Fests and events, 3/1.

Film Forum will be screening King Kong twice tomorrow, and in the New York Sun, Bruce Bennett has a little fun with past interpretations:

Was the runaway success of Kong - a film that not only brought RKO Studios back (temporarily) from the brink of bankruptcy during its first release, but spawned sequels, rip-offs, and remakes in every decade since - a by-product of a profound Jungian connection between the audience and its inner ape? Was it due to a Freudian frisson in which unbound (and in several scenes, bound), rampant, dark, and primitive masculinity relentlessly courted blond innocence and then scaled the world's tallest phallic symbol (which was brand new at the time)? Did Kong represent manifest destiny and colonialism come home not just to haunt but to stomp, chew, and fling to their deaths complacent urban dwellers?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and theory is in the mind of the conjecturer. King Kong wasn't created by satirists, psychologists, or critics; he was created by showmen.

Ariel Dorfman recalls running for his life in Santiago in September 1973:

As we crossed the city, I can remember, in the midst of the dread, a bizarre thought flashing into my mind: this would make a great movie. Now, almost 35 years later, a film, A Promise to the Dead (to be screened as part of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival on March 14 at the ICA and March 15 at the Ritzy, Brixton), has been made, recounting the story of those days and how it led to a life of wandering. At the end of 2006, the Canadian filmmaker Peter Raymont (Shake Hands With the Devil) followed me back to Chile to revisit the joys of the Allende revolution and the murderous aftermath of the military takeover. One of the rewards of that journey was that I finally got to track down and thank the woman who had saved my life.

Also in the Guardian, season of Screwball Women opens today at BFI Southbank, runs through the end of the month, and AL Kennedy is celebrating: "At its best, it was a head-over-heels, hell-for-leather joy, a genre that swallowed every other genre and created a playground where some of the 20th century's finest writers, directors and performers could excel. As a child, it was the adult world I always hoped I'd grow into - somewhere unhinged and filled with unnecessary beauty - where 'all you need to start an asylum is a room and the right kind of people.'"

Tim Lucas has details on Mario Bava: Poems of Love and Death, a retrospective running at the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles March 13 through 23.

At Twitch, Ardvark selects a few highlights from the lineup for the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, running March 27 through April 8 - plus, the first round of titles lined up for the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival. April 9 through 20.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will see its world premiere in Cannes, reports Time Out.

Online gazing tip. Jürgen Fauth shoots some Berlin faces.

Posted by dwhudson at March 1, 2008 1:22 PM