HEIGHTS THEATER

The enormously popular LAUREL AND HARDY FESTIVAL returns for what will undoubtedly be another sold-out screening. Five classic short films in one side-splitting afternoon: BRATS (1930), HOG WILD (1930), TWICE TWO (1933), THEIR FIRST MISTAKE (1932), and ME AND MY PAL (1932). No matter if you're 9 or 90, the manic comedy of Laurel and Hardy is guaranteed to have you laughing.

After the financial and critical disaster of Dune, Lynch retreated to the surrealist world he knew best, and with Blue Velvet established himself as a controversial and mesmerizing auteur. This is the story of Jeffrey (Kyle Machlachlan, Lynch's muse if ever there was one) who returns home to Lumberton, Oregon only to find a human ear in an abandoned lot. Enter Frank (Dennis Hopper), one of the nastiest villains ever to appear in a movie, who terrorizes Dorothy (Isabella Rosellini) and draws a very curious Jeffrey into this sticky web of lust and murder. Despite dividing the critics of its day, Blue Velvet earned Lynch an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, and has since been regarded as one of the greatest films ever made.

Based on Truman Capote's novel, this is the story of a young woman in New York City who meets a young man when he moves into her apartment building. He is with an older woman who is very wealthy, but he wants to be a writer. She is working as an expensive escort and searching for a rich, older man to marry.

The ancient vampire Count Dracula arrives in England and begins to prey upon the virtuous young Mina.

Fargo's outrageous story of a kidnapping gone very wrong is grounded by Frances McDormand's Oscar-winning role as Marge Gunderson, the very pregnant police chief of Brainerd, whose persistence and wisdom wins the day. Fargo is at once an intensely violent and painful look at loneliness and greed, and a hilarious send up of hot dish Minnesota nice.

A high school wise guy is determined to have a day off from school, despite what the principal thinks of that.

Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) is a seething, reckless gambler; Ballin Mundson (George Macready) is the sinister owner of a nightclub; Gilda (Rita Hayworth) is loved and loathed by both men, and carries deadly secrets of her own. Throw them together in post-World War II Buenos Aires, add a touch of ex-Nazi thugs, and you have one Hell of a noir. The film that made Rita Hayworth a star is also a blistering crime film that has captivated audiences for 75 years.

Four young actresses and a down-on-his-luck producer are holed up in a downbeat New York apartment, lamenting their lack of funds keeping them from sure stardom. On the scene comes a brilliant singer and pianist, who offers them enough money to put on the show--but is this guy a gangster, or worse, a spoiled socialite whose parents want him as far as possible from the gold digging girls of Broadway? This enormous pre-code hit has toe-tapping songs, hilarious and sexy dialogue, and, of course, a veritable army of leggy dancers undulating in Berkeley's hypnotic dance numbers. Dick Powell, Ginger Rogers, Joan Blondell make this a star-studded classic not to be missed!

The Tramp struggles to live in modern industrial society with the help of a young homeless woman.

Loosely based on an Alexandre Dumas novel, inspired by Bollywood and featuring music from Madonna, Cole Porter, Nirvana, David Bowie, Elton John, Labelle and more, Moulin Rouge! is like no musical before or since, an instant classic that has delighted--and confounded--critics and audiences since its arrival in 2001. The story of an English poet at the turn of the last century (Ewan McGregor), slumming in Paris and trying to write, who falls in with the bohemians and madly in love with the star courtesan of the Moulin Rouge, Satine (Nicole Kidman). This kaleidoscopic fantasy was a box office smash, nominated for eight Academy Awards, and comes to us in a brilliant 35mm print from a private collector. Don't miss this rare screening.

Conceived as a pilot for ABC, then rejected, Lynch barely tied up the loose ends to create perhaps his most perplexing movie. Mulholland Drive is the story of Betty (Naomi Watts), who has come to Los Angeles from a small town to become a famous actress. Into her life drops Rita (Laura Elena Harring), who has been in an accident and lost her memory. Put the blue key into the box and... the story becomes one of a frustrated failure, Diane (Watts), who may or may not have had her ex-lover, star actress Camilla Rhodes (Harring), murdered. Mind-bending, gorgeous, sexy and utterly devastating, Mulholland Drive might be Lynch's most personal film. Mulholland Drive earned David Lynch a nomination for Best Director, and a BBC poll of film critics named it the best film of the 21st Century.

On the lot at Esoteric Pictures, W. C. Fields (played by W. C. Fields) pitches a script to a movie to a producer Franklin Pangborn (Franklin Pangborn). The movie concerns airplanes, alcohol, and eventually culminates in Fields falling from said airplane and into a giant bird's nest occupied by a wealthy Russian woman. Never Give a Sucker an Even Break is Fields' final starring role, and it was so zany the studio didn't know what to do with it. But this is the comedian his most truly insane, breaking the fourth wall, throwing gag after incredible gag at you, and creating an upside-down movie-within-a-movie in which nothing is weirder.... except perhaps the movie it's in. W. C. Fields' masterpiece was unappreciated in its day, but has since been regarded as a classic.

Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood visits 1969 Los Angeles, where everything is changing, as TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his long time stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt) make their way around an industry they hardly recognize anymore. The ninth film from the writer-director features a large ensemble cast and multiple storylines in a tribute to the final moments of Hollywood’s golden age.

