COMING SOON!
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Dates & Showtimes to be announced

Sweden. 2010. Directed by Daniel Alfredson. (148 mins.) Not Rated.

 

Lisbeth Salander is fighting for her life in more ways than one. In intensive care and charged with three murders, she will not only have to prove her innocence, but also identify and denounce those corrupt government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life. Once upon a time, she was a victim. Now Salander is fighting back.

The Kids Are All Right
NOW SHOWING!
United States. 2010. Directed by Lisa Cholodenko. (106 mins.) Rated R.

“One of the best scenes of any film this year takes place in THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT. The setting is a small dinner party at which Annette Bening, as a lesbian with a longtime partner (Julianne Moore), seems on the verge of some kind of breakdown. The scene resonates so well because it presents, with accuracy and subtlety, something that we've all experienced, but that is rarely depicted onscreen. This is a Lisa Cholodenko film, and the scene is an example of the rich and psychologically truthful work that this director does without being flashy and calling attention to it. Cholodenko has made two previous features that have had an outsize influence despite their low budgets. Her first, HIGH ART, redefined Ally Sheedy and put Radha Mitchell and Patricia Clarkson on the map. Her second, LAUREL CANYON, provided Frances McDormand with her most important showcase since FARGO. But THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT is a step up, not just into bigger budgets and bigger stars but also into a more fully realized filmmaking. Like her other movies, this one has vivid characters and strong performances and flows like a slice of life set in an appealing, interesting world. But this one also has a good story and, if you're paying attention, a distinct point of view. Read More...

Micmacs
Dates & Showtimes to be announced

France. 2010. Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. (105 mins.) Rated R.

“Among the most popular Hollywood films of the 1930s were those by Frank Capra (MR. DEEDS GOES TO TOWN, MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU) in which ordinary people triumphed over corrupt politicians, Scrooge-like businessmen and the like. On the basis of his new film, the rather untranslatable MICMACS, French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet may be the Capra of the early 21st century. Until now, Jeunet's hallmark has been eccentricity, as evoked in his early films, (DELICATESSEN and THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN) but he is also clearly fascinated by fate, or destiny, or whatever you want to call it, as he demonstrated in the highly popular AMELIE and the almost equally ambitious A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT. MICMACS combines many of the elements of his earlier work: an unusually dense and wildly imaginative visual approach, a collection of quirky characters and an underdog hero who attempts to prevail, whether by fate or persistence, against the forces of evil. Read More...

Wild Grass
Dates & Showtimes to be announced

France. 2010. Directed by Alain Resnais. (104 mins.) Rated PG.

“If you want to find the fountain of youth, start your search near a director’s chair. Ingmar Bergman lived to 89; Michelangelo Antonioni to 94. Eric Rohmer was still working when he died at 89; Portugal’s Manoel de Oliveira continues to direct at an astounding 101. Alain Resnais just debuted his latest, WILD GRASS, at 88. And it’s a work of playful vigor and youthful wit. Of often frustrating symbolism and willful obscurantism, too; this is, after all, a film from the man who gave us the impenetrable LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD the thorniest rose in the early-’60s avant-garden. The story, based on a novel by Christian Gailly (Resnais was always the most literary of France’s post-war filmmakers), has a playful plot. A woman has her purse snatched. Read More...

The Tillman Story
Dates & Showtimes to be announced

United States. 2010. Directed by Amir Bar-Lev. (94 mins.) Not Rated.

“Just before Sundance, director Amir Bar-Lev changed the title of his documentary from ‘I’m Pat F@#*ing Tillman,’ reportedly the last words that the NFL star-turned-Army Ranger said while being gunned down by his own comrades in Afghanistan. But this seemingly nondescript new title has a resonance that becomes clear when you watch Bar-Lev's fascinating account, made with the consent and cooperation of Tillman's family. You see, THE TILLMAN STORY isn't just about the fact that Tillman was killed by friendly fire and the military brass lied about it, and essentially have never stopped lying. It's also about the fact that from the moment of his death, and even before, the former Arizona State and Arizona Cardinals star became a mythic, über-patriotic hero, the centerpiece of a right-wing, pro-military propaganda fable. He was never allowed to be who he was, a surprising, curious, and even eccentric individual who didn't fit the mold of either football player or gung-ho soldier. Read More...

