Finally! Tickets for the 2016 edition of the El Paso Community Foundation’s Plaza Classic Film Festival go on sale at 10 a.m. today at the Plaza Theatre box office, Ticketmaster outlets, ticketmaster.com and 800-745-3000.
The ninth annual Plaza Classic Film Festival will run from August 4-14 and will feature more than 90 movies, including the special editions of the original Star Wars trilogy, Rocky, Young Frankenstein, The Music Man, Giant, Apocalypse Now, Rosemary’s Baby, Gigi, and Annie Hall.
You can find a downloadable and printable version of the schedule at plazaclassic.com/schedule.
Special guests include Mexican actress Elsa Cardenas, who will appear with Giant (shot near Marfa) at 6 p.m. Saturday, August 6 in the Plaza Theatre; and Oscar-nominated Candy Clark, who will appear with The Man Who Fell to Earth (shot in New Mexico) at 9 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 13 in the Plaza. Austin filmmaker Kevin Ford will be here to show his new, experimental documentary By the River, which features Boyhood’s Ellar Coltrane and footage shot in El Paso, at 7 p.m. Saturday, August 6 in the Philanthropy Theatre.
Our exhibit, A ‘Giant’ Story: When Hollywood Came to West Texas, opens July 28 at the El Paso Museum of History. It will feature costumes worn by James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean, from the Warner Bros. Corporate Archive; production art, documents and photographs from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; and more. It’s free and will be up through September 18.
This year’s themes include an expansive survey of monster and horror archetypes called Monster Mash, which includes the silent films The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, accompanied by electric cellist Gideon Freudmann, at 4 p.m. Saturday, August 13, and the 1929 version of the 1925 classic The Phantom of the Opera, accompanied by PCFF veteran Walter Strony, at 4 p.m. Sunday, August 7. Other titles in the series include Frankenstein, Dracula, The Uninvited, the 1958 version of The Fly, Tom Savini’s 1990 version of Night of the Living Dead, and John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London.
It’s a political year, so we’ve programmed some movies about elections, including the original The Manchurian Candidate, Robert Redford in The Candidate, and Tim Robbins’ mockumentary Bob Roberts. We’re also highlighting various members of the prolific Coppola family in a series called Coppola Family Tree, including Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, and spotlighting Hollywood icons Elizabeth Taylor (Giant, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) and Gregory Peck, who would have turned 100 this year (Twelve O’Clock High, Gentlemen’s Agreement).
There will be plenty of musicals, including Funny Girl and the return of Musical Monday on August 8, which will include screenings of High Society, the 1936 version of Show Boat, John Waters’ Hairspray, and, for the kids, Disney’s The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh and James and the Giant Peach. And the Philanthropy Theatre will be filled with kids movies on weekday afternoons, including The Goonies, The Geisha Boy and Beethoven. We’ve also increased the number of foreign classics in our Plaza Art House series, including Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali and Luis Bunuel’s Belle de Jour.
This year’s outdoor movies will return to Oregon Street. We’ll show Pink Floyd: The Wall on Friday, August 5 (Alabama Deathwalk will open), our not-to-be-missed annual showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show on Saturday, August 6 (Hope Riot opens), Car Wash on Friday, August 12 (Kikimora), and Mamma Mia! on Saturday, August 13 (The Other Half). They’re free. Bands start at 7:30 p.m., movies at 9 p.m. We’ll have food trucks and a bar.
This year’s Mills Drive-in/Walk-up movies are Fast Times at Ridgemont High at 9 p.m. Thursday, August 4 and Raising Arizona at 9 p.m. Thursday, August 11. Admission is $5 at the door, plus parking.
Our annual collaboration with the El Paso Museum of Art is inspired by the two Picasso exhibits currently on exhibit there through September 4. Our Picasso and Surrealism six-film series includes the documentary The Mystery of Picasso, Surviving Picasso, Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus and David Lynch’s Eraserhead. They are free and will be shown in the museum auditorium.
We’ve also expanded our footprint this year to the El Paso Public Library, which will host our second annual Plaza Classic Film Camp and a series of free movies in the auditorium that tie back to camp curriculum or other movies in the festival. That series includes the 1956 sci-fi flick Earth vs. The Flying Saucers, with special effects by legendary Ray Harryhausen, and Hector Galan’s 2015 documentary Children of Giant, introduced by executive producer Carolyn Pfeiffer.
