Rockvember: A Concert Film Cornucopia
Pink Floyd: Live At Pompeii + Led Zeppelin: The Song Remains The Same
Pink Floyd: Live At Pompeii – 7:30pm
Hey, man — remember that time you got royally stoned and went to see The Floyd’s flick, Live At Pompeii on 35mm? No? That’s because it hasn’t happened yet! But soon, man, soon! You’ll be whisked away to a steamy, volcanic landscape, with a full-on coliseum at its center — and in the center of that, one of the jammiest bands to ever cram your clam full of reverb-drenched epic prog that’ll melt your mind and diddle your eardrums. For this once-in-an-eon event, the boys are in full effect, with their array of guitars, gongs and be-knobbed synths catching the glint of a setting sun dipping below the horizon of a ghostly, ancient land. They’ll rock, they’ll talk, they’ll deny pies with crusts while betraying their star-inflated vanities — all in the midst of recording their classic album “The Dark Side Of The Moon”. The noise never stops, and there’s even a singing dog! No, daddy-o, you’re not too stoned, that’s just the way it goes, so come trip out and feast your eyes on this classic phantasmagoria!
Dir. Adrian Maben, 1972, 35mm, 85 min.
Led Zeppelin: The Song Remains The Same – 9:15pm
Lo’! Look to the east — a ship on the horizon, flying the Devil’s flag! At the helm, Robert Plant, a golden-locked god of rock with his eyes fixed on his latest conquest — Madison Square Garden, where faces will be melted mercilessly and with no quarter. The legends are true! Led Zeppelin star in one of the wildest time-travelling, grail-questing concert films ever, containing an onslaught of incredible footage from Zep’s heyday as they play one of the wildest arena gigs imaginable – interspersed with wild visions of adventure and downright bloody murder! Witness a monstrous Mafioso bleed rainbow goo after a tommy gun shoot-out! A face-morphing wizard with prismatic, stroboscopic arms that summon guitar solos from the depths of space and time! A drum solo so long that John Bonham lives his entire life in montage as it elapses! Watch one of the most beloved bands in rock history as they’re called forth from a bucolic British village in order to lay sonic siege to an all-too-eager crowd! We defy you not to headbang along!
Dirs. Peter Clifton & Joe Massot, 1976, 35mm, 137 min.
Watch Cinefamily’s original trailer for the Pink Floyd/Led Zep double bill!
Watch an excerpt from “Pink Floyd: Live At Pompeii”!
Watch the trailer for “The Song Remains The Same”!
Cinefamily Members-Only Thanksgiving Potluck & The Nite Owl (feat. The Last Waltz)
NOTE: Cinefamily members — bring some food, bring a date and/or bring your dad, because we’re potlucking it all night whilst we give our due thanks to one of the most celebrated autumnal films of all time! Members are welcome to bring as many of their friends/family as they would like. Things like bags of chips and drinks are not encouraged, so please bring a dish; impress us with your finest holiday recipe know-how! And, if this sounds like the kind of event you want to have more of in your life — then consider getting a Cinefamily membership!
Boasting one of the most mind-blowing lineups imaginable to any rock music lover, The Last Waltz has become a time-honored slice of Americana passed around like pecan pie from one generation to the next. Thrown on Thanksgiving Day ‘76, Martin Scorsese masterfully captured the best damned concert party in the history of rock ‘n roll, and framed it as the end of an era — or as a charmingly stoned Richard Danko puts it, “the beginning of the beginning of the end of the beginning.” After sixteen years on the road, The Band saw it fit to go out in flames of glory, inviting their friends along for the ride — the likes of which include Dr. John, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Neil Diamond and a bevy of other fancily-clad big names. Everyone is dressed to the nines in cartoonishly hip blazers and bottoms, and all perform at superhuman levels of harmonic perfection — making this classic doc truly live up to its immortal tagline: “It started as a concert. It became a celebration. Now it’s a legend.”
The Last Waltz Dir. Martin Scorsese, 1978, 35mm, 117 min.
Watch the trailer for “The Last Waltz”!
