A film fest examines the impact of the Bond series and Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, the producer who brought it to life.

For more than 30 years, the name Albert “Cubby” Broccoli was synonymous with the most prolific and financially successful film franchise in American cinema, Ian Fleming’s James Bond series. Beginning with Dr. No in 1962, Broccoli transformed Fleming’s novels into a groundbreaking and trendsetting pop culture phenomenon. The James Bond movies were responsible for reinventing the spy genre and helped redefine the popular construct of masculinity.

Presented in celebration of the Cubby Broccoli centennial, this three-day festival will feature screenings and discussions examining the impact of the Bond series and the producer who brought it to life. Panel discussions will feature key figures from the Bond franchise and from the Broccoli family. Additionally, an exhibit featuring a wide array of gadgets and props from the films will be on display during the festival.

Schedule

Friday, November 6

7 p.m. Dr. No (1962, 110 minutes)

9 p.m. Goldfinger (1964, 110 minutes)

Saturday, November 7

12 p.m. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969, 142 minutes)

2:40 p.m. Live and Let Die (1973, 121 minutes)

5 p.m. “James Bond Today”
Panel discussion featuring Barbara Broccoli, Michael Wilson, Rob Wade, Neal Purvis and Marc Forster

6:45 p.m. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977, 125 minutes)

9 p.m. The Living Daylights (1987, 130 minutes)

Sunday, November 8

12:30 p.m. GoldenEye (1995, 130 minutes)

2:50 p.m. Tomorrow Never Dies (1997, 119 minutes)

5 p.m.: “Cubby Broccoli, Producer”
Panel discussion featuring Barbara Broccoli, Michael Wilson, Tom Mankiewicz, Richard Kiel and Maud Adams

6:30 p.m. Reception in Queens Courtyard 

8 p.m. Casino Royale (2006, 144 minutes)

Organized by the USC School of Cinematic Arts

Daily: Friday 11/06/2009 - Sunday 11/08/2009; All day

University Park Campus Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre Frank Sinatra Hall

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In this romantic comedy, the love between an Arab Muslim man and a Jewish woman is tested when they reveal a complication to their traditional parents.

A discussion will follow the screening.

Refreshments will be served.

This is the first event in a Muslim-Jewish film series.

Monday 11/09/2009: 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM

University Park Campus Leavey Library Auditorium

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QD3 Entertainment and the Annenberg School present Dean Ernest J. Wilson III, communication and journalism professor Josh Kun and renowned artist Quincy Jones III for a special screening of the modern documentary Tha Carter, about Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., aka Lil Wayne.

The documentary, executive produced by Jones along with Jared Freeman, was directed by Adam Bhala Lough and produced by Lough and Josh Krause.

Wayne, an internationally known rapper whose most recent album went platinum in one week, has been said to be “the voice of his generation.” Tha Carter is “an intoxicating, cinematic journey into the thoughts and world of an extremely complicated man whose creative force is something to behold.” Following him all over the country and to Amsterdam, Lough mixes fly-on-the-wall footage of Lil Wayne in his hotel room and on his bus with artfully composed concert footage, capturing “one of the most inspired (and eccentric) musicians of modern America.”

The screening will be followed by a student-led discussion with Jones and will feature an opportunity for student blog commentaries on the QD3 Web site.

RSVP is required. To RSVP, click here.

Wednesday 11/11/2009: 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

University Park Campus Annenberg Auditorium

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Chris Mason Johnson's first feature charts the lives of five New Yorkers, a mix of gay and straight best friends about to turn 30.

The New Twenty was written by Chris Mason Johnson and Ishmael Chawla and directed by Chris Mason Johnson. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Johnson.

Admission is free and open to all.

About The New Twenty

Chris Mason Johnson's award-winning feature introduces a group of friends on the verge of turning 30. Bound together since college, they find their tight relationship threatened when an older, charismatic man joins their ranks and lures the alpha of the pack into a new business venture. With emotionally vivid performances and nuanced characters, The New Twenty paints the portrait of a generation living the highs and lows of a Wall Street world destined to disappear overnight.

