Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
NEVADA THEATRE 5/11: The Onyx Downtown pays homage to a pair of suave, Samurai-inspired assassins with our Cool Killers series! Jim Jarmusch combined his love for the ice-cool crime dramas of Jean-Pierre Melville and Seijun Suzuki with the philosophical dimensions of samurai mythology for an eccentrically postmodern take on the hit-man thriller. In one of his defining roles, Forest Whitaker brings a commanding serenity to his portrayal of a Zen contract killer working for a bumbling mob outfit, a modern man who adheres steadfastly to the ideals of the Japanese warrior code even as chaos and violence spiral around him. Featuring moody cinematography by the great Robby Müller, a sublime score by the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA, and a host of colorful character actors (including a memorably stone-faced Henry Silva), GHOST DOG: THE WAY OF THE SAMURAI plays like a pop-culture-sampling cinematic mixtape built around a one-of-a-kind tragic hero.
Charade
SUNRISE CINEMA 5/17 - The on-screen chemistry between Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant sparks with pure electricity, in the stylish romantic thriller CHARADE! Reggie Lambert (Hepburn) returns home after a skiing trip to discover that her husband has died. At the funeral she finds out from CIA agent Hamilton Bartholomew (Walter Matthau) that her husband was involved in the theft of a quarter of a million dollars during World War Two. The charming Peter Joshua (Grant) offers his help, but as the number of dead bodies increases so do Peter's aliases, and Reggie becomes uncertain whether or not she can trust him.
After Hours
AFTER HOURS 5/9 - The Onyx Theatre’s late-night programming returns with its namesake, Martin Scorcese’s black comedy gem AFTER HOURS. Desperate to escape his mind-numbing routine, uptown Manhattan office worker Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) ventures downtown for a hookup with a mystery woman (Rosanna Arquette). So begins the wildest night of his life, as bizarre occurrences—involving underground-art punks, a distressed waitress, a crazed Mister Softee truck driver, and a bagel-and-cream-cheese paperweight—pile up with anxiety-inducing relentlessness and thwart his attempts to get home. With this Kafkaesque cult classic, Scorsese—abetted by Michael Ballhaus’s kinetic cinematography and scene-stealing supporting turns by Linda Fiorentino, Teri Garr, Catherine O’Hara, and John Heard—directed a darkly comic tale of mistaken identity, turning the desolate night world of 1980s SoHo into a bohemian wonderland of surreal menace.
