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Cinema CNC offers seven foreign films for its fall season |
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Written by Citizen staff
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Monday, 29 September 2008 |
Cinema CNC's fall season begins Saturday at 7 p.m. with the first of seven foreign films.
"We have some dandy films for your viewing enjoyment, and we look forward to seeing you at the movies," said Peter Maides, College of New Caledonia film history instructor and organizer of the series.
Passes are $35, or $5 apiece for seven movies, and are available now at Books and Company and at the CNC Bookstore.
Single tickets are $7 regular or $6 for students senior and the unemployed. Single tickets are available at the door, and at our ticket sellers on the Monday before the screening.
Showtimes are 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., and the films are shown in room 1-306 at CNC. "Come through the main entrance and keep walking," Maides said. "You won't miss it.
"We look forward to seeing you there!"
The films are as follows:
Saturday: When Did You Last See Your Father? Director: Anand Tucker. 92 minutes. Ireland/UK. Not rated. Cast: Colin Firth, Jim Broadbent, Juliet Stevenson, Gina McKee, Claire Skinner.
This film moves audiences with its emotionally riveting story. Critics say it is a deeply affecting story about coming to terms with the sins of ancestors. At once heart-rending and beautiful, this film revolves around profound characters who carry intense emotions deep beneath an illusory motionless surface. The story begins with Blake, (Colin Firth), an introverted man attempting to make peace with his overbearing, egotistical father. When the latter is suddenly struck down by illness, Blake flashes back to the conservative England of the 1950s, when Blake was a sensitive eight-year-old who already had come to see his father, Arthur (Jim Broadbent), as a tyrant. The past continues to unfold, revealing Arthur to be a self-centered man caring little for other’s perceptions of him and manipulating any circumstance to his own benefit. Blake in turn suffers through awkwardly painful family events, never knowing the approval of his father. Dominated by Arthur’s personality throughout his life, Blake gradually learns to compensate for his shortcomings.
Oct. 11 - American Teen. Director: Nanette Burstein. 95 min. USA. Not rated.
One of the standout documentaries to emerge from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, American Teen sets its aim high. More than a simple exploration of the most high-profile, marketing-targeted demographic in Western culture, American Teen is a poignant, reflective chronicle of several very real teens going through the most transitional period of their lives. Contemporary culture is flush with reality-TV shows depicting teenagers hamming it up for the camera and turning every aspect of their lives into glorified, dramatic moments crammed between commercials. In such a context, it’s almost impossible to believe that there is even a tiny pocket in the United States left where camera crews are not an all-pervading presence. Director Nanette Burstein must have searched far and wide before descending upon the town of Warsaw, Indiana, a primarily white, middle-class town, where she followed four teens through their last year of high school.
The result is an engaging portrait of young people for whom pettiness, romances, betrayals and family traumas are highly typical and highly dramatic. The film also reflects a greater society that has made teens’ lives far more complicated today than they used to be.
Oct. 25. Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Director: Woody Allen. 96 min. USA. PG. Cast: Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz
Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlet Johansson) visit Barcelona for the summer Vicky is practical and traditional in her approach to love and commitment, and is engaged to the reliable but unromantic Doug (Chris Messina). She is in Barcelona getting her master's degree in Catalan Identity, a project spawned by her love of the works of Gaudí, and is emotionally moved by Spanish guitar
Cristina, on the other hand, is spontaneous and unsure of what she wants in life. She is just out of a relationship and wants to get over the bad time she had making a 12-minute film about Love. At an art exhibition, both women fall under the charms of Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem).
Woody Allen is a romantic pessimist; so, while he is contemptuous of standard North American marriage, he is, ultimately, a romantic... and the message that, no matter how messy and painful it is, love is ultimately worth pursuing comes through the narrative of this film.
Nov. 1 - Before the Rains. Director: Santosh Sivan. 98 min. USA. English, Malayalam with English subtitles. PG. Cast: Linus Roache, Rahul Bose, Nandita Das, Jennifer Ehle.
