News

Between 1964 and 1981, Oldřich Lipský and Jiří Brdečka collaborated on a loose trilogy of films, each of which paid loving, yet subversive, homage to a strain of pop culture that would’ve been seen as hopelessly disreputable by the Communist authorities in the former Czechoslovakia. Lemonade Joe is a tribute to the John Ford western, while Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet tinkers with the conventions of the private eye film. And Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians delivers a hilarious and surreal steampunk riff on a lesser known Jules Verne novel, in which the French writer filters the trappings of gothic fiction through his “scientific-technical” worldview.

The comedic sensibility behind Mysterious Castle bears comparison to a number of other films and filmmakers. Its sense of anarchy and unpredictability brings to mind the work of the Marx Brothers, while the delight that it takes in in absurdism and abstruse wordplay (only some...

‘Closely Watched Trains’: Oscar-winning movie classic gets special Academy screening (photo: Václav Neckár in ‘Closely Watched Trains’) Jirí Menzel’s first solo feature film, the World War II-set drama Closely Watched Trains / Ostre sledované vlaky (1966) was the 1967 Oscar winner in the Best Foreign Language Film category. Those living in the Los Angeles area will have the chance to watch a new print of Menzel’s classic on the big screen at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, September 23, 2013, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. To be hosted by Oscar-nominated writer-director Philip Kaufman, the Closely Watched Trains screening will feature a rare onstage discussion with Jirí Menzel himself. A mix of light comedy and somber drama, Closely Watched Trains tells the story of Milos (Václav Neckár), a young railway worker whose routine life in a small Czech town is upended following the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia.