CHE Part One

Apr - May 2009
We’re at UVic
Admission Prices
University of Victoria Students’ Society, conceived
as an inexpensive alternative for students, the
University community and the public. The
theatre is in the Student Union Building at
UVic. The following buses come to UVic: 4, 7, 11,
14, 26, 39, 51. Please note: the university charges
(GST included)
UVSS Students
Seniors, Children (12 & under)
Other Students
Cinemagic Members
on Saturdays. $2.00 permits now available at
Parking remains free
on Sundays and holidays.
Tickets and memberships go on sale 40
minutes before showtime. Please arrive early
to avoid disappointment.
where noted. Films are 35mm prints unless otherwise indicated.
sunday
KIDS MATINEE Sun 12:30!
HOTEL FOR DOGS
APR 5 (2:30 matinee & 7:00 & 9:10)
APR 6 (7:00 & 9:10)
THE WRESTLER
Darren Aronofsky (USA, 2008,110 minutes; 14A)
Cast: Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood
WINNER! BEST ACTOR – MICKEY ROURKE
—Golden Globes
#####! The Wrestler is that rare film where actor and role
converge perfectly and powerfully. Mickey Rourke, a oncegreat actor whose career has been on the ropes almost
from the start, inhabits the battered bleach-blond bruiser
Randy “Ram” Robinson, a past-his-prime pro wrestler still
clinging to hopes of a comeback. It’s also a comeback for
Rourke, who gives the most brutally honest performance of
the year. Rourke never makes a mockery of Ram or plays
on our sympathy or pity. More than merely Raging Bull with
wrestling, The Wrestler has startling depth and humour.
The tiny film feels both intimate and epic - and entirely
heartbreaking. —Now Magazine
“The comeback acting performance of the year
belongs to Mickey Rourke.” –The Globe and Mail
KIDS MATINEE Sun 12:30!
24-hour Info Line: 721-8365
and guests (1 only) of above
$5.75
Non-members
$6.75
Matinees (all seats)
$3.75
Our matinees return in September!
Manager: Michael Ryan
Programmer: Michael Hoppe
TEN FILM DISCOUNT PASS
Students, Seniors
Design: Joey MacDonald
(Unavailable to non-members.)
monday
$4.75
$4.75
$5.75
$5.75
$40.00
$50.00
tuesday
APR 7, 8, 9
wednesday
(6:45 & 9:15)
THE CLASS / ENTRE LES MURS
Laurent Cantet (France, 2008, 130 minutes; French with English subtitles; rated PG)
Starring François Bégaudeau
“UNMISSABLE!” –Rolling Stone
“RIVETING!” –The Globe and Mail
“A REMARKABLE MOVIE.” –New York Magazine
“IN A CLASS BY ITSELF.” –Entertainment Weekly
“A LOVELY, EXHILARATING WORK.” –Salon.com
“THIS UNASSUMING MOVIE WILL NAIL YOU TO YOUR SEAT.” –Slate
#####! The Class won the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, and no surprise. It’s a razorsharp look at one year in the life of a French high school class. It’s a terrific, cohesive work that makes
the intellectual challenges of educating today’s youth seem thrilling rather than hopeless. It’s also built
around a tremendous debut performance by François Bégaudeau, who co-authored the screenplay from
his own novel - which in turn was based on his own experiences as a schoolteacher.
—Now Magazine
I would be surprised if this brilliant and touching film didn’t become required viewing for
teachers all over. Everyone else should see it as well—it’s a wonderful movie. –The New Yorker
This is one of the screen’s most rewarding explorations of the teacher/student relationship in any
language. –Chicago Tribune
APR 14, 15, 16 (7:10 & 9:00)
HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3
ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE – BEST FOREIGN FILM
WINNER!
AUDIENCE FAVOURITE AWARD
at the VICTORIA FILM FESTIVAL!
