The World by Jia Zhangke
The World by Jia Zhangke
2h 23min ● Colour ● Sound ● 2004
“Suggesting at different moments a backstage musical, a failed love story, a surreal comedy, and even a cartoon fantasy, this beautiful, corrosive, visionary masterpiece by Jia Zhang-ke is a frighteningly persuasive account of the current state of the planet. Set in an eerie Beijing theme park — a kind of Chinese Las Vegas, with scaled-down duplicates of the most famous global landmarks — it follows a bunch of workers as they labour, carouse, couple, and uncouple, but it’s really about propping up extravagant illusions through alienated labour” (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader)
Party to follow with music by DJ Prenup + The Ken Burns Effect
Westworld by Michael Crichton
1h 28min ● Colour ● Sound ● 1973
Westworld is a futuristic theme park where paying guests can pretend to be gunslingers in an artificial Wild West populated by androids. After paying a sizable entrance fee, Blane (James Brolin) and Martin (Richard Benjamin) are determined to unwind by hitting the saloons and shooting off their guns. But when the system goes haywire and Blane is killed in a duel with a robotic gunslinger (Yul Brynner), Martin's escapist fantasy suddenly takes on a grim reality.
Futureworld by Richard T. Heffron
1h 48min ● Colour ● Sound ● 1976
Two years removed from a scandal that cost several lives, the Delos company has spent billions on safety updates and revamping their resort, Futureworld. Reporters Chuck Browning (Peter Fonda) and Tracy Ballard (Blythe Danner) are sent to cover the reopening, but an insider leads the pair to believe the attraction is not what it seems. Feigning interest with Delos head Dr. Duffy (Arthur Hill), they try to get to the bottom of his nefarious agenda, which involves robots and human cloning.