NYC, 1975: the greatest, grittiest city on Earth is minutes away from bankruptcy when an unlikely alliance of rookies, rivals, fixers and flexers finds common ground -- and a way out.

The New Yorker: The delight of “Drop Dead City” is that it’s a symphony of voices, past and present. The film’s interviews mesh, even rhyme, with archival clips documenting events as they unfolded, participants discussing their activities in the moment, and news reports that aired at the time.

Muriel and her husband Lee are beginning a bright new lifein California when he returns from the Korean War. But their newfound stabilityis upended by the arrival of Lee's charismatic brother, Julius, a waywardgambler with a secret past. A dangerous love triangle quickly forms. WhenJulius takes off in search of the young card cheat he's fallen for, Muriel’slonging for something more propels her into a secret life of her own, gambling on racehorses andexploring a love she never dreamed possible.

R (Nudity| Some Language| Sexual Content)

1 HR 57 Min

SWAMP DOGG GETS HIS POOL PAINTED is a wildly entertaining and fittingly unconventional documentary about convention-defying singer, songwriter and record producer Jerry Williams, aka Swamp Dogg, one of the great cult figures of 20th-centuryAmerican music whose singular voice and ideas have shaped the history not merely of soul music, but of country, hip-hop and a dozen other genres.

In SWAMP DOGG GETS HIS POOL PAINTED, the titular artist and his “bachelor pad of aging musicians”, including the charming Guitar Shorty and lovably quirky Moogstar, navigate the tumultuous music industry, transform their home into an artistic playground and invite fellow musicians like Jenny Lewis and John Prine and superfans Mike Judge, Johnny Knoxville and Tom Kenny to play in their unique musical sandbox...and paint Swamp Dogg’s pool. Bursting with infectious personality and stoner energy, SWAMPDOGG GETSHIS POOL PAINTED is a music documentary unlike any other.

Jared joins us once again to introduce and discuss 3 foundational surreal short films, from Bunuel/Dali, Germaine Dulac, and Jean Cocteau.

Jared’s film essays can be found here: https://www.cinema-worcester.com/surreal-cinema

An elegantly assembled diary of the Palestinian experience, No Other Land is a harrowing document that leaves traces of hope for a better future.

For half a decade, Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist, films his community of Masafer Yatta being destroyed by Israel’s occupation, as he builds an unlikely alliance with a journalist from the other side who joins his fight.

1 HR 36 Min

Released in 1977, Lynch's “Eraserhead” is a steampunk cinematic chamber play, a hallucinatory tour through a private, interior world. – The New Yorker

Henry (John Nance) resides alone in a bleak apartment surrounded by industrial gloom. When he discovers that an earlier fling with Mary X (Charlotte Stewart) left her pregnant, he marries the expectant mother and has her move in with him. Things take a decidedly strange turn when the couple's baby turns out to be a bizarre lizard-like creature that won't stop wailing. Other characters, including a disfigured lady who lives inside a radiator, inhabit the building and add to Henry's troubles.

“The Shrouds,” about a widower who deals with his grief by creating a new kind of cemetery where the living can observe the decay of their loved ones’ bodies, is a Cronenbergian body horror of integrity and force. **** - RogerEbert.com

In an eerie, deceptively placid near-future, a techno-entrepreneur named Karsh (Vincent Cassel) has developed a new software that will allow the bereaved to bear witness to the gradual decay of loved ones dead and buried in the earth. While Karsh is still reeling from the loss of his wife (Diane Kruger) from cancer—and falling into a peculiar sexual relationship with his wife’s sister (also Kruger)—a spate of vandalized graves utilizing his “shroud” technology begins to put his enterprise at risk, leading him to uncover a potentially vast conspiracy. Written following the death of the director’s wife, the new film from David Cronenberg is both a profoundly personal reckoning with grief and a descent into noir-tinged dystopia, set in an ominous world of self-driving cars, data theft, and A.I. personal assistants. Offering Cronenberg’s customary balance of malevolence and wit, The Shrouds is a sly and thought-provoking consideration of the corporeal and the digital, the mortal and the infinite.

 2 Hrs

 R for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, language and some violent content

FREE EVENT! Come see the works of 4 local students and hear them discuss their films.

