Blockbusted

>> There's plenty to see during the August dry spell

by MARK SLUTSKY

August is traditionally the slowest month of the summer movie season. Most of the big-time blockbusters are already in theatres, so the studios tend to clear house and dump whatever they have lying around the lot before they get down to releasing their fall Oscar-hopeful movies. Fantasia's over and the World Film Festival isn't for a couple of weeks yet, so what's an eager moviegoer to do? See A.I. again? Horrors! No, such drastic measures won't be necessary, for this week sees an interesting handful of mini-fests and special screenings to keep this summer's disappointing crop of event movies at bay.

First up is the Cinémathèque québécoise's AutoBioCinématographie series. This ambitious program focuses on personal and autobiographical cinema, with over 70 films showing in the enticing series. The organizers have assembled quite an impressive lineup, including Caro Diario and Aprile by Italian director Nanni Moretti (whose The Son's Room took the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year), Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, Eric von Stroheim's Foolish Wives, Woody Allen's Radio Days and Bernardo Bertolucci's Prima della rivoluzione (Before the Revolution). Also notable is Charlie Chaplin's elegiac 1952 talkie, Limelight, about the last days of an old vaudevillian. On the slightly more avant-garde side of things is a an assortment of shorts by some giants of experimental film, with Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid's film-school fave Meshes of the Afternoon, Stanley Brakhage's Window Water Baby Moving, and Kenneth Anger's first film, Fireworks. Early film buffs might also want to check out Louis Lumière's 1895 Déjeuner de bébé, possibly the first film about a director's personal life ever shot.

Also cause to rejoice is a special pre-World-Film-Festival event starting this week. To mark the fest's 25th anniversary, the organizers have arranged a retrospective series of screenings of some of the festival's more notable entries over the years. The lineup reads like a real trip back into the arthouses and festival cinemas of the recent past, with a 70mm presentation of Ron Fricke's tripped-out Baraka, a midnight showing of David Lynch's Blue Velvet, plus repertory classics like Lee Tamahori's Once Were Warriors, Andrei Tarkovsky's last film The Sacrifice, John Boorman's Hope and Glory, and Emir Kusturica's Arizona Dream, among many others. The best part is they're all free, so show up early.

If that weren't enough, Montreal's gay and lesbian film fest, Image&Nation, presents a special screening this week as part of the expansive Divers/Cité festivities. Big Eden is director Thomas Bezucha's debut feature, a sort of city mouse/country mouse rom-com touted as "the most honoured film in the history of gay and lesbian film festivals." Watch for Louise "Nurse Ratched" Fletcher in a supporting role. Also this week (though not officially associated with Divers/Cité) is a raucous, balls-out showing of The Rocky Horror Picture "Glam" Show, hosted by One-976er Plastik Patrik. There'll be costumes (of course), 30 live actors, toast, toilet paper, water guns and all the other expected trappings of what might be the queerest cult film ever.

AutoBioCinématographie at the Cinémathèque québécoise through Aug. 31; The WFF 25th Anniversary Retrospective runs at the Imperial Aug. 2-22; Big Eden plays at the Parisien Friday, Aug. 3, 7pm, $11;The Rocky Horror Picture "Glam" Show plays at the Théâtre National Friday, Aug. 3, 9pm & 12am, $10