Our second Volunteer Of The Month screening comes courtesy of the amazing Ashley, as she has picked Strange Days, now celebrating its 30th anniversary!
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, written by James Cameron and Jay Cocks, and dropped into theaters at the tail end of 1995, Strange Days imagined the future as 1999—and it still feels prophetic. A blistering mix of cyberpunk noir, apocalyptic paranoia, and visceral street-level urgency, the film follows Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes), a black-market dealer of “playback” clips—full-sensory VR experiences recorded straight from the mind—who stumbles onto a murder, a conspiracy, and a revolution in the making.
Set during the final 48 hours of the millennium in a decaying, riot-torn Los Angeles, Strange Days explodes with Y2K anxiety, racial tension, police brutality, and techno-addiction—all filtered through Bigelow’s kinetic, hyper-physical direction and a pounding industrial score.
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Fireworks, parades, patriotic bunting—and one sound that doesn’t belong. A scream? A gunshot? A tire blowout? No Fourth Of July celebration at The Frida would be complete without Brian De Palma’s 1981 masterpiece Blow Out!
John Travolta gives one of his best performances as Jack Terry, a sound technician for low-budget horror flicks who accidentally records a political assassination while gathering ambient sound one night. What follows is a paranoid plunge into reel-to-reel surveillance, media manipulation, and a conspiracy no one wants to hear.
A riff on Antonioni’s Blow-Up and Coppola’s The Conversation, but soaked in De Palma’s signature split-diopter style and operatic tension, Blow Out turns patriotic imagery into a nightmare canvas—stars and stripes flickering under streetlamps and firecrackers masking murder. Featuring Nancy Allen, John Lithgow in full psycho-mode, and a finale that literally weaponizes Independence Day spectacle, this is one of the sharpest political thrillers of the 1980s and one of De Palma’s true masterpieces.
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Taking our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series into the 90’s is Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s heart-pounding 1997 thriller Cure, widely regarded as one of the best, most original, and most influential psychological horror films of the decade.
A detective investigates a string of grisly murders—each victim killed in the same ritualistic manner, each murderer caught at the scene, unable to explain why they did it. The only connection? A mysterious drifter who seems to erase people’s memories—and unlock something buried deep inside them.
With icy precision and a creeping sense of dread, Cure is not just a murder mystery—it’s a meditation on identity and unraveling. Shot in long, haunting takes and drained colors, the film moves like a fog over post-economic-boom Japan: quiet and uncertain.
Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema is a curated 12-film trip through the evolution of Japan—from the quiet post-war resilience of the 1940s all the way to the radical reinventions of the 1990s. This July-October, we will explore a new facet of this incredible nation’s cinematic journey throughout the 20th century. All films will be presented in their original Japanese language with English subtitles, at a reduced ticket price of $8.
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Based on the real-life story of serial murderer Akira Nishiguchi, Vengeance Is Mine is the next film in our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series! The story follows Iwao Enokizu, a charming drifter and remorseless killer who leaves a trail of death and deception across Japan. But this is not a crime thriller—it’s a forensic excavation of a man’s broken psyche and a nation’s suppressed demons.
Director Shohei Imamura—known for his fascination with society’s underbelly—eschews sensationalism for something more disturbing: a portrait of evil not as anomaly, but as a product of postwar dislocation, generational trauma, and cultural repression. This is Japan far removed from the poetics of Ozu or the mythic ghosts of Kobayashi.
Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema is a curated 12-film trip through the evolution of Japan—from the quiet post-war resilience of the 1940s all the way to the radical reinventions of the 1990s. Each Monday this July-September, we will explore a new facet of this incredible nation’s cinematic journey throughout the 20th century! All films will be presented in their original Japanese language with English subtitles!
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Equal parts Spaghetti Western, French New Wave, and hard-boiled noir, Takashi Nomura’s A Colt Is My Passport (original Japanese title: Koruto wa ore no pasupôto) is coming back for a few encores to start off September! Joe Shishido (and those famously surgically-enhanced cheeks for which he became known) stars as a stoic gun-for-hire navigating a botched assassination, double-crosses, and a bloody standoff at the edge of town.
With stark black-and-white cinematography, stylized action, and a jazzy score, the film plays like a fusion of Jean-Pierre Melville and Sergio Leone, all filtered through the lens of late-’60s Japanese cynicism. It represents the turn in Japanese cinema from introspective postwar realism to a new wave of genre experimentation and rebellion.
Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema is a curated 12-film trip through the evolution of Japan—from the quiet post-war resilience of the 1940s all the way to the radical reinventions of the 1990s. Each Monday this July-September, we will explore a new facet of this incredible nation’s cinematic journey throughout the 20th century. All films will be presented in their original Japanese language with English subtitles, at a reduced ticket price of $8.
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This year’s Segerstrom at The Frida series kicks off with Some Like it Hot, Billy Wilder’s hilarious 1959 screwball comedy that follows two down-on-their-luck musicians, Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon), who witness a gangland massacre and flee Chicago disguised as women in an all-female band on their way to a Florida resort. On the run, they become Josephine and Daphne, traveling with the enchanting Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), a singer with dreams of marrying a millionaire. Romantic entanglements and mistaken identities spiral out of control in a Florida resort, culminating in what many consider to be one of the funniest comedies of all time.
See the movie. then experience the brand new Tony and Grammy Award-winning stage musical! Running October 7 – 19 at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, experience the “glorious, toe-tapping, razzle-dazzling” (Deadline) Some Like it Hot! Visit scfta.org/events/2025/some-like-it-hot for info and tickets!
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Ridley Scott’s girl trip Thelma & Louise winds down our Pride Month programming with a brand new 4K restoration!
The story follows Thelma (Geena Davis), a timid housewife, and Louise (Susan Sarandon), a no-nonsense waitress, as they embark on what starts as a weekend getaway and turns into a flight from the law. After Louise kills a man who attempts to rape Thelma, the two hit the road, realizing that the justice system is unlikely to see their side. Their journey becomes one of personal awakening, radical defiance, and ultimately, tragic liberation.
Thelma & Louise is more than a road movie—it’s a feminist landmark, a genre-defying tale of friendship, freedom, and fury that still resonates over three decades later.
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Join us for two screenings of James Wan’s 2004 horror classic Saw, playing this year as part of our Pride Month programming!
Two men wake up to find themselves shackled in a grimy, abandoned bathroom. As they struggle to comprehend their predicament, they discover a disturbing tape left behind by the sadistic mastermind known as Jigsaw. With a chilling voice and cryptic instructions, Jigsaw informs them that they must partake in a gruesome game in order to secure their freedom.
Join us for two screenings of James Wan’s 2004 horror classic Saw, playing this year as part of our Pride Month programming!
Two men wake up to find themselves shackled in a grimy, abandoned bathroom. As they struggle to comprehend their predicament, they discover a disturbing tape left behind by the sadistic mastermind known as Jigsaw. With a chilling voice and cryptic instructions, Jigsaw informs them that they must partake in a gruesome game in order to secure their freedom.
Saw may not wave a rainbow flag, but in the best tradition of horror, it’s deeply, delightfully queer. From its sadomasochistic aesthetics to its fixation on secrets, guilt, and transformation, Saw taps into queer-coded themes of repression and revelation. The entire franchise revolves around hidden lives, bodies under pressure, and moral tests imposed by a voyeuristic authority. Watch it again and make the choice for yourself!
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Our Hallucinations series continues in June with the mash-up of historical drama, exploitation cinema, and art-house in Toshiya Fujita’s revenge tale Lady Snowblood!
Yuki’s family is nearly wiped out before she is born due to the machinations of a band of criminals. These criminals kidnap and brutalize her mother but leave her alive. Later her mother ends up in prison with only revenge to keep her alive. She creates an instrument for this revenge by purposefully getting pregnant. Yuki never knows the love of a family but only killing and revenge.
A cult sensation upon release, Lady Snowblood gained international fame in the decades that followed, particularly after Quentin Tarantino cited it as a major influence on Kill Bill, borrowing both stylistic elements and its iconic theme song (“Shura no Hana,” performed by Kaji herself).
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Edit: due to the ongoing situation in both Los Angeles and Santa Ana, Freddy Macdonald will no longer be able to join us for the Q&A at this screening. Apologies in advance!
An official selection at SXSW and SITGES, the clever new caper film Sew Torn is making its way to The Frida Cinema for one night only! And make sure to stick around after the screening for a Q&A with writer/director Freddy Macdonald!
A seamstress gets tangled in her own thread after stealing a briefcase from a drug deal gone bad. In an escalating game of cat and mouse, her different choices lead to drastically different outcomes along the way.
In 2021, Freddy Macdonald graduated as the youngest Directing Fellow to ever attend AFI. His AFI thesis film, Shedding Angels, won a Student Academy Award and was shortlisted for a student BAFTA.
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