As promised, here is the next schedule for Reel Pizza. ....Friday isn't over yet!
Coming right up is our annual TOURNEE FESTIVAL of French Film over the March 4th weekend. We will showcase five worthy French language films that we have not already screened. Each title screens twice (one, three times). We hope you will check out one or more of these interesting films from a wide range of filmmakers, from 82 year old Jacques Rivette, to two French women directors, Jewish filmmaker Karin Albou with her second film, and Anne Fontaine, and two Belgian teams, the Dardenne Brothers and animators Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar. We are selling a pass for one admission to all five films, non-transferrable, for $25; otherwise, individual films are $6 like usual.
Please note that during the first week of this schedule, we are showing two "weekend" films (one being the Tournee collection) and two "midweek" films --no week-long film. Lots of great film on this schedule! Come see a movie or two while we wait patiently for spring to arrive. Happy Reading and see you soon!
-Lisa
Friday March 4 - Monday March 7
GNOMEO & JULIET (G) 84min 5:30 and 7:45
Shakespeare's revered tragedy gets an inventive and playful makeover to become a comedy-fairy tale. Set in adjacent backyards, our star-crossed garden gnomes (voiced by James McAvoy and Emily Blunt) discover many obstacles to overcome when they become caught in a neighborhood feud between their parents (voiced by Maggie Smith and Michael Caine). Director Kelly Asbury (Spirit of Cimmaron, Shrek 2) adds a Cuban pink flamingo, a ceramic frog and deer and a soundtrack full of both old and new Elton John songs, making a genuinely sweet film.
and
TOURNEE FESTIVAL OF FRENCH FILM
TOURNÉE: AROUND A SMALL MOUNTAIN (NR) 84min Fri 5:00; Sat 7:15
Master filmmaker Jacques Rivette, now 82, returns to one of his favorite themeslife versus performancein this elegant work, which begins with a chance encounter on a mountain road. This is a buoyant film about secret histories and buried truths, filled with a sense of hope and wonder, set in a circus "where everything is possible."
TOURNÉE: COCO BEFORE CHANEL (PG-13) 105min Sat 9:00; Sun 5:00
This thoughtful exploration of the pre-fame life of the world's greatest fashion designer focuses on Coco Chanel during the Belle Epoque. Audrey Tautou (Amélie) expertly conveys Chanel's struggle against the formidable limitations that an ambitious, non-wealthy woman at the time facedparticularly one who refused to marry. Chanel remained fiercely independent, becoming a great visionary.
TOURNÉE: LORNA'S SILENCE (R) 105min Sat 5:00; Mon 8:00
Lorna, an Albanian immigrant living in Belgium, shares an apartment with a heroin addict. They have a sham marriage that allows her to legally live in the country, where she dreams of opening up a café with her boyfriend. Though profoundly critical of the punishing, frequently inhumane forces of late capitalism, this latest work from Belgium's Dardenne Brothers is not a simplistic political screedLorna is a multifaceted character who must make (and live with) her own decisions.
TOURNÉE: A TOWN CALLED PANIC (NR) 75min Fri 7:00, Sun 7:15; Mon 6:00
A marvelous fantasia, made using meticulously detailed stop-motion animation and a cast of 1,500 plastic-toy figures, never lets up for a second. After a gaffe involving an order of 50 million bricks mistakenly placed online, three friends travel to the center of the Earth, the frozen tundra (where they must battle an evil giant-robot penguin), and a mysterious underwater universe. Inspired by the manic energy of the Marx brothers and old Warner Bros. cartoons, this playful anarchy will appeal to children and adults alike.
TOURNÉE: THE WEDDING SONG (NR) 100 min Fri 8:30; Sun 8:45
Set in Nazi-occupied Tunis in 1942, this film focuses on the friendship between teenagers Nour, a devout Muslim celebrating her engagement, and her neighbor Myriam, a secular Jew living with her widowed mother. Though their lives are certainly circumscribed, Nour and Myriam are committed to taking control, exercising their own formidable will whenever they can.
Tuesday March 8 - Thursday March 10
127 HOURS (R) 94min 6:00 and 8:15
The new film from last year's Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting) is beautiful and life-affirming even as it tells a harrowing, true story. Aron Ralston (James Franco, Howl, Milk) is a care-free rock climber who enjoys the escape of being alone in the brilliant wilderness of Utah's Canyonlands National Park. That is, until the one day when his cockiness and luck fails him and he finds himself stuck, having fallen down a crevasse with a boulder he is unable to move pinning his arm. Over the next five days he contemplates his current position, his life up to then, and his future, finally deciding he does have the courage to do whatever is necessary to choose life.
and
MADE IN DAGENHAM (R) 113min
This crowd-pleasing, fictionalized account of real events is an uplifting labor drama set in 1968 suburban London. Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky) stars as a Ford Motors seamstress who becomes the voice of her co-workers when they realize their male equals make significantly more pay. Bob Hopkins is the woman's union organizer who is stunned when these outraged women courageously push the boundaries of their grievances, forcing change to an entrenched old-boys system. Director Nigel Cole (Saving Grace, Calendar Girls) uses humor to tell this remarkable underdog story.
