[Reel Pizza] schedule

Hi Everyone

And welcome to Labor Day weekend!  OMG!  I am definitely having a hard time believing September is practically here, and that our routine changes so dramatically in just a few short days...in fact our entire family is in total denial, which I expect to continue well into next week sometime, if not longer. 

Anyhow, here is our new schedule that runs most of the way through September (5th - 25th to be more specific.)
We are returning super popular MAMMA MIA, for those of you who missed it in August and those of you who can't wait to see it one more time.  We are also bringing back the wonderful ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD, whose screenings were so seriously reduced by our technical difficulties last weekend (for which we fully apologize).  We have also booked next week's week-long film, so I have included  times for the first week, too. 

Have a GREAT last weekend of summer freedom, we hope to see you soon, and thank you all for such a great summer (mother nature included).
-Lisa and Chris

Our last presently scheduled FRIDAY LATE NIGHTS is tomorrow 8/29 at 11pm; it will be a PROGRAM-O-RAMA show.  Among some of the films we will be screening are three short films: NEW PIONEERS OF THE ATLANTIC RAINFOREST, about tree planters in Brazil by Karen Lanier, THUNDER BAY, telling the story of local fisherman Timmy Leveque out in Frenchman's Bay on his boat, made by COA student Margaret Longley (who did second unit camera work on the Academy Award-nominated film IRAG IN FRAGMENTS), and WORKING WITH MONKEYS a cutout animation which is a parody of television show production, by COA alum David Camlin. 

We also have some SPECIAL PROGRAMMING, a film is presented by Independent Childbirth supporting the Maine Association of Independent Doulas on Sat Sept 13th.
ORGASMIC BIRTH (NR)  87min 2:00 pm
With commentary by a dozen preeminent health professionals and eleven women and their partners who share their birthing journeys, this powerful, passionate and thought-provoking documentary presents the theory that birth today is too often mechanized, hospitalized and removed from women's control.  It dismantles untruths about labor and birth that women have been told for generations by showing the powerful role birth plays in women's lives when they are permitted to experience it fully.  Pioneering first-time filmmaker Debra Pascali-Bonaro reveals that birth is something a woman can enjoy, rather than endure, and challenges common preconceptions while inviting viewers to witness the safest, easiest, most pleasurable way to give birth.   In the hospital, birth center, and home, these laboring women share their personal moments of birth. 



Friday Sept 5 - Thurs Sept 11
TROPIC THUNDER  (R)  107min  6:00 and 8:30
Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr., lead an excellent ensemble cast in Stiller's new action comedy about a group of self-absorbed actors all looking for improvements in their careers.  They sign on to a crazed British director's war film to end all war films, but sky-rocketing costs force the studio to end the production almost as it starts.  The frustrated director (Steve Coogan) refuses to quit, and leads his cast deeper into the jungles of Southeast Asia to film guerilla-style for heightened realism.   Then these actors, armed with only blanks and wearing period military costumes, are intercepted by Burmese druglords.  This farce mocks everything in its path with audacity and hilarity. 

Fri Sept 5 - Mon Sept 8
BRIDESHEAD REVISITED  (PG-13)  133min   5:30 and 8:15
Clever writing, strong performances, and exquisite production design inform this opulent adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's 1945 literary classic, adapted by director Julian Jarrold (Kinky Boots, Becoming Jane).  Matthew Goode (Match Point) is troubled, atheistic painter Charles Ryder who falls in love with both indulgent Sebastian (Ben Whishaw) and his sister Julia (Hayley Atwell), as well as with the aristocratic lifestyle at their family's ancestral estate, Brideshead Castle.  Michael Gambon is the wayward Lord, in exile in Venice with his mistress (Greta Sacchi); Emma Thompson is excellent as the rigidly devout Catholic matriarch whose meddling rules her children's happiness.
 
Tues Sept 9 - Thurs Sept 11
KENNY  (PG-13)  99min   5:30 and 8:00
This charming, hilarious hit Australian comedy, directed by Clayton Jacobson, stars his brother comic Shane Jacobson as the title character, a jovial, loveable, and hard-working plumber.  He actually works at a porta-potty rental business but he always optimistically looks on the bright side.  He also employs his genuine good nature while suffering his viciously domineering ex-wife, and his unappreciative and cranky father.  This entertaining and clever slice-of-life follows this regular guy as he philosophically and with dignity meets the challenges of his work, including his first-ever plane trip to a convention of peers in Nashville, while also trying to be a better dad to his young son.
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Fri Sept 12 - Mon Sept 15
MAMMA MIA!  (PG-13) 103min
Meryl Streep stars as Donna who has spent the past 20 years running a picturesquely decaying hotel. Now she's preparing for the marriage of her daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) to her fiancé, Sky (Dominic Cooper, The History Boys). But there is something Donna hasn't been told. Sophie has invited three of her mother's ex-boyfriends (Stellan Skarsgard, Pierce Brosnan, and Colin Firth) to the wedding in the hope that one of them will turn out to be the father she's never known.  The same team behind the hit stage show, including director Phyllida Lloyd, writer Catherine Johnson and producer Judy Cramer, has brought this infectiously sunny musical, featuring ABBA tunes, to the big screen. 
 
