[Reel Pizza] Schedule Oct 1 - 21

Here is the next schedule for Films and other events happening at Reel Pizza from Fri Oct 1 through Thurs Oct 21.

Colin, Chris and I would like to thank everyone who came out for a film this past weekend, and supported First Light Film Society's inaugural event, year 2 of Maine International Film Festival By-the-Sea.  The films were terrific, the filmmakers were all delightful to listen to, and they all told us how much they appreciated you, our audience.  One director said this was the most fun film festival he had ever attended!  Attending were a good number of people who came in off the street, who just happened to be in town, as well as many of our regular customers.  All in all it was a fabulous weekend of film fun.  We look forward to more exciting film events in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead.

And, in that vein, we have two special events to tell you about that will happen during this next schedule. 

The season's finale of IMPROVISION, our occasional and wacky collaboration with ImprovAcadia, is coming up on Friday Oct 8th at 11pm.  If you haven't been, this is the last time this season to find out what all the excitement is about!  We appreciate and have had a blast with the ImprovAcadia crew this summer.  Come watch them do that thing they do so well...With the sound turned off, this ever-changing group of up-and-coming comedians improvise the dialogue, music tracks and sound effects to a cheesy, grade-B movie, THAT THEY HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE!  Their talents make the pictures on the screen way funnier than they were ever anticipated.  It's a totally new show every time.   If you haven't seen it yet, now's definitely the time.  Don't miss out on all the fun.

Benefit Film and Discussion.
MEET YOUR FARMER     Sat Oct 2    2pm
Maine Farmland Trust (MFT), a statewide non-profit which works to preserve farmland and keep Maine's farms farming, is hosting a benefit screening of 8 short documentaries by Maine filmmakers Cecily Pingree and Jason Mann, which tell the diverse stories of eight Maine farms: from Aroostook to York, from potatoes to dairy, from large commercial operations to small farms that sell directly to local people.   Don't miss this opportunity to see what has farmers, chefs, food connoisseurs and farmland conservation supporters talking about "an unmistakable momentum in Maine."   John Piotti, Executive Director of Maine Farmland Trust, will be providing additional commentary to the films and discuss the work of this organization.

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And our regular schedule of films... (no showtimes)

Fri Oct 1 - Mon Oct 4
CAIRO TIME  (PG)  89min
Juliette (Patricia Clarkson, The Station Agent) has arrived in Cairo to enjoy a rare vacation with her UN employed husband.  However, events in Gaza delay him and he asks his long-time security guard Tareq (Alexander Siddig, Syriana), now retired and running a coffee shop, to meet his wife and get her to her hotel where he expects to meet her soon.  Lonely Juliette decides to accept Tareq's offer of a tour of his city, as her husband's delay lengthens.  Their acquaintance becomes a deeper friendship as their attraction grows.  Syrian-Canadian writer-director Ruba Nadda has made a restrained love story and a delightful portrait of both the gritty and picturesque parts of this ancient city.
 
Tues Oct 5 - Thurs Oct 7
WELCOME  (NR)  110min  [in FRENCH and KURDISH with subtitles]
This prize-winning and multi-César-nominated film from director Philippe Loiret dramatizes a true situation.  Young people, often refugees, from war-torn regions of the world believe their salvation is in England, and they often only get as far as northwest France, where they are abruptly stopped by the authorities, and are unable to cross the English Channel.  Bilal is a Kurdish teen who has spent three months reaching as far as Calais enroute to Britain where his girlfriend's family has emigrated.  He decides to swim across and finds a sympathetic instructor in Simon, once an Olympian, now facing divorce.  These two discover they have much in common, and a strong bond forms between them, but Simon doesn't realize that, like Bilal, he must risk everything for true happiness.
 
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Fri Oct 8 - Mon Oct 11
GOING THE DISTANCE  (R)  97min 
Drew Barrymore shines in this first-rate, quite funny, and rather raunchy romantic comedy about a long-distance relationship.  She is grad student Erin, in New York for a summer internship at a newspaper publisher.  At a bar one night she meets Garrett (Justin Long), who works a low-level job at a record label; they hit it off and spend a bliss-filled summer together.  Unfortunately her school is in San Francisco, and he does have a job in New York, so they decide to stay together, over the phone and via texting and Skype, with an occasional visit when they can afford it.  Needless to say, his friends and her sister are not encouraging.  This debut feature from documentarian Nanette Burstein, and first time screenwriter Geoff LaTulippe is daring, natural and convincing.
 
Tues Oct 12 - Thurs Oct 14
THE FATHER OF MY CHILDREN  (NR)  [in FRENCH with subtitles]  110min
Inspired by a true story, this poignant Cannes Special Jury Prize-winning film from director Mia Hansen-Løve explores the complex emotions of people and how they cope with the circumstances that life has laid out.  Grégoire is a charismatic film producer who enjoys constantly juggling the many details of his independent production company.  His employees are like family.  He also is a devoted husband to Sylvia, and father to three beautiful daughters, and spends loving weekends with them at their country home.  However, it becomes apparent that he can no longer keep all the balls in the air, as his family needs him to be more a part of their lives, and the financial situation of his prestigious company is in more dire shape than obstinate Grégoire will admit; everyone pitches in to help, but then calamity strikes. 

