[Reel Pizza] schedule

Hi all
Here is the schedule of films booked at Reel Pizza from February 27 through March 19.  The first week is complete with all three films (and they are all Oscar-nominees!)  ~times are included.  I promise we will eventually get to all the Oscar-nominated films; we thank you for your patience.

First, a special programming note.  On Sunday March 15th we will host a benefit for the EMERSON SCHOOL 8th GRADE.  The students will be screening an as-yet-to-be-determined family friendly film, plus they will have a silent auction and Bingo going on in the other auditorium.  Its a lot of fun and all proceeds go towards funding their graduation, a grand accomplishment.  More info (like film title and times) coming soon.  Stay tuned!

-Lisa

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Friday Feb 27 - Thursday Mar 5
THE READER (R)  123min  6:00 and 8:30
This accomplished Oscar-nominee, including for Best Picture, directed by Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot) using a screenplay by David Hare, his collaborator on THE HOURS, is a complex film set in post-WW2 Germany based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Bernhard Schlink.  Oscar-nominated Kate Winslet is haunting as Hanna, an older woman with more than one secret who has a brief, passionate affair with a teenaged boy Michael (David Kross) that includes both sex and literary read-alouds, until one day she is just gone.  Fast-forward ten years, and Michael comes across Hanna again.  He is a law student observing war-crimes trials and discovers to his horror one of Hanna's secrets, and has figured out another.  Ralph Feinnes plays the older adult Michael who years later still has not resolved his conflicting emotions about this woman. 
 
Friday Feb 27 - Monday Mar 2
FROST/NIXON  (R)  122min   5:30 and 8:00
Entertaining and riveting, this insightful and visually energetic film from Oscar-nominated director Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind) is a fascinating dual character study of two men whose careers were in the gutter, Richard Nixon (played by Tony award-winning and Oscar-nominated Frank Langella) three years after he had resigned the presidency after Watergate but had yet to confess or apologize for anything, and David Frost (played by Martin Sheen, The Queen), a fading British talk-show host who had been exiled to Australia. Frost wants to reignite his career, and using his own money, boldly persuades Richard Nixon, who needs to reshape his legacy, to sit for four televised interviews.  Screenwriter Peter Morgan (The Queen, Last King of Scotland) adapted his fictionalized Broadway play and Langella and Sheen deftly reprise their powerful stage roles.   A strong supporting cast includes Kevin Bacon, Sam Rockwell, Oliver Platt, Matthew Macfadyen and Rebecca Hall.
 
Tuesday Mar 3 - Thursday Mar 5
OSCAR-NOMINATED SHORT FILMS  (NR)  132min   5:30 and 8:15
The Academy Award nominated short films in the live-action and animated categories come from a world-wide group.  Many have already seen Pixar's PRESTO, which preceded WALL-E last summer.  Also in the animated group are OKTAPODI, a cute French octopus love story, Britain's THIS WAY UP about two undertakers trying desperately to transport a coffin to the graveyard after their hearse is destroyed, the impressionistic Japanese HOUSE OF SMALL CARDS where a man who is losing his house to a rising tide explores his memories, and the Russian LAVATORY LOVESTORY, a simple line drawn story about the romantic dreams of a public bathroom attendant.  The live-action offering include Germany's Holocaust story TOYLAND, Ireland's immigrant story NEW BOY, Denmark's THE PIG, about an elderly man who bonds with the art on his hospital room wall, France's MANON ON THE ASPHALT, as the life of a bicyclist hit by a car flashes before her eyes, and ON THE LINE, a Swiss-German lovestory between a security guard and a bookshop employee. 

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Friday Mar 6 - Monday Mar 9
LAST CHANCE HARVEY  (PG-13)  99min
This charming romantic comedy unites stars Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson as two down-and-out, older singles who find each other after particularly bad days.  He has come to London to attend his daughter's wedding, only to discover after he has arrived that she wants her step-father to walk her down the aisle.  Then he leaves the wedding early to return to New York, misses his flight and loses his job.  She has a dead-end job surveying tourists at Heathrow Airport, an overbearing, deluded mother, and just endured an awful blind date where she was deserted.  These lonely people tentatively become friends and their relationship strengthens both of them.
 
Tuesday Mar 10 - Thursday Mar 12
I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG  (PG-13)  117min  [in French, with subtitles]
In his first film, novelist and screenwriter turned director Philippe Claudel expertly explores the reunion of two estranged sisters.  Kristen Scott Thomas (Tell No One, The English Patient) gives an amazing performance as Juliette who is taken in by her younger sister Lea (Elsa Zylberstein) after a 15 year prison sentence, and must learn to have a life and relationships again.  Lea's husband, their two adopted daughters, his elderly father, a family friend Michel, and Juliette's parole officer all help her open up to the world once more while they deal with her secret crime and the mystery surrounding her actions.

