FAST FORWARD

Can we anticipate “Freudian Overtones in the Farrelly Oeuvre”? A few local film series programmers predict their most popular retrospective series 30 years from now.

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Dennis Bartok: American Cinematheque

“Asian action films from the 1980s and early ‘90s from directors like John Woo, Jackie Chan, Tsui Hark and others will still be popular--they’ve got an incredible sense of color, energy and almost limitless possibility, like the Warner Bros. cartoons of the 1940s.”

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Jon Fitzgerald: American Film Institute

“Francis Ford Coppola. He is a visionary who isn’t afraid to take chances--an artist who is capable of creating unique films that are often commercial, yet not artistically compromised. Take ‘The Conversation,’ ‘The Godfather’ and ‘Apocalypse Now.’ All of these films were extraordinary on their own terms and contributed new aesthetics and techniques for subsequent filmmakers.”

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Anne Friedberg: UC Irvine Film and Video Center

“Series title: ‘Nostalgia for the Real: The Emergence of the Virtual.’ In 30 years, when what we now think of as ‘real’ has become so overtaken by virtual simulation technologies, there will be a palpable nostalgia for ‘the real’ and a desire to trace the beginnings of its loss. This series would include films from the 1980s and ‘90s--’Videodrome,’ ‘Total Recall,’ ‘The Lawnmower Man,’ ‘Strange Days,’ ‘Dark City,’ ‘Abre Los Ojos/Open Your Eyes,’ ‘eXistenZ,’ ‘The Matrix’--that imagined the impact of the confusion between reality and its virtual others. [It] could be equally titled ‘The Prophecies of Philip K. Dick.’ ”

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Kirk Ellis: KCET Cinema Series

“John Sayles. He’s probably the one true original in American contemporary cinema. He literally makes films he wants to, and he shares a regard for the human condition--how real people act and speak. There’s ‘City of Hope,’ ‘Men With Guns’ (it’s shot in Spanish), ‘The Secret of Roan Inish,’ ‘Lone Star.’ He makes unique testaments to people. Mainstream films today sacrifice narrative for star quality and special effects. But storytelling will come back.”