*films by

Alex Lucier

Delaney DeNorscia

Andrew Lucier

Julia Forest

An expansive and revelatory inside look at the 18 months John Lennon and Yoko Ono spent living in Greenwich Village in the early 1970s, ONE TO ONE: JOHN & YOKO delivers an immersive cinematic experience that brings to life electrifying, never-before-seen material and newly restored footage of Lennon's only full-length, post-Beatles concert. With mind-blowing remastered audio overseen by their son, Sean Ono Lennon, the film is a seismic revelation that will challenge pre-existing notions of the iconic couple.

“fun, fierce, full-blooded portrait of Lennon and Ono” – The Guardian

MEANWHILE is a docu-poem in six verses about artists breathing through chaos. In dynamic collaboration, Jacqueline Woodson (text), Meshell Ndegeocello (soundscape), Erika Dilday (support), M. Trevino (structure), and Catherine Gund (direction), combine artists' expressions with historical and observational footage to unveil a rare cinematic mediation about identity, race, racism and resistance as they shape our shared breath. Centering breath as a symbol of resilience, Meanwhile captures raw, unfinished moments--dancers in rehearsal, artists midway through their work--focusing on the act of creation. Rooted in the upheavals of 2020, the film uses breath as its through-line to symbolize collective survival. It invites viewers to witness the process of liberation and be present in the "meanwhile"--a moment of creation, struggle, and hope that transcends fixed identities.

“‘Meanwhile’...feels like both a provocation and a request to consider what flourishing looks like in this chaotic moment — for Black Americans, and for anyone who finds themselves drowning, struggling to breathe.”

“...the movie suggests freedom is something you can experience while also working toward freedom’s creation. Artists know that for sure — ‘Meanwhile’ aims to make it clear to everyone.” “...this is, indeed, poetry.” – New York Times

 1 Hr 28 Min

Maria Schneider (Anamaria Vartolomei) is a promising, young French actress. When she gets the lead in a feature film directed by an acclaimed Italian filmmaker and starring one of America's most beloved actors, it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime. Her collaborators, director Bernardo Bertolucci and star Marlon Brando (Matt Dillon) seem to be bringing out the best in Maria, sharing a warm rapport and mentorship with the 19-year old girl. Until one day, when the two men conspire to shoot a crucial sex scene as a harrowing assault without letting Maria in on the plan. The film goes on to be lauded as a fearless artistic breakthrough, but for Maria, it’s the beginning of a living hell. Based on the behind-the-scenes true story of the making of Last Tango in Paris, Jessica Palud's sensitive biopic centers Maria's story for the first time.

In 2003, eight Rhode Islanders created a secret apartment inside the busy Providence Place Mall and kept it going for four years, filming everything along the way. Far more than just a wild prank, the secret mall apartment became an incredibly meaningful act for all the participants, at once an act of defiance against local gentrification, a boundary-pushing work of public/private art, and a 750 square foot space that sticks it to the man.

"Deliriously entertaining and moving."
–Bilge Ebiri, Vulture

"Fascinating...A delightful, thought-provoking movie that’s about a lot of things at the same time. It’ll make you see the world with fresh eyes."
-Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com

“Impossibly compelling... Has the tension and fun of a crime caper”
–Paste Magazine

“Remarkable...A dazzling doc that’s a kiss-off to gentrification.”
–The Daily Beast

A look at the all-too-short life and career of enigmatic comedy legend Andy Kaufman, including never-before-seen footage and intimate interviews with friends, colleagues and family members.

1 HR 39 Min

An elegantly assembled diary of the Palestinian experience, No Other Land is a harrowing document that leaves traces of hope for a better future.

For half a decade, Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist, films his community of Masafer Yatta being destroyed by Israel’s occupation, as he builds an unlikely alliance with a journalist from the other side who joins his fight.

1 HR 36 Min

Loving Vincent's dazzling visual achievements make this Van Gogh biopic well worth seeking out.

In a story depicted in oil painted animation, a young man comes to the last hometown of painter Vincent van Gogh to deliver the troubled artist's final letter and ends up investigating his final days there.

PG-13

1 HR 34 Min

A vibrant exploration of family and social mores, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl marks another superb effort from writer-director Rungano Nyoni.

On an empty road in the middle of the night, Shula stumbles across the body of her uncle. As funeral proceedings begin around them, she and her cousins bring to light the buried secrets of their middle-class Zambian family, in filmmaker Rungano Nyoni's surreal and vibrant reckoning with the lies we tell ourselves.

PG-13 (Thematic Material|Sexual Abuse|Suggestive References|Some Drug Use)

1 HR 39 Min