The year is 2006 and prosperity seems unending: Two of the five are investment bankers, another works in advertising, another does freelance database design, and only one of the five might be called a slacker. But they all suffer from, as loner Felix puts it, "a touch of existential malaise courtesy of late capitalism — you know, the usual." So if money isn't the root of their discontent, what is? Whatever they're searching for — love, meaning in work — they may not find it in each other. On TV, friendship lasts forever. But in real life...?

Starring Bill Sage, Terry Serpico, Nicole Bilderback, Colin Fickes, Ryan Locke, Thomas Sadoski, Karen Olivo.
 
Provided courtesy of Wolfe Releasing. Running time: 92 minutes.

Now available on DVD, Netflix and iTunes.

To learn more about the film and to view the trailer, click here.

About Outside the Box (Office)

Outside the Box (Office) is a weekly showcase for upcoming releases, highlighting world cinema, documentary and independent film titles. Recognizing a need for greater diversity on campus, the series will draw from around the globe to present movies that may challenge, inspire or simply entertain. The weekly screenings will be on Wednesday nights (and other select dates, as they arise) in the School of Cinematic Arts Complex, George Lucas Building.

To view the calendar of screenings, click here.

About Check-In and Reservations

The theater will be overbooked to ensure capacity, and the RSVP list will be honored on a first-come, first-served basis, with no reserved seating. Please bring a photo ID or printout of your reservation confirmation, which will automatically be sent to your email account after you successfully RSVP through the Web site. Doors will open at 8 p.m.

Wednesday 11/11/2009: 8:15 PM - 10:00 PM

University Park Campus George Lucas Instructional Building Room 112

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A comedy about a serpentine day in the life of 10 seemingly disparate women who have one thing in common.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with writer and director Sebastian Gutierrez.

Admission is free and open to all.

About Women in Trouble

From filmmaker Sebastian Gutierrez comes a film about 10 women — including a porn star, a flight attendant, a psychiatrist, a masseuse, a bartender, and a pair of call girls — who find themselves in trouble. Starring Carla Gugino, Adrianne Palicki, Connie Britton, Marley Shelton, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Simon Baker and Josh Brolin. 

Provided courtesy of Screen Media Films. Rated R. Running time: 92 minutes. Coming to theaters on November 13.

To learn more about the film and to view the trailer, click here.
 
About Outside the Box (Office)

Outside the Box (Office) is a weekly showcase for upcoming releases, highlighting world cinema, documentary and independent film titles. Recognizing a need for greater diversity on campus, the series will draw from around the globe to present movies that may challenge, inspire or simply entertain. The weekly screenings will be on Wednesday nights (and other select dates, as they arise) in the School of Cinematic Arts Complex, George Lucas Building.

To view the calendar of screenings, click here.

About Check-In and Reservations

The theater will be overbooked to ensure capacity, and the RSVP list will be honored on a first-come, first-served basis, with no reserved seating. Please bring a photo ID or printout of your reservation confirmation, which will automatically be sent to your email account after you successfully RSVP through the Web site. Doors will open at 8:55 p.m.

Wednesday 11/11/2009: 9:00 PM - 12:00 AM

University Park Campus George Lucas Instructional Building Room 112

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French-Israeli filmmaker Nurith Aviv presents a screening and discussion of her film about Hebrew.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, Hebrew, formerly used primarily in religious contexts in the Jewish diaspora, has become a daily spoken language. What has been preserved of it by its being thus changed? What has it lost? What are the tensions between the sacred and quotidian use of the language?

Award-winning French-Israeli filmmaker Nurith Aviv presents Sacred Language, Spoken Language, in which writers and artists born in Israel describe their relationship with the historical, political and religious facets of Hebrew. They explore issues of identity formation and the relationships between the secular and the religious, politics and language, and the Israeli Jewish community/nation and the Jewish diaspora. The film features Haim Gouri, Michal Govrin, Victoria Hanna, Ronit Matalon, Roy Greenwald, Etgar Keret, Yitzhak Laor, Shimon Adaf, Haviva Pedaya, Yehuda Ovadya Fetaya, Zali Gurevitch, Michal Naaman and Orly Castel-Bloom.

