Movie Tonight: Wednesday, April 8

I was just the other day talking with my better half about some of the unexpected hit films from that wedge period of time at the turn of the millennium when movies had the since-extinct mix of big studio budgets, fresh I.P., and artistic freedom for visionary directors and their conspirators. One of the highlights of that bright world that was extinguished by post-9/11 venture capital, media monopolies, smartphone attention span annihilation, brain-dulling digital graphics and endless mid-brow scripts focusing on identity and trauma over plot and art direction is the unlikely hit The Cell (2000). An updated Fantastic Voyage into the mind of a serial killer played by Vincent D’Onofrio, director Tarsem Singh explores the visual majesty he would later unfurl in The Fall, along with the late costume designer Eiko Ishioka, who had previously cut her teeth for
western audiences with her brilliant, flayed visions in Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). This is a wild ride through a lost world of colors and sensations you can see on the big screen at the Arcata Theatre Lounge tonight. Same story: Show up between 6 and 7 p.m., pay $6 to get in, or $10 to leave with a poster. The pre-Lord of the Rings score by Howard Shore alone is worth the money.