Up Tight!

(Jules Dassin, 1969).
A real polarizer in its day, Jules Dassin’s lone post-blacklist studio movie—a remake of John Ford’s The Informer—was also Hollywood’s first expression of black power. Consistent in its inconsistency it represents Dassin at his worst (stagy, talky, unsubtle) and his best (evocative location work, well choreographed violence, and a passionate identification with the underdog).

Tue., March 31, 1:30, 3:35, 5:40, 7:45 & 9:50 p.m., 2009