tear the curtain | craig erickson, david adams

Pacific Theatre regular Craig Erickson and David Adams ("Jesus My Boy") are in the cast of this loving tribute to the movie ghosts that must surely haunt the Stanley Theatre. Created by Electric Company, who've been... well, Brilliant... since their very first production, which was rehearsed in our space, Anthony F. Ingram in the cast. Closes Oct 10.



Tear the Curtain! has been custom built for the Arts Club Stanley Stage and reflects the Stanley's dual identity as both historic cinema and playhouse. Written as a screenplay, this live production slips seamlessly between play and feature film. It's a stylish thriller inspired by the “reel” history of the theatre. It uses and abuses Hollywood film noir archetypes like the mob boss, the femme fatale, the hardboiled detective, and the girl friday. It is an attempt at authentic originality in a world of imitations and stereotypes. It is a story of ultimate compromise. Can the truth be revealed somewhere between the stage and the screen?

Written by Electric Company's Jonathon Young and Kevin Kerr
Directed by and created with Kim Collier
Tickets

viff 2010 | other films of interest

And here's a handful of other films in the 2010 Vancouver International Film Festival that caught my eye for one reason or another...

A couple years back, I played a juror in Pacific Theatre's staged reading of 12 Angry Men, a film I've loved since I was young. This treatment intrigues, and reminds me of what was probably the most powerful episode of my favourite radio program, This American Life.

12 Angry Lebanese: The Documentary

Winner of both the top prize for documentary film and the People's Choice Award at the Dubai Film Festival, Zeina Daccache's inspired project actually transformed the lives of many men. In Lebanon's infamous Roumieh Prison, inmates stage a version of 12 Angry Men. Revealing the tremendous dignity and despair of the prisoners, the process catalyzes hope and offers an extraordinary experience for the audience.

Fri, Oct 1st 7:00pm | G7

Sun, Oct 3rd 4:00pm | G7

Wed, Oct 6th 11:00am | G7

Actress friend Shannon Braithwaite recommends this one; "don't forget to check out a great Canadian film killing it on the festival circuit, Snow & Ashes, at VIFF. It won at Slamdance and has won one award or another at most every other festival it's screened at. I HIGHLY recommend it. I saw it and it blew me away. I was just so proud to be Canadian when it cleaned up down in Park City!
Snow and Ashes
Winner of the Grand Jury Award for Best Narrative Film at the 2010 Slamdance Film Festival, Charles-Olivier Michaud's exceptionally strong first feature is a gripping tale about the extraordinary lengths that war correspondents go to for a story, and the bonds that are formed when their lives are constantly at risk. Foreign war correspondent Blais Dumas awakens from a coma to find himself in a hospital room in Quebec City. His best friend and collaborator David has not come back with him and David's girlfriend Sophie is waiting for an explanation. The story unfolds in a series of flashbacks that slowly shed light on the relationships between the three main characters and the events that led to David's disappearance.
Fri, Oct 8th 9:30pm | G7
Sun, Oct 10th 10:45am | Cinematheque

Any cinephile older than 25 remembers rep cinemas - The Ridge, the VanEast in their glory days - with nostalgia, and regret at their passing. (Video killed the rep cinema star.) 

My Film and My Story

Made by a team of seven students at Konkuk University, this highly entertaining feature is both a love-letter to the vanishing concept of repertory cinema and a comic riff on student dating. Each of the eight chapters is obliquely inspired by a favourite film: from Jarmusch to Wong Kar Wai via Fassbinder, Truffaut and Lang.

Sat, Oct 2nd 9:15pm | Cinematheque

Sun, Oct 3rd 1:30pm | Cinematheque

Ramin Bahrani's Chop Shop is a fine no-frills quasi-documentary about a boy and his sister scrabbling to build a life in the chaos of Willet's Point. Here's a full-on doc shot on that same turf.

Foreign Parts

(USA, 2010, 82 min)

A minority world of recycled refuse, the sprawling industrial zone of junkyards and auto salvage shops in Willet's Point, Queens, NY, is slated for demolition. Shot over three years, Verena Paravel and J. P. Sniadecki's remarkable observational doc presents this bustling community as it struggles to survive. Winner, Best First Film, Locarno 2010.

Mon, Oct 4th 10:45am | Pacific Cinematheque

Wed, Oct 13th 6:30pm | G7

Thu, Oct 14th 3:45pm | G7

Nothing to say about these three except the write-ups grab me....

Cold Weather

(U.S.A., Aaron Katz, 96 min)

One of the most critically acclaimed American films of the year, the irresistible Portland-set Cold Weather will knock your socks off. Aaron Katz's adventurous and entertaining leap forward is a shape-shifting feature that's a delicious amalgam of family-bonding drama, mumblecore riff and genuinely involving genre exercise.

Sat, Oct 9th 6:45pm | G7

Mon, Oct 11th 1:30pm | G7

Down Terrace

(UK, 2009, 93 min)

"Ben Wheatley's zingy, caustic first feature was co-written by Robin Hill, who stars opposite his real-life father, Robert, as pathetic dad-son kingpins of a two-bit syndicate in Brighton... Further autobiographical touches... heighten the sense in this kitchen-sink comedy that the greater psychopathological unit is the nuclear, not the crime, family..." Village Voice

Sun, Oct 3rd 11:00am | G7

Thu, Oct 7th 9:15pm | G7

The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu

(Romania, Andrei Ujica, 187 min)

Completely compiled from official Romanian state propaganda, Andrei Ujica's masterful third film in a loose trilogy is a galloping, globetrotting reinvention of found-footage filmmaking, showing Nicolae Ceausescu as the Great Dictator wanted himself to be presented. The parades in North Korea alone are worth the price of admission.

Wed, Oct 6th 2:15pm | G7

Mon, Oct 11th 8:30pm | G7

viff 2010 | auteurs

Quite a few new works by some of the world's most interesting directors at the 2010 Vancouver International Film Festival. In another post I've mentioned several that premiered at Cannes, including films by Abbas Kiarostami, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Apictatpong Weerasethakul and Alejandro González Iñárritu. Here are some non-Cannes pictures by noteworthy helmsmen...

