THE MERCURY CINEMA
The Mercury and Iris Cinemas are run by the Media Resource Centre to enhance screen culture and to give screening opportunities to emerging South Australian film, video and digital media artists.
The Cinemas are also available for hire.
TICKET SALES
Call 8410 0979 9-5:30 Mon to Fri with you credit Card handy.
Call into the MRC 13 Morphett St Adelaide (behind the Mercury) 8-5:30 Mon-Fri
Buy ticketsa t the box office from one hour prior to the advertised screening time.
This webpage is a work in progress - comments?
FREE CALENDAR SUBSCRIPTION
Calendar Available - The quarterly calendar of screenings and events at the Mercury is available to view or download: Calendar Jan-March
Not on our mailing list? Be among the first to see our quarterly program - email us
TICKET SALES
Call 8410 0979 9-5:30 Mon to Fri with you credit Card handy.
Call into the MRC 13 Morphett St Adelaide (behind the Mercury) 8-5:30 Mon-Fri
Buy tickets at the box office from one hour prior to the advertised screening time.
You may always view the calendar HERE.
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CHARLES BUKOWSKI: STAGGERED WORDS
One of the most idiosyncratic writers to emerge from the US, an iconic antihero for many of the disaffected, Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) was a rough-edged rogue and artist. Like William S. Burroughs (The Naked Lunch) and Hubert Selby (Last Exit to Brooklyn, Requiem for a Dream), Bukowski wrote prolifically about his own daily experiences, infusing it all with the geography and spirit of his hometown, Los Angeles. Through his alter-ego Henry Chinaski, he shares with his faithful readers “the hopelessness of his debauchery, the unmitigated futility of his existence, presented not as a judgment but a human fact.” The subject of numerous features, short films and documentaries (Bukowski, Tales of Ordinary Madness, Born Into This), Bukowski eschewed celebrity, instead opting to live out a skewed male fantasy as “the uninhibited bachelor, slobby, anti-social, and utterly free.”
7:30 Monday 16 April
barfly
Barbet Schroeder USA 1987 97mins 35mm (M)
Henry Chinaski, played by Mickey Rourke (Rumble Fish, Angel Heart, Sin City) at the peak of his popularity, is a poet and an alcoholic, spending his time frequenting the seedy bars around Los Angeles. It’s in one such bar that he meets new-found drinking companion and lover Wanda, played by Faye Dunaway. Together they bicker and drink before getting a shot at fame and a little fortune when somebody offers to publish Henry’s writing… but it all just gets in the way of the task of drinking even more. Charles Bukowski himself wrote the screenplay based on his fictional alter-ego.
Best Actress - Drama (nom) - Faye Dunaway - 1987 Golden Globe
Best Actor (nom) - Mickey Rourke - 1987 Independent Spirit Award
Best Cinematography (nom) - Robby Müller - 1987 Independent Spirit Award
A terrific little film that features the best performance Mickey Rourke has ever given. It drags you into its world and makes you care about the characters. Larry Carroll Countingdown.com
The result is a truly original American movie, a film like no other, a period of time spent in the company of the kinds of characters Saroyan and O'Neill would have understood, the kinds of people we try not to see, and yet might enjoy more than some of our more visible friends. "Barfly" is one of the year's best films. Roger Ebert
7:30 Thurday 19 April
FACTOTUM
Bent Hamer France/Germany/Norway/Sweden/USA 2005 94mins Digital (M)
“What matters most is how you well you walk through the fire.” Heavy drinking anti-hero Henry Chinaski returns to the screen, this time played by Matt Dillon (Rumble Fish, Drugstore Cowboy, Crash). While continuing to get distracted from his writing by women, gambling and alcohol, Henry still manages to see the poetry in life’s small victories and disappointments.
International co-production from the director of Kitchen Stories. Also starring Lili Taylor, Marisa Tomei & Adrienne Shelly.
Factotum is so sly and low-key hilarious that anybody can be in on the joke. Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
The result is a surprisingly satisfying film, true to Bukowski and itself, a work that manages to make the man and his profane world more palatable without compromising on who he was and what he stood for. Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan.
This is also an acidly funny work, even if the humor is that of a man who drinks to stave off the pain and madness of sobriety. In his finest performance since Drugstore Cowboy, Dillon plays Chinanski with funereal grandiosity. LA Weekly, Scott Foundas.
The film looks great on the screen, and Hamer has commissioned a terrific musical score from Kristin Asbjornsen, who has set a few of Bukowski's poems to haunting, jazzy music. Washington Post, Ann Hornaday.
I should not leave off without mentioning two things -- that Marisa Tomei is in the film and very good as yet another kind of drunk; and that "Factotum" is funny in a distinct way. It's not a straight comedy. Nor is it a black comedy, because nothing is exaggerated. Rather, it finds the absurdity in everyday encounters. It's a deadpan comedy that looks upon the world with an honesty and impassiveness worthy of its protagonist -- and of the author standing behind him. Mick LaSalle
