Summer Film Weekends Launch with Kubrick Salute

Media Contact:

Kristen Gleason
Director of Marketing
The Paramount Theater
215 East Main Street
Charlottesville, VA 22902
434.979.1922 ext. 103
kristen@theparamount.net

For Immediate Release

June 2, 2007

Just in time for hot summer days, Charlottesville’s Paramount Theater kicks off its 2007 Summer Film Series with a salute to director Stanley Kubrick from June 15 to 17, featuring the films A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, and Dr. Strangelove. 

The films will be shown on The Paramount’s 24’ by 50’ movie screen, the largest in Central Virginia.  This movie weekend is sponsored by Keiter Stephens Tobey.

  Set in a future England of 1995 imagined from the 1960s, A Clockwork Orange (1971) follows the life of charming young sociopath Alex de Large (Malcolm McDowell) whose pleasures are classical music (especially Beethoven), rape, and a nihilistic lifestyle of 'ultraviolence'.  Alex is the leader of a small gang of thugs until he is he is jailed for murder.  In exchange for a shorter prison sentence, he volunteers for an experimental brainwashing treatment designed to reform criminals.   Developed by the government to solve society's crime problem, the experimental aversion therapy intends to reintroduce convicts into society – but not all goes as planned.            

Sometimes deceptive in its appearance as a conventional war movie, Full Metal Jacket (1987) has been called one of the best anti-war movies ever made.  Focusing in particular on Marine correspondent Private Joker (Matthew Modine), the film tracks his progress from a clueless recruit to Vietnam combat veteran who is emotionally disfigured both by his brutal training and the realities of war.  As said by the New York Times, “Disorder is virtually the order of "Full Metal Jacket," whose pivotal character Private Joker …wears a peace symbol on his battle fatigues and, on his helmet, the slogan "Born to Kill."

The 1964 black comedy Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb satirizes the Cold War through the story of U.S. Air Force General Jack Ripper (Sterling Hayden), who goes completely mad and sends his bomber wing to destroy the U.S.S.R.  George C. Scott appears as presidential advisor General Buck Turgidson, and Peter Sellers portrays the three men who might avert this tragedy: British Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, the only person with access to Ripper; U.S. President Merkin Muffley, whose must placate a drunken Soviet premier to avoid disaster; and former Nazi Dr. Strangelove, a wheelchair-bound mad scientist and strategy expert. Will General Ripper succeed in destroying the world?

A Clockwork Orange will show at 7 and 10 pm on Friday, June 15.  Full Metal Jacket will be screened on Saturday, June 16 at 3 and 7 pm.  Dr. Strangelove will be featured on Sunday, June 17 at 3 and 7 pm.

Additional film weekends at The Paramount this summer will feature “Zany Comedies” on July 20 and 21, and “Family Flicks” on August 17 and 18.  Admission for all movies is $6, with a Youth/Child price of $4 applying to those 12 and younger. 

Tickets are available in advance for most showings.  Titles and dates are subject to change.  The latest information on movies at The Paramount is available online or through the Box Office at 434.979.1333.