Another Year

(UK, Mike Leigh, 129 min)

"Mike Leigh's latest contemporary, North London-set drama about an interconnected set of family and friends is almost about nothing at all, and yet it gently juxtaposes the big issues of everyday life: loneliness and love, selfishness and kindness, birth and death. Arguably Leigh's tautest, most likable effort since Secrets and Lies..." Variety

"Widely admired. Charts four seasons in the lives of a married couple and their fraught interactions with an emotionally unstable spinster colleague. . . There are scenes here, staged in long master takes, that consist exclusively of people talking in simple rooms yet are as cinematic as anything I've seen on screen this year." Scott Foundas, Film Comment

Sun, Oct 10th 10:30am | G7

Mon, Oct 11th 6:45pm | G7

Wed, Oct 13th 3:45pm | G7

The Princess of Montpensier

Bertrand Tavernier: Coup de Torchon, Round Midnight, It All Starts Today, The Judge and the Assassin

A young noblewoman is torn between passion, duty, companionship and ambition, each quality personified by a different man, in this compelling period drama. Like its heroine [newcomer Mélanie Thierry], Tavernier's visitation to 16th-century France has both beauty and brains. Variety

"A complex saga of unrequited love and illicit double-crosses, set against the French religious wars of the late 16th century." Film Comment

Sat, Oct 2nd 6:30pm | Park

Tue, Oct 5th 12:30pm | G7

Around a Small Mountain

(France, Italy, Jacques Rivette, 84 min)

An ineffable charmer from a French master about a small, itinerant circus. Jane Birkin and Sergio Castellitto star. A... late minor gem from [Jacques Rivette]... as transporting and graceful as a ride in a balloon. It flows effortlessly from scene to scene, the story floating on Mr. Rivette’s gentle camera movement. - The New York Times

Thu, Sep 30th 9:15pm | G7

Thu, Oct 7th 11:00am | Vancity

Sun, Oct 10th 1:00pm | Park Theatre

Get Out Of The Car

(Thom Anderson, 34 min)

Thom Andersen (Los Angeles Plays Itself) fashions a city symphony (pointedly and politically shot in 16mm) comprised of advertising signs, building facades, wall-to-wall fragments of popular music and conversation and unmarked sites of vanished cultural landmarks.

Sat, Oct 2nd 7:00pm | Vancity Theatre

Sun, Oct 3rd 4:30pm | Vancity Theatre

viff 2010 | cannes

I don't know if there are more Cannes-feted films at the 2010 Vancouver International Film Festival than other years, or if more of them have caught my interest than usual. But for those of us who didn't manage to make the spring pilgrimage to the south of France this time around... 

Certified Copy

France, Italy, Belgium, 106 min, Abbas Kiarostami (Close-Up, Ten, etc)

Juliette Binoche (Best Actress, Cannes) is an antique-shop owner in romantic Tuscany who strikes up a relationship - or is it just a "copy" of a relationship - with an English author (opera singer William Shimell) in Abbas Kiarostami's first feature made outside of Iran. A playful "art-film" drama anchored by the joint mastery of Kiarostami and Binoche.

"Following a somewhat halting first act, Kiarostami's marital close-up becomes a surprisingly effective return to the Pirandellian shuffling of reality and cinematic illusion that gave shape to the director's signature works of the Nineties. Best Actress winner Binoche is splendid in an emotionally naked performance that morphs into a deconstruction of itself." Scott Foundas, Film Comment

Sat, Oct 9th 9:30pm | G7

Mon, Oct 11th 4:00pm | G7

Thu, Oct 14th 10:30am | G7

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

2010, 113 min, Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Syndromes & A Century)

The most unexpected (and rapturously received) Palme d'Or winner ever, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's magical vision of love and loss centres on a man preparing for his own death. Uncle Boonmee is visited by his late wife and his long-lost son (the latter in non-human guise) and the presence of these loved ones triggers vivid memories of his past lives.

"There may have been no more heartening a sound during the 63rd Cannes Film Festival than the chorus of enthusiastic applause that erupted at the end of the first press screening of Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. It was a marked about-face from the cacophony of titters, hisses, and abruptly emptied seats thwacking shut that accompanied the 2004 premiere of the young Thai filmmaker's Tropical Malady. The applause may have been necessary to break the hypnotic spell cast by Apichatpong's new, lush, melancholid fabl, which for the two previous hours had seemingly transformed Cannes' Salle Debussy into an enveloping jungle of whispering flora, talking fauna, transmigrated souls, and commonplace magic. . . . It is the landscape (and soundscape) of the dense Thai rain forest that is the true otherworldly phenomenon here, and which has by now become as integral a part of Apichatpong's artistry as Monument Valley was for John Ford and a certain pocket of industrial Belgium is for the Dardenne Brothers. . . . As one seasoned Cannes colleague put it: "I've never seen this many people react so enthusiastically to a movie I'm sure most of them didn't understand." . . . One of the chief pleasures of Apichatpong's cinema is the sense of being carried along by a generous tide of implication and allusion, the point of which is something we feel but we may not be able to precisely articulate." Scott Foundas, Film Comment

Wed, Oct 6th 9:00pm | Vancity Theatre

Tue, Oct 12th 4:15pm | Vancity Theatre

Carlos

France/Germany, 330 min, Olivier Assayas: Summer Hours,

"Arguably the central event of this year's [Cannes] festival. Deft, exhilarating, Carlos moves at the speed of light and seems o cover enough ground for ten films. Assayas pulls off a miracle, creating a high point in the narrative strain initiated 20 years ago with GoodFellas, in which the energy never once dissipates, even during the normally hazardous 'fall' section." Film Comment.

Edgar Ramirez channels Brando via Che in Olivier Assayas' celebrated five-hour-plus globetrotting biopic of the notorious terrorist Carlos the Jackal - it's a historically essential and wholly entertaining big-screen spectacle that never stops moving. Special event: Priced as two tickets.

Sat, Oct 9th 1:00pm | Park Theatre

Mon, Oct 11th 5:30pm | Park Theatre

Biutiful

Spain, Mexico, 147 min, Alejandro González Iñárritu: Amores perros, 21 Grams, Babel

"Built around a magnificent performance by Javier Bardem [Best Actor co-winner at Cannes] as a Barcelona low-life coming face to face with his own mortality... Another of Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu's grandiose meditations on life and death, parents and children, the supernatural [and] the interconnectedness of the universe..."