The Concert
Dates & Showtimes to be announced

France. 2010. Directed by Radu Mihaileanu. (119 mins.) Not Rated.

“This French made film is part farce, part BLUES BROTHERS style putting-the-band-back-together film and part heist-type film. At the centre of THE CONCERT is Andreï Filipov (Aleksei Guskov) a once acclaimed Russian orchestra conductor whose career was destroyed 30 years ago during the USSR’s Brezhnev era. Now reduced to working as a janitor, Andreï gets a shot at conducting again when he comes up with a scheme to reunite with his old musician friends and then travel to Paris with them in order to impersonate the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra. Andreï’s plan also includes convincing the acclaimed French violinist Anne-Marie Jacquet (Mélanie Laurent from Inglourious Basterds) to play with his impostor orchestra for deeply personal reasons. For the most part THE CONCERT is a fun comedy/drama where even its stories of anti-Semitic persecution and lives torn apart under Soviet rule are treated somewhat lightly. For most of its running time the humour oscillates between poignant commentary, wicked satire and absurdism. While it doesn’t have the same savage bite of Billy Wilders 1961 Berlin-set ONE, TWO, THREE, it does enjoy putting the boot into characters such as former KGB man Ivan Gavrilov (Valeri Barinov) who cling onto a highly idealized view of what life was like under communist rule. Read More...

Mao's Last Dancer
Dates & Showtimes to be announced

Australia. 2010. Directed by Bruce Beresford. (117 mins.) Rated PG.

“The irony of Li Cunxin's unique and amazing story is that its political backdrop is in fact the springboard for his success on the international ballet stage. Not only is his success the result of Mao's Communist regime, it also comes in spite of it. This is a story that has a little bit of everything. Politics raises its red flag throughout, but this rags to riches story with a fish-out-of water element also embraces a sweet romance, a fundamental love for family and a bitter-sweet dream that is fulfilled despite extraordinary odds. These dramatic elements coupled with the artistic, theatrical and musical make it an ideal project for director Bruce Beresford, who delivers an engrossing and profoundly moving film that hits the emotional bullseye multiple times. Of course, in adapting Li Cunxin's best-selling autobiography, the challenge facing Beresford and screenwriter Jan Sardi was to find a dancer with technical brilliance as well as presence, charisma and language skills to portray the central character. Chi Cao from the Birmingham Royal Ballet was selected to play the adult Li, with two younger actors (Chengwu and Huang Wen Bin) as the teenager trained at the Beijing Arts Academy and the young boy taken at a tender age from his peasant family from Shandong Province. Read More...

Waiting For Superman
Dates & Showtimes to be announced

France. 2010. Directed by Radu Mihaileanu. (119 mins.) Not Rated.

United States. 2010. Directed by Davis Guggenheim. (102 mins.) Rated PG.

“Exhilarating, heartbreaking and righteous, Davis Guggenheim's epic assessment of the rise and fall of the U.S. school,WAITING FOR SUPERMAN, is also a kind of high-minded thriller: Can the American education system be cured? Can it be made globally competitive? Can it, at least, be made educational? It is a bucket of ice water in the face of politically motivated complacency. What Guggenheim brings to his documentaries (which include AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH and IT MIGHT GET LOUD) are qualities generally not associated (wrongly) with nonfiction filmmaking: an agile, cinematic eye, a sense of rhythm and fluidity, and an awareness that unpalatable information has to be delivered with a side order of humor, not stentorian stuffiness. The information presented here is sobering: This country spends more to incarcerate someone for four years than it would cost to educate the same inmate in private school for 12 years (and likely keep him/her out of prison). But the monetary waste caused by poor schools is just one item on the film's agenda: The unfulfilled potential, social disintegration and generational failure -- perpetuated by the hamster-wheel logic of the nation's entrenched school bureaucracies -- are mourned throughout. Read More...