BREWSTER McCLOUD   1970 ** Directed by Robert Altman ** 107 minutes ** In English 

This early flick by Robert Altman (Mash, The Player) has gained a huge cult following and explores the director's quirky dark humor and subversive side, taking cinematic potshots at everything Hollywood and the establishment represented back in the 70s, and still represents today.

In a way, this film is about birds - and how the life, patterns and history of birds can be used to illustrate human development. Don't take this premise too seriously though, because the film doesn't either... it's used more as kind of black humor to comment on the absurdity of modern society. A young boy called Brewster, portrayed by Bud Cort (Harold and Maude), lives in a nuclear fallout shelter. But in fact the film has parallel streams and many stories running through it - it's a fantasy movie, an absurd serial killer flick, a detective story, an oddball romance, and a fable about how life is sometimes a bit like a circus.

This anarchist free-for-all is pure 1970s counterculture cinema, with an offbeat, scattered plot and as much imagination as any Lynch or Jodorowsky film. Of course director Robert Altman would later become one of the great visionary filmmakers of the last century. The cast is phenomenal and includes besides Bud Cort, Sally Kellerman, Michael Murphy, Stacy Keach and Shelley Duvall in her debut screen appearance.

This will be a high-definition screening.