"Javier Bardem plays a Barcelona black marketeer who is both dying and able to see dead people. Tricked out with lots of fashionable squalor, jagged handheld cinematography, and Bardem in various states of physical and spiritual agony, Biutiful is a custom fit for audiences who prefer to be pummeled at the cinema rather than enlightened." Scott Foundas, Film Comment

Sat, Oct 2nd 9:30pm | G7

Mon, Oct 4th 4:00pm | G7

Dear Prudence

France, 76 min, Rebecca Zlotowski

After the death of her mother, lonely young Prudence (the gifted Léa Seydoux) discovers the underground culture of street-bike racing in the Parisian suburb of Rungis, with unforeseen consequences. A bona fide Cannes Critics' Week discovery... a subtly impressionistic exploration of adolescence on the brink. Film Comment

Thu, Oct 7th 1:45pm | Pacific Cinematheque

Sun, Oct 10th 6:20pm | G7

Fri, Oct 15th 11:40am | G7

Armadillo

Denmark, 91 min, Janus Metz

Janus Metz's gripping documentation of reality at the frontlines of battle in Afghanistan started a firestorm in Denmark and resulted in a government inquiry into whether Danish soldiers broke the rules of engagement by their all-too-human actions. A vital counterpoint to Restrepo, and an important part of a growing re-evaluation of political goals. Winner, Grand Prix, Cannes Critics' Week 2010

"One of the best finds (at Cannes 2010). . .

Sat, Oct 2nd 2:50pm | G7

Sun, Oct 10th 3:20pm | G7

Wed, Oct 13th 9:15pm | G7

what's in my queue? | jason goode

New Soul Food series! A spin on Film Comment's feature "The Last 10 Films I've Seen," Soul Food - being more forward-looking in general - is collecting lists from SF cinephiles, film-makers and movie writers. Lists you might think of as "The Next 10 Films I'm Going To See."

We launch the series with Jason Goode, director of short films The Hitchhiker and Pop Switch, as well as a pair of shorts currently in post-production that he shot this summer, The Planting and Late. Jason also directed Danny & The Deep Blue Sea on the Pacific Theatre stage this summer, and has just launched a new course on Film, Faith & Culture at Columbia Bible College.

The Queue
1. Blue Velvet (1986)
2. Sergeant York (1941)
3. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (2002)
4. Wagon Master (1950)
5. Paris, Texas (1984)
6. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
7. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1956)
8. The Killing (1956)
9. Funny Girl (1968)
10. Le Samourai (1967)
en route: Oldboy
on the shelf:  Wings of Desire, M, l'Aventura, The Seventh Seal

viff 2010 | soul food?

The standout Soul Food pick at this year's Vancouver International Film Festival is clearly Of Gods And Men, which won the Grand Prix at the 2010 Cannes Festival, which has a post all its own. 


The other title that's an obvious fit for this blog is Rejoice And Shout, a history of gospel music - The Soul Stirrers, Dixie Hummingbirds - and it too has been blogged already. 


Here are a handful of other titles with little hints of Soul Food, though it's always a "your guess is as good as mine" proposition: for example, one gets the idea that the "passion" of the priest in the Márquez story may well be more temporal than eternal. Still, you never know...

Mysteries of Lisbon
(Portugal, France, 2010, 272 min)
A picaresque masterpiece in the best tradition of Victor Hugo and Balzac, Raúl Ruiz's sprawling, gorgeous adaptation of Camilo Castelo Branco's famous novel perambulates from the exquisite estates of the aristocracy to the rotting cities of 19th century Europe. Determined to discover the truth of his parentage, a boy sets out on a journey of discovery, accompanied by a helpful priest.
Sat, Oct 2nd 1:00pm | Park Theatre
Tue, Oct 5th 7:00pm | Park Theatre

Family Affair
When Chico Colvard was ten years old, he shot his older sister Paula in the leg. Convinced that she was about to die, she confessed that her father had been abusing both her and her two sisters for years. The complexities of race, sex and family are explored in Colvard's remarkable documentary that seeks to understand whether it is possible to forgive the unforgivable.
Wed, Oct 6th 12:20pm | G7
Mon, Oct 11th 9:30pm | Vancity

A Film Unfinished
The 1942 Nazi propaganda film Ghetto purported to depict the inhumanity of the Jewish community to its own. With no soundtrack, the footage was little more than a horrifying relic of the Third Reich's madness, until the discovery of rare outtakes, as well as interviews with an SS cameraman, led Yael Hersonki to reveal that the truth was even stranger than Nazi fiction
Sun, Oct 10th 11:40am | G7
Wed, Oct 13th 7:00pm | G7

This one catches my eye because previous Hrebejk/Jarchosky collaborations have dealt directly with Jewish/Christian themes, or attracted the "deeply humanist" label - often an indicator of high Soul Food content...
Kawasaki's Rose
(2009, 100 min)
The prolific filmmaking team of director Jan Hrebejk and screenwriter Petr Jarchosky (Divided We Fall, Up and Down) return with this resonant drama about a respected university professor, known for his youthful anti-communist stance, whose past is not what it seems. Winner, CICAE Award for Art Cinema, Berlin 2010.
Fri, Oct 1st 9:30pm | Park
Sun, Oct 3rd 1:20pm | G7
Mon, Oct 4th 7:15pm | G7

Family Tree
(France, 95 min)
When an elderly man (Guy Marchand) refuses to attend the funeral of his son, his decision confounds his remaining children. But the motivation behind his actions proves more astounding... Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau's (Jeanne and the Perfect Guy) drama picks apart the intricacies of one family's mysterious past with intelligence and deep compassion.
Fri, Oct 1st 4:00pm | G7
Sat, Oct 2nd 6:15pm | G7
Tue, Oct 5th 10:15am | G7

Of Love and Other Demons
(2010, 97 min)
When an exquisitely beautiful teenage girl is bitten by a rabid dog and becomes the victim of (supposed) demonic possession, her body and soul are placed into the care of a passionate priest. Forbidden love and all that it entails soon erupts. Hilda Hidalgo's lushly beautiful film is based on the novel by Gabriel García Márquez.
Fri, Oct 1st 9:15pm | G7
Sat, Oct 2nd 10:30am | G7
Sun, Oct 3rd 12:15pm | G7

Pink Saris
(UK, 2010, 96 min)
The Gulabi Gang, known by their distinctive pink saris, are a renegade sisterhood who defend the most abused and oppressed female untouchables in Uttar Pradesh's Banda District. Kim Longinotto (Rough Aunties) examines not only the group and their complex leader Sampat Pal Devi, but also the means by which they seek justice
Thu, Sep 30th 11:00am | G7
Tue, Oct 12th 12:20pm | G7
Thu, Oct 14th 6:45pm | G7

lobby hero | kenneth lonergan play in vancouver

Kenneth Lonergan wrote three significant screenplays: YOU CAN COUNT ON ME, which is perfection, and if you haven't seen it you must; GANGS OF NEW YORK, a Martin Scorsese picture which I thought was almost a return to late seventies form but whichmany criticized; and ANALYZE THIS, which was comic genius until it ran out of gas somewhere along the way and I never could quite figure out why. He's also a playwright, and LOBBY HERO opens in Vancouver September 30. No idea if it'll be a good production or not, but I'm sure curious.