Local Flavor, our Texas Film Commission-sponsored showcase, returns with new, free programs on the weekends.
The best way to see as many of these movies as possible is with a Festival Pass, which includes admission to all ticketed movies, an express line, private receptions and more for $200. A limited number of Film Club Passes, for high school students with an interest in film, are available for $100. Go to plazaclassic.com/tickets.
EL PASO, TEXAS — The world’s largest classic film festival will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the movie Giant in a Texas-sized way this August.
Director George Stevens’ sprawling 1956 Lone Star state epic, which was shot largely in nearby Marfa, Texas, will be shown at 6 p.m. Saturday, August 6 in the Plaza Theatre.
The movie — starring Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean — is part of the El Paso Community Foundation’s ninth annual Plaza Classic Film Festival running August 4-14, 2016 in and around downtown El Paso’s historic Plaza Theatre.
Mexican actress Elsa Cardenas, who played the pivotal role of Juana, will appear. She will be interviewed on stage by Scott McGee, program production director of Turner Classic Movies. The movie will be shown immediately after their talk.
GECU/MEMBERS Trust Company generously is sponsoring Giant and the unique exhibit, A ‘Giant’ Story: When Hollywood Came to West Texas, which explores the location shoot in Marfa, its El Paso ties and some of the movie’s main themes.
The free exhibit will run July 28 through September 18 at the El Paso Museum of History.
A ‘Giant’ Story will include costumes designed by Academy Award-winner Marjorie O. Best for Hudson, Taylor and Dean (who died while the movie was in post-production), on loan from the Warner Bros. Corporate Archive, and production art, documents and off-set photographs from the George Stevens Collection at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
It also will include one-of-a-kind photographs and memorabilia from El Pasoan Wally Cech, who worked as a waitress on the Marfa shoot, and Nancy Hamilton, who covered the movie’s El Paso premiere at the Plaza Theatre on November 8, 1956 for the El Paso Times.
Tours, lectures and screenings of related films will be part of the Giant celebration, including a free showing of Austin filmmaker Hector Galan’s 2015 documentary Children of Giant at 2 p.m. Monday, August 8 at the El Paso Public Library auditorium.
Based on the 1952 best-seller by Edna Ferber (Show Boat), Giant chronicles a quarter century in the life of rancher Bick Benedict (Hudson) and his Eastern-bred wife Leslie (Taylor), the advent of big oil and race relations between Anglos and Mexican-Americans.
Tickets for Giant and all 90 of the movies in this year’s Plaza Classic Film Festival — including the original Star Wars trilogy, Rocky, Annie Hall and The Music Man — go on sale July 8. Festival Passes teen Film Club Passes are available at plazaclassic.com/tickets or by calling 915-533-4020.
EL PASO, TEXAS — Academy Award nominee Candy Clark will discuss her experiences with David Bowie while making The Man Who Fell to Earth at this year’s Plaza Classic Film Festival.
Clark’s appearance is part of the El Paso Community Foundation’s ninth annual Plaza Classic Film Festival, which will feature more than 90 movies from August 4-14 in and around the historic Plaza Theatre.
Clark will be interviewed at 9 p.m. Saturday, August 13 in the Plaza Theatre. The screening of the Nicolas Roeg-directed 1976 sci-fi classic will follow immediately after.
Candy played Mary-Lou, Bowie’s love interest. Bowie, who died on January 10, made his movie debut as Thomas Jerome Newton, an extraterrestrial sent to Earth to transport water to his dying planet. Bowie was at the height of his rock stardom — and battling cocaine addiction — when he took on the role. “I actually was feeling as alienated as that character was,” he told Rolling Stone. “It was a pretty natural performance. … a good exhibition of somebody literally falling apart in front of you.”
More than 20 minutes was cut from the original U.S. release. Though it was not received well at the time, the movie’s stature has grown over the years, thanks in large part to Clark’s successful efforts to get the original director’s cut released. The Man Who Fell to Earth now has an 83% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Man Who Fell to Earth was shot in New Mexico in the summer of 1975. White Sands National Monument doubled as Bowie’s home planet.
Candy Clark is a Fort Worth native who was nominated for her performance in George Lucas’ 1973 blockbuster American Graffiti. Her other movie credits include John Huston’s Fat City, The Big Sleep, More American Graffiti, Blue Thunder, At Close Range, Zodiac and When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?, which was filmed in El Paso. Her TV credits include Magnum, P.I., Matlock and Criminal Minds.