Ari Folman (Israel, 2008, 91 minutes; Restricted)
WALTZ WITH BASHIR
APR 12 (2:30 matinee & 7:10)
APR 13 (7:10 only)
STONE OF DESTINY
Charles Martin Smith (Canada/UK, 2008, 97
minutes; PG)
Cast: Charlie Cox, Kate Mara, Robert
Carlyle, Billy Boyd, Stephen McCole,
Ciaron Kelly
A skirl of the bagpipes and a sweeping view
of rugged countryside set the tone for this
lively comedy caper. Stone of Destiny will
stir the heart as a group of students liberate
the ancient Stone of Scone – a beloved symbol of Scottish independence – from
Westminster Abbey. –Victoria Film Festival
“AN ABSOLUTE STUNNER!” –Wall Street Journal
“ASTONISHING, UNFORGETTABLE: YOU HAVE TO SEE IT.” –Empire
Profound, and profoundly affecting, Ari Folman’s “animated documentary” is
based on actual interviews with veterans of Israel’s war with Lebanon in the
early eighties. Folman too is a veteran, and thus a principal figure in his own
film. Indeed, it’s the vast gaps in his repressed memory that motivate the
interviews - they talk, he talks, and slowly the blank slate begins to fill with
the sights and sounds of a horror long past. Brace yourself for the extraordinary climax...Waltz with Bashir makes us feel what few war pictures ever have
- the palpable shock of the real, penetrating like a mortal blow. —The Globe
and Mail
‘Speak, memory,’ commanded Vladimir Nabokov—but in the Israeli animated
masterpiece Waltz With Bashir, memory only stutters, yowls, and babbles. To
translate, a new form is needed, with more fluid boundaries between documentary and fantasy, reality and dreams, life and art. What we get is both a
detective story and a head-trip.... It has taken an animated film to go where
live-action dramas and even documentaries haven’t—to tickle our synapses
and slip into our bloodstream. The end of Waltz With Bashir rockets us out of
the unconscious: —New York Magazine
Provocative, hallucinatory, incendiary, in its seamless mixing of the real
and the surreal, the personal and the political, animation and live
action, it’s unlike any film you’ve seen, period. –Los Angeles Times
thursday
friday
saturday
APR 10 (7:10 & 9:10)
APR 11 (2:30 matinee & 7:10 & 9:10)
KIDS MATINEE Sat 12:30!
HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3
STONE OF DESTINY
Charles Martin Smith
(Canada/UK/ 2008, 97 minutes; PG)
Cast: Charlie Cox, Kate Mara, Robert Carlyle, Billy Boyd, Stephen McCole, Ciaron Kelly
WINNER! AUDIENCE FAVOURITE AWARD — VICTORIA FILM FESTIVAL!
A skirl of the bagpipes and a sweeping view of rugged countryside set the tone for this lively comedy
caper. Stone of Destiny will stir the heart as a group of students liberate the ancient Stone of Scone –
a beloved symbol of Scottish independence – from Westminster Abbey. –Victoria Film Festival
The Stone of Destiny is an oblong block of red
sandstone, weighing approximately 152 kg. It
was used for centuries in the coronation of the
monarchs of Scotland, the monarchs of England,
and, more recently, British monarchs. In 1296 the
Stone was captured by Edward I and taken to
Westminster Abbey, where it was fitted into a
wooden chair on which all subsequent English
sovereigns except Queen Mary II have been
crowned... On Christmas Day 1950, a group of
four Scottish students took the Stone from
Westminster Abbey for return to Scotland. And
thereby hangs the hook upon which Charles
Martin Smith has hung this charming, witty and
atmospheric film. –Vancouver International Film
Festival
APR 17 (7:00 & 9:20)
APR 18 (2:30 matinee & 7:00 & 9:20)
KIDS MATINEE Sat 12:30!
CORALINE
FROST/NIXON
Ron Howard (USA, 2008, 122 min; PG) Cast: Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Rebecca Hall, Toby
Jones, Matthew Macfadyen, Kevin Bacon, Oliver Platt, and Sam Rockwell
A film version of a play about
two talking heads. It shouldn’t
work at all. But it does work,
spectacularly, as a matter of
fact. The two people are disgraced President Richard M.
Nixon and British charm boy
David Frost, the TV interviewer
who waved millions in front of
the Watergate trickster to lure
him on camera for the trial he
never had. Ancient history? Well,
the interview took place in 1977,
and we know the outcome in
advance. All the more remarkable, then, that director Ron
Howard has turned Peter
Morgan’s stage success into a
grabber of a movie laced with
tension, stinging wit and potent
human drama... Frost/Nixon, one of the year’s best films, far exceeds its roots as docudrama. It cuts to
the core of a toxic culture that sees politics as show business. —Rolling Stone
sunday
monday
KIDS MATINEE Sun 12:30!
