A slow-burning masterwork of the early 1990s, To Sleep With Anger is a singular piece of American mythmaking that we are honored to include as part of our Three By Charles Burnett series!

In a towering performance, Danny Glover plays the enigmatic southern drifter Harry, a devilish charmer who turns up out of the blue on the South Central Los Angeles doorstep of his old friends. In short order, Harry’s presence seems to cast a chaotic spell on what appeared to be a peaceful household, exposing smoldering tensions between parents and children, tradition and change, virtue and temptation.

Interweaving evocative strains of gospel and blues with rich, poetic-realist images, To Sleep with Anger is a sublimely stirring film from an autonomous artistic sensibility; a portrait of family resilience steeped in the traditions of African American mysticism and folklore.

Akira Kurosawa’s three hour epic, Red Beard, is screening at The Frida Cinema with a brand new 4K restoration via our friends at Janus Films!

Red Beard chronicles the tumultuous relationship between an arrogant young doctor and a compassionate clinic director. Toshiro Mifune, in his last role for Kurosawa, gives a powerhouse performance as the dignified yet empathic director who guides his pupil to maturity, teaching the embittered intern to appreciate the lives of his destitute patients. Perfectly capturing the look and feel of 19th-century Japan, Kurosawa weaves a fascinating tapestry of time, place, and emotion.

One…last…plan. 

At long last, Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie is finally going to play at The Frida Cinema! 

As the long-gestating feature expansion of the cult Canadian series Nirvanna the Band the Show, created by and starring Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol, the film continues the misadventures of the two best friends. As relentlessly delusional Toronto musicians, their main goal in life is to “play a show at the Rivoli.” When their plan goes horribly wrong, Matt and Jay accidentally travel back to the year 2008. Yes, that is the plot synopsis of this feature film we are running for a full week at our theater.

Like the series, the movie blurs fiction and reality, staging elaborate public pranks with unsuspecting bystanders while escalating the characters’ schemes to increasingly absurd and self-destructive extremes. If you love comedy that feels like it might collapse at any second, or perhaps maybe even get its creators thrown in jail, boy do we have a movie for you and your friends to come see!