Viewing: July 30,2026
Join us Thursday, July 30th at 7:00 p.m. as we celebrate Art House Theater Day with an exciting double-feature of anti-capitalist classics!
One Film $5 – Double-feature $8
Double-feature Schedule:
7:00 p.m. – PUTNEY SWOPE (84 min)
8:35 p.m. – Intermission (25 min…grab a drink and a popcorn!)
9:00 p.m. – SORRY TO BOTHER YOU (112 min)
For Art House Theater Day, we are pairing two generations of radical, anti-establishment filmmaking for a night of surreal corporate warfare!
Kick things of with Robert Downey Sr.’s 1969 underground masterpiece Putney Swope, where an accidental black CEO uses a hilarious dubbed voice to upend the advertising world. Then, fast-forward to Boots Riley’s 2018 sci-fi satirical directing debut Sorry to Bother You, following a telemarketer who uses his telephonic “white voice” to climb capitalism’s twisted ladder.
Come for the biting social commentary, stay for the absurdist comedy. The system is rigged — dub your way in!
About Putney Swope
In this classic 1969 satire written and directed by Robert Downey Sr, a black executive – Putney Swope – of a Madison Avenue advertising agency is accidentally made chairman of the board of directors when a boardroom vote goes awry. Seeing an opportunity to shake things up, Swope renames the agency “Truth & Soul Inc”, fires his white co-workers, and brings on-board a host of radical black activists to try and turn the advertising world on its head with subversive and shock-inducing ad campaigns. While the effort makes Truth & Soul highly profitable, Swope and his cohort end up drawing the ire of the President and are declared a threat to national security.
About Sorry to Bother You
In his directorial debut, self-proclaimed communist and filmmaker Boots Riley presents an alternate reality set in Oakland, California where Cassius Green, a telemarketer who is floundering in his job and struggling with the existential crisis of being black and selling to white people. When a long-time fellow employee advises him to try using his “white voice” instead, Green suddenly finds huge success selling abhorrent-though-lucrative products to Caucasian customers. Meanwhile, Green’s co-workers are organizing a union to try and improve their less-than-favorable working conditions. As Green watches his success begin to erode his old sense-of-self, he has a crisis of conscience when his boss tries to recruit him for a nefarious plan.
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