[Reel Pizza] schedule

Good morning

This schedule takes us into March!  Spring can't be far, she says optimistically...no matter what that stinking groundhog says.

SAVE THE DATE : MARCH 7th for our annual OSCAH' NIGHT GALA CELEBRATION this year benefiting the Bar Harbor Food Pantry.  Exquisite hors d'oeuvres, Complementary glass of Champagne, Come in Costume to win Great Prizes, Grand Prize for most correct ballot. TERRIFIC FUN! and a GREAT CAUSE!   6:30 pm till the last award is presented.  Tickets:  $15 for everyone, will be available soon at Reel Pizza.  Amazingly, I think Reel Pizza will have screened a rather high percentage of the Oscar-nominated films before the Academy Awards Ceremony this year, so hopefully you all feel well informed as you fill out your ballot on Oscar Night. 

Here are the films screening at Reel Pizza from Feb 12 - March 4.  See you soon!
-Lisa and Chris

Fri Feb 12 - Mon Feb 15
ME AND ORSON WELLES (PG-13) 114min
Exhilarating, enchanting and fully entertaining, indie director Richard Linklater's latest is an appealing coming-of-age comedy set 1937 NYC during the week before the premiere of  the newly founded Mercury Theatre Company's production of Julius Caesar.  British actor Christian McKay completely embodies the role of the young, already imperious director Orson Welles.  Filled with loving period details, the story, based on a real photograph taken of the genius actor director and a young man with a ukulele, follows a teen-aged actor (Zac Efron) who lands a job at the new company and becomes involved with an older theatre assistant (Claire Danes).  Romantic rivalries and backstage crises arise as opening night approaches. 
 
Tues Feb 16 - Thurs Feb 18
NINE  (PG-13)  119min
The Tony award-winning Broadway musical with music and lyrics by Maury Yetson, and inspired by the Fellini film 8 ½, has been adapted back into an energetic and entertaining carnival of a movie musical by director Rob Marshall (Chicago).  World famous film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) has reached a creative and personal crisis of epic proportions.  He cannot figure out his next film project, all the while balancing the numerous women in his life, including his wife (Marion Cotillard), his mistress (Penélope Cruz), his star and muse (Nicole Kidman), his costume designer and confident (Judi Dench), an American fashion journalist (Kate Hudson), a prostitute (Stacey Ferguson), and his mother's ghost (Sophia Loren).  *FOUR OSCAR NOMS: Best Supporting Actress, Best Art Direction,  Best Costume Design, Best Music-Original Song.

 
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Fri Feb 19 - Mon Feb 22
PRECIOUS : Based on the novel PUSH by Sapphire  (R)  109min
Remarkable, searingly honest performances from an eclectic ensemble cast elevate this powerful social drama directed by Lee Daniels, told through a gripping, personal story.  New actress Gabourey Sidebe inhabits the character of Precious, an obese, abused, illiterate teen with one child sired by her father, and another on the way.  She lives with and suffers her lazy, hateful mother (comic Mo'Nique), and retreats into a vibrant fantasy world to cope.  Given an opportunity to go to an alternative school she takes the chance, even as she doesn't understand the possibilities.  A sympathetic teacher (Paula Patton), a welfare case worker (Mariah Carey) and an understanding hospital nurse (Lenny Kravitz) all help Precious transform her life from a shattered childhood into a self-determined future.  *SIX OSCAR NOMS: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Lead Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Film Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay.
 
Tues Feb 23 - Thurs Feb 25
BROKEN EMBRACES  (R)  [in Spanish with subtitles]
Pedro Almodóvar (Talk to Me, Volver) brings his signature visual brilliance to his latest film, the fourth with muse Penélope Cruz.  Harry Caine (Lluis Homar) is a screenwriter blinded in a car accident years earlier.  He is cared for by an old friend Judit and her son Diego.  One day Diego asks about his life before the accident, and hears the story of Mateo Blanco, Harry's original self.  He was a visionary director whose last film starred his beloved, beautiful actress Lena (Ms. Cruz) who was also the paid mistress of his film's producer.  With suspense, romance and melodrama, Almodóvar pays homage to the classic films of the past.  
 
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Fri Feb 26 - Mon Mar 1
THE ROAD  (R)  119min
This faithful adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer prize-winning novel is set in a post-apocalyptic USA after an unexplained global catastrophe has wiped out most of the world.   Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises) gives an outstanding performance as the man, a survivor and desperate father headed on a long dangerous journey with his young son to the sea.  On their trip across a burned out America, they encounter the remnants of human life, some good, some bad, including a blind, elderly man (Robert Duvall) who presents an ethical dilemma to the father trying to teach his son how to survive, to let the man die or share food with him.  John Hillcoat has directed an ultimately moving story of survival. 
 
