The Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque (11141 East Blvd., 216.421.7450, cia.edu/cinematheque) celebrates its 23rd anniversary this weekend with the showing of three exclusive movies. At 5 p.m. Saturday, it screens The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story, a documentary about the songwriting duo responsible for the tunes in classic films like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins. Turns out, the guys didn't like each other very much and never hung out when they weren't working. That's followed by a 7 p.m. screening of 1930's The Big Trail, a film Cinematheque director John Ewing is particularly excited about.
"The Big Trail is something we wanted to show for years and just never got around to it," says Ewing. "It's shot in Cinemascope 20 years before there was Cinemascope. It's been recently restored by the Museum of Modern Art, and we're getting the print from the 20th Century Fox film archives. It's not just a really good western and John Wayne's debut as a leading man — it was also done in this Cinemascope process called Grandeur. It will fill the wide screen. Nobody has shown that film in this format since it came out, and I'm not sure it even played Cleveland in that format."
The evening is capped off with a 9:30 p.m. showing of Surveillance, a gritty noir flick directed by Jennifer Lynch (director David Lynch's daughter) that's every bit as twisted and perverse as the films by her dear mad dad. Tickets to each film are $8.
From time to time, the West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church (20401 Hilliard Rd., Rocky River), hosts screenings. At 7 p.m. Saturday, it will show Addicted to Plastic, a documentary about plastic (the material, not the credit cards most of us are also addicted to). Twelve years in the making, the film includes stops in 12 countries and shows to what degree the substance is taking over landfills. One solution: a biodegradable plastic substance made out of plants. The screening is free and open to the public.
At 8 p.m. Saturday, the Beachland Ballroom (15711 Waterloo Rd., 216.383.1124, beachlandballroom.com) hosts a benefit for the local film Bullseye, a short comedy that producers are struggling to finish. Gil Mantera's Party Dream frontman Ultimate Donny hosts, and local bands the Hot Rails, Lighthouse and the Whaler, and Big Sweet are slated to perform. Tickets: $10.
