Picturehouse 441

Picturehouse 441 and ACE are proud to be partnering on a series of live virtual Q&As as part of our mutual efforts to promote film literacy.

Join us for a Q&A with editor Billy Weber, as he discusses his work on 1978 romantic period drama Days of Heaven. Terrence Malick's follow-up to Badlands, is one of the most visually-stunning films ever produced and widely touted as one of the greatest films ever made. Working with master cinematographer Néstor Almendros, Malick conjures painterly images so rich and fully-realized that they boggle the mind. Intensely moving and emotionally rich with a score by the great Ennio Morricone, this Texas-set mini epic demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible. Of particular note is the work of editor Billy Weber who works perfectly in sync with the poetic filmmaker’s rhythms, so much so that the film is considered one of the best-edited by the Motion Picture Editors Guild.

The event will be a Zoom Webinar on Monday, February 26 at 8PM ET/5PM PT.

Picturehouse 441 and ACE are proud to be partnering on a series of live virtual Q&As as part of our mutual efforts to promote film literacy.
Join us for a Q&A with director Martin Campbell and editor Stuart Baird, ACE, as they discuss the 2006 spy film Casino Royale. After decades of declining quality, the Bond franchise was rebooted by director Martin Campbell with Casino Royale, a gritty, brutal spy thriller that deservingly made Daniel Craig a world-famous star. Known for his successful and acclaimed action films, including the 1995 007 entry, GoldenEye, Campbell gave the franchise a much-needed grounding in realism, making Casino Royale hit hard both in its violence and emotionality. Filled with muscular set pieces and stellar supporting performances from Mads Mikkelsen and Eva Green and edited by Stuart Baird, ACE, this film completely reshaped the beloved franchise and influenced countless subsequent films, including its direct sequels. This event will be a Zoom Webinar on Wednesday, March 6 at 4PM ET/1PM PT.

On Monday, March 11, join us for a Q&A with actor Elliott Gould, as he discusses his work on the 1973 satirical neo-noir film The Long Goodbye. After flipping the Western on its head with his 1971 masterwork, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, maverick director Robert Altman turned his lens towards Film Noir with 1973’s The Long Goodbye. Updating the classic Philip Marlowe novel to 1970s Los Angeles, Altman re-teamed with inimitable Elliott Gould as a pot-smoking version of the detective for this film. Gould’s take on Marlowe is as original as it is strikingly human, and his and Altman’s influence can be felt in such films as The Big Lebowski and Inherent Vice. Despite being met with a mixed critical and commercial reception upon release, this cynical classic has deservedly undergone a major re-evaluation and is now considered one of the defining works of 1970s Cinema. Editing by Lou Lombardo, editor of classic films such as The Wild Bunch and McCabe & Mrs. Miller. This event will be a Zoom Webinar on Monday, March 11 at 8PM ET/5PM PT.

Tune in on Wednesday, March 13, to watch a Q&A with cinematographer Guillermo Navarro, AMC, ASC, as he discusses his work on the 2006 film Pan's Labyrinth. Guillermo Del Toro’s dark fantasy, Pan's Labyrinth, is Alice in Wonderland by way of the Spanish Civil War, and even that is a reductive way of describing this simultaneously wondrous and brutal film. Following a young girl sent to the Spanish countryside to escape the horrors of war who encounters a mysterious fantasy world by night, this film wrenchingly explores the loss of innocence during wartime and the need for escape. Featuring jaw-droppingly rich work from cinematographer Guillermo Navarro who won one of the film’s three Oscars, Pan's Labyrinth is one of the essentials of modern-day cinema that finds its beloved filmmaker letting his imagination run gloriously wild. Pan's Labyrinth was edited by Bernat Vilaplana. This event will be a Zoom Webinar on Wednesday, March 13 at 8PM ET/5PM PT.

Picturehouse 441 & ACE are proud to be partnering on a series of live virtual Q&As as part of our mutual efforts to promote film literacy.

On Monday, April 1, join us for a Q&A with composer Alan Menken, as he discusses his work on the 1986 horror comedy musical film Little Shop of Horrors.

"On the twenty-third day of the month of September, in an early year of a decade not too long before our own, the human race suddenly encountered a deadly threat to its very existence. And this terrifying enemy surfaced, as such enemies often do, in the seemingly most innocent and unlikely of places..." and so begins Little Shop of Horrors, a wild, weird, completely demented, and utterly ingenious musical film adaptation of the Off-Broadway sensation by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, itself an adaptation of a zero-budget Roger Corman-directed film from 1960. What makes Little Shop shine is the obvious love put into its creation. Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, Steve Martin, Vincent Gardenia, and Levi Stubbs (as the voice of Audrey II) are note-perfect, the technical wizardry that Frank Oz and his team brought to give life to the plant through practical effects is nothing short of astonishing, and Ashman and Menken's literate and clever score ranks with the greats. With editing by John Jympson, ACE, a film with a bloodthirsty talking plant, a sadistic dentist, and big musical numbers may not sound like classic movie material, but Little Shop is so infectiously energetic and entertaining that it's impossible to resist. This event will be a Zoom Webinar on Monday, April 1 at 8PM ET/5PM PT.

*ACE members, please check your email for free ticket information.*

Picturehouse 441 & ACE are proud to be partnering on a series of live virtual Q&As as part of our mutual efforts to promote film literacy.

