Archive for November, 2008

Indie Memphis juror Elvis Mitchell is back up on Turner Classic Movies with his show Elvis Mitchell: Under the Influence, in which he interviews celebrities about the classic movies that influenced their lives. Past episodes have featured Sydney Pollack, Bill Murray, Laurence Fishburne, Quentin Tarantino and Ed Norton.

Up next:

Joan Allen - November 14 @ 7 pm & 9:30 pm CST
w/ THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL (’85) @ 7:30 pm
and LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (’62) @ 10 pm

John Leguizamo - November 21 @ 7 pm & 9:30 pm CST
w/ MOULIN ROUGE (’52) @ 7:30 pm
and THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL (’39) @ 10:15 pm

Richard Gere - November 28 @ 7 pm & 9:30 pm CST
w/ SERGEANT YORK (’41) @ 7:30 pm
and THE MISFITS (’61) @ 10:30 pm

PLAGUES & PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA
presented in collaboration with the Sierra Club Chickasaw Group

7:30 pm Wednesday, November 12 @ Malco’s Studio on the Square
Admission is free; donations are appreciated.

Don’t miss this special Micro Cinema Club at Malco’s Studio on the Square and presented in collaboration with the Sierra Club Chickasaw Group. Filmmaker Chris Metzler will be on hand to introduce the film and participate in a Q&A after the screening.

Once known as the ‘California Riviera,’ the Salton Sea is now called one of America’s worst ecological disasters: a fetid, stagnant, salty lake, coughing up dead fish and birds by the thousands. Created by an engineering error in 1905, reworked in the 50’s as a world class vacation destination for the rich and famous, and then suddenly abandoned after a series of hurricanes, floods, and fish die-offs, the Salton Sea has a bittersweet past.

While PLAGUES & PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA covers the historical, economic, political, and environmental issues that face the sea, it more importantly offers up an offbeat portrait of the eccentric and individualistic people who populate its shores. It is an epic western tale of fantastic real estate ventures and failed boomtowns, inner-city gangs fleeing to white small town America, and the subjective notion of success and failure amidst the ruins of the past. Hair-raising and hilarious, part history lesson, part cautionary tale and part portrait of one of the strangest communities you’ve ever seen, this is the American Dream gone as stinky as a dead carp.