CORALINE
APR 19 (2:30 matinee & 7:00)
APR 20 (7:00 only)
DEFIANCE
Edward Zwick (USA, 2008, 137 minutes; 14A) Cast: Daniel
Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Alexa Davalos
On the basis of Glory, Courage Under Fire, The Siege, The
Last Samurai and Blood Diamond, it’s easy to conclude that
Edward Zwick has few contemporary equals as a director of
intelligent war epics. And he proves himself one more time
with this adaptation of Nechama Tec’s nonfiction book about
a band of quarreling Jewish brothers who fled into the woods
of their native Belorussia (Belarus) when the Nazis invaded;
the brothers then organized the war’s largest Jewish partisan
band. It’s an exciting action spectacle and a thoughtful, cumulatively moving family drama that opens in 1941, as the
Germans have overrun the country, 50,000 Jews have been
arrested and thousands more summarily executed, including
the parents of the Bielski brothers — Tuvia (Daniel Craig), Zus (Liev Schreiber), Asael (Jamie Bell) and Aron
(George MacKay). Escaping into a dense part of the national forest that the two older brothers know well,
they form a partisan band to avenge their parents’ deaths, fight the occupation and eliminate Belorussian collaborators who support it. —Seattle Post-Intelligencer
tuesday
APR 24 & 25 (7:00 & 9:20)
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!
I’VE LOVED YOU SO LONG
MILK
REVOLUTIONARY ROAD
IL Y A LONGTEMPS QUE JE T’AIME
Directed
by
Philippe
Claudel
(France, 2008,
118 minutes; French with
subtitles; rated G)
Kristin Scott Thomas’ performance is acting at its
most exalted. This is film
being used for its supreme
purpose, to show us the
grand movements of a
soul. We meet Juliette
(Thomas) waiting to be
picked up in an airport,
and she looks ravaged. We
soon find out that she has just been released after 15
years in prison. Her younger sister, Lea (Elsa
Zylberstein), brings Juliette home to stay with her family. Juliette has survived for 15 years by staying contained, and so she gives as little as possible. How the
conflict within Juliette resolves is the essential drama
of the film. —San Francisco Chronicle
(7:10 & 9:15)
Joel Hopkins
(UK/USA, 2008, 93 minutes; PG)
Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Emma Thompson, Kathy
Baker, James Brolin, Eileen Atkins
Directed by Lian Lunson
(USA, 2006, 98 minutes;
rated G)
Dustin Hoffman is a sad sack who writes jingles
for an ad agency. He doesn’t like his job but he’s
holding onto it so hard that, even as he arrives in
London for his daughter’s wedding, he’s too distracted to play his paternal role. Emma
Thompson is a 40-something in a dispiriting job
who has resigned herself to remaining terminally
single. These two commiserate over a shared
lunch that turns into a long date. They play folks
who, on the surface, have nothing in common,
but in fact both feel left out of their lives. Hoffman
and Thompson make real people of these characters who have nothing to lose and everything to
gain. Hopkins directs with warmth, affection and
a simple respect for all the characters, and he
adds touching grace notes to their story.—Seattle
Post-Intelligencer
featuring performances
from U2, NICK CAVE,
RUFUS WAINWRIGHT,
JARVIS COCKER,
ANTHONY, MARTHA
WAINWRIGHT, BETH
ORTON, KATE & ANNA
McGARRIGLE
Lian Lunson’s wonderful
documentary portrait of
Leonard Cohen combines pieces of an extended
interview with this singer-songwriter, poet and author,
with a tribute concert at the Sydney Opera House in
2005.–The New York Times “####! A GEM! Shows
how timeless Leonard Cohen’s words and music are. THE
MOVIE CAPTURES THE ELEGANCE, WIT, AND SPIRITUAL LONGING OF COHEN’S WORK.” –Philadelphia Inquirer
MAY 3 & 4 (7:00 & 9:00)
MAY 5
(7:00 & 9:10)
LET THE RIGHT
ONE IN
Tomas Alfredson
(Sweden,
2008, 110 minutes; Swedish
with subtitles; 14A)
ONE WEEK
Michael McGowan (Canada, 2008, 94 minutes; PG)
Cast: Joshua Jackson, Liane Balaban
“A CHARMING ROAD TRIP, FILLED WITH QUINTESSENTIAL
CANADIANA.” --Robert Moyes, Monday Magazine
“TRIUMPHANT!” -Metro Canada
“ONE GREAT CANADIAN MOVIE.” –Montreal Gazette
####! –Now Magazine
When a young man is confronted with his mortality, he
takes a cross-country road trip on a vintage motorcycle.
