People are jobless, hungry and just plain fed up.  These are hard times.  Join Kelly Reichardt and Jon Raymond for a double feature exploring themes of economic hardship and the resilience of the human spirit, featuring “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Wendy and Lucy” both presented in 35mm.  This marks the second installment in the Hollywood Theatre’s En Route series, in which artists program films that are meaningful to them.  Reichardt and Raymond will be present to introduce each film.

“Wendy and Lucy” marked Reichardt and Raymond’s second collaboration. Based on a short story by Raymond, whose prose has been compared to Raymond Carver’s, the film follows Wendy over a few days in a strange town during which her life takes a series of dives we are not certain she can regroup from. Continuing in the meditative style of “Old Joy,” Reichardt and Raymond’s first collaboration, “Wendy and Lucy” is a careful, visually rich snapshot of a pivotal moment in one person’s life. The film confirms New York Times reviewer A.O. Scott’s assertion that Reichardt is “quietly establishing herself as an indispensable filmmaker.”

Widely considered one of director John Ford’s masterpieces, “The Grapes of Wrath” has enthralled audiences since its premier in 1940. When the film first screened in theaters, New York Times critic Frank S. Nugent wrote that ”In the vast library where the celluloid literature of the screen is stored there is one small, uncrowded shelf devoted to the cinema’s masterworks, to those films which by dignity of theme and excellence of treatment seem to be of enduring artistry … To that shelf of screen classics Twentieth Century-Fox yesterday added its version of John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath.” Don’t miss a rare opportunity to see this masterpiece of classical Hollywood as it was intended on 35mm film.