In the south of India in 1937, an Englishman could have his way with the land, the workers and sometimes with the woman of his choosing. Such power could shatter lives, even when exercised by the mildest of men. Acclaimed director and cinematographer Santosh Sivan (Bride & Prejudice, The Mistress of Spices) explores this shock of collision between the forces of will and desire in colonial India in his new film, Before the Rains, which screened to popular acclaim at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. Henry Moores (Linus Roache) has big plans to establish a spice plantation in Kerala. But his plans require a new road to be cleared through the vast hills, and the money and manpower to do it. To secure the trust of the local villagers, he depends on his right-hand man, T.K. (Rahul Bose). To satisfy his baser needs, he depends on his lover - and house servant - Sajani.
A sweeping film full of striking vistas, Before the Rains has the look of a fine period epic, but as it binds its characters tighter and tighter within their dilemmas, it reveals the gears of a good film noir. Having made his reputation in Priest, Roache once again excels as a respectable man capable of catastrophic acts.
Nov. 8: My Brother Is an Only Child. Director: Daniele Luchetti. 108 min. Italy/France. Italian with English subtitles. Not rated. Cast: Elio Germano, Riccardo Scamarcio, Luca Zingaretti, Diane Fleri.
This film, a hit at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, also won over critics and audiences at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, where it had its North American premiere. Directed by Daniele Luchetti and co-written with Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli - the duo behind the highly successful Italian epic, The Best of Youth - the film sketches a beautifully expressive tale of rivalry, love and political differences.
Set in Latina, Italy, My Brother Is an Only Child revolves around a working-class family forced to confront severe political and personal choices. The contrasting lives of two brothers serve to motivate the narrative chronicle of Italy’s troubled years in the late sixties and seventies. Accio (Elio Germano), the youngest of three kids, is eager to set himself apart from his older, left-leaning brother Manrico (Riccardo Scamarcio), and achieves this by courting the local Fascist movement and its leader Mario Nastri (Luca Zingaretti). Manrico, by contrast, sits on the other side of the political fence.
Nov. 15: Frozen River. Director: Courtney Hunt. 97 min. USA. Not rated. Cast: Melissa Leo, Misty Upham, Charlie McDermott, James Reilly, Michael O’Keefe
Courtney Hunt’s striking directorial debut Frozen River chronicles the friendship between two disparate women, one white and the other Native American, in the Mohawk reservation area straddling the U.S.-Canadian border on the St. Lawrence River. Veteran actress Melissa Leo gives a powerful and affecting performance as Ray Eddy, a poor, working mother of two who forms an unusual friendship with Lila Littlewolf (Misty Upham), a tough, street-smart Mohawk woman who makes ends meet by smuggling illegal immigrants into the U.S.
After Ray’s gambling-addicted husband runs out on her, she is left to take care of her teen son T.J. (Charlie McDermott) and younger son Ricky (James Reilly) in a run-down trailer home. When she tries to track down her husband at the local bingo hall, she encounters Lila and is at first manipulated into doing a smuggling run for a ring on the Canadian side of the frozen St. Lawrence masterminded by the threatening Quebecer Jacques Bruno (Mark Boone Junior). Out of necessity, the two women soon find themselves collaborating on the illegal enterprise.
Nov. 22 : The Duchess. Director: Saul Dibb. 110 min. United Kingdom. Not rated. Cast: Keira Knightley, Ralph Fiennes, Charlotte Rampling
“When she appears, all eyes are turned toward her. She is the subject of universal conversation and what we see her wearing tonight, I look forward to seeing the rest of you wearing tomorrow...” - The Duchess.
The highly anticipated screen adaptation of Amanda Forman’s bestselling 1998 novel, Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire, arrives on screens this fall with United Kingdom A-listers Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes assuming the glamorous lead roles of Duke and Duchess. Often called the predecessor to Lady Diana Spencer, Georgiana Spencer (Diana’s real-life great-great-great aunt) was the top political hostess and utmost fashion icon of her time. Struggling to be fulfilled in an arranged marriage to William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, Georgiana became an extremely influential power-broker among the ruling elite, using her charisma and popularity to achieve her political goals while also using her position in the aristocracy to cater to
her affinity for an extravagant and promiscuous lifestyle. Rumors of her infidelity, both real and imagined, buzzed through the halls of eighteenth-century nobility, but politicians still sought her opinion.
The Duchess is a promising hopeful for Academy Award recognition for 2008.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 29 September 2008 )
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