Our two interim program managers got a chance to talk to Wim Wenders about his new documentary, Pina, which has its Minnesota premiere at the Walker this Wednesday. Read the interview or listen to it below. Wim Wenders was also at the Walker in 1991 for a Regis dialogue and retrospective. Jeremy Meckler: I know that you and Werner Herzog have worked together a lot in the past, and I just thought…

Don’t let that painted-on smile fool you: Baron Kurtz is one of the few unambiguously vile characters in The Third Man, a slimy racketeer either directly or indirectly responsible for at least one murder during the course of the film. Seen above with a mini Doberman and a copy of one of Holly’s books (The Oklahoma Kid) cradled in his arm, Kurtz is one of those characters who seems to know every…

Walker development associate Masami Kawazato spotted this guerrilla sign posted by an anonymous Walker staffer in a back stairwell. “For me that 8 ½ level is the fake-out level,” emails Masami, whose office is in the top floor of the Walker’s Barnes building. “At 8 I get really excited I’m almost to the office after trudging up those steps, and it’s like 8.5 is the teaser before you finally get…

Mr. Hartman leans, like everyone in The Third Man, his hand lifting the slightly blurry receiver up and out of the frame. We are so close we can see the intricacies of his suit. It’s a three-piece number with a tuxedo-like flair to the jacket and three gold bars around the wrist which are reminiscent of a general’s stripes. His tie is a little loose, allowing it to swing back toward center while…

Still reeling from the whiskey supplied by Major Calloway and the mean right jab supplied by Sergeant Paine, Holly is ushered to a military hotel in Vienna, at which he’s loaned enough “stage money” to last him the night (and advised not to spend it all at the hotel bar). Our poor writer of cheap novelettes assumes that he will have to leave Vienna before defending Harry Lime’s honor from…

This box contains our brand new digital projector. We’ll be pulling it off for Pina on February 1.

Holly, drunk, boisterous and alone, has reached a new low.  Sitting, swilling whiskey while he is verbally accosted by Major Calloway, our idealistic, self-righteous and romantic hero decides that his only outlet is to grab Calloway (who he calls “Callahan”) by the collar and slug him a good one. Of course the tipsy “scribbler” is no match for an army major, and Calloway easily tosses Holly onto a bench…

This man is Sergeant Paine, a character whose name belies his demeanor: Paine is actually a good-hearted fellow, and seemingly the only fan that Holly Martins, self-professed writer of “cheap novelettes” like The Lone Rider of Santa Feand Death at XX Ranch(“eh…Raaaaunch,” Holly corrects himself), has in Vienna. Up to this point, we’ve seen only ominously brief shots of Paine as he suspiciously…

Holly is at a Vienna bar, swigging whiskey and mumbling into his glass. His words are slurred as if they have been here for hours, when this choice phrase slips out of his mouth: “I guess nobody knew Harry like he did—like I did. Best friend I ever had.” Is this the drunken slip up of a lush or is it something more telling? Harry has secrets, that is itself no secret to Holly, and it will become…