Join us at the Rio Theatre as we toast the late filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich with the film that truly cemented his status among the "New Hollywood" filmmaker generation in the 70s, the seminal coming-of-age drama THE LAST PICTURE SHOW.

Released in 1971 to critical acclaim and public controversy, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW garnered eight Academy Award nominations and was hailed as the most important work by a young American director since CITIZEN KANE. A surprisingly frank, bittersweet drama of social and sexual mores in small-town Texas, the film features a talent-laden cast led by Jeff Bridges (THE BIG LEBOWSKI), Cybill Sheperd (TAXI DRIVER) and Timothy Bottoms (THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK), Ellen Burstyn, Eileen Brennan. Cloris Leachman ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show") and Ben Johnson each won Oscars for their work in supporting roles.

For the Rio Theatre's tribute screening of THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, we will be screening the director's cut, which Bogdanovich oversaw in 1992. As part of the famously "disruptive" filmmaker's commentary on the Criterion Collection release, he said: "We were told to get the picture down to two hours. And when it was about two hours and ten minutes I said, “We’re in deep danger now of losing things we shouldn’t loose.” I said “well, just keep on cutting, we gotta get it under two.” Well, it was only my second picture, so I didn’t have any, you know, cloud about it, I just tried to cut things that I thought could go without hurting the overall picture. So this is one of them, although it didn’t hurt the picture, but I thought we could live with out it. If we had to, so we did. We got down to little tiny cuts too, like that scene in the movie theater that was really only about a couple of seconds that were cut out. But I did that because we were looking for seconds, we were adding up seconds to get it under two hours. It was really frustrating. That’s one of the reasons I always thought the picture was a bit jerky in it’s original form. It always seemed like it wasn’t complete to me."

"One of the most profoundly felt coming-of-age stories to ever grace a silver screen, it’s the kind of slice-of-life that cuts deep into the gaps within existences, delicately focusing on those human interactions which have within them the power to change one’s perception of the surrounding world, woven together with soulful moments of amiable or poignant reflection." (Indiewire)

"The scene where Sam imparts his wisdom to young buck Bottoms may be the saddest, loveliest moment in 1970s American cinema. And that's saying something." (Time Out)

"It's plain and uncondescending in its re-creation of what it means to be a high-school athlete, of what a country dance hall is like, of the necking in cars and movie houses, and of the desolation that follows high-school graduation." (The New Yorker)

Wednesday, January 26
Doors 5:50 pm | Movie 6:20 pm *Start time subject to change. Please arrive on time.
Advance tickets $13 | $13 at the door

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW (Peter Bogdanovich, 1971 / 118 mins / PG) High school seniors and best friends, Sonny and Duane, live in a dying Texas town. The handsome Duane is dating local beauty, Jacy, while Sonny is having an affair with the coach's wife, Ruth. As graduation nears, both boys contemplate their futures. While Duane eyes the army and Sonny takes over a local business, each boy struggles to figure out if he can escape this dead-end town and build a better life somewhere else.