*********************
Friday March 11 - Monday March 14
BLACK SWAN (R) 110min
Set in the world of performance ballet, this multi-Oscar-nominee (including for best director, picture and actress) from visionary director Darren Aronofsky (Pi, The Wrestler) features an amazing performance by Natalie Portman. She plays a young, dedicated but sheltered dancer who is chosen for the lead in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. But though she is technically capable, is she emotionally? As she prepares for the part of the Black Swan, she tries to explore her dark side, even as she receives conflicting messages from the women in her life; her zealous, jealous mother (Barbara Hershey), the ballerina she dethroned (Winona Ryder), and her understudy (Mila Kunis). In her confusion, she descends into mental chaos.
Tuesday March 15 - Thursday March 17
BIUTIFUL (R) 147min [in Spanish with subtitles]
Mexico's Oscar-nominated Foreign Language film is from director Alejandro González Iñárritu (Amores Perros, Babel). Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men, Eat Pray Love) earns another Best Actor Oscar nomination for his powerful and brave performance as Uxmel, a single father with his estranged, bipolar ex to his two young children. He works as a middle man between two groups of illegal immigrants – the Chinese who make counterfeit luxury goods in a sweatshop and the Senegalese who sell them on the streets – and the crooked Barcelona cops who let it all happen, for a price. When fate hands him a terminal diagnosis, he tries to put his house in order to provide for his children.
*********************
Friday March 18 - Monday March 21
THE ILLUSIONIST (PG) 82min [nearly dialog-free]
Inspired animator Sylvan Chomet (Triplets of Belleville) makes a second exquisite masterpiece, working from an early, unpublished autobiographical script by French director and comic Jacques Tati. Paying homage to Tati's onscreen persona, Monsieur Hulot, Chomet's virtually dialog-free tale (because, like Triplets, it is so easy to understand) follows an aging magician from Paris to Scotland where, looking for work, he meets a young orphaned woman who believes in his magic and becomes his traveling companion. This enchanting, very unique, and often quiet and sad film about the passing of an era (this is not a cartoon, although it is filled with delicious sight-gags) is one of three animated films nominated for an Oscar.
Tuesday March 22 - Thursday March 24
RABBIT HOLE (PG-13) 92min
Eight months after the accidental death of their young son, Becca and Howie Corbett (Oscar-nominated Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart) are still dealing with their grief, but each is working toward healing, forgiving and resuming life, although in seemingly opposite directions. Maverick director John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) shows restraint and uses humor in this sad but ultimately hopeful story of life beginning again, adapted by playwright David Lindsay-Abaire from his own Pulitzer Prize-winning play.
*********************
COMING ON OUR SECOND SCREEN?
THE COMPANY MEN (R) 113min
Engrossing and nuanced, this keenly observed drama from executive producer turned writer-director John Wells (ER, West Wing) presents the disconnect between those with resumes and those with a skill set. Featuring strong performances by Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Costner, Craig T. Nelson, Maria Bello and Rosemarie DeWitt, three American Dream winners, each having given his all to their company, are forced to redefine their lives as men, husbands, and fathers, with varying levels of success, when they face corporate downsizing.
ANOTHER YEAR (PG-13) 129min
Master filmmaker Mike Leigh (Topsy Turvey, Vera Drake) again uses his unorthodox, collaborative style of script development to create a rich, involving and understated drama (Oscar-nominated for original screenplay) about happiness and growing old. Jim Broadbent and Ruth Sheen play a long-time happily married couple with a grown son. Over a year they share their home with friends, colleagues, and family whose lives have not turned out the way they'd hoped.
THE WAY BACK (PG-13) 132min
This epic and old-fashioned adventure story of survival, solidarity and indomitable human will is the latest film from director Peter Weir, whose last picture was 2003's Master and Commander, while his other films include Picnic at Hanging Rock, Gallipoli, The Truman Show, Witness, The Dead Poets Society…all classics. This remarkable and beautifully photographed film, inspired by true events, follows a ragtag group of prisoners of a Soviet gulag during WW2 who would rather face suicide by Mother Nature than imprisonment, and so escape, crossing Siberia, the Gobi Desert and the Himalayas over the course of a year on their way to freedom. Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe) as a Polish soldier, Ed Harris (Pollock) as an American engineer, Colin Farrell (In Bruges) as a Russian with a knife, star, with Saoirse Ryan co-starring as a young Polish refugee who joins the group along the way.
*********************
COMING NEXT SCHEDULE?
Blue Valentine
Rango
The Adjustment Bureau
Barney's Version
Cold Weather
Tiny Furniture
Cedar Rapids
Outside the Law
*********************
*********************
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment