HAROLD AND MAUDE

(1972, Hal Ashby) “A very common neurosis whereby the male child wishes to sleep with his mother. What puzzles me, Harold, is that you seem to wish to sleep with your grandmother.” No matter how he kills himself – by hanging, throat-slashing, drowning, gunshot, etc., etc., – poor little rich boy Harold (Bud Cort, who gives new meaning to the term deadpan) just can’t seem to get Mom Vivian Pickles’ attention, even as she relentlessly maps out plans for his career advancement and wedlock. But after terrorizing away his blind dates – via self-immolation, self-mutilation, hara kiri – and out-gung-hoing his one-armed army general uncle Victor, there’s nothing left than to pursue that fun hobby, funeral watching (he himself drives a hearse), where he meets Ruth Gordon’s going-on-80 Maude, the ultimate free spirit, whose own hobbies, apart from funerals, include omnivorous collecting, posing nude, and grand theft auto. The resulting May-December (to put it mildly) romance of death-wishing youth and life-affirming age revolts the army, the church, mom, and weirds out Harold’s therapist, but convulsed audiences around the country. After a slow start out of the gate, Harold and Maude went on to become the cult hit of the 70s…if not all time.  DCP. Approx. 90 mins.
2:10, 5:40, 9:15

“Forever treads the thin line between whimsy and absurdity and ‘tough’ sentimentality and black comedy.”
– Phil Hardy, Time Out New York

WHERE’S POPPA?

(1970, Carl Reiner) “Is that a tush!” Exasperated son George Segal can’t stop insane Jewish mother Ruth Gordon from kissing his behind, while gorilla-suited brother Ron Leibman finds his true love in Central Park, in the blackest of all black comedies. With the original, uncensored, answer to the title. 35mm. Approx. 82 mins.
12:30, 4:00, 7:30*
*introduced by producer Jerry Tokofsky

“GENUINELY OUTRAGEOUS…A series of extended slapstick riffs in which each dreamlike scene heads straight into psychosexual hyperbole...Hollywood’s equivalent of the Kafkaesque.” 
– J. Hoberman

“Works from the firm conviction that everyone in New York City is insane.”
– Variety