Tune in on April 4, tune in to watch a Q&A with actor Viggo Mortensen as he discusses his work on the 2005 action thriller film A History of Violence. Kicking off a multi-film collaboration between master filmmaker David Cronenberg and star Viggo Mortensen, A History of Violence is arguably the pair's strongest – a lean, mean thriller about a family man whose past life violently starts to catch up with him. Coming off of his star-making performances in Lord of the Rings, Viggo Mortensen does career-best work that showcases his impressive versatility, sometimes within a single scene in this film. And, History finds Cronenberg in more grounded but no less provocative territory than usual, toning down his more surreal impulses for this film. Haunting and visceral in equal measure, A History of Violence is one of the essential films of the 2000s that makes for bruising, unforgettable viewing. A History of Violence is expertly edited by Ronald Sanders, ACE. This event will be a Zoom Webinar on Thursday, April 4 at 3PM ET/12PM PT.

*ACE members, please check your email for free ticket information.*

Picturehouse 441 and ACE are proud to be partnering on a series of live virtual Q&As as part of our mutual efforts to promote film literacy.
Join us for a Q&A with writer/director Paul Schrader & editor Benjamin Rodriguez, Jr., as they discuss 2017 psychological drama First Reformed. Paul Schrader’s late-career opus, First Reformed, found the veteran filmmaker reinvigorated and finally earned him his first Oscar nomination (for his screenplay). A gonzo take on Bergman’s Winter Light, this thought-provoking, complicated, and frequently outrageous film asks huge questions, allows them to marinate, and then dips out, leaving the audience to answer the questions it poses for themselves. Ethan Hawke, Amanda Seyfried, and Cedric the Entertainer give three difficult, intense performances, and Schrader takes huge risks that all add up to hugely satisfying sensation. First Reformed was expertly edited by Benjamin Rodriguez, Jr. This event will be a Zoom Webinar on Thursday, April 25 at 8PM ET/5PM PT.

**ACE Members, please check your email for a complimentary ticket to this virtual Q&A.**

Picturehouse 441 and ACE are proud to be partnering on a series of live virtual Q&As as part of our mutual efforts to promote film literacy.
Join us for a Q&A with editor Mark Helfrich, ACE, as he discusses his work on the 1995 erotic drama Showgirls. While Picturehouse 441 is normally dedicated to exploring essential cinema, we wanted to take a night to explore one of cinema’s most beloved cult classics: Showgirls. After the smash-hit success of Basic Instinct, legendary director Paul Verhoeven and enfant terrible screenwriter Joe Eszterhas joined forces again for Showgirls. The film’s ambitions couldn’t have been higher: Saved By the Bell’s Elizabeth Berkeley wanted to use the film to break into serious roles, Verhoeven and Eszterhas aimed to satirize the cutthroat, sleazy world of Sin City strippers, and the film would be the most widely-released NC-17-rated film ever. What actually resulted is one of the most notorious films in modern cinema history - a critically-assailed, Razzie-sweeping box office flop that quickly garnered a huge cult following and record-breaking ($100 million+) video sales for MGM. However, SHOWGIRLS did demonstrate that beneath all of the fabulously over-the-top line readings, insane sex scenes, and nonsensical behavior was typically strong technical craft, exemplified by Mark Helfrich, ACE, and Mark Goldblatt, ACE’s electric editing. This one-of-a-kind event will explore the makings of this wildly entertaining phenomenon through the eyes of one of the veteran editors who was tasked with putting it together. This event will be a Zoom Webinar on Thursday, May 30 at 8PM ET/5PM PT. **ACE members, please check your email for free ticket information.**

Join us on Monday, June 3 for a Q&A with editor Jake Roberts, ACE, as he discusses his work on the 2024 dystopian thriller Civil War. Advertised as an action-packed political thriller, Alex Garland’s latest directorial effort, Civil War, is a far more humane though suitably intense work that stands as a testament to war journalists’ bravery in the face of a new American civil war. As cut by Garland’s longtime editor, Oscar-nominee Jake Roberts, ACE, Civil War is a patiently-paced film spotted with scenes of prolonged tension that are effectively interspersed with still images of the conflict being covered by the film’s characters. Elevated by outstanding work from Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny, Wagner Moura, and Stephen McKinley Henderson, Civil War marks another distinctive and vital work from Alex Garland who, through Ex Machina, Annihilation, and Men, has established himself as one of the world’s most exciting writer-director double-threats after a remarkable career as a screenwriter. This event will be a Zoom Webinar on Monday, June 3 at 8PM ET/5PM PT. **ACE members, please check your email for free ticket information.**

Tune in on Wednesday, June 5, to watch a Q&A with supervising sound editor Dody Dorn, ACE; sound designer Blake Leyh; cinematographer Mikael Salomon, ASC as they discuss their work on the special edition of the 1989 science fiction film The Abyss. After two smash hits in a row with The Terminator and Aliens, James Cameron took on The Abyss, a characteristically ambitious underwater thriller that became the first commercial disappointment of his career. A few years after the film's theatrical release, Cameron went back to the deep to both further develop characters and properly realize the film's VFX-filled conclusion. The resulting special edition is a visual and aural groundbreaker with its Oscar-winning special effects, Oscar-nominated cinematography, and Oscar-nominated sound that admirably remains grounded due to its marital drama played out powerfully by Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. Expertly edited by Conrad Buff, ACE, Joel Goodman and Howard E. Smith, ACE, 35 years after its release, this once-maligned film stands tall in the master filmmaker's filmography. This event will be a Zoom Webinar on Wednesday, June 5 at 8PM ET/5PM PT. **ACE members, please check your email for free ticket information.**