ONE WEEK tells the story of Ben Tyler (Joshua Jackson),
in his mid-twenties, who flees from the confines of his
life—an impending marriage, a job he`s not entirely happy
with and a recent diagnosis—in order to attempt to live
more fully. What starts off as an ill-defined venture soon
morphs into a quest for the West Coast. -Mongrel Media
MAY 10 & 11 (7:00 only)
IT’S NOT ME, I SWEAR!
C’EST PAS MOI, JE LE JURE!
Philippe Falardeau (Quebec, 2008, 110 min;
French with Eng subtitles; rating TBA)
Cast: Suzanne Clément, Daniel Brière, Antoine L’Écuyer,
Gabriel Maillé, Catherine Faucher
A look at the huge cultural shifts of the late ‘60s from the point
of view of a wild child. Leon (Antoine L’Ecuyer) is 10, and prone
to apparent suicide attempts. He tells lies. (His beloved mother
advises him to lie with conviction.) He’s appalling, and you will
love him. The household erupts with parental fighting, and during one particular argument, Leon moves things along by getting the fire department involved. Somehow, all this chaos is
absurd and often very funny. When it’s not heartbreaking. It’s
Not Me, I Swear! is an entirely magical film about how large
the world looms to children. The film mixes comedy and
tragedy with a light hand...Visually, it’s mesmerizing. —Sun
Media Often hysterically funny...one of the sharpest and
most entertaining films you will see this year. –Vancouver
International Film Festival From the director of Congorama.
MAY 17 & 18 (7:00 only)
12
Nikita Mikhalkov (Russia, 2008, 160 minutes; Russian
& Chechen with subtitles; PG)
Nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar
in 2008, Nikita Mikhalkov’s masterful, engrossing
12 is finally finding its way into theaters.
—The Village Voice
An exuberantly Russian reworking of Reginald Rose’s
jury-room play, 12 Angry Men; this particular story plays
very differently in post-Soviet Russia. Here the accused
lad is a Chechen Muslim teenager, jailed on charges of
killing his Russian adoptive father in a newly capitalist
Russia, so there’s a back-story involving ethnic hatred
and economic tensions. The jury is sequestered in an
elementary-school gymnasium. That location, happily
for the dozen variously ferocious Russian performers, is
filled with all sorts of actor-friendly props, which are put
to excellent use. The stories the jurors tell are filled with
arguments that reference local tensions and situations
possessing a distinctly Chekhovian flavor. As the men
consider and reconsider the evidence, they end up
offering a vivid portrait of Russian society. –NPR
MAY 24 & 25 (7:00 only)
BEFORE TOMORROW
Marie-Hélène Cousineau & Madeline
Piujuq Ivalu (Canada, 2008, 93 minutes;
Inuktitut with subtitles; PG)
WINNER! BEST CANADIAN FEATURE
– Victoria Film Festival
On its deceptively simple surface, Before
Tomorrow tells the story of an Inuit elder's
bond with her grandson as they brave the
elements and isolation. But with each haunting image and spare line of dialogue, the
filmmakers amass a quiet work of devastating power about an entire culture on the eve of change. Unforgettable. --Canada’s Top Ten This
remarkable debut feature is reminiscent of Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner). Ningiuq (Ivalu) and her best
friend Kutuujuk (Mary Qulitalik) are elders in an Inuit family in the mid-nineteenth century. Kutuujuk is
sick and stories about the Europeans' impending advance are gaining momentum. After a particularly
bountiful catch, Ningiuq, her grandson Maniq (Paul-Dylan Ivalu) and Kutuujuk volunteer to dry the fish.
On a remote island away from wolves and other animals, Kutuujuk faces her final days. When no one
comes for them, Ningiuq and Maniq start the journey home themselves... Distilling the grand narrative
of first contact, directors Cousineau and Ivalu explore how this historic event changed not only the Inuit
people, but the entire world. --Toronto International Film Festival
saturday
APR 22 & 23 (7:00 & 9:30)
LAST CHANCE HARVEY
“IF YOU SEE ONLY ONE MOVIE THIS YEAR
MAKE IT ONE WEEK.” -SEE MAGAZINE
friday
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!
