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Critic’s Pick:  Egyptian Theatre salutes Orwell with film series

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If you’re in an Orwellian mood, you’re in luck — the Egyptian Theatre is too. A terrific weekend of films influenced by George Orwell’s prescient novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” begins Friday with a triple feature led, as it should be, by the big-screen adaptation “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” The film, released in 1984 and directed by Michael Radford, stars John Hurt as the rewriter of history who dares to fall in love in this grimly imagined totalitarian society. Hurt, as always, is great as a tortured soul. Next up is 1976’s “Logan’s Run,” one of my favorites, with Michael York as an enforcer of a world where you live well and prosper until you’re 30, then die by rule of law. Fascinating to watch the policy questioning begin. Saturday offers an earlier masterwork by “Gravity’s” Alfonso Cuarón. “Children of Men” (2006) stars Clive Owen as the man trying to keep Earth’s last pregnant woman alive. It’s a grittier world view than Cuarón’s “Gravity,” but in its own way, as hopeful. The futuristic “V for Vendetta” (2005) and Natalie Portman’s shaved pate follows. Finally, you can trip the light fantastic Sunday night starting with Terry Gilliam’s 1985 sci-fi satire, “Brazil.” It remains one of the best send-ups of the computer-driven life ever, and definitely worth a look by those living in a modern wired world. George Lucas’ first film, 1971’s “THX 1138,” closes things out with Robert Duvall living in an over-medicated world. Calm and reassuring it is not.

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