Sunday, August 12th at 12:00 p.m.
Admission: $8.00 general; $6.00 Loft members
FREE RAFFLE and FREE BIRTHDAY CAKE
at the Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway.

The Loft celebrates Tucson’s birthday month with a special screening of the 1993 comedy/drama ARIZONA DREAM, starring Johnny Depp, Faye Dunaway and Jerry Lewis, filmed right here in Southern Arizona (with locations in Douglas, AZ; Patagonia, AZ, etc.)! This offbeat tale of an innocent dreamer (played by Depp in his pre-Hollwood blockbuster days) trying to find his way in a small desert town near Tucson is a charming ode to the strangeness of the American West. Grab a slice of our free TUCSON BIRTHDAY CAKE (while supplies last), and enter our FREE PRIZE RAFFLE for a fabulous gift package which includes dvds of films made in Arizona, Tucson-centric books and other surprises!

This uniquely quirky comedy, the first English language movie by Bosnian-born director Emir Kusturica (When Father Was Away on Business), tells the highly entertaining tale of two highly dysfunctional families living, loving and dreaming in the vast expanses of the great American Southwest.

An orphan named Axel Blackmar (Johnny Depp, in one of his earliest starring roles), who works for the New York Department of Fish and Game (and who is obsessed with the dream life of fish), is asked to serve as best man at the wedding of his uncle (legendary comedian Jerry Lewis), a larger-than-life Arizona Cadillac dealer who’s marrying a Polish woman (model/actress Paulina Porizkova) less than half his age. Axel’s cousin (Vincent Gallo, Brown Bunny) is an aspiring actor given to obsessively performing lines and gestures in sync with such movies as Raging Bull, The Godfather and North by Northwest. Relocating to the small desert town that his family calls home, a lonely and confused Axel starts an affair with a widow nearly twice his age (Oscar-winner Faye Dunaway) who lives with her neurotic and disgruntled stepdaughter (Lili Taylor, I Shot Andy Warhol). As the lives of these oddball characters begin to intersect, it becomes clear they are all living in various stages of a dream: Axel dreams of moving to Alaska, his uncle dreams of climbing to the moon on a stack of Cadillacs, the widow dreams of flying via a homemade pair of wings and her stepdaughter dreams of being reincarnated as a turtle.
Gorgeously shot, endlessly fascinating and full of lyrical and surreal images, ARIZONA DREAM is a wildly audacious black comedy about the dreamer in all of us.

I’ve seen this 1993 movie and it is an odd & original story filmed here in Southern Arizona. Early in the movie the Johnny Depp character Axel says that “he doesn’t want to go to Arizona.” But he changes his mind (find out how by viewing this film). The movie is just perfect for you Johnny Depp fans. Dream on.

And Happy Early Birthday to Tucson (coming up on August 20). For more Tucson Birthdays events go to District 5 Supervisor Richard Elias’ webpage & click on Birthday on the top.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 10th, 2012 at 6:32 am and is filed under Arts, Life. Tags for this post: "Arizona Dream", birthday cake, Emir Kusturica, Faye Dunaway, Jerry Lewis, Johnny Depp, Lily Taylor, Loft Cinema, Richard Elias, Tucson's birthday, Vincent Gallo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.