Tues Sept 16 - Thurs Sept 18
ALEXANDRA  (NR) 92min  [in Russian and Chechen with subtitles]
In only his third feature, visionary filmmaker Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) has made a poetically simple, completely original and hauntingly memorable drama about war, generational relationships and the human condition.  Renowned Russian opera star Galina Vichnevshaya is both confident and commanding as an elderly widow who travels to an army camp near the front lines to visit her Army captain grandson.  She tours the camp, and ventures to the nearby town, a bombed-out front-line city, to buy cigarettes for the soldiers where she meets and converses with a friendly local woman, a peer with whom she bonds.  This story is set in a Muslim area occupied by Caucasian forces, and was filmed in Grosney, Chechnya. 
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Friday Sept 19 - Mon Sept 22
THE LAST MISTRESS  (NR)  114min  [in French with subtitles]
A notorious and penniless aristocrat (Fu'ad Ait Aattou) with a tempestuous Spanish mistress (Asia Argento) has found true love, or at least financial stability, engaged to marry a rich young noblewoman (Roxane Mesquida).  When the girl's protective grandmother decides he no longer needs the services of his alluring, exotic mistress, he dismisses her, but she will not go away easily.  This passionate, lush and elegant costume drama from French writer-director Catherine Breillat (Fat Girl) is based on a scandalous story by controversial 19 th century writer Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly about the different choices allowed to men versus women in the hypocritical French courts and bedrooms.
 
Tues Sept 23 - Thurs Sept 25
ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD (G)  99min
Eccentric people in extreme settings characterize most of master director Werner Herzog's fiction and non-fiction films (Fitzcarraldo, Grizzly Man, Rescue Dawn).  He promises his provocative, hypnotic new documentary about Antarctica is not another "fluffy penguin" movie, and he almost keeps his promise, profiling with his dry wit some of the loners and visionaries who live and work at McMurdo Station during the austral summer, exploring the natural beauty and fascinating nature found at the bottom of the world both above and below the ice, and contemplating the world's destruction by man's hand.  His film is a visually stunning, unsentimental journey that examines human nature and Mother Nature, juxtaposing breathtaking locations with the profound, surreal and sometimes absurd experiences of this renegade community.
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COMING SOON ON OUR SECOND SCREEN:
 
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS  (R)  111min
The hot combination of producer Judd Apatow and screenwriter/star Seth Rogan (Superbad) have made another ground-breaking buddy comedy with independent director David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls).  Rogan plays a stoner who, with his trusted dealer (James Franco), gets caught up in a drug-fueled murder; at the crime scene after witnessing a druglord shooting a rival dealer, he leaves a tell-tale joint that points to his dealer.  Their middleman (Danny McBride) gives them away and these two, in way over their toasted heads, have to hit the road in an action packed escape attempt that is frequently undermined by their sampling. 
 
VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA  (PG-13)  97min
In this exhilarating, captivating comedy spiced with tragedy, filmmaker Woody Allen takes us on summer vacation to Barcelona Spain with two best friends.  Straight-laced Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is engaged to be married at the end of summer, while recklessly free-spirited Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) is sexually adventurous.  At a restaurant, they meet celebrated carefree artist Juan Antonia (Javier Bardem) who invites both girls to join him in Oviedo for a weekend get-away.  Soon they meet his unstable and insanely jealous ex-wife (Penélope Cruz).  The provocative and fluid sexual entanglements and yearnings of these characters change their lives forever.
 
HAMLET 2  (R)   92min
This irreverent and infectiously entertaining comedy and Sundance hit stars Steve Coogan (24 Hour Party People) as a failed (due to lack of talent) actor turned still ambitious and passionate drama teacher who launches an overzealous quest to mount a high school musical.  His initial attempts unsuccessful and his department headed for downsizing, he conceives an extravagant sequel to Hamlet that is both politically incorrect and dramatically incredible.  But he will not be denied his freedom of expression, and with the backing of an ACLU lawyer (Amy Poehler) and his favorite actress (Elizabeth Shue, playing herself) he optimistically tarries forth with his opus.  Catherine Keener plays his long-suffering wife and David Arquette is their free-loading boarder. 
 
COMING ON NEXT SCHEDULE?
BURN AFTER READING
TOWELHEAD
THE ROCKER
TELL NO ONE
REPRISE
MAN ON WIRE
FROZEN RIVER
TRANSSIBERIAN
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