Nurith Aviv was the first woman officially recognized as a director of photography in France. In addition to having been the director of photography for more than 50 films, including works by Agnès Varda, Amos Gitai and René Allio, she has directed several documentaries. In September 2008, a retrospective of her work was held in the Jeu de Paume in Paris, and in May 2009, she became the first filmmaker to be awarded the prestigious Prix Edouard Glissant.

Thursday 11/12/2009: 7:30 PM

University Park Campus School of Cinematic Arts 108

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The USC Annenberg School's Joe Saltzman shares his work in this new and neglected field of study.

"The Image of the Gay Journalist in Popular Culture: A Brand New Field of Research for Students and Faculty Alike."

Join students and faculty for a presentation by Joe Saltzman, journalism professor at the USC Annenberg School and director of the Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture (IJPC), a project of the Norman Lear Center.

There has been virtually no research done on the image of the gay journalist or public relations practitioner in popular culture. Saltzman will discuss the potential for research in this field, and share his research on the image of the gay journalist in movies and television, fiction, comic books and other aspects of popular culture. He will also show a 14-minute excerpt from the groundbreaking three-disc set The Image of the Gay Journalist in Movies and Television, 1929 to 2009.

Free copies of the three-disc set and the 2009 IJPC Database will be available.

Lunch will be served.

Monday 11/16/2009: 12:00 PM

University Park Campus Annenberg School for Communication 207

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A film by novelist Russell Banks and filmmaker Atom Egoyan probes questions of memory and guilt.

This award-winning collaboration between Banks and Egoyan examines the effects on a small town of a terrible accident, and the lawsuit that follows. It asks how we know where the truth lies. Haunting and deeply moving, it also raises fascinating questions about adaptations of novels into film.

To RSVP, visit www.usc.edu/esvp and enter the event code "CC1117".

Tuesday 11/17/2009: 6:00 PM

University Park Campus Seeley G. Mudd Building Room 123

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From a survivor of the Columbine High School tragedy comes a dramatized retelling of one of the nation's largest school shootings.

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with writer/director Andrew Robinson.

Admission is free and open to all.

About April Showers

In this film, writer/director Andrew Robinson shares what it was like to be a survivor of a major school shooting. Based largely on actual events, April Showers follows the story of Sean Ryan (Kelly Blatz) as he attempts to make sense of the horrors he's just witnessed and to cope with the loss of his friend April (Ellen Woglom).

April Showers stars Blatz, Daryl Sabara, Janel Parrish and Woglom, with Illeana Douglas and Tom Arnold rounding out the cast. It features breathtaking cinematography by Independent Spirit Award Nominee Aaron Platt.

Provided courtesy of IndieFlix. Rated R. Running time: 94 minutes.

Now available through Amazon, Netflix and iTunes.

To learn more about the film and to view the trailer, click here.

About Outside the Box (Office)

Outside the Box (Office) is a weekly showcase for upcoming releases, highlighting world cinema, documentary and independent film titles. Recognizing a need for greater diversity on campus, the series will draw from around the globe to present movies that may challenge, inspire or simply entertain. The weekly screenings will be on Wednesday nights (and other select dates, as they arise) in the School of Cinematic Arts Complex, George Lucas Building.

To view the calendar of screenings, click here.

About Check-In and Reservations

The theater will be overbooked to ensure capacity, and the RSVP list will be honored on a first-come, first-served basis, with no reserved seating. Please bring a photo ID or printout of your reservation confirmation, which will automatically be sent to your email account after you successfully RSVP through the Web site. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday 11/17/2009: 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM

University Park Campus George Lucas Instructional Building Room 110

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Film, dance and discussion mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

November 9, 2009, is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. While many have forgotten the impact of living with the wall for a quarter of a century, it was a constant reminder of the Cold War and the threat of atomic war.

Choreographer Nejla Yatkin was a teenager in Berlin living with the reality of the divided city. She experienced the threat of imminent conflict in the battle between East and West, and saw the world open up when the wall went down. For the first time in decades, people had a chance to communicate, share, move and get to know each other, without feeling the oppressive threat.