LEONARD COHEN:
I’M YOUR MAN
#####
thursday
APR 21 (7:00 & 9:15)
APR 28
APR 26 & 27 (7:00 only)
wednesday
“THIS IS A VAMPIRE MOVIE
LIKE NO OTHER.
MESMERIZING!” –Newsweek
Twelve-year-old Oskar lives in a bleak section of
Stockholm. One night, Oskar meets the new girl who
just moved in next door. Eli might smell a little odd, but
she's dying of loneliness--as well as the need for
human blood. Director Tomas Alfredson has reinvented the vampire film with sly wit and surprising sweetness. Alfredson's particular genius is apparent in small
perfect touches. The scene where Eli and Oskar dance
to bad Swedish disco is a standout, but the film is filled
with wonderful grace notes. A massive hit on the genre
film circuit, it reminds you of the power that horror cinema, done right, can have. --Vancouver International
Film Festival
MAY 12 (7:00 & 9:30)
THE READER
Stephen Daldry (USA/Germany, 2008, 125 minutes;
18A) Starring Ralph Fiennes, Kate Winslet, David
Kross, Lena Olin, Bruno Ganz..
ACADEMY AWARD WINNER!
BEST ACTRESS – KATE WINSLET
####! Set in
1958
Berlin,
where 16-yearold
Michael
Berg
(David
Kross, who’s
terrific) has his
first
sexual
relationship
with the much
older Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), who likes it when
he reads to her. He doesn’t discover her dark past
until years later. Adapted superbly by David Hare from
Bernhard Schlink’s novel, the film is packed with
ideas exploring sexuality, shame and forgiveness...Essential viewing. —Now Magazine
Sam Mendes (USA, 2008, 119 minutes; 14A)
Gus Van Sant (USA, 2008, 129 minutes; PG) With
Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, James Franco, Emile
Hirsch, Diego Luna, and Alison Pill.
WINNER! BEST PICTURE —New York Film Critics
WINNER of 2 ACADEMY AWARDS!
BEST ACTOR – SEAN PENN
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
“A TOTAL TRIUMPH, BRIMMING WITH HUMOR
AND HEART. A CLASSIC.” —Rolling Stone
“AN ABSOLUTE MUST. COME PREPARED TO BE
INSPIRED!” --New York Post
Gus Van Sant’s vibrantly entertaining bio-pic re-creates the San Francisco life of the gay activist and
politician Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), who was assassinated in 1978, along with Mayor George Moscone, by
a fellow-politician, the family-values conservative
Dan White (Josh Brolin). The righteous march of
events is warmed by the candor of the gay milieu in the giddy seventies, the period just before AIDS, when life
was free and easy...A ROWDY ANTHEM OF TRIUMPH! —The New Yorker
“MILK IS A MARVEL!” –The New York Times “A WORK OF ART.” –Slate
Cast: Kate Winslet, Leonardo
DiCaprio, Kathy Bates,
“DEVASTATING!” –Roger Ebert
“THE BEST AMERICAN FILM OF
2008” –San Francisco Chronicle
What does a cult 1961 Richard Yates
novel about a 1950s marriage rotting
in the burbs have to say to a new century? Plenty, and hold on, because the
raw and riveting Revolutionary Road
hits you where it hurts. Kate Winslet
and Leonardo DiCaprio could not be
better in the roles of young marrieds
who move from Manhattan to the suburbs, promising themselves it’s all just
temporary. April dreams of taking off
for Paris, where she’ll work while
Frank pursues his artistic impulses.
Add two kids, thwarted ambitions, adultery — plus April’s unwanted third pregnancy, and the whooshing sound you hear is a dream in free-fall. Directed with extraordinary skill by Sam Mendes (American
Beauty). This movie takes a piece out of you. —Rolling Stone
WINNER OF 8 ACADEMY
AWARDS including BEST
PICTURE!
BEST PICTURE & BEST ACTRESS!
####! –The Globe and Mail
–Toronto Film Critics Association
MAY 1 & 2 (7:00 & 9:20)
APR 29 & 30 (7:15 & 9:00)
WENDY AND LUCY
Danny Boyle
(UK
121 minutes; 14A)
#####! Slumdog Millionaire is an energetic,
ferociously stylish drama that flashes back and
forth through the life of a former Mumbai street
urchin (Dev Patel) as he explains to