Tues Mar 2 - Thurs Mar 4
ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATED SHORT FILMS  (NR)  ??min
This year we are able to screen the selection of short films in both the live action and animated categories BEFORE the Oscar Ceremony.  Most of the nominees in both categories are honored for the first time, the exception being six time nominee Nick Park who brings another installment of Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death.  Other animated offerings include an alternative telling of Sleeping Beauty, the story of a man who has lost his wallet in a coffee shop, the battle between a doctor and Death for the life of an elderly lady, and a crime spree in a world of only trademarks and brand names.  Live action stories deal with slave labor at an Indian brick kiln, a terrifying new apartment for two men, an unusual birthday gift, contending with with the aftermath of Chernobyl, and a young magician's woes.  Get ready for Oscah' Night coming up Sunday March 7th!  *ALL OSCAR NOMS: Best Animated Short Film , Best Live-Action Short Film.

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COMING ON OUR SECOND SCREEN

THE LOVELY BONES  (PG-13)  135min
Based on Alice Sebold's critically acclaimed and best-selling novel, filmmaker Peter Jackson (LOTR) has made a fantastically beautiful, intelligently complex and memorably suspenseful film.  Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) stars as a teenaged girl in 1973 suburban Philadelphia, murdered by her unsuspected neighbor (Stanley Tucci), who remains in purgatory to watch over her family and friends and try to help them heal their grief from the afterlife, even as her disappearance goes unsolved and her spirit guides advise her to let go.  *ONE OSCAR NOM: Best Supporting Actor.
 
CRAZY HEART (R)  111min
Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski) gives the performance of his career as the richly comic, semi-tragic, romantic anti-hero Bad Blake, a broken down, hard-living country singer-songwriter who is shamed by becoming second fiddle to his one time protégé, now a superstar (Colin Farrell).   Blake reaches for salvation through his relationship with an aspiring journalist and single mom (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who discovers the real man behind the boozed out musician, but he might not be strong enough.  First time writer-director Scott Cooper delivers a simple but authentic gem, based on the novel by Thomas Cobb and featuring terrific music mostly by T-Bone Burnett and the late Stephen Bruton.   *THREE OSCAR NOMS: Best Lead Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Music-Original Song.
 
THE YOUNG VICTORIA  (PG)  104min
Engrossing political intrigue and an engaging historical romance are augmented with exquisite period detail in Canadian director Jean-Marc Vallée's story, with a screenplay by Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park), of the early years of Queen Victoria's reign.  Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada) is the independent but unskilled young royal, crowned at age 18 upon the death of her father King William (Jim Broadbent).  She chooses Prime Minister Lord Melbourne (Paul Bettany) as her advisor over her mother (Miranda Richardson) but in the end it is her cousin Albert (Rupert Friend, Cheri) whose support she needs most.  This transporting and rewarding film is about a brave young woman finding her way with her life's partner.  *THREE OSCAR NOMS: Best Art Direction,  Best Costume Design, Best Makeup.
 
THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR. PARNASSUS   (PG-13)  122min
Monty Python animator Terry Gilliam (Brazil, Time Bandits) has taken his surreal imagination to another level with his latest whimsical fantasy.  In this world, elderly Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) lords over his extraordinary magical traveling show, where he guides his customers to enter the world of their imagination, hoping to find a soul or five to trade to the devil, Mr. Nick (Tom Waits) so he can back out of a promise made an eternity ago.  Heath Ledger, in his final role, is a key member of the theatre troupe who takes the unsuspecting into the hall of mirrors (where he is portrayed by Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law).  *TWO OSCAR NOMS:  Best Art Direction,  Best Costume Design.
 
AVATAR  (PG-13)  163min
James Cameron (Terminator, Titanic) returns with his long-awaited next feature, an ecological, science-fiction adventure set in 2154, with special effects from Weta (Lord of the Rings).  Sam Worthington plays a paraplegic ex-Marine who is sent to infiltrate a native population of giant, blue-skinned, forest-dwelling Na'vi on a distant planet by undergoing a mind-meld with a human-Na'vi clone, which returns to him the freedom of movement.  The Na'vi homeland is preventing the humans from mining a much-needed energy mineral so they need to be convinced to move.  It's an imaginative, gorgeous and entertaining spectacle that will transport you to another world.   *NINE OSCAR NOMS: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction,  Best Costume Design, Best Music-Original Score, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Visual Effects.

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Coming on our next schedule?
Shutter Island
Valentine's Day
The Last Station
The Maid
The White Ribbon
Fish Tank
A Single Man
Youth in Revolt

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