This event will draw on these observations and experiences, exploring the role that physical and political boundaries play in society.

The event will include a screening and a short performance of a contemporary dance piece by Yatkin that reflects, embodies and subverts the interaction between individuals, movement and the emotional impact of barriers. Following the presentation, Carola Weil, Annenberg associate dean for planning and strategic initiatives, will moderate a discussion with Yatkin and Annenberg faculty members Sandy Tolan, Josh Kun and Roberto Suro. They will link the Berlin Wall to other physical borders, such as the U.S.-Mexican border and the fence between Israel and Palestinian territories. While these boundaries can act as national or international assets, they can also act as impediments that restrict the flow of resources, commerce and intellectual property, isolating people and dividing nations.  

Wednesday 11/18/2009: 6:30 PM

University Park Campus Annenberg Auditorium

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Find out how Native American students see their world and yours at a screening featuring the next generation of filmmakers.

Did you know that Los Angeles has the second-largest concentration of Native Americans of any U.S. city? Or that USC sits on what was once Native American land?

Presented as the opening night of the 2009 L.A. Skins Fest, this event will feature films made by Native youth from the United States, Canada and Mexico. Produced by Native high school, undergraduate and graduate students, the films range from serious documentaries to animated comedies, and offer great insight into today’s Native American youth. The works explore the students’ own environments and cultures while challenging them to draw difficult conclusions about who they are and where they come from.

The screenings will be followed by a discussion with the filmmakers and festival organizers Ian Skorodin and Patricia Gomes (USC, class of 2011) and a reception with live Native music.

Organized by John Carlos Rowe (English and American Studies and Ethnicity). Co-sponsored by the 2009 L.A. Skins Fest and USC’s School of Cinematic Arts and Department of American Studies and Ethnicity.

Friday 11/20/2009: 7:00 PM

University Park Campus Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre Frank Sinatra Hall

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The triumphant return of action-cinema master John Woo, who reunites with international superstar Tony Leung.

Written by John Woo, Khan Chan, Lup Cheng and Sheng Heyu
Directed by John Woo

Admission is free and open to all.

About Red Cliff

Red Cliff pairs John Woo with Tony Leung for the first time since the 1992 classic Hard Boiled. A breathtaking war epic, Red Cliff brings to the screen the legendary tale of the Battle of Red Cliff, which took place in China in 208 A.D.
 
The film opens with power hungry Prime Minister-turned-General Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi) seeking permission from the Han dynasty emperor to organize a southward-bound mission designed to crush two troublesome warlords that stand in his way: Liu Bei (You Yong) and Sun Quan (Chang Chen). As the expedition gets underway, Cao Cao's troops rain destruction on Liu Bei's army, forcing the latter to retreat. Liu Bei's military strategist, Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), knows that their only hope for survival is to form an alliance with rival warlord Sun Quan, and reaches out to Sun Quan's trusted adviser, war hero Zhou Yu (Tony Leung). Vastly outnumbered by Cao Cao's fast approaching, brutal army, the rebel warlords band together to mount a heroic campaign unrivaled in history, one that will change the face of China forever.

The Battle of Red Cliff was first immortalized in the classic Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Although written more than seven hundred years ago, the novel is still widely read all over Asia and has spawned more than a dozen video games and numerous comic books. Thus John Woo created two versions of the film: a two part, five-hour version for Asian audiences, and a single, two-and-a half hour version for other territories. When the first part was released in Asia in July 2008, it went on to gross more than $124 million and broke the box office record previously held by Titanic in mainland China. With an estimated budget of $80 million, Red Cliff is the most expensive Asian-financed film to date.

"We wanted to make a Hollywood blockbuster in Chinese that would appeal to non-Asian audiences as well. We worked very hard to create a version of the film that maintains the integrity of the action and character development of the story, while excising some of the cultural details that could be considered unnecessary for Western audiences not intimately familiar with the historical mythology," notes Producer Terence Chang, Woo's longtime collaborator. 

Provided courtesy of Magnet Releasing.

