“Way back in July 2020 when we screened this fantastic film on the JBFC Virtual Marquee I wrote, “One thing the pandemic has certainly destroyed is our ability to head into our beloved watering holes, knock a few back, laugh with friends, and bask in the cacophonous wonder of The Bar. What this film gets so right is how perfectly it captures the camaraderie and pseudo-familial feeling that comes along with being a regular at one of these places.” In many ways, the art house experience is the same. It’s a communal activity that we take in sometimes with friends, sometimes alone, and even tend to haunt the same theaters we’ve had good experiences with over the years. We make memories at the movies the same way we do at our bars and, fingers crossed, soon enough we’ll be able to take in the same beverages in both places as well! But until then, don’t miss this incredible film, one of my favorites from last year. Don’t read too much about it going in if you haven’t seen it yet, otherwise it will be like having a magic trick spoiled for you.”  —Andrew Jupin, Senior Film Programmer

In the shadows of the bright lights of Las Vegas, it’s last call for a beloved dive bar known as the Roaring 20s. That’s the premise, at least; the reality is as unreal as the world from which the regulars are escaping. Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets is a mosaic of disparate lives teetering between dignity and debauchery, reckoning with the past as they face an uncertain future, and singing as their ship goes down. Filmmaking duo Bill and Turner Ross (Western, 2015 Sundance Film Festival) return with an elegiac portrait of a tiny world—a world fading away, but still warm and beating with the comfort of community. Their beguiling approach to nonfiction storytelling makes for a foggy memory of experience lost in empty shot glasses and puffs of smoke.