Monday, September 24, 2012

[Reel Pizza] schedule Sept 28 - Oct 18

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to the next schedule for Reel Pizza that runs Sept 28 - Oct 18.  We have a weekend (10/12 - 14) full of special programming coming up (not intentional, just how they all landed!)  Our final IMPROVISION, and two films with discussion: a screening of local documentary BETTING THE FARM, about some of Maine's organic dairy farmers and the creation of MOO MILK, with the director and subject farmers attending to take questions, and our final film in the SIERRA CLUB ENVIRONMENTAL FILM SERIES - when we will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act and the 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson's classic SILENT SPRING - the  film A THIRSTY WORLD, a gorgeous film about efforts of people worldwide to acquire fresh water. 

Please also be aware that Reel Pizza sponsors a free NATIVE AMERICAN FILM SERIES (on the first Thursday of the next three months) at the ABBE MUSEUM.  This year the theme is THE ARCTIC.   The first title - THE FAST RUNNER which we screened several years ago - was the first all-Inuit film made, and was a big hit back when we showed it.  It will be screening Thursday Oct 4th at 7pm at the Abbe Museum.  Subsequent titles will be BEFORE TOMORROW on 11/1 and THE NECESSITIES OF LIFE (which we screened to great acclaim at our first MIFF By-the-Sea but it never got a national release) on 12/6.  The Abbe would love to have you join them.  We will continue in January with a special screening of NANOOK OF THE NORTH with live accompaniment.  Stay tuned for more details on that special event next month.

Many of you have asked for This American Life's SLEEPWALK WITH ME, and I am glad to announce it starts this Friday for a week.  HOPE SPRINGS will be finally coming too...we are working out the details now and will know more in a few days.  Below is the next lineup for you as I know it now.  See you soon!

-Lisa and Chris

SPECIAL PROGRAMMING...

Fri Oct 12 IMPROVISION  11pm 

Discover our occasional, wacky collaboration with the talented ImprovAcadia crew!  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. Don't miss out on all the fun.


Sat Oct 13 BETTING THE FARM  (NR)  85min   2pm 

Betting The Farm is the story of a group of Maine dairy farmers who--dropped by their national milk company--are suddenly confronted with the real possibility of losing their farms. Banding together, the farmers launch their own milk company, Maine’s Own Organic Milk.  Farmers Vaughn Chase, Richard Lary, and Aaron Bell--along with their families—struggle to make ends meet as they get the company off the ground. But faced with slow sales and mounting bills, can the farmers hang together long enough for the gamble to pay off? Or will they be left worse off than before?  This verité documentary follows three farmers and their families through the tumultuous first two years of MOO MILK. With intimate access to their triumphs and disappointments, the film gives audiences a rare glimpse at the real lives of American farmers at a crossroads. Director Cecily Pingree, farmers Aaron Bell and Carly DelSignore of Tide Mill Farm, and MOO MILK CEO Bill Eldridge will attend and take questions after the show. $5


Sun Oct 14 A THIRSTY WORLD  (NR)  90min   2pm 

This stunningly beautiful movie brings together Yann Arthus-Bertrand's trademark aerial view of the world with the harsh, everyday reality of all those people who are deprived of water and may even die for lack of it, the people engaged in the daily struggle to find water, purify it or bring it to those who need it. Filmed in some 20 countries, this film reveals the mysterious and fascinating world of fresh water through spectacular aerial images shot in regions that are difficult to reach and rarely filmed, like Southern Sudan or Northern Congo and helps us discover the most beautiful landscapes on our planet. Glen Brand, Executive Director Maine Sierra Club and Ken Cline, COA Environmental Law professor will speak, as the Sierra Club celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Clean Water Act and the 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring.


AND FILMS....

Fri 9/28 - Thurs 10/4

SLEEPWALK WITH ME  (NR)  90min  6:00 and 8:15

What started as a short MOTH story, to a fuller version on THIS AMERICAN LIFE, has morphed into a feature film.  Mike Birbiglia tells a fictionalized version of his autobiographical rise from lame wannabe to becoming a successful stand-up comedian with side-trips through his dreams (he suffers from an REM sleep disorder).  He is helped on the screenplay by his brother Joe and Ira Glass, and on the directing by his off-Broadway show director Seth Barrish.  On the way we meet his longtime girlfriend Abby (Lauren Ambrose), his parents (James Rebhorn and Carol Kane) and her father (Louden Wainwright III).


Fri 9/29 - Mon 10/1
THE INTOUCHABLES  (R)  112min  [in FRENCH with subtitles]   5:30 and 8:00

This irreverent and uplifting comedy about friendship and trust has been a smash hit across Europe.  Based on a true story, this crowd-pleasing film tells with honesty and laugh-out-loud humor of the unlikely camaraderie between two men who would seem to have nothing in common: a wheel-chair-bound quadriplegic millionaire (Francois Cluzet, Tell No One), injured in a para-gliding accident, and an immigrant and convicted petty thief on parole (César winner Omar Sy) whom he hires, over other, more qualified applicants, to be his personal care attendant.  Divided by class, culture and ethnicity, both men’s unhappy lives are changed by their relationship.