Rated R. Running time: 146 minutes. In Mandarin with English subtitles.

Opening at select Los Angeles theaters on November 25.

To learn more about the film and to view the trailer, click here.

About Outside the Box (Office)

Outside the Box (Office) is a weekly showcase for upcoming releases, highlighting world cinema, documentary and independent film titles. Recognizing a need for greater diversity on campus, the series will draw from around the globe to present movies that may challenge, inspire or simply entertain. The weekly screenings will be on Wednesday nights (and other select dates, as they arise) in the School of Cinematic Arts Complex, George Lucas Building.

To view the calendar of screenings, click here.

About Check-In and Reservations

The theater will be overbooked to ensure capacity, and the RSVP list will be honored on a first-come, first-served basis, with no reserved seating. Please bring a photo ID or printout of your reservation confirmation, which will automatically be sent to your email account after you successfully RSVP through the Web site. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m.

Friday 11/20/2009: 7:00 PM - 10:00 PM

University Park Campus George Lucas Instructional Building Room 108

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Author Russell Banks and filmmaker Atom Egoyan discuss the challenges and excitement of using history as a subject for literature and film.

Russell Banks is a novelist whose work spans the bleakest of contemporary stories (The Sweet Hereafter, Affliction) and a dazzling piece of historical recreation, Cloudsplitter, his novel recounting John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry. Banks’ novels turn on the understandings and misunderstandings brought by time, as characters challenge each other’s versions of the truth. Atom Egoyan’s films powerfully evoke the treachery of memory. His eerie and haunting visual style, particularly in his stunning adaptation of The Sweet Hereafter, uses our confidence in what we see to make us doubt what we know. Where Banks plays with the voices of four narrators, each undoing what came before, only to be deconstructed in turn, Egoyan, in films like Calendar, Exotica and Ararat, obsessively transforms vibrant images into memories before our eyes, moving us in and out of time, bringing the dead back and making the old young, just for a moment. 

Bringing these two geniuses of time construction together will open a new conversation about how we learn, forget and lie in time — and how history returns only to mock and mourn for us all.

The two will speak about their individual work, and then we will open a larger conversation about the particular challenges and excitement of using history as a subject for both literature and film and moving between the two media.

Organized by the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Monday 11/23/2009: 7:00 PM

University Park Campus Bovard Auditorium

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The performance, directed by Miranda Garrison, will range from celluloid classics to some current flicks that you've never imagined as dance films.

Daily: Thursday 12/03/2009 - Friday 12/04/2009; 7:00 PM

University Park Campus Bing Theatre

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The film tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa's rugby team to help unite their country.

Newly elected President Mandela knows that his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.

Guests are invited to a reception prior to the screening.

Proceeds benefit the USC School of Social Work.

To receive an invite, contact swevents@usc.edu or call (213) 821-1297.

Tuesday 12/08/2009: 6:30 PM

Warner Bros. Studio 4000 Warner Boulevard Burbank CA 91522

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A moving and provocative event explores the legacy of the Vietnam War, through two new Vietnamese films.

Schedule

2 p.m. Screening of Don’t Burn!
4 p.m. Panel Discussion
4:45 p.m. Reception
5:15 p.m. Screening of Oh, Saigon!
6:15 p.m. Discussion with filmmakers Doan Hoang and Dang Nhat Minh and author Andrew X. Pham

Join us for a screening and discussion of two new Vietnamese films, Don’t Burn! by Vietnam’s most acclaimed filmmaker, Dang Nhat Minh, and Oh, Saigon! by award-winning documentary filmmaker Doan Hoang. 

Don’t Burn! is based on the Vietnamese best-seller Last Night I Dreamed of Peace: The Diary of Dang Thuy Tram, written by a young female doctor from North Vietnam who was killed during the war. The film tells the moving story of her personal experiences as well as the tale of how her diary, discovered by an American serviceman, narrowly escaped burning and was eventually returned to Vietnam, where it became an international publishing sensation. This is the first Vietnamese film shot in part in the United States. 