AC/DC: Let There Be Rock + ABBA: The Movie
AC/DC: Let There Be Rock (archival 35mm print!) – 8:00pm
Interviewer: “Do you think that there will be a Third World War?” Angus Young: “I am the Third World War.” — AC/DC: Let There Be Rock
Bathed in colors as vibrant as an adolescent acid trip, their amps stacked skyward and blaringly loud, stands the scruffy supergroup AC/DC. In front of them, thousands of rock-enthralled Parisians, banging their heads into oblivion and offering up cigarette lighters in tribute to these Aussie Gods of Riffery. Let There Be Rock is a megavolt surge of pure, testosterone-pumped, bell-bottomed bliss that will keep your toe tapping ‘til it turns black. With Bon Scott on vocals, (stuffed into a hell of a sexy denim getup) and the impossibly energetic Angus Young playing the ever-loving fuck out of his axe, tearing back and fourth across the stage in wild beat-induced gyrations! Packed with a ton of awesome footage including an extended sports-car-vs.-plane race, incoherent drunken interviews and the urban adventures of this young studly band of scoundrels, Let There Be Rock is one of the most thrilling, thunderous filmed concerts of all time.
Dirs. Eric Diyonsus & Eric Mistler, 1980, 35mm, 95 min.
ABBA: The Movie – 9:45pm
Whether you’re an ABBA worshipper (and who isn’t, deep down, to at least some degree?) or just a casual ABBA-server, ABBA: The Movie will blow you away with its impeccably photographed vistas of what was, at the time of the film’s making, the single Biggest Band On Earth. To Australians in 1977 in the throes of Anni-Frid/Benny/Bjorn/Agnetha fever, the band’s arrival for a countrywide tour was akin to The Second Coming, and this brilliant grab-bag Panavision fantasy — comprising majestic arena concert sequences, eye-popping music videos, teary-eyed fan freakouts, vérité glimpses into the behind-the-scenes ABBA machine and a bookending fictional through-line (about a bumbling radio DJ attempting to score a band interview) — is all tied together by Lasse Hallstrom (yup, the future director of The Cider House Rules and Chocolat) with the glitzy panache of a hundred Xanadus.
Dir. Lasse Hallstrom, 1977, HD presentation, 95 min.
Watch a vintage TV commercial for “AC/DC: Let There Be Rock”!
Watch Cinefamily’s original trailer for “ABBA: The Movie”!
Let The Good Times Roll + Elvis On Tour
Let The Good Times Roll – 8:00pm
Shattering all preconceived notions of classic Fifties rock ‘n roll’s vitality or relevance, Let The Good Times Roll — a blistering split-screen document of a 1973 “reunion” concert featuring sets by Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Bill Haley and the like, all bolstered by vintage footage of Eisenhower-era trappings — sweats, shakes, rattles and rolls with enough force to make even the staunchest longhair clap along and twist their hips. This ain’t no nostalgia trip, however; this is one pure mainline of devastatingly feelgood material, captured in intimate widescreen closeups that put you not just in the first row, but planted right at the feet of the timeless performers. Bo Diddley and Little Richard are particularly on fire here, effortlessly essaying their time-honored tracks into fierier, sharper, even more astonishingly boss ‘70s sounds. Part found-footage bonanza, part social commentary, all killer and no filler, Let The Good Times Roll is an unforgettable ride to the heart of the modern American soul. Be there!
Dirs. Robert Abel & Sidney Levin, 1973, 35mm, 99 min.
Elvis On Tour – 10:00pm
Beaming in his rhinestone rodeo duds, backed by the tightest band conceivable and with all the shimmering energy of a thousand volcanic suns, Elvis Presley hipquakes his way through the vérité doc Elvis On Tour with all the resplendent theatricality of an Aztec god, and we are left to bask in the afterglow. Capturing all the nooks and crannies from a wildly successful 1972 U.S. tour — and utilizing enough completely rad split- and multi-screen projections to make even Brian De Palma squeal — co-directors Robert Abel and Pierre Adidge (with a little help from the film’s “montage supervisor” Martin Scorsese) paint an astounding fly-on-the-wall portrait of Elvis as a generous, easy-goin’ Southern boy who just happens to moonlight as an ultra-hard-workin’ American icon to gazillons of fevered disciples, young and old. Set against all the juicy Memphis Mafia-populated limo rides, misty morning private jet encounters and hysterical adulations from the beehived “kiss my grits!” crowd we’d rightly expect, Elvis On Tour lovingly presents The King at the peak of his post-’68 comeback game.
Dirs. Robert Abel & Pierre Adidge, 1972, HD presentation, 93 min.
Watch Chuck Berry perform in split-screen Panavision in “Let The Good Times Roll”!
Watch the trailer for “Elvis On Tour”!