Dirty Manhattan Equity Co-op presents
Lobby Hero
directed by Kelly-Ruth Mercier
Sep 30 - Oct 16
Havana Theatre, 1212 Commercial Drive

Tight, intense, and a roller coaster of power-struggles, Lobby Hero is set in a foyer of a middle-income Manhattan apartment building in the middle of the night, and follows a doorman who’s just trying to get by (Jeff), his by-the-book supervisor (William), and an overbearing cop (Bill) and his rookie female partner (Dawn). Jeff gets drawn into a local murder investigation, and his loyalties to his work and to his family are pushed to the breaking point. As Jeff’s tightly-wound supervisor is called to bear witness against his troubled brother, and a rookie cop finds she must stand up to her seasoned partner, truth becomes elusive and justice proves costly.

get low | ct interview / ny review

Get Low (Aaron Schneider, 2009, Chris Provenzano / C. Gaby Mitchell screenplay) might be considered the third in the Robert Duvall Faith Trilogy, following Tender Mercies (Bruce Beresford, 1983, Horton Foote screenplay) and The Apostle (Robert Duvall, 1997, Robert Duvall screenplay). It pales somewhat in comparison with its predecessors, but is nevertheless well worth seeing, with fine performances and important things on its mind: last things - taking account of one's life, consequence and forgiveness, our awkward making of amends, our yearning for release, our stubborn resistance.

In July, Christianity Today published an interview with a delightfully crusty Robert Duvall. Here are a few excerpts;

Some people thought The Apostle was mocking Southern holiness or Pentecostal preachers. .

Who said that?

Oh, some Christians wished it had been a more positive portrayal of a preacher rather than a man with all these. . .

Let me straighten these people out. And you can put it in print. My guy [Rev. "Sonny" Dewey] killed a guy out of anger, right? But he wasn't one half as bad as King David in the Psalms, who sent a man off to be killed so he could be with his wife. Every time I read the Psalms I think of that. But on the other hand, I heard that Billy Graham liked the movie, and many, many preachers did. Rev. James Robison of Fort Worth said I could use anything from any of his services to put in the film. So I'm not mocking.
If Hollywood had done this, they would have mocked these people. No, I did not mock these people. I didn't patronize these people. I've been in many, many churches, Pentecostal churches. I could have made these people look bad if I wanted to. So you can tell these people I did not mock these people or condescend at all. Had I done it in a Hollywood movie, we would have patronized these people. That's why I had to do the movie myself.

Why do you think Hollywood has a tendency to mock Christians and preachers?

Well, it's not just Christians. I mean, I'm a Christian. But they mock the interior of the United States of America, the heartland. They don't go out of their way to understand what's really there.

I hear the script reminded you of the great script writer—and your good friend—Horton Foote.

Yes. The writing and the movie is somewhat like Horton, the great playwright. I did several of his films — Tender Mercies, To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962) and several others [The Chase (Arthur Penn, 1966), Tomorrow (Joseph Anthony, 1972), and Convicts (Peter Masterson, 1991) in film, and "The Midnight Caller" on stage]. Horton died last year at the age of 93, and still had wonderful plays off Broadway in recent years. He was one of our great playwrights who was great until his final years. I told him I was going do this movie, and I wish he could've seen it. But he passed away—and there's a story there. As I was giving the final speech to the whole crowd [in the film's penultimate scene], my wife's cell phone rings off camera—and it's a message from Horton's son-in-law that he had just died.

What's the best thing you learned from Horton Foote?

We had a good working relationship. I always said if I only had done his films, and the films of Francis Ford Coppola, I would have had a wonderful career. But I learned from Horton how to have friendship and still be able to work together, through thick and thin and still stay friends. How many friends do you have after 50 years? Not many.

Any last words about Get Low?

Yeah. Get Low is one of my favorite films in a long time and a wonderful character. "Get low"—I don't even know what that means. I guess it means to get low for Jesus before it's time. Keep above the ground before you go below the ground."

You tell your readers there is no way that I wanted to make fun of the Pentecostal people! If I had wanted to make them look like bad people, I could have, believe me.

Anthony Lane's response (The New Yorker) is akin to mine - we both felt the film was a bit lush, and went a bit soft - though I liked it better than he. Lane's dead right about the three central performances;

The task of Get Low is to draw the scowling Felix [Duvall] from his lair. He visits a funeral parlor, run by Frank Quinn. “I’m after a funeral,” Felix says. “Boy, are you in luck,” Quinn replies. We are in the nineteen-thirties, and times are no less hard in the funeral trade than in any other. “One thing about Chicago: people knew how to die,” Quinn says of happier days. When I tell you that Quinn is played by Bill Murray, you will gather—you will instantly hear, in your head—just how much spin, at once glum and energetic, these lines can bear. The great discovery that Murray has donated to cinema is that the drug of deadpan need not be a downer; bewilderingly, it can be an upper, even when you clearly have a heap of things to be down about, plus a face that looks like yesterday’s cinnamon Danish. It’s a treat to see that doughiness set off against Duvall’s severity. Add Sissy Spacek, effortlessly natural as a former flame of Felix’s, now widowed and flickering with regret, and we get a rich spread of dramatic styles. Those three actors have a combined age of almost two hundred. There must be youngbloods in Hollywood who can match them, but none spring to mind.

GET LOW has been running a while in Vancouver, so it may move on soon: it's here at least through Thursday at Tinseltown.

the american

A quick heads up. Filmmaker Jason Goode writes...

Soul Food. Masterpiece. The real deal.

Loved it.

When it was done I felt "finally... cinema..." It was a reminder what it can be. A reminder of some of the classics from the 70s.

sep 26 | casablanca | cineplex classic film series

Casablanca (1943)
"They had a date with fate in Casablanca!"
Directed by: Michael Curtiz
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid
Plot: Set in unoccupied Africa during the early days of World War II. An American expatriate meets a former lover, with unforeseen complications. See Ingrid Bergman in her most famous and enduring role!

Wednesday, September 8, 7:00pm
Sunday, September 26, 1:00pm

Presented in HD. All tickets five dollars. SilverCity Riverport, SilverCity Coquitlam, Colossus Langley, Scotiabank Theatre. The Classic Film Series presents one great title each month on the big screen from September 2010 to August 2011: details here.

classic film series | cineplex

Look what I saw in the lobby at SilverCity Riverport yesterday...