Oh, Saigon! tells another side of the war story, focusing on a Vietnamese family who fled Saigon on the last civilian airplane to leave in 1975. After 30 years in the United States, the family returns to visit relatives, some of whom fought on the other side of the conflict, and to make amends with one daughter left behind.

A discussion about the legacy of the Vietnam War will feature filmmakers Dang Nhat Minh and Doan Hoang and author Andrew X. Pham. Minh, Vietnam’s premier film director, has made more than a dozen films, featured at festivals throughout the world. Hoang is a Vietnamese-born filmmaker whose film Oh, Saigon! won the Best Documentary award at the Asian Pacific Film Festival in Los Angeles. Pham is the Vietnamese-born author of two acclaimed memoirs, Catfish and Mandala and The Eaves of Heaven, and translator of Last Night I Dreamed of Peace. 

Organized by Janet Hoskins (Anthropology) and Viet Nguyen (English and American Studies and Ethnicity). Co-sponsored by the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network, Asian American Studies, the USC School of Cinematic Arts and the Center for Trans-Pacific Studies.

Saturday 01/23/2010: 2:00 PM - 6:45 PM

University Park Campus Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre Frank Sinatra Hall

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The USC arts schools offer an exciting array of hands-on workshops in art, photography, theater, dance, music, architecture and film.

In response to popular demand, the USC arts schools team up once again to present a daylong festival, an exciting opportunity to get your hands dirty with the arts. Learn how to salsa dance, make a sculpture, play guitar or take architectural photos. Join us, get your hands dirty, and experience the creativity and thrill of making art!

Organized by the USC arts schools

Saturday 01/30/2010: All day

University Park Campus

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Established in 1988 and presented annually by the Friends of the USC Libraries, the Scripter celebrates with its 22nd annual black-tie gala, to take place in the historic Edward L. Doheny Jr. Memorial Library.

Eligible written works and films are reviewed by a committee consisting of Writers Guild of America members, Academy Award-winning and -nominated screenwriters, authors, film industry executives, faculty and select members of the Friends of the USC Libraries. This selection committee narrows down the year's eligible films to five nominees and then chooses the year's best cinematic adaptation.

Past Scripter winners have included the authors and screenwriters of Slumdog Millionaire, No Country for Old Men, Million Dollar Baby, The Hours, A Beautiful Mind, L.A. Confidential, The English Patient and Schindler's List.

Saturday 02/06/2010: 6:30 PM

University Park Campus Doheny Memorial Library Times Reference Room

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A look at filmic works from Japan, by some of the most creative and accomplished filmmakers working today.

The recent Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for Departures, directed by Yojiro Takita, has given new international visibility to the rich and dynamic history and tradition of Japanese cinema. Often overshadowed by the celebrated directors of the past, such as Ozu Yasujiro and Akira Kurosawa, contemporary Japanese filmmakers in fact are among the most creative and accomplished practitioners of the art. Filmmakers like Hirokazu Kore-eda, Shinji Aoyama, Nobuhiro Suwa and Takashi Miike have established themselves as unique within a highly diverse film culture, reflecting changes in Japanese art, culture and society.

This festival will showcase a selection of these works and will include discussions with invited scholars and filmmakers.

Daily: Friday 02/19/2010 - Sunday 02/21/2010; All day

University Park Campus Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre Frank Sinatra Hall

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Magician Ricky Jay and USC professor Howard A. Rodman come together for a dialogue on deception in magic, film and real life.

They will entertainingly explore many of the themes of Mr. Jay’s work, including the selective unreliability of memory; the ways in which the mechanisms of perception allow us to misperceive; and the cognitive and psychological bases of con artistry and magic.

One of the larger foci of the conversation will be what Mr. Jay calls “The Big Con” — the ways in which our own agendas create conditions of non- and misperception. This con is at the heart of most magic tricks, much governance and every Ponzi scheme, and is also the perceptual and narrative basis for cinema.

Mr. Jay and Prof. Rodman will explore the ways in which the human capacity for self-deception is at the heart of much that is enjoyable and essential in modern life (literature, cinema), and much that is execrable (e.g., Bernie Madoff). It is not always possible to know, in the moment, which of our self-deceptions are salutary and which are malign. More often than not, we are unaware of our own self-deception or, worse, eager participants in it.

