Hear that? That’s the rumbling of summer blockbuster season revving up in the distance.
Fast X hits theaters next week, and the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe installment, James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, is still going strong at the multiplexes. Other big-budget outings will land over the next month, among them Disney’s live-action The Little Mermaid on May 26 and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse on June 2. There’s also a really strong slate of upcoming mid-budget and small-budget fare heading our way — Carmen, Master Gardener, The Eight Mountains, The Starling Girl, Past Lives and Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City will all hit the Belcourt’s screens very soon.
As exciting as all that is, that’s not what we’re here to talk about. We’re here to talk about the Belcourt’s recently announced 1973 series, which will grace the Hillsboro Village arthouse for three glorious weeks. Featuring 18 films first released in that cinematically revolutionary year, 1973 will take over the beloved cinema center from May 19 until June 8 and feature groundbreaking works, from influential genre films to revolutionary animated efforts.
The series kicks off with George Roy Hill’s Newman- and Redford-starring Best Picture winner The Sting (May 19, 21 & 23), with the bundle of Blaxploitation dynamite Cleopatra Jones (May 19 & 21) hot on its heels. Up after that are Scorsese’s breakthrough crime flick Mean Streets (May 20 & 24) and my favorite animated film of all time, Robin Hood (May 20, 22 & 24), which of course features the exquisitely cast Roger Miller as Alan-a-Dale the rooster minstrel. Then it’s Hal Ashby’s Jack Nicholson vehicle, the naval comedy-drama The Last Detail (May 21, 23 & 25), followed by Jimmy Cliff-starring Jamaican crime film The Harder They Come (May 22 & 25) and its earth-shattering reggae soundtrack. One of the greatest martial arts movies of all time is next — Enter the Dragon, of course (May 26, 28 & 30) — but save your psychedelics for the Friday Midnight Movie: Alejandro Jodorowsky’s wild, decadent ride The Holy Mountain will melt minds late night on May 26.
The Holy Mountain
Come back down to earth with more Blaxploitation courtesy of powerhouse star Pam Grier and director Jack Hill’s Coffy (May 27 & 31) and Peter Bogdanovich’s Dust Bowl road comedy Paper Moon (May 27, 29 & 31). (Tatum O’Neal, who turned 9 during filming, earned a Best Supporting Actress trophy for Paper Moon and remains the youngest performer to ever win an Oscar.) Anyone brave enough can catch the B-movie horror freakout Messiah of Evil as a Saturday Midnight Movie (May 27), or delve into the politically fraught romance between Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand’s characters in Sydney Pollack’s The Way We Were (May 28 & 30, June 1) — or the groundbreaking rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar (May 29 & June 1). Based on a beloved manga of the same name, the influential Japanese film Lady Snowblood (June 2, 4 & 6) follows, with one of the best cop films of all time landing after that: Sidney Lumet’s Serpico (June 3 & 7). (Along with Nicholson for The Last Detail and Redford for The Sting, Al Pacino was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for his titular performance in this one. All three lost out to Jack Lemmon that year, who won a trophy for his role in Save the Tiger. That one didn’t make the cut for the 1973 series.)
Beautiful and deeply weird French-Czech experimental animated sci-fi flick Fantastic Planet (June 3, 5 & 7) arrives next, with Sam Peckinpah’s first-rate Western Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (June 5 & 8) hitting screens after that. The Belcourt will bring 1973 in for a landing with The Long Goodbye (June 4, 6 & 8), Robert Altman’s comedy noir featuring a brilliant turn from Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe, along with Sterling Hayden delivering one of the greatest insults of all time. (“The albino turd himself!”)
Visit belcourt.org for five-pack tickets, full series passes or individual-screening tickets.