A little sleuthing led me to more about the Classic Film Series being offered by Cineplex in 2010-2011.

"This is a great opportunity for classic film fans to see their favourites in digital on the big screen! A series of classic film titles will be screened in a digital format from September 2010 – August 2011. The intent is to showcase classic films that, in most cases, have not been seen on the big screen in this format before."

How great is that! The chance see Doctor Zhivago, The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music or Spartacus on a great big screen. I can't wait to see It's A Wonderful Life with a crowd of people. And what a timely release of Psycho - this is the film's fiftieth birthday, and all the cinema rags have been running pieces on it.

And can you believe? Five bucks a ticket. Yowza.

You know, when multi-screen theatres first started opening, this sort of thing was talked about. Show current releases on most of your screens, but reserve a screen or two for foreign and independent cinema, another for classic films. Perhaps it was the proliferation of home video that killed that particular star (along with rep theatres like The Ridge or VanEast in their heyday), or perhaps it was simple greed... er, economics. Whatever the case, it's fantastic to see a commercial chain like Cineplex launch this wonderful experiment. Let's hope they sell enough popcorn to make it worth their while!

In the lower mainland the series is showing at SilverCity Riverport, SilverCity Coquitlam, Colossus Langley and Scotiabank Theatre downtown.

viff 2010 | of gods and men

OF GODS AND MEN
France, Xavier Beauvois, 120 min.
A French brotherhood stationed in a deseret mountain monastery in Algeria holds off Islamic fundamentalists with the strength of its faith. Based on a true story, Xavier Beauvois’ classical drama stars Lambert Wilson and Michael Lonsdale, and is close to perfection. Winner, Grand Prix, Cannes 2010.

The thematic area of international terrorism, while deeply mined, is given close and thoughtful attention in Xavier Beavois gravely beautiful drama. Of Gods and Men is based on the 1996 Tibhirine attack, in which an order of Cicstercian monks confront Islamic fundamentalists with only the strength of their faith. Against the majesty of Algeria's Atlas Mountains, the quotidian activity of the monks (gardening, dispensing medical help to the locals, and religious observances) proceed with humble grace. Even as the mounting threat of terrorist violence looms, the brotherhood maintain their mission.

"In this year's winner of the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, director Xavier Beauvois recounts the harrowing true story of a brotherhood of French monks in the highlands of North Africa who find themselves threatened by Islamic extremists during the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s. Starring a gifted ensemble cast led by the empathetic Lambert Wilson (as resident religious scholar Brother Christian), the film begins as a bucolic chronicle of these simple men of God and their gentle relationship with their Muslim neighbors, to whom they provide much-needed medical care and other services. When the insurgents arrive, they find themselves faced with an impossible decision: to flee, or to stand their ground and fulfill their spiritual mission. Magnificently photographed by cinematographer Caroline Champetier in compositions that suggest Renaissance paintings, Of Gods and Men is a poetic, austerely beautiful triumph." - Film Comment

"It is the most intensely passionate film at Cannes so far this year, and the fact that the passion is religious makes it no less moving. The early-morning audience wept yesterday in Of Gods and Men, Xavier Beauvois’s picture of the monks of the Atlas Mountains in Algeria, a beautifully told story of bravery and extraordinary understanding." Kate Muir, The Times

Sun, Oct 10th 9:15pm | Granville 7
Tue, Oct 12th 4:00pm | Granville 7
Wed, Oct 13th 3:30pm | Park

VIFF page

viff 2010 | rejoice and shout

REJOICE AND SHOUT
USA, Don McGlynn, 115 min.
Don McGlynn has made films about musicians as diverse as Glenn Miller and Howlin' Wolf, and in this, his most ambitious film to date, he uncovers the progression in gospel music over the course of two centuries. A rousing combination of rare vintage clips, probing interviews and fantastic music will, indeed, make you want to rejoice and shout.

As The Soul Stirrers belt out “I’m a Soldier in the Army of the Lord,” you may just find yourself wondering, “Where can I enlist?” Such is the sway of Don McGlynn’s rousing testament to American gospel music. The veteran music documentarian strikes all the right chords here, offering both a history lesson on African-American Christianity and a jubilant ode to religious anthems. Connecting the dots, McGlynn makes a convincing argument that the plantation music of two centuries ago is the root of all American music. Likewise, he submits that The Dixie Hummingbirds begat The Temptations and Claude Jeter’s trademark falsetto set the stage for Al Green's lilting vocals.

Should such seminal artists’ names not register with you, fear not. McGlynn unearths rare audio recordings (including the first known gospel record) and live footage in order to offer up a sinful serving of devotional music in all of its strains. A Memphis Holiness Church sermon exhibits the ferocity of an underground rock show while Mahalia Jackson’s soulful Ed Sullivan Show performance would have you believe that angels walk among us. We’re also treated to a historical showdown between the Alabama and Mississippi factions of The Blind Boys in which the weapons of choice are pipes (as in vocal chords). “The winner was always going to be the audience,” recalls gospel music historian Bill Carpenter. “They knew they were going to get a great show.” That still holds true today.

Fri, Oct 1st 2:30pm | Granville 7
Wed, Oct 6th 6:40pm | Granville 7
Mon, Oct 11th 12:20pm | Granville 7

VIFF page

viff 2010 | preview guide

It's grey, damp and chilly out, so one's thoughts naturally turn to... The Vancouver International Film Festival! Sneak Preview Guide is available today! as a download.

Not sure if the print version is out there yet: the website says Saturday September 9, so who knows if that's September 9, or if we have to wait until Saturday? Whatever the big day, they'll be pick-up-able at Videomatica, Rogers and various other video emporia; public libraries, Oscar's, Book Warehouse, Chapters/Indigo; and other locations around town.

Apparently the full on-line program will be available Sunday September 12, though the printed program guide doesn't arrive until Thursday September 23 - at the above outlets, as well as VIFF venues: Vancity Theatre, Granville 7 Cinemas, Pacific Cinematheque, Park Theatre.

book | detweiler | into the dark: seeing the sacred in the top films of the 21st century

I picked up a copy of Craig Detweiler's Into the Dark: Seeing the Sacred in the Top Films of the 21st Century (2008) at Regent College Bookstore yesterday. It's on sale for half price, and while I've only begun reading, it certainly seems like money well spent. He's a smart man, and I love the fact that he was trained as a film-maker first, then as a theologian. Just as he's willing to let the film speak to him first as a piece of art, then move to analysis.

