In a closed-minded hamlet, bank clerk Ruth (Carroll) finds herself the subject of a scandal when she innocently spends an evening with city-slicker playboy Romer (Grant). The false accusations threaten Ruth’s livelihood and her budding romance with childhood friend Bill (Scott). A racy, beautifully directed pre-code gem, Paramount’s Hot Saturday “ is set in a curdled version of the small-town America that was being enthusiastically celebrated down the road at Fox…[a town] where the local youths spend their leisure time chugging bootleg liquor and groping each other on the dance floor at a lakeside roadhouse” (Dave Kehr, The New York Times).

The San Francisco Police ask Eleanor Johnson (Sheridan) for help in tracking down her husband, who is the eyewitness to a murder. Eleanor must find her spouse before the killer does, so she embarks on her own investigation all over the city, learning things about her marriage that she never realized before. Her search leads her ultimately to the roller coaster on the Santa Monica pier (the same coaster used three years later for the climax of Man in the Dark). After twelve years under contract at Warner Bros., Sheridan gives one of her finest performances in this riveting noir thriller, a movie she also produced! 35mm print restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Film Noir Foundation.

Palestine’s leading cinematic auteur Elia Suleiman (Divine Intervention) has returned with his first feature in ten years: a comic chronicle of an artist looking for funding for his next project. Without uttering more than a handful of words, Suleiman plays himself, a writer-director who leaves his oft-absurd daily life in Nazareth to court producers and actors (including Bernal) in Paris and New York City. Concerned with a lot more than just show business, Suleiman fixes his camera on a number of droll characters and situations: a ballet of cops on Segways, an all gun-carrying citizenry of Manhattan, and a stubborn, implacable sparrow, among many others. Told in a series of sequences that are as deadpan as the expression on Suleiman’s face, It Must Be Heaven recalls the comic genius of Jacques Tati, Jerry Lewis, and Sweden’s Roy Andersson. “Affably self-effacing meta-commentary blankets the film, skewering the very notion of a standard-bearing national artist by revealing how tenuous geographic borderlines can be” (Charles Bramesco, Little White Lies).

They say a dog is a man’s best friend, but what if the man is a total dirtbag? In that case, it might be time for some sweet revenge, doggy style.  When Reggie (voiced by Will Ferrell), a naïve, relentlessly optimistic Border Terrier, is abandoned on the mean city streets by his lowlife owner, Doug (Will Forte), Reggie is certain that his beloved owner would never leave him on purpose. But once Reggie falls in with a fast-talking, foul-mouthed Boston Terrier named Bug (voiced by Jamie Foxx), a stray who loves his freedom and believes that owners are for suckers, Reggie finally realizes he was in a toxic relationship and begins to see Doug for the heartless sleazeball that he is. Determined to seek revenge, Reggie, Bug and Bug’s pals—Maggie (Isla Fisher), a smart Australian Shepherd who has been sidelined by her owner’s new puppy, and Hunter (Randall Park), an anxious Great Dane who’s stressed out by his work as an emotional support animal—together hatch a plan and embark on an epic adventure to help Reggie find his way home … and make Doug pay by biting off the appendage he loves the most. (Hint: It’s not his foot).  A subversion of the dog movies we know and love, Strays, directed by Josh Greenbaum (Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar) and produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, is a hilarious, R-rated, live-action comedy about the complications of love, the importance of great friendships, and the unexpected virtues of couch humping. See Strays at this free screening before it is released on June 9. Special Thanks to Universal Pictures.