Up there with Paul Schrader, Robert Towne was one of the premiere screenwriters of the New Hollywood boom in the '70s. A perennial favorite of critic Pauline Kael, Towne wrote the script for Chinatown (1974), almost unanimously acknowledged as a classic. Tonight, the recipient of this year's Kanbar Award discusses his past while showcasing clips from his films, followed by a screening of Shampoo. An ingenius musing on a bygone genre (the screwball-comedy here) with Nixon-era disillusionment, the film stars Warren Beatty as a sexed-up hairdresser navigating love, failure, and the detritus of Los Angeles in the '60s. Understandably, Beatty has a tough time picking just one lover — faced with Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, and a pre-Princess Leia Carrie Fisher.