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Fri Oct 15 - Mon Oct 18
FLIPPED (PG)  90min
Ever since Bryce moved to town in second grade, his independent schoolmate and neighbor across the street, Juli, has been totally smitten.  For the past six years, Bryce has done everything he can to keep her and her crazy ideas out of his world.  Now they are in eighth grade and he is, maybe, starting to see Juli with a new-found appreciation, while she's totally pre-occupied with saving old trees in her neighborhood, and has perhaps finally lost her earlier enchantment with him.  Showing the story from the polar-opposite perspectives of both teens, as did author Wendelin Van Draanan in her 2003 young adult novel, director Rob Reiner (Stand By Me, When Harry Met Sally) brings an old-fashioned sensibility to this sweet and winning film.
 
Tues Oct 19 - Thurs Oct 21
BEETLE QUEEN CONQUERS TOKYO (NR)  89min   [partly in Japanese with subtitles]
Working backwards through history, this beautifully filmed and fascinating documentary explores the mystery of Japan's rich and enriching love affair with bugs, while other cultures developed an almost universal and profound fear of insects.  Using insects like an anthropologist's toolkit, filmmaker Jessica Oreck, a docent and animal caretaker at the American Museum of Natural History in NY, reveals a web of influences behind this captivation, from modern day where live insects can be bought in vending machines and in specialty shops for enormous sums, back to the first cricket selling businesses in the 1800's, to the stories of the fabled first emperor who named Japan "the island of the dragonflies."  In the quest to discover the basis of this fascination, she explores Japanese philosophies that could shift our Western perspectives on nature, beauty, life, and even the seemingly mundane realities of our day-to-day routines.
 
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Coming Soon on our Second Screen?

THE AMERICAN  (R)  105min
This taut, haunting and stylish thriller stars George Clooney as a hired assassin who is taking a breather, hiding out in a small medieval Italian town after a job in Sweden goes badly.  His new work is to build a custom weapon for another, mysterious client; no killing involved.  He becomes friendly with the local priest who may have an unsavory past, and falls for a sweet, part-time prostitute.  He wants out of his line of work, but will accommodate this one last job, even as he fully believes he is being stalked.  This finely-crafted, restrained, and gorgeously photographed film, a study of loneliness, is the second from Dutch director Anton Corbijn (Control), a music video director and professional photographer, based on the Martin Booth novel A Very Private Gentleman.
 
THE TOWN (R)  123min
Ben Affleck's second outing as director proves his initial success (with Gone Baby Gone) was no fluke.  In this smart, compelling heist drama based on the novel Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan, set in Boston of course, he stars as a thug who falls for the sunny bank manager (Rebecca Hall) who was briefly taken hostage while he was robbing her vault with his buddy (Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker).  He's kicked alcohol, and, now in love, he wants to beat crime.  But he's being chased by the FBI, and getting out means turning his back on his best friend, and his heritage, as his dad (Chris Cooper) taught him his trade.   And then a local crime kingpin (Pete Postlethwaite) gives them a job they can't refuse. 
 
GET LOW (PG-13)  100min
Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Bill Murray star in first time feature director (and Short Film Oscar winner) Aaron Schneiders's fictionalized account of a true Southern Gothic story set in Depression-era Tennessee.  Duvall is Felix Bush, an elderly loner who has led the life of a crotchety hermit for 40 years, decides he's going to die soon and wants to throw himself a funeral party, while he's still alive to enjoy it.  He plans to invite the townfolk to tell all the stories he knows have been circulating about him for years.  Bill Murray plays the funeral director who sees his way out of his debts with this job, and Sissy Spacek is a widow who once, long ago, had a fling with Felix and has been trying to forget him ever since.  It's a charming and good-natured film with excellent performances all around.
 
WALL STREET: Money Never Sleeps (PG-13)  136min
Director Oliver Stone (W, Nixon, JFK) returns Gordon Gekko to the screen in this sequel to his 1987 hit film.  Michael Douglas reprises his Oscar-winning role as the now disgraced corporate raider who is just emerging from a lengthy prison term.  He finds himself on the outside of a world he once dominated and is looking to repair his damaged relationship with his daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan).  Gekko forms an alliance with her fiancé Jacob (Shia LaBeouf), but its unclear if  Jacob and Winnie can really trust the ex-financial titan, whose relentless efforts to redefine himself in a different era have unexpected consequences.
 
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Coming Soon on the Next Schedule?
Never Let Me Go
Around a Small Mountain
Guardians of Ga'Hoole
The Concert
Mao's Last Dancer
Jack Goes Boating
Soul Kithcen
Casino Jack
The Social Network

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