This delightful and compelling conversation will parse these various cons, illuminating the fields of magic and screenwriting and some of the more bizarre and omnipresent aspects of contemporary life.

While Ricky Jay has long been considered one of the world’s great sleight-of-hand artists, his career is further distinguished by a remarkable variety of accomplishments as an author, actor, historian and consultant. His one-man show Ricky Jay & His 52 Assistants was directed by David Mamet and garnered Lucille Lortel and Obie awards for outstanding achievement. His most recent show, Ricky Jay: On the Stem, also directed by Mamet, just closed a seven-month, critically acclaimed run in New York. As an actor, Mr. Jay debuted in the Joseph Papp production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the New York Shakespeare Festival. He has appeared in the David Mamet films House of Games, Homicide, Things Change, The Spanish Prisoner, State and Main and Heist. He can be seen in many other films, including Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Tomorrow Never Dies. He has contributed to many publications and written several books, including Learned Pigs and Fireproof Women and Jay’s Journal of Anomalies, both of which were named “Notable Books of the Year” by The New York Times. He has hosted television specials for CBS, HBO and the BBC, and was the host and narrator of the first documentary miniseries on conjuring, The Story of Magic, for A&E.

Howard A. Rodman is a screenwriter, novelist and educator. He is a professor and former chair of the writing division at the USC School of Cinematic Arts. His films include Savage Grace, starring Julianne Moore, and August, with Josh Hartnett, Rip Torn and David Bowie. His work on Savage Grace was nominated for a 2009 Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay. Rodman also wrote Joe Gould’s Secret, and his original screenplay F. was selected by Premiere magazine as one of Hollywood’s 10 best unproduced screenplays. He has worked with numerous filmmakers, including David Lynch, John McTiernan, Rodrigo García, Errol Morris, Clive Barker, Peter Bogdanovich, Maurice Sendak, Michael Lehmann, Chantal Akerman and Steven Soderbergh (who repaid the favor by giving the name Mr. Rodman to two of the sleazier characters in The Underneath and Traffic). His numerous publications include the novel Destiny Express and articles in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles magazine and The Village Voice (for which he was a monthly columnist). He currently blogs for The Huffington Post.

Friday 02/26/2010: 7:00 PM

University Park Campus School of Cinematic Arts, Room 108

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Gritty short films, music videos and docs from Kourtrajmé Productions, a Paris-based collective of emerging visual artists, filmmakers, actors and musicians.

“Beautiful women, ugly illegal immigrants, Romanian sneaker pimps, coked-up fashion babes, down-and-out thugs eating shish kebab at 3 a.m. Welcome to our Paris.” — Kourtrajmé Productions, as quoted in Anthem magazine

Kourtrajmé Productions is a collective of emerging French and Francophone visual artists, filmmakers, actors and musicians. The brainchild of internationally acclaimed directors Mathieu Kassovitz and Vincent Cassel, this production house and artist collective has garnered increasing attention and acclaim after getting millions of hits on online sites like Dailymotion and YouTube. Founded by Kim Chapiron, Romain Gavras and Toumani Sangaré, Kourtrajmé produces playful innovations and cutting interventions in popular culture and society that represent the cultural dreams, lives and crises of transnational urban and peri-urban French youth today.

This is a chance to explore the short films, music videos and documentaries that represent what legendary French filmmaker Chris Marker calls a “nouvelle nouvelle vague” of French cinema. Directors from the collective, including Ladj Ly and Toumani Sangaré, will be on hand to answer questions and discuss the group’s history and work.

Organized by Edwin Hill (French and Comparative Literature). Co-sponsored by the Department of French and Italian and French Cultural Services, Los Angeles.

Friday 03/05/2010: 6:00 PM

University Park Campus School of Cinematic Arts, Room 108

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A satellite broadcast of The Metropolitan Opera’s unforgettable new production of Hamlet, starring Simon Keenlyside and Natalie Dessay.

