Nevada County Special Film Programs for September

With September coming, another month of special repertory-style film programming awaits Nevada County’s film fans, along with another installment in this ongoing effort to encourage you to turn off your TV and your Smartphone and head out to one our excellent movie theaters to experience classic films from both the far and recent past.

On Sunday, September 1st at 7:00 PM, the Onyx Downtown Nevada City starts its series of Sunday screenings with director Frank Capra’s populist comedy-drama Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. A major treasure from one of Hollywood’s greatest years, 1939, it stars James Stewart — in my mind, cinema’s greatest actor — as a young, newly appointed and very naïve U.S. Senator whose idealism suffers a head-on crash with the cruel sausage factory of Washington D. C. politics. Critics back in the day called Capra’s films “Capra-corn” for their sentimentalism, but, by golly, when they work, they work. Thanks in part to Stewart’s astonishing naturalism, along with great execution, the sappy moments are easy to forgive. Starring alongside Stewart is another Hollywood Golden Age icon Claude Rains.

Some of you youngsters out there labor under the delusion that no movies existed before 1977. On Wednesday Sept. 4, at 9:30 AM, the Onyx Nevada City attempts to correct that erroneous point of view with a new repertory series…