July’s Volunteer Of The Month pick is Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, courtesy of River!
A meticulously crafted tale of murder, theft, pastry, poetry, and polite panic, The Grand Budapest Hotel is Anderson at his most whimsical, melancholic, and madcap. Set in a fictional Eastern European republic between the wars, the film charts the adventures of legendary concierge Gustave H. (a pitch-perfect Ralph Fiennes) and his loyal lobby boy Zero as they’re swept into a plot involving a stolen painting, a greedy family, prison breaks, fascists, and a disappearing world of civility.
Blending Anderson’s signature pastel-perfect aesthetics with a screwball crime caper and a poignant elegy for lost elegance, the film boasts an ensemble bursting at the seams: Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Saoirse Ronan, Jeff Goldblum, F. Murray Abraham, Harvey Keitel, Léa Seydoux, Jude Law, and—of course—Bill Murray.
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You sold it last month, so Joel Schumacher’s The Phantom of the Opera (2004) is coming back for a one-night-only encore!
A lavish, operatic fever dream of unrequited love and pure spectacle, this bold adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s iconic stage musical transforms the beloved Broadway production into a grand cinematic spectacle bursting with candlelit catacombs, crashing chandeliers, and soaring ballads. Starring Gerard Butler as the tortured Phantom, Emmy Rossum as the angel-voiced Christine, and Patrick Wilson as the dashing Raoul, Schumacher’s take is a maximalist and unapologetic in a way only he could do!
Boasting a 33% on Rotten Tomatoes, the film was received poorly upon its initial release. Come see it on the big screen and judge for yourself!
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The final film in our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series is Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 1998 masterwork After Life!
In After Life, the recently deceased arrive at a waystation between this world and the next. Their task? To choose a single memory from their lives to take with them into eternity. A small team of counselors helps each soul re-create that memory on film, allowing them to move on—leaving everything else behind.
With a mix of actors and real interviews, After Life blurs the line between fiction and documentary, imagination and memory. The result is a quietly transcendent film that contemplates the meaning of life not through grand events, but through small, deeply human moments.
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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The penultimate film in our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series is Isao Takahata’s Grave Of The Fireflies!
In the final days of World War II, two siblings—teenaged Seita and his little sister Setsuko—struggle to survive in firebombed Kobe after losing their home, their parents, and eventually, their place in a society that has collapsed around them. What follows is not just a war story, but a story of love, resilience, and unbearable loss.
Rendered with breathtaking beauty by the legendary animators at Studio Ghibli, Grave of the Fireflies is often called one of the greatest animated films ever made. It is also one of the most emotionally shattering anti-war films of any kind—haunting not because of spectacle, but because of its heartbreaking truth.
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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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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Kicking off the August portion of our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series is Kwaidan, director Masaki Kobayashi’s fascinating meditation on memory, regret, and the delicate boundary between the living and the dead.
Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning “ghost story,” this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is saved by Yuki the Snow Maiden, but his rescue comes at a cost. Blind musician Hoichi is forced to perform for an audience of ghosts. An author relates the story of a samurai who sees another warrior’s reflection in his teacup.
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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The third film in our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series is Woman in the Dunes, a film about an entomologist on a casual field trip that finds himself lured into a nightmarish existence—trapped in a sand dune with a mysterious woman and forced into a Sisyphean task of survival. What begins as a bizarre circumstance becomes a harrowing philosophical inquiry into time, identity, and the illusion of freedom.
Based on the novel by Kōbō Abe, and brought to life by Hiroshi Teshigahara’s stark, surreal direction and Torū Takemitsu’s haunting score, Woman in the Dunes is a landmark of Japan’s 1960s avant-garde cinema. Nominated for two Academy Awards and winner of the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, it’s both a psychological thriller and a profound existential riddle.
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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A haunting masterpiece of Japanese cinema, Ugetsu is the second film in our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series. Kenji Mizoguchi’s hypnotic camera work, long takes, and atmospheric composition make Ugetsu a meditative, otherworldly experience that influenced filmmakers from Kurosawa to Scorsese. Winner of the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, this is a film where myth and history blur, inviting us to reflect on the consequences of human folly.
Made just eight years after WWII, the film uses a ghostly narrative to process national memory and warn against repeating the same mistakes. Ugetsu exemplifies how Japanese filmmakers of the 1950s turned to allegory and aesthetics to navigate complex postwar identities—elevating cinema to poetry.
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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Our Arthouse 101: Japanese Cinema series starts off with Late Spring, a masterclass in subtlety and emotional restraint. The story centers on a young woman, Noriko, and her devoted father, exploring themes of duty, change, and the tension between modernity and tradition. With its minimalist camera work and tender performances, Ozu’s film is a cornerstone of Japanese cinema and the perfect introduction to the series.
Late Spring marks a turning point in postwar Japanese cinema, where filmmakers like Ozu began using film not only to entertain but to reflect and shape the nation’s healing process. It’s a time capsule, a cultural mirror, and a foundational text in the Japanese cinematic canon.
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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