"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

Like a lead bullet to the brain, this iconic line of dialogue is hard to extract from one's memory after viewing Roman Polanski's, Chinatown, for the first time. These five words lodge themselves into your cerebral cortex and they never really go away. Similar to the enigmatic "Rosebud" line from Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, they form a maddenly ambiguous yet potent signifier for tragedy and regret, an existential cry of man's inability to understand or control his past demons or surroundings: "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown"...It's one of the great movie lines in history.

And, I'm here to tell you, fellow L.A. cineastes, that we get the chance to experience this amazing Robert Towne line (he won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay) and the rest of Chinatown just as Polanski and producer Robert Evans intended us to when they released it back in 1974 (i.e., on the BIG SCREEN like all celluloid classics should be seen).

That's because on May 18, 19 & 20th, the ultra-cool folks at the New Beverly Cinema in Hollywood are screening this classic L.A. film noir on a double bill with Day of the Locust (John Schlesinger, 1975).

If you haven't seen Chinatown before (you really need to rectify this aspect of your life), or, if you have seen it but it's only been on your TV screen (guilty as charged), then by all means you and I need to get our butts down to the Beverly if we have any respect for ourselves as true Angeleno film aficionados.

The story of Chinatown revolves around three startling characters and performances that smolder in your consciousness like a slow burning cigarette: private eye J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson, cool as a cucumber even with a bandaged nose), femme fatale Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway, old-Hollywood beautiful and achingly vulnerable), and corrupt millionaire Noah Cross (John Huston, ancient, depraved and evil). Together they form an incestual, conspiracy-laced triangle of sex, lies, and murder that enter your bloodstream like a virus and eat away at the margins of your mind, whispering a sun-drenched warning to 1930's Los Angeles and its audience that something is amiss in this small city surrounded by a large desert.

I could go on and on (the desperate grasp for water and power drive the film's storyline), but just consider the following...

11 Oscar nominations. Nicholson and Dunaway at the top of their games. Polanski and Towne at the height of their creative powers. Los Angeles in all of its chiaroscuro, film-noir glory. On the big screen at the Beverly.

I won't forget it. And, neither should you.

See you there.

Here are the details on the New Beverly Cinema:
www.newbevcinema.com
7165 West Beverly Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90036

(323) 938-4038 Office