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Friday Mar 13 - Monday Mar 16
DEFIANCE (R)  137min
Based on a true story, director Edward Zwick (Glory, Blood Diamond) tells the stirring and remarkable story of Jewish resistors who formed secret encampments in the woods of Belarus during WW2, rescuing and protecting more than 1200 Jews who might otherwise have perished.  Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, and Jamie Bell are the Bielski brothers, who retreated into the neighboring forest and formed an underground community, complete with hospital and synagogue, where these farmers and peasants fought against the Nazis even as the brother leaders argued over strategy, survival or revenge.  Full of breathtaking suspense, this powerful thriller is both an incredible historical drama and an absorbing family saga.
 
Tuesday Mar 17 - Thursday Mar 19
MOSCOW, BELGIUM (NR)  106min   [in Flemish with subtitles]
A relationship between an older woman and a younger man begins when they have a fender-bender in the supermarket parking lot which devolves into a yelling match in this delightful and authentic romantic comedy.  Matty (Barbara Sarafian) is a harried single mom of three teenagers whose husband (Johan Heldenbergh) left her months ago for one of his much younger students, but hasn't quite gotten around to filing for divorce yet.  Johnny (Jurgen Delnaet) is single trucker whose route takes him often to Italy whose heart was broken by his last girlfriend.  He tries to make amends for their argument by coming to Matty's and fixing her broken trunk, and also asks her out.  But the last thing she needs in her life is a relationship, especially with such a younger man; nevertheless she goes out with him.  This feature film debut from Belgian director Christophe Van Rompaey is a smart, entertaining and wryly funny film.
 
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COMING ON OUR SECOND SCREEN?

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (R)  121min
Nominated for ten Academy Awards, including best picture and director, this colorful, Dickensian, and Bollywood inspired film is from stylish British director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Millions, 28 Days Later).  The story, based on the novel "Q&A" by Vikas Swarup adapted by Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty) follows Jamal (Dev Patel) a street-smart Mumbai slum orphan turned call center tea server who has become a contestant on a popular TV game show, and is on the verge of winning the big prize.  Suspected of cheating, he is forced to justify to a police interrogator (Irfan Khan, A Mighty Heart) how he knew all the answers to the questions.  His responses follow in flashback the highs and lows of his life as he has survived terrible poverty and unforgettable brutality with his older brother Salim and his soulmate Latika.  In all it is a passionate, joyous and winning film.
 
CORALINE  (PG)  100min
Director Harry Selick (Nightmare Before Christmas) has made another spectacular stop-motion animated adventure, this based on Neil Gaiman's internationally best-selling story.  Dakota Fanning voices Coraline, bored with her parents and in her new home until she finds a secret door and discovers an alternate version of her life on the other side.  This parallel universe seems to be quite similar to her real life, only better.  Then she discovers that it might actually be much more dangerous and she must summons all her resourcefulness and bravery to escape this increasingly perilous world and return home to save her family.
 
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD  (R)  119min
Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio star as husband and wife in this powerful story of 1950's suburban dysfunction, directed by her husband Sam Mendes (American Beauty).  Based on the celebrated 1961 novel by Richard Yates, this young urban couple meets at a party, fall in love, get married, move to Connecticut and start a family.   On the outside, they seem to have the perfect house, family and marriage, and their realtor (Kathy Bates) introduces them to her mentally unstable son (Michael Shannon) as an example of normalcy.  But underneath, he hates his meaningless desk job and she feels trapped as a mother and housewife.  Then she comes up with a plan to give it all up and move the family to Paris.  This is a riveting film with remarkable performances whose meaning still has resonance today.
 
HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU (PG-13)  129min
This funny, loveable ensemble comedy tells the stories of a group of interconnected Baltimore-based 20- and 30-somethings as they navigate their various relationships from the shallow end of the dating pool through the deep murky waters of married life, trying to read, or misreading the signs of the opposite sex.  Based on the wildly popular best-seller from Sex and the City screenwriters Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo and directed by Ken Kwapis (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants), this film's all-star cast includes Jennifer Anniston, Ben Affleck, Scarlett Johansson, Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Connelly, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Kris Kristofferson.  Thoughtful, honest and original, this romantic comedy makes for a perfectly enjoyable night out at the movies.

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Coming Next Schedule?
The Tournees French Film Festival
Che
Waltz with Bashir
Secret of the Grain
Wendy and Lucy
The Wrestler
The Class
Two Lovers

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