funny, poignant documentary-diary," will be shown as October's Gay Film Friday selection Oct. 30 at 7:20 p.m. in Willard Straight Theatre. Admission is $4.50, $4 for students and seniors.
"Arguing the World" is director Joseph Dorman's examination of the changing academic culture of the 20th century through the experiences of Jewish intellectuals in New York. Political essayist Irving Kristol, moderate sociologist Nathan Glazer, social theorist Daniel Bell and the late socialist literary critic Irving Howe form the center of this documentary about a moment in history when ideas were taken seriously. "Shamelessly entertaining ... the movie enables you to be a fly on the wall of many intellectually privileged parlors," said the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Gay filmmaker Tim Kirkman takes on virulently anti-gay Sen. Jesse Helms in this month's official Gay Film Friday selection, the funny, moving and politically astute documentary "Dear Jesse." Working in the confrontational, anecdotal style of Michael Moore's "Roger and Me," Kirkman chronicles the senator's history of prejudice with wit and verve while revealing much about his own confrontations with homophobia. The film is co-sponsored with the LBGT Coalition.
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