Candy will sign autographs at a time and location to be announced.
Plaza Classic Film Festival tickets go on sale July 8. Festival Passes, which include admission to all movies, are $200. A limited number of Film Club Passes, for high school students, are $100. Passes are available at plazaclassic.com/tickets and 915-533-4020.
Say “I luuurve you” when Woody Allen’s four-time Academy Award-winning romantic comedy Annie Hall comes to this year’s Plaza Classic Film Festival, presented by the El Paso Community Foundation. Allen won Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, Diane Keaton won Best Actress and the touching, inventive 1977 classic won for Best Picture.
It will be our opening night movie on Aug. 4, and the first Woody Allen movie to be shown at the Plaza Classic Film Festival, which returns for its ninth year Aug. 4-14, 2016 in and around Plaza Theatre.
We’re announcing nine more of our 90 movies each week, in honor of our ninth anniversary this year. The full schedule will be announced later this month. Tickets go on sale July 8. Festival Passes and Film Club Passes are on sale now at plazaclassic.com/tickets.
Here are eight more movies that will be in this year’s PCFF:
• Allen’s ex, Mia Farrow, stars as the unwitting mother to the devil’s spawn in Roman Polanski’s disturbing Rosemary’s Baby (1968), showing Aug. 9. It’s part of a monster/horror theme we’re planning for this year.
• Help celebrate Gregory Peck’s 100th birthday with Gentlemen’s Agreement (1947), about a journalist who goes undercover to expose anti-Semitism in a small New England town, Aug. 9
• Spencer Tracy and Fredric March square off in a fictional version of the Scopes “Monkey” Trial in Inherit the Wind (1960), Aug. 11. Sponsored by the El Paso Bar Association.
• Michael Keaton plays a disgusting ghost in the Tim Burton comedy Beetlejuice (1988), Aug. 11
• Cantinflas returns as a priest out to move a small town forward in the comedy El Padrecito (1964), Aug. 7
• Bill Murray and Scarlett Johanson play displaced souls in Tokyo in Sofia Coppola’s absorbing Lost in Translation (2003), Aug. 6
• Henry Fonda and Glenn Ford vie for the nomination of their party in The Best Man (1964), Aug. 13
• A group of kids, whose homes are in danger of foreclosure, go on an adventure after they discover a treasure map in Goonies (1985), Aug. 5.
The Italian Stallion makes his debut at the El Paso Community Foundation’s Plaza Classic Film Festival with a 40th anniversary showing of Sylvester Stallone’s Oscar-winning Rocky on Thursday, Aug. 11, sponsored by Capital Bank.
It’s one of nine more PCFF 2016 movies announced today in honor of our ninth anniversary. We’ve already revealed 30 of the 90 movies we’ll show this year, including Apocalypse Now, The Music Man, Young Frankenstein, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Cool Hand Luke, Dracula and the original Star Wars trilogy.
The Plaza Classic Film Festival returns Aug. 4-14 in and around the Plaza Theatre. Tickets go on sale in July. Festival Passes, which include admission to all ticketed events, are on sale now at plazaclassic.com/tickets.
Here are the other eight movies we’re announcing today:
• Barbra Streisand gives an Academy Award-winning performance as Fanny Brice in the beloved musical Funny Girl (1968), Aug. 14, sponsored by Debbi Hester/Realtor and Perry Hester/Realtor.
• Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman star in Alfred Hitchcock’s Nazi spy thriller Notorious (1946), Aug. 4
• John Wayne plays the Ringo Kid in the digitally restored John Ford Western classic Stagecoach (1939), Aug. 12, sponsored by Wells Fargo
• Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford get caught in a dangerous love triangle in the noir thriller Gilda (1946), Aug. 11
• Jerry Lewis plays a second-rate magician who takes a young Japanese boy under wing in The Geisha Boy (1958), Aug. 9
• Robert Mitchum plays a religious fanatic who kills women in the thriller Night of the Hunter (1955), Aug. 5
• Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter play an unlikely couple who steal a baby in the Coen Brothers’ comedy Raising Arizona (1987), Aug. 11
• Catherine Deneuve stars as a French housewife who leads a taboo double life in Luis Bunuel’s erotic Belle de Jour (1967), Aug. 11
