STEPHEN FREARS’S ENGLAND @ AMMI

Date/Time: 05/07/2003 12:00 am

STEPHEN FREARS’S ENGLAND
July 5-14, 2003
Dirty Pretty Things, the new drama by Stephen Frears about London’s immigrant underworld, is at once gritty and romantic, dark and humorous. It is also a return to the setting of some of his finest films, made in his home country. Such films as My Beautiful Laundrette, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid, and Prick up Your Ears are remarkable for the deceptive ease with which they blend personal and political concerns, and for their richness of atmosphere, detail, and drama.
Organized by David Schwartz, Chief Curator of Film
Saturday, July 5
2:00 p.m.
GUMSHOE
Columbia, 1971, 88 mins. With Albert Finney.
Finney produced and starred in Frears’s feature debut, playing a Liverpool bingo caller who fancies himself a Bogart-style detective. As with The Grifters, Frears spoofs film noir while crafting a complex thriller.
4:00 p.m.
MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE
Orion Classics, 1985, 93 mins.
With Daniel Day-Lewis. Frears made his international reputation with this richly textured direction of novelist Hanif Kureishi’s portrait of immigrant life and gay romance in Thatcher-era England.
Sunday, July 6
2:00 p.m.
BLOODY KIDS
U.K., 1979, 91 mins.
In this high-octane, anarchic youth film, two teens go on a Saturday-night spree that includes girls, booze, and murder. Deemed too violent for theaters, the film was shown on TV.
4:00 p.m.
MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDRETTE
See Saturday, July 5, 4:00 p.m.
Saturday, July 12
2:00 p.m.
SAMMY AND ROSIE GET LAID
Cinecom, 1987, 97 mins.
With Frances Barber, Ayub Khan Din. Written by Hanif Kureishi.
In this sprawling multi-culti anti-Thatcher comedy, a middle-class liberal couple engages in open adultery while social upheaval roils around them.
4:00 p.m.
PRICK UP YOUR EARS
Samuel Goldwyn, 1987, 110 mins. With Gary Oldman, Alfred Molina, Vanessa Redgrave.
Oldman is astonishing as the openly gay playwright Joe Orton in Frears’s comic and disturbing adaptation of the John Lahr biography.
Sunday, July 13
2:00 p.m.
BLOODY KIDS
See Sunday, July 6, 2:00 p.m.
4:00 p.m.
SAMMY AND ROSIE GET LAID
See Saturday, July 12, 2:00 p.m.
Monday, July 14
7:00 p.m.
PREVIEW SCREENING AND PINEWOOD DIALOGUE WITH STEPHEN FREARS DIRTY PRETTY THINGS
Miramax, 2002, 94 mins. With Audrey Tautou, Sophie Okonedo.
Returning to the milieu of his London films of the 1980s, Frears is “at the top of his form” (Variety) in this romantic drama/thriller set in London’s immigrant underworld. After the screening, Frears will discuss his career in a discussion moderated by David Schwartz, Chief Curator of Film.
Tickets: $12 public/$8 members. 718-784-4520. At the AMC Empire 25, 234 West 42nd Street, Manhattan.