Tues 10/2 - Thurs 10/4

FAREWELL MY QUEEN  (NR)  100min  [in FRENCH with subtitles]  5:30 and 8:00

Set in the earliest days of the French Revolution, just as the Bastille is breached, the slowly, increasingly chaotic situation at Versailles (where this movie was filmed) is seen through the eyes of a young lady-in-waiting (Léa Seydoux, Midnight in Paris, M:I4). She is fully enamored of her Queen, Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger, Inglourious Basterds) even as she learns details she would rather not know, and despite experiencing the extremes of how both sides live.   This rapturous, sumptuous and smart period drama from director Benoît Jacquot, based on the novel by Chantal Thomas, brilliantly captures the passions and debauchery of the court in its final days.

 
Fri Oct 5 - Mon Oct 8

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD  (PG-13)  93min

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!  This extraordinary debut film, winner of the Cannes Camera d’Or for best first film and the top Sundance prize for fiction film, is a strikingly original, beautiful film and an altogether unforgettable experience.  Young Quvenzhané Wallis inhabits the role of Hushpuppy, who lives with her ailing, alcoholic father Wink (played by a New Orleans baker named Dwight Henry) in a defiant bayou community called the Bathtub on the other side of the levee from “civilization”.  While he is trying to prepare her for survival after he’s gone, she believes that the natural world is in balance with the universe, …until catastrophe strikes.  Director Benh Zeitlin and playwright Lucy Alibar adapt her play Juicy and Delicious into a magical, spellbinding poetry.

 
Tues Oct 9 - Thurs Oct 11

THE LAST RIDE  (NR)  100min

Hugo Weaving (LOTR, The Matrix) stars in this extraordinary Australian film, the debut feature of Glendyn Ivin.  He is Kev, a rough, desperate and intense man on the run with his young son Chook (Tom Russell) after committing a violent crime.  As the two travel across the South Australian desert, their troubled relationship and the need to survive find them battling both the elements and each other.  This simple and powerful story, from a screenplay by Mac Gudgeon based on the novel by Denise Young, is balanced by beautiful cinematography by Greig Fraser (Snow White and the Huntsman).

 
Fri Oct 12 - Mon Oct 22

CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER  (R)  89min 

This quirky, shrewd, and charming romantic comedy co-written by star Rashida Jones (TVs Parks and Recreation) and directed by young director Lee Kreiger doesn’t shy away from emotional complications.  Celeste (Jones), a driven, successful business owner, has been happily married to Jesse (Andy Samberg, SNL), a slacker artist, since highschool.  But she is headed up, he is going nowhere, so she decides divorce – while still remaining good friends – is the best option.  Jesse reluctantly accepts this transition to friendship, even though he is still in love with her.  But her decision, which initially seemed mature and progressive, looks increasingly impulsive and selfish.

 
Tues Oct 16 - Thurs Oct 18

AI WEIWEI: NEVER SORRY  (R)  91min [partly in MANDARIN with subtitles]

A fascinating portrait of Ai Weiwei, provocative, mischievous, and inspiring Chinese activist-artist, began with the unprecedented access granted to Beijing-based TV and radio journalist Alison Klayman in 2008.  After studying for a decade in NYC, Ai came to prominence as one of the designers of the showpiece “bird’s nest” Olympic Stadium; soon afterward he earned the wrath of his government as he sought to collect and publish the names of the thousands of school children, ignored by the government, who died in the Sichuan earthquake due to shoddy schoolhouse construction. Her engaging and detailed film follows this relentlessly funny man for three years, intimately in his home life, artistically as he prepares major museum installations, and publicly, through last year’s 81 day imprisonment for crimes against the state. 

 
COMING ON OUR SECOND SCREEN?


HOPE SPRINGS  (PG-13)  100min

Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones are excellent as a long-time married Mid-western couple at a stalemate.  Chatty Kay wants to spice up their life and buys a self-help book by a famous couples’ therapist (playing it straight, Steve Carell) for advice, and then buys plane tickets to visit his practice in coastal Maine.  First issue is to get her skeptical, taciturn husband merely on the plane.  This honest and observant drama from director David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada) and TV writer Vanessa Taylor is at times funny, awkward, surprising, thoughtful and altogether enjoyable.


ROBOT & FRANK  (PG-13)  90min

Set in the near future, cantankerous cat-burgler Frank (Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon) has two grown kids (James Marsden and Liv Tyler) who are concerned he should no longer live alone. They are tempted to place him in a nursing home but his son chooses a different option: against the old man's wishes, he buys Frank a walking, talking humanoid robot (voice of Peter Sarsgaard) programmed to improve his physical and mental health. What follows is an often hilarious and somewhat heartbreaking story about finding friends and family in the most unexpected places.

 

TO ROME WITH LOVE  (R)  112min  [partly in Italian with subtitles]

Woody Allen moves from the City of Lights to the Eternal City in his follow-up to last year’s Midnight in Paris.   He intercuts four clever and funny stories set in the Italian capital that show his love for a beautiful city.  An older architect revisits the places of his youth; a middle class man becomes wildly famous for no reason at all; a newlywed couple gets separated and they each have different romantic encounters; the first meeting of a girl’s parents and her soon-to-be in-laws doesn’t go as planned.  Alec Baldwin, Ellen Page, Jesse Eisenbaum, Greta Gerwig, Roberto Benigni, Penélope Cruz, Judy Davis and director Allen himself are among the actors.


COMING NEXT SCHEDULE?
TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE
FRANKENWEENIE
SAMSARA
COSMOPOLIS
ARGO
CHICKEN WITH PLUMS
2 DAYS IN NEW YORK
LAWLESS
?




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