Four Weeks of Neo-Noir: Memento (2000)

Leonard Shelby is hunting the man who killed his wife, with one major complication: a condition that wipes his short-term memory every few minutes in Memento. He tattoos facts onto his own skin and photographs strangers just to keep track of who they are - and Christopher Nolan tells the whole thing in reverse, scene by scene, so you're piecing it together exactly as unreliably as Leonard is. Guy Pearce stars in what became Nolan's breakout, made on a fraction of what he'd later spend on a single action sequence, and it's still the film people mean when they say "Nolan puzzle box," years before Inception or Tenet gave the trick a bigger budget. It holds up on a second watch almost better than the first - you start noticing what you were never actually shown. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it a diabolical and absorbing experience, while Peter Travers of Rolling Stone described it as a mesmerizing mindbender built to keep you up nights. Four Weeks of Neo-Noir: Memento Thursday, September 17th | 8:00 PM | TicTic Free Entry & Popcorn - Arrive early for sofa, bed, or beanbag seating.