This event is part of an ongoing series of broadcasts presented in spectacular HD digital projection and 5.1 surround sound.

Simon Keenlyside and Natalie Dessay bring their extraordinary acting and singing skills to two of the Bard’s most unforgettable characters in this new production of Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet. For the role of Ophelia, the French composer created an extended mad scene that is among the greatest in opera.

Conducted by Louis Langrée. Presented in French with English subtitles.

The opera will be preceded by a discussion hosted by the USC Thornton School of Music.

The opera is presented as a rebroadcast of a live performance taking place at The Metropolitan Opera in New York at 10 a.m. that day.

Organized by the USC School of Cinematic Arts in association with The Metropolitan Opera.

Saturday 03/27/2010: 12:00 PM

University Park Campus Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre Frank Sinatra Hall

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By the year 2020, will the seductions of virtual worlds triumph over our desires for communal forms of entertainment?

A panel discussion moderated by Martin Kaplan, director of the USC Annenberg School’s Norman Lear Center, will ask whether people will still go to the theater, movies and museums as home entertainment becomes more sophisticated. In turn, how will this affect the business of entertainment and our culture as a whole?

The discussion will feature Mark Murphy, executive director of REDCAT, an interdisciplinary arts center housed at Walt Disney Concert Hall; longtime Time movie reviewer Richard Schickel; and Tracy Fullerton, associate professor in interactive media at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and director of the Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab.

Organized by the USC Libraries and the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities

Monday 03/29/2010: 4:00 PM

University Park Campus Doheny Memorial Library Room 233

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Join us for a reading and book signing with Robert Pinsky, a world renowned poet, literary critic and translator.

Pinsky’s translation of Dante’s Inferno is among the most praised poetical reimaginings of our time, and his own poetry, including such prize-winning volumes as An Explanation of America, The Figured Wheel and Sadness and Happiness, continues to inspire a wide range of readers. In the book-length essay Thousands of Broadways: Dreams and Nightmares of the American Small Town, Pinsky travels seamlessly from personal history to literary analysis to film. The works of Preston Sturges and Alfred Hitchcock meet up with dazzling insouciance with such writers as William Faulkner, Willa Cather and Thornton Wilder. In his work as U.S. poet laureate and as creator of the Favorite Poem project, Pinsky makes us take literature more seriously and see the way the artistic imagination creates, recreates and transforms the world around us.

In this reading and book signing, Pinsky will bring together his work as a poet and essayist, just as he brings together the very different media of poetry and film, helping us to map the literary terrain of the contemporary world.

Organized by the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. Co-sponsored by The College Commons.

Monday 04/19/2010: 4:00 PM

University Park Campus Doheny Memorial Library Room 240

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This festival will present a wide selection of Corman’s work, interspersed with discussions between directors, producers and actors.

In an extraordinarily prolific career spanning more than five decades, Los Angeles–based independent filmmaker Roger Corman has produced more than 380 motion pictures and television programs and directed more than 50 films. Now in his 80s, he continues to be an active producer, having completed four projects in 2008 alone. Often called the “King of the Bs,” Corman prefers the term “exploitation” to describe his films. Shot quickly with very low budgets and themes ranging from horror to science fiction, nearly all of Corman’s films, he proudly notes, have made money.

In this festival, directors, producers and actors Corman nurtured at the beginning of their careers, along with others from the entertainment industry, will discuss his influence as an independent producer, as well as his successful business model of producing and distributing films throughout the world.

Screenings may include: Little Shop of Horrors (starring Jack Nicholson), House of Usher, Death Race 2000, Piranha, Boxcar Bertha (directed by Martin Scorsese), Caged Heat (directed by Jonathan Demme), Grand Theft Auto (directed by Ron Howard), The Trip (written by Jack Nicholson and starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper), X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes (starring Oscar-winning actor Ray Milland) and Dementia 13 (directed by Francis Ford Coppola).

Organized by the USC School of Cinematic Arts

Daily: Friday 04/23/2010 - Sunday 04/25/2010; All day

University Park Campus Eileen Norris Cinema Theatre Frank Sinatra Hall

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