Spanning four decades in the life of Magnolia Hawks (Irene Dunne), this is the story of a woman growing up on her family's show boat, the Cotton Blossom, which travels up and down the Mississippi River performing variety shows. A complex film about life in the South, racism and politics, Show Boat was considerably softened for its 1950s remake, but this one is the real deal. Featuring gorgeous black-and-white cinematography, songs by Jerome Kern and Roger Hammerstein, and stellar performances by Paul Robeson, Hattie McDaniel, Chales Winninger and scores of others, this rare screening is an absolute show stopper.

Do we really need to explain this one? Perhaps no movie musical is as beloved as Singin' in the Rain, which has sold out the Heights Theater three times in the last four years, and this year will be presented in 35mm! What a wonderful feeling!

One of the greatest love stories of silent cinema, F.W Murnau's masterpiece Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is a stirring melodrama filled with very modern performances that make this a truly timeless film. Bored with his wife (Janet Gaynor), their baby and the dull routine of farm life, a farmer (George O'Brien) falls under the spell of a flirtatious city girl (Margaret Livingston). The vixen convinces him to drown his wife so they can escape to the city together. Of course nothing goes as planned in this film classic of true love and forgiveness.

Egbert Sousé (Mr. Fields) is a hard drinking man, despised by his wife and her mother because he steals money from his dear daughter in order to remain in the sauce. In one day our hero will: replace a drunken director on a movie shoot; stop a bank robbery; become a security guard at said bank; get swindled and then steal money from said bank; gets kidnapped during a second bank robbery and somehow winds up insanely rich. Jokes, plot twists, and characters fly at you at rocket speed, and Fields, who wrote the film (under the pseudonym "Mahatma Kane Jeeves") was free to make this thing his craziest movie yet--which is saying a lot.

"Klaatu barada nikto!" On a beautiful day in Washington, D.C. a spaceship lands, and out of it emerges an alien, Klaatu (Michael Rennie) and the robot Gort. When the military, on high alert, wounds Klaatu, Gort proceeds to melt tanks and stop the world cold. Klaatu reveals himself to be from another, more powerful world, and brings a message: learn to live in peace or Earth will be destroyed. One of the first, and probably the most famous, anti-Cold War science fiction film of the era, The Day the Earth Stood Still has been called a classic. From the director of West Side Story and The Sound of Music!

Impressed by Eraserhead, producer Mel Brooks (yes, that Mel Brooks) brought Lynch on board to helm this heartbreaking story of John Merrick (John Hurt), aka The Elephant Man. When Dr. Frederick Treaves (Anthony Hopkins) "discovers" the Elephant Man at a freak show, the doctor finds Merrick to be intelligent and sensitive, and his profound kindness moves almost everyone he meets. Lynch's period detail is astounding, capturing 19th-century London in all its soot-stained industrial glory. Nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Director and Actor.

NEW DIGITALLY RESTORED 35MM PRINT! This pre-code two-color Technicolor horror picture should not be confused as mere historical movie novelty. The Mystery of the Wax Museum is creepy, disturbing and guaranteed to scare even the most jaded moviegoers! When a sculptor is burned in an arson fire, he returns a dozen years later, determined to create wax figures that are as close to real life as humanly--or inhumanely--possible. Don't miss this rare 35mm screening that will leave you screaming!

DIGITAL CINEMA PRESENTATION. Jack Torrence, a recovering alcoholic, retreats to the Overlook Hotel with his wife, Wendy, and son, Danny, in tow, in the hopes of breaking his writer's block. But the hotel is host to a variety of dark secrets, none more disturbing than those in Room 237. The Shining is one of Kubrick's more startling masterpieces, and Jack Nicholson's performance is the stuff of legend. DCP courtesy Warner Bros.

Written by Graham Greene, and starring Joseph Cotten, Aida Valli, and of course Orson Welles as Harry Lime, The Third Man is a classic espionage film that also undermines the trope of the American sleuth solving the crime and winning the love of the femme fatale. A gorgeous, thrilling and melancholy film, The Third Man has influenced countless other films through the decades.

35MM TECHNICOLOR DYE-TRANSFER PRINT!! Like Singin' In The Rain, The Wizard of Oz is one of our most popular events and sells out year after year, which is no surprise because you may never see OZ look so amazing on the big screen than in this rare 35mm TECHNICOLOR DYE TRANSFER presentation!! Has there ever been a more essential piece of movie magic than the journey of Dorothy and Toto? Probably not.

Considered at the time Lynch's worst film (moreso even than Dune), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me has since come to be regarded as one of his finest pictures, an underrated and emotionally shattering look at the dark side of the American dream. Both prologue and epilogue to the 1991 TV show, the film allowed Lynch to explore with greater depth the world of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) in the weeks before and after she was murdered. A film of surprising emotional depth, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is must-see viewing for anyone who loves the Twin Peaks universe. Don't miss this rare screening.

To make his story of "finding love in Hell", Lynch adapted Barry Gifford's bleak novel and then evoked the spirits of the Wizard of Oz, Elvis, Marlon Brando's "Snakeskin" Xavier and the glories of speed metal to craft this controversial thriller. Sailor (Nicholas Cage, never more Nicholas Cage-y than here) and Lula (Laura Dern) are in love. That infuriates Lula's evil mother, Marietta Fortune (Diane Ladd, Dern's real-life mother), who hires some creepy degenerates to murder our young lovers, who are forced to flee through a uniquely Lynhian wasteland. Adored and despised in equal measure, Wild at Heart won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and earned Ladd an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.