Filling Out 2007 Spring Titles

There seems to be some confusion about dates for upcoming movies. That’s understandable, given the way I’ve added titles mid-way.

Here’s the deal:

Notes On A Scandal will run at the theater from March 22 through March 25. Bennett Street Films will buy members’ tickets to this show (one ticket per membership, please).

The Last King of Scotland will run at the theater from March 29 through April 1. Bennett Street Films will buy members’ tickets to this show as well (one ticket per membership, please).

March 25 at 1:30 & March 26 at 6:30 will have an unannounced super-ultra-sekrit-show. Show up and find out what it is! Probably a video. A really funny movie. That’s all I’m saying! What suspense! Then…

I’m going to take a little break from these extra shows and skip a few weekends. There are some other things I need to take care of. Then…

The Situation will play on April 15 & 16.

Climates will play on April 22 & 23.

Morford: Do Bad Movies Eat Your Soul?

I took it as a challenge when Mark Morford wrote the following:

So then. Here is this point of pride. Here is this semi-elitist notion and I say this without fear of sounding overly pompous or egotistical because, believe you me, I have surely enjoyed plenty of other time-wasting activities about which I can be cheerfully mortified.

But at least I have this: I now can honestly say I have not seen a single one of the films listed in “Worst of the Worst: The 100 Worst-Reviewed Movies of All Time.” Is this not a good thing? Is this not something worthy of moderate celebration? Because it certainly feels like it.

He’s writing, of course, about the WOTW over at rotten tomatoes. I, unfortunately, have seen several of these pictures. But hey, I work at a movie theater. I had to! At least that’s my excuse!

Many of these movies did quite well at the box office. I don’t just mean the box office in Buffalo. I mean nationally. But in Buffalo too. Why is it that critics and audience so rarely agree?

Another thought: I need to set up a better database so I can have quick access to our ticket sales. It would be fun to look at the titles from this WOTW that we showed and see how they did compared to our best and to our worst. Fun. Okay. I gotta get another hobby…

Iraq Veterans Memorial

Brave New Films is on the edge of something. I’m not a fan of all they produce, some of it is too rushed. And I have other complaints. Some of their stuff is certainly well worth watching. But they are not a movie studio. Nor are they some joker with a webcam and YouTube account. They are somewhere between the two. (Check out Brave New Theaters for even more interesting changes they’re trying to make in the movie world.) Much of what they’ve made in the past year has been as close to democratic movie making as possible. They blur the line between audience and source. Just as YouTube and the web in general has, Brave New Films has blurred the line between content provider and content consumer.

One of their new projects is the Iraq Veterans Memorial.

In the spirit evident in other Brave New Films this is a “moving memorial”, open to input, even video footage, or especially video footage, and other contributions from the general public. Visit their website to learn more.

Volver = Cleavage?

10,495 voters over at imdb.com and this film gets a 7.8 out of a possible 10. I don’t know if there’s a connection or not, but the first “plot keyword” listed is cleavage. Uh huh.

Of course they summarize the user comments with:

“Wonderful, warm and touching.”

Penelope Cruz - Volver Cast - Volver

That’s certainly why I want to see the film!

Whatever the reason, I’m sure this is going to be a great film. It is playing Sunday at 1:30 and Monday at 6:30. That would be March 18 & 19.

2007 Spring Series


Curse of the Golden Flower
(Action/Adventure, 114 Min., Rated R)
Feb. 25 at 1:30
Feb. 26 at 6:30
In 2004, Zhang Yimou caused a sensation with his astonishing HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, and his CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER is yet another dazzling, visually stunning film. Calling again upon the talents of the striking Gong Li, Yimou tells an epic tale of lust and power set in the opulent world of the Later Tang dynasty. The plot follows the story of the Emperor (Chow Yun Fat) and his Empress (Li) and the tragic disintegration of their royal family–whose problems go far beyond the merely dysfunctional.


Children of Men
(Drama/Sci-Fi, 109 Min., Rated R)
March 4 at 1:30
March 5 at 6:30
In 2027, as humankind faces the likelihood of its own extinction, a disillusioned government agent agrees to help transport and protect a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea where her child’s birth may help scientists to save the future of mankind.


The Painted Veil
(Drama/Romance, 125 Min., PG-13)
March 11 at 1:30
March 12 at 6:30
Based on the novel by W. Somerset Maugham, The Painted Veil is a love story set in the 1920s about a young English couple, Walter (Edward Norton), and Kitty (Naomi Watts), who get married for the wrong reasons and relocate to Shanghai, where she falls in love with someone else. When he uncovers her infidelity, in an act of vengeance, he accepts a job in a remote village in China ravaged by a deadly epidemic, and takes her along.


Volver
(Comedy/Drama, 121 Min., Rated R)
March 18 at 1:30
March 19 at 6:30
Raimunda lives in Madrid with her daughter and her husband who is always drunk. Her sister is separated and works clandestinely as a hairstylist for women. The two sisters lost their parents in a fire in La Mancha, their birth village, years ago. Their aunt still lives in the village and continues to speak about Raimunda’s mother as if she were still alive. When the old aunt dies the situation changes and the past returns (volver) in a twist of mystery and suspense.

Links to The Past (Series-es-es)

For posterity, there needs to be a collection of links to series we put on prior to the creation of this website. This is that post. It will be updated each time we finish a series. I think. Or maybe I’ll make new posts with each previous series and we’ll just add them to the ‘Past’ category. We’ll see what time allows. For now, here they are in all their glorious, hand-scripted html wonder:

Those links will bring you to the old website, for now. To get back here use your back button or, well, get here the same way you got here before…

2007 Mini-Movie Mixer

One idea here, sort of, is to kill your TV. Make movies instead of watching them. No theme, but priority will be given to entrants from North East Wyoming. A bunch of folks can make some short movies and then the rest of us can all gather round and give ’em a watchin’.Most people can enter a movie, younger folks have their parents enter them.I’m not calling this a film festival or a short-film series because, really, we’ll be watching videos. Movies on digital video. All the rules are listed at the top of the application which can be downloaded, printed and sent in with your entry.Just click here for the application.I hope enough people will take this opportunity to have some fun with this!

2006 Fall Series

Strangers With Candy
(USA – R – 97 Minutes – Comedy)
Oct. 22 at 1:30
Oct. 23 at 6:30
STRANGERS WITH CANDY is a daring leap backwards. A prequel to the critically acclaimed Comedy Central series of the same name, it is the
tale of Jerri Blank (Amy Sedaris), a forty-seven year old ex-con, junky whore who decides to return home after thirty-two years as a runaway.

As part of her decision to turn her life around by picking it up exactly where she left off – as a high school freshman. She’s going to start
her life over, only this time she’s going to do the wrong things the right way.

Once re-enrolled in high school, not surprisingly, she finds that the path is fraught with the many adolescent problems and temptations that plague
all teenagers, but especially this forty-seven year old former boozer, user and loser.

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
(Germany – Unrated – 117 Minutes – War/Drama)
Oct. 29 at 1:30
Oct. 30 at 6:30
Munich, 1943: Sophie and Hans Scholl are members of the “White Rose”, a resistance group against the Nazi regime. When the siblings lay out fliers at the university, they are caught by the caretaker who calls the Gestapo. After their imprisonment, they are interrogated for days. In the beginning, Sophie manages to bluff the questioning official Robert Mohr, but Hans finally confesses everything. Now Sophie vindicates her ideals, but also tries to protect the other group members. On February 22nd, the Scholls and their aide Christoph Probst are accused of high treason and sentenced to death. As the execution takes place the same day, Sophie has to take leave of her family…
Heading South

(France – Unrated – 108 Minutes – Drama)
Nov. 5 at 1:30
Nov. 6 at 6:30
Haiti, late 1970’s. Sea, sex and sun for Ellen, Brenda and Sue, three North American ladies, on the wrong side of forty or fifty-odd, going through an enchanted interlude. Lonely, forsaken, neglected by men in their native countries, they can indulge here in carnal exultation without shame, thanks to handsome local young men they pay a few dollars. Ellen is a Boston French literature professor, Brenda, an unfulfilled wife from Savannah, Georgia and Sue, a sexually frustrated but good-natured Canadian factory worker. In this second garden of Eden they don’t care too much about the neighboring poverty nor about Baby Doc’s violent dictatorship. The trouble is that that two of the three women have sights on a single man, Legba. And Legba is beginning to be fed up with being a stud…
Mongolian Ping Pong

(China – Unrated – 102 Minutes – Drama/Foreign/Comedy)
Nov. 12 at 1:30
Nov. 13 at 6:30
Bilike has never seen a ping-pong ball before. But life in the middle of nowhere can be exciting for a young boy. The smallest of details become big events for curious Bilike and his best friends Erguotou and Dawa. The mystery of the small white ball floating in the creek leads to questions about the world around them, as well as innocent mischief…

House of Sand

(Brazil – R – 115 Minutes – Drama)
Nov. 19 at 1:30
Nov. 20 at 6:30
Áurea arrives at a town in the dunes of State of Maranhão, Brazil, in 1910, having for female company only her mother Maria. She is pregnant and wants a way out of that arid place. But leaving is difficult and, somehow, she still hopes to find happiness there. The film follows these two lives for three generations, presenting Áurea’s daughter and, later, her granddaughter.
The Motel

(USA – Unrated – 75 Minutes – Comedy/Drama)
Nov. 26 at 1:30
Nov. 27 at 6:30
Thirteen-year-old Ernest Chin lives and works at a sleazy hourly-rate motel on a strip of desolate suburban bi-way. Misunderstood by his family and blindly careening into puberty, Ernest befriends Sam Kim, a self-destructive yet charismatic Korean man who has checked in. Sam teaches the fatherless boy all the rites of manhood.

2006 Summer Video Series

Presented at the Buffalo Theater

HOP
August 6 at 1:30
August 7 at 6:30
(104 min., unrated, Belgium)
HOP is the fight of David against Goliath. It is the story of the trials and tribulations of a young illegal pygmy, confronting the Belgian authorities on his own, in order to recover his expelled father. The ring in which all hits are allowed, especially those below the belt.
AALTRA
August 13 at 1:30
August 14 at 6:30
(92 min., unrated, Belgium)
In this irreverent road movie, comedians Benoît Delépine and Gustave Kervern, who wrote, directed, and co-star, show a distinct flair for understated physical comedy and defiantly non-PC humor.
Hawaii, Oslo
(125 min., unrated, Norway)
August 20 at 1:30
August 21 at 6:30
As Oslo suffers through the hottest day of the year, the paths of several strangers (a male nurse, a suicidal former pop star, two long-lost lovers, a grief-stricken married couple, two young kids ‘in the system’ and their estranged mother) cross… all with somewhat miraculous outcome.
Daybreak

(85 min., unrated, Iran)
August 27 at 1:30
August 28 at 6:30
Since the Islamic Revolution in Iran, capital punishment is carried out according to Islamic law, which gives the family of the victim ownership of the offender’s life. Day Break – shot inside Tehran’s century-old prison – revolves around the imminent execution of Mansour, a man found guilty of murder. When the family of the victim repeatedly fails to show up on the appointed day, Mansour’s execution is postponed again and again.