"I have been trained theologically to move from facts to feelings, from propositional truths to personal applications. But what if we can reverse the process, mirroring the way most people experience film? Can we start with beauty, art, and nature as a way into ethics and even film? In a reverse hermeneutic, can our feelings lead us toward God? I join an emerging cloud of witnesses in undertaking this theological experiment confident that the Spirit will guide us from art (beauty) to ethics (goodness) to theology (truth)."

I also like the rationale behind his decision to consider the films which are favourites with IMDb users, rather than the films which might rank higher on critics' lists. Certainly if one expects film to reflect the ethos of its moment - and perhaps, as Detweiler does, to reflect what God may be saying to a culture at a historical moment - the more populist list may be the more telling.

While professional film critics may offer helpful standards to establish a cinematic canon, I choose to elevate the insights of the amateur critics gathered at the IMDb. Just as the early Christian community established the canon of Scripture, so the dedicated film fans of the IMDb sort out the essential from the incidental. Film studies professor Crystal Downing notes how "opinion, or dogma arises out of an interpretive community whose members believe with all their hearts, souls and minds that their shared opinion is truth." We turn to the chaotic world of the Internet Movie Database as our interpretive community. . . . So what does a freeze frame of the IMDb's Top 250 films captured on January 1, 2007 reveal about our tastes, preferences, and religious needs? The frequent users of the IMDb have affirmed forty-five films from 2000 to 2006 as all-time classics. This book will focus on this emerging canon."

Here are the 45 films Detweiler considers. The first number following a film's year indicate its placement on the January 1 2007 IMDb Top 250, followed by its ranking today (August 8, 2010). At the end of the post I provide a list of the 21st century films which have been added to the IMDb list in the last three and a half years. [Nine 21st century films have dropped off the list, twenty-nine have been added.] Films in bold type are the primary focus of the chapter in which they are considered.

Chapter 1 - Methodology: Into the Darko
concludes with an example of Detweiler's methodology in action . . . "the cult film for the emerging generation"
Donnie Darko (2001) #103 | #127

Chapter 2 - Memento: Duped in Film Noir
examines the resurgence of film noir . . . memory loss . . . what happens when our autonomous selves lose our frame of reference? . . . a heart of darkness within each of us.
City of God (2002) #18 | #19
Memento (2000) #26 | #29
Requiem for a Dream (2000) #58 | #62
Sin City (2005) #67 | #97
The Departed (2006) #67 | #52
Batman Begins (2005) #88 | #108
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) #94 | #135
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) #120 | #210
Oldboy (2003) #122 | #112
Amores perros (2000) #141 | #164
Snatch (2000) #195 | #132
The Prestige (2006) #216 | #72
Mulholland Drive (2001) #242 | #244

Chapter 3 - Eternal Sunshine: The Risky Rewards of Romance
examines postmodern relationships via romantic comedies . . . from our darkness and unchecked individualism arises a need for connection. Love can correct our self-deception.
Amelie (2001) #31 | #47
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) #38 | #60
Before Sunset (2004) #190 | No longer in Top 250
Walk the Line (2005) #197 | No longer in Top 250

Chapter 4 - Crashing into the Ensemble Drama: Communities in Crisis
Hotel Rwanda (2004) #59 | #114
Crash (2004) #107 | #221
Mystic River (2003) #180 | #212
Little Miss Sunshine (2006) #234 | #237
United 93 (2006) #238 | No longer in Top 250

Chapter 5 - Talk to Her (and Him and Us): Everyday Ethics
Million Dollar Baby (2004) #78 | #145
Talk to Her (2002) #209 | No longer in Top 250

Chapter 6 - Finding Neverland: Nostalgia and Imagination in History
Downfall (2004) #45 | #81
The Pianist (2002) #47 | #53
Gladiator (2000) #135 | #96
Finding Neverland (2004) #172 | No longer in Top 250
Cinderella Man (2005) #187 | No longer in Top 250

Chapter 7 - Spirited Away by Fantasy: Tending the Garden
Spirited Away (2001) #51 | #57
The Incredibles (2004) #97 | #184
Finding Nemo (2003) #109 | #154
V for Vendetta (2005) #116 | #170
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) #125 | #234
Hero (2002) #168 | No longer in Top 250
Shrek (2001) #183 | No longer in Top 250
Big Fish (2003) #186 | #202
Pan's Labyrinth (2006) #188 | #70
Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) #200 | No longer in Top 250
Monsters, Inc. (2001) #221 | #243
Pirates of the Carribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) #225 | #219

Chapter 8 - Mnemonic Devices
a study of the IMDb's highest-ranking recent films
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) #4 | #13
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) #14 | #20
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) #20 | #31

PS. The following 21st century films have been added to the IMDb Top 250 since January 1, 2007.
Inception (2010) #3
Toy Story 3 (2010) #10
The Dark Knight (2008) #12
Wall-E (2008) #48
The Lives of Others (2006) #58
Inglourious Basterds (2009) #76
Up (2009) #84
Gran Torino (2008) #93
Slumdog Millionaire (2008) #107
Avatar (2009) #115
No Country for Old Men (2007) #116
District 9 (2009) #124
There WIll Be Blood (2007) #134
Into The Wild (2007) #142
The Wrestler (2008) #147
The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) #153
Star Trek (2009) #166
Ratatouille (2007) #168
The Secret In Their Eyes (2009) #169
Kick-Ass (2010) #179
How to Train Your Dragon (2010) #181
Children of Men (2006) #190
In Bruges (2008) #191
Let the Right One In (2008) #203
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) #205
Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) #211
Changeling (2008) #246
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) #247
Shaun of the Dead (2004) #248
With regard to the extremely high placement of certain 2010 titles, it's worth noting Detweiler's comment: "The IMDb ratings evolve over time. Loyal fans often praise a director's latest film upon its theatrical release, but as th emovie rolls out on DVD or television, another wave of moviegoers weigh in, often counterbalancing the initial enthusiasm. Over two or three years, the best films find an audience, with ample time for word of mouth to build."
Random Thoughts: Pixar has done well, wouldn't you say? For a foreign film to make the list, it helps if it wins the academy award. Clint Eastwood has done well, wouldn't you say?

so many movies, so little summer...

Inspired by a nifty double bill I missed in May at the Cinematheque...

[Breathless Days, a double bill that paired Godard's New Wave classic - Breathless, a 1959 Cannes competitor that hit North American screens the following year - with Hitchcock's strangely comparable 1960 departure Psycho: "After years of suave, sophisticated, highly polished colour thrillers, Hitchcock abruptly and unexpectedly changed gears with this made-on-the-cheap monochrome masterwork..."]

...I queued up the Godard and the Hitchcock in my Videomatica list, and will be watching them maybe tomorrow. (Amazingly, I've seen neither in their entirety!) Which got me thinking what a swell little Turn-Of-The-Decade Fest I could have in my living room over the next week. So many films on my "I Gotta See That" list land right then; The 400 Blows, Anatomy of a Murder, Eyes Without A Face, Black Orpheus, Pickpocket, Peeping Tom ("compared to the black and white of Alfred Hitchcock's somewhat likeminded shocker Psycho, the vivid Peeping Tom comes across as more immediate and ultimately more frightening..." 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die), Splendor In The Grass.

Or maybe it'll get trumped by a Music Movie Fest. Watched It Might Get Loud tonight, which included a chunk of "Sittin' On Top Of The World," which is featured in the Mississippi Sheiks Tribute Concert DVD I bought at the Folk Music Festival this weekend (Steve Dawson, Jim Byrnes, The Sojourners, Bob Brozman, John Hammond, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Colin James...). IMGL also included hunks of U2 performances, made me want to watch Live At Red Rocks and Rattle & Hum. And "The Weight," which made me want to watch Easy Rider to see where it's used, and The Last Waltz to say goodbye to The Band. And I've got a copy of Calle 54 on my shelf here...

Heck, I could rip that scene from Easy Rider and YouTube it and start my Great Pop Songs In Film Series; Fiona Apple's "Across The Universe" in Pleasantville, Elliott Smith's "Because" from American Beauty or his "Angeles" in Paranoid Park. The utterly memorable use of the over-wrought sentimentality of "Rain And Tears" in Hsiao-hsien Hou's emotionally muted Three Times. Or Penguin Cafe Orchestra: "Nothing Really Blue" from the astonishing final sequence of The Princess & The Warrior, or "Music For A Found Harmonium" in Napoleon Dynamite (!). "Tell It Like It Is" in the overlooked South African drama Forgiveness, "Cold Water" by Damien Rice in The Girl In The Cafe, or an unlikely Nordic pop cover of "How Deep Is Your Love" that provides fitting perplexity at the conclusion of Adam's Apples. "Don't Be Shy" or "Trouble" or "If You Want To Sing Out" from Harold & Maude (can you imagine that movie without Cat Stevens?), or "Indication" or "Rose For Emily" or "She's Not There" or "Time Of The Season" or "The Way I Feel Inside" or "Woman" from Dear Wendy (can you imagine that movie without The Zombies?) or "One" in Magnolia (can you imagine that movie without Aimee Mann? Heck, that movie wouldn't ever have happened without Aimee Mann). "Easy To Be Hard" as it appears in Zodiac, the Fleetwood Mac instrumental "Albatross" used beautifully in Man On Wire. "The Good Life" from Matchstick Men, or "Summer Wind" in Matchstick Men or at the opening of The Pope Of Greenwich Village, which reminded me of "Stayin' Alive" during the opening of Saturday Night Fever. Jazz: Coltrane's "It's Easy To Remember" which appears only slightly anachronistically in Capote, "Jordu" from The Notorious Bettie Page, Nina Simone in Shallow Grave ("My Baby Just Cares For Me") and Bella ("Nearer Blessed Lord"). How about the eerily effective use of Nat King Cole's "I'd Rather Have The Blues" on the car radio during the opening of Kiss Me Deadly -- or other car radio numbers, "If I Didn't Care" in Shawshank Redemption, or the super-sexy "Wonderful World" in Witness, or half a dozen tunes in American Graffitti. "The Only Living Boy In New York" or the song that put the Shins on the map (of New Jersey) in Garden State - "It'll change your life, I swear." Israel Kamakawiwa'ole's gloriously scrambled "Over The Rainbow / Wonderful World" in half a dozen movies, or the Louis Armstrong original in Good Morning Vietnam. The theme from "Lakme" in every film made in the mid-Eighties. Maybe even memorable credit tunes: "Ride Ride" at the end of The Good Girl (Gillian Welch) or Dylan's "He Was A Friend Of Mine" at the end of Brokeback Mountain or Lyle Lovett's too-perfect "Stand By Your Man" as the credits roll for The Crying Game ("Sometimes it's hard to be a woman..."). Did I miss any?

Or, to take along on my photography road trip, Born Into Brothels and Rivers & Tides and The Diving Bell & The Butterfly and The Assassination of Jesse James and Smoke. . . .

robbie robertson + luis bunuel

Watched IT MIGHT GET LOUD tonight (very fine), which ends with The Edge, Jimmy Page and Jack White working through The Band's classic song, The Weight. Got out the guitar, got in trouble for playing and howling so late, and for the first time really tried to figure out what the song's about.

Turns out the doc about rock guitarists isn't the film's only cinematic tie-in. The Band's official website mentions not only Easy Rider but...

The Weight became a signpost of the time. Featured in the film Easy Rider (but not on the soundtrack for contractual reasons), it was partially inspired by the work of Spanish filmmaker Luis Bunuel.

"He did so many films on the impossibility of sainthood," says Robertson about Bunuel, "people trying to be good in Viridiana and Nazarin, people trying to do this thing. In `The Weight' it's the same thing. People like Bunuel would make films that had these religious connotations to them but it wasn't necessarily a religous meaning. In Bunuel there were these people trying to be good and it's impossible to be good."

"In The Weight, it was this very simple thing. Someone says, `Listen, will you me this favour? When you get there will you say hello to somebody or will you pick up one of these for me? Oh, you're going to Nazareth, that's where the Martin guitar factory is. Do me a favour when you're there.' This is what it's all about. So the guy goes and one thing leads to another and it's like, `Holy shit, what has this turned into? I've only come here to say "Hello" for somebody and I've got myself in this incredible predicament.' It was very Bunuelish to me at the time."

Juno: "Whip-smart"

"Juno is a whip-smart teen confronting an unplanned pregnancy..."
Movieyay.com

"god bless the whip-smart, snarky and powerfully funny screenplay by blogger / author / former stripper Diablo Cody."
Cinematical

"The film's narrative centers on whip-smart Juno MacGuff (Page), a teenaged girl faced with.."
Rhino Records

"teenage parenthood is devistating for teens and their kids. Perhaps instead of blaming Juno and it's whip-smart dialoge as a potential cause for a rise in teen births, perhaps you should..."
Huffington post blog reply

"The film stars Ellen Page as the youngest mother of them all, a whip-smart high-school student named Juno MacGuff who discovers that she is in the family way..."
Peter Chattaway, CT Movies

"Juno is a whip-smart Minnesota teen living by her own rules."
Barnes & Noble

"the dialogue tones down a bit after the dangerous opening - still whip-smart and quirky, but somehow sweeter."
TheCinemaSource.com

"The fictional character’s whip-smart dialogue and well-rounded fallibility make her more empathetic..."
Hollywood Today

"It's whip-smart, cool, and very, very funny."
Chris Roberts, Uncut

"Whip-smart, witty and mature beyond her age, Juno finds herself pregnant after ..."
About.com

"Stars Ellen Page as the title character, a funny whip-smart teen confronting an unplanned pregnancy..."
Youtube

"Ellen Page, well, of course, she’s glorious, the most talented young actress in America and the reason to see Juno. Whip-smart and razor sharp, she plays the role just about as well as it could possibly be played."
Dartmouth Free Press

So not only the character, but also the screenwriter and the actress are all, coincidentally, "whip-smart."

"Part whip-smart teen comedy, part drama, backed by a quirky soundtrack and the most subtle comic performance by a youngster in years, Juno is a rare feel-good film in the morose pack of Oscar contenders."
Sun Media

Ah, so even the film itself is whip-smart. Cool.

And then this one. Apparently I'm not the only person to have noticed...

"Juno is supposedly “whip-smart.” That’s what every review of the movie says. This demonstrates that most reviewers are too lazy to frame the movie in their own words—they just mirror the advertising copy...."
Halfsigma.com

Okay, enough. There are hundreds more.

It was actually a review of Slumdog Millionaire by the verbally virtuosic, usually cliché-free Joe Morgenstern that triggered this whole "If I ever hear a critic say whip-smart again, I'll show them whipping and smarting" jag. "This quiet, passionate, whipsmart kid has lived almost every answer he gives; the questions he needs are provided by destiny." Joe, Joe, Joe. And I used to think you were so whipsmart....

doubt | the video game

(thanks, jer)

jul 1-7 | now playing

NOW PLAYING
Jul 1-7 2010
Cinema's silly season is upon us. Here are the big screen gleanings.

Agora
Granville 7 | Fri: 6:45, 9:30 | Sat, Sun: 1:15, 4:00, 6:45, 9:30 | Mon, Tue, Wed: 5:20, 8:10
Director Amenabar intriguing in Open Your Eyes, chilling and subtle in The Others, annoying and polemic in The Sea Inside - I'm afraid I'll find this story (nasty shenanigans as underground Christianity morphs into Holy Roman Empire) more Sea than Others/Eyes.
Morefield | the moral failings of Christian, pagan, scientist, and Jew alike make it hard for me to see the film as a plea for tolerance so much as a lament for the costs of intolerance.
Greydanus | Enlightenment myth... a work of anti-hagiography.
Chattaway

Amelie
Vancity Tue 7:30
Reed | endearing 'do unto others' fable

Babies
5th | 1:15, 3:00, 4:45, 7:25, 9:10
arty doc about worldwide babies

Denby | Cuts back and forth among four infants located on the red earth of Namibia, the open plains of Mongolia, and in apartments in the vertical cities of San Francisco and Tokyo as they crawl, eat mush, play, and so on, right up to their first words and steps . . . pleasing, but anodyne as a series of episodes from “America’s Funniest Home Videos.

Cyrus
5th 1:00, 3:05, 5:00, 7:20, 9:30
One of this summer's obligatory Sundance pix (though the big winner was Winter's Bone)

Denby | creepy stay-at-home Cyrus tries to break up an affair between his mother (Marisa Tomei) and her new boyfriend (John C. Reilly), a forlorn, long-divorced fellow looking for love

Exit Through the Gift Shop [1:27]
G7 Thu: 5:25, 8:10
arty doc about street art - people recommending this one. prob final week

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [2:32]
Hollywood 7:30 through Thursday
G7 8:00 | Sat, Sun also 1:05, 4:25
arty foreign thriller from arty foreign best-seller. prob final week. first of a trilogy: #2 opens Friday at Fifth Ave
Denby | journalist hired by rich old man to probe disappearance of teen-age girl forty years before. Quest leads to further unearthings as forgotten crimes are dragged into the light. (So many, indeed, that the film runs longer than two and a half hours.) Hero’s gothic sidekick exudes throbbing air of resentment against the eternal cruelties of man; crow-black garb, inked and studded flesh, cuts a defiant figure in the wintry landscape, refusing to be deadened by the gloom.

Harry Brown [1:43]
G7 Thu: 5:20, 8:05
Gran Torino with better script, worse soul? prob final week

How to Train Your Dragon [1:38]
G7 Thu: 5:40
Surprising recommendations from highbrow movie buddies, theatre scenic designers (KMcA). prob final week

Mao's Last Dancer [1:57]
5th Thu: 1:45, 4:20, 6:50, 9:15 | Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, Tue, Wed: 1:45, 4:15, 6:50
arty doc about dancers

METROPOLIS to Jul 6
Cinematheque Thu: 3:45 | Fri: 6:30 | Sat: 2:00, 3:45, 9:00 | Sun: 6:30 | Mon: 9:00 | Tue: 6:30
One of those "gotta see" flix, w/ long lost footage restored - complete with Soul Food content!

Red Shoes to Jul 6
Cinematheque Thu: 6:30 | Fri: 9:15 | Sat: 6:30 | Sun: 4:00, 9:15 | Mon: 6:30 | Tue: 9:15
Gotta dance, gotta see - has changed lives

Toy Story 3
everywhere including
2D @ RC Thu: 1:10, 4:10, 7:05, 9:40 | Fri Mon Tue Wed 4:10, 6:55, 9:35 | Sat, Sun: 1:10, 4:10, 6:55, 9:35
3D @ SCRP 11:35am, 1:00, 2:15, 3:45, 4:50, 6:45, 7:30, 9:45, 10:15
Does the Pixar streak continue?
Chattaway's delightful pre-screening musings

Winter's Bone
Wow. Every critic I found on line considers this the film of the year, so far. I agree.

*

COMING SOON
IKIRU | Cinematheque Jul 8 9:05 | Jul 10 8:50 | Jul 11 6:30
8 1/2 | Cinematheque Jul 16-18, 6:30 & 9:05
The Magnificent Seven | Cinematheque Jul 20 1:00
Man With A Movie Camera | Vancity Sun, Jul 25 7:30 (Alloy Orchestra score)
RAN | Aug 6-8 7:00
film noir series | Cinematheque | Aug 11 - Sep 2
Taxi Driver | Cinematheque | Aug 18 7:30