Just Try To Find a Bum Offering in ‘Rialto at 25’

As artificial intelligence becomes an increasing component of our daily lives, the presence of AI can’t help but prompt a sense of foreboding from those of us weaned on science fiction. Forget, for a moment, the pulp magazines and dog-eared paperbacks dedicated to dystopian futures in which humankind unwittingly consigns itself to servitude under our self-made robot overlords. Consider, instead, examples of AI deviltry we’ve seen at the movies.Where to begin? HAL from Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) is among the most prescient, being the great grandad to Siri and Alexa. There’s also Ava in “Ex Machina” (2014). a variation on Maria, the iconic robot woman featured in Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” (1927). Does anyone recall Proteus, the malevolent computer that manages to impregnate the forever lovely Julie Christie in “Demon Seed” (1977)? Some movies are better left forgotten.My vote for the scariest cinematic AI is Alpha 60, the sentient computer that oversees the polity of a barely disguised Paris in Jean-Luc Godard’s “Alphaville” (1965). Movie-goers of a certain age — you know who you are, Millennials and Gen Zers — might scoff at the low-rent black-and-white ambiance of Godard’s greatest film. The French iconoclast, along with indispensable cinematographer Raoul Coutard, realized a future that was all the more unnerving by being unabashedly on-the-cheap.The intonations of Alpha 60 were that of a man whose larynx had been replaced by a voice box, its gravelly tenor being amped up to levels usually reserved for the voice of God. Do you want a special effect? Alpha 60 is, essentially, a flashing lightbulb and what looks to be the inside of a portable heater. Godard’s variation on Big Brother renders the populace “slaves to probability”: The good citizens of Alphaville “should not ask ‘why,’ but only say ‘because.’” Correspondences between the bullying robot and the prerogatives of our cultural elites should be noted.A new restoration of “Alphaville” will be the lead-off attraction of “Rialto at 25,” a series of films at the Museum of Modern Art in honor of Rialto Pictures, the leading theatrical distributor of classic and foreign films. Founded at New York, Rialto is the brainchild of Bruce Goldstein, who, along with Adrienne Halpern, has been doing the lord’s work creating new 35-mm prints and digital 4K restorations on a range of important films. Anyone who has suffered through grainy or butchered versions of a favorite classic at the local revival house will want to give the folks at Rialto a standing ovation.Notwithstanding the vagaries of personal taste, any movie fan would be hard-pressed to name one bum offering during the run of “Rialto at 25.” Put on a blindfold, throw a dart at the screening calendar, and you’ll almost certainly end up happy with what you hit: “Panique” (1946), “The Third Man” (1949), “Kind Hearts and Coronets” (1949), “Rififi” (1955), “Una vita difficile” (1961), “The Conversation” (1974), “Ran” (1985), and many more. “The Howling” (1981), director Joe Dante’s valentine to B-movie conventions, may seem the odd wolf out, but it has a script spruced up by John Sayles, practical effects that still make one’s bones ache, and a performance by Dee Wallace that, from all accounts, convinced Steven Spielberg to cast her as the dutiful mom in “E.T.” Forget cineastes: Sometimes film nerds have more fun.The curator in MoMA’s Department of Film and organizer of “Rialto at 25,” Dave Kehr, tips his hand by divulging a soft spot for Jean Gabin, the actor whose gruff good looks and prole bonhomie made him the face of French popular cinema for more than a few decades. “La Grande Illusion” (1937), “La Quai des brumes (Port of Shadows)” (1939) “Le jour se lève” (1939). and “Touchez pas au grisbi” (1954) are all on the docket — with a special nod to the latter, in which Gabin portrays a middle-aged gangster who can no longer muster the get-up-and-go the criminal life requires. It’s a sweet and funny performance, and one reason, among many, to make a date for “Rialto at 25.”

Just Try To Find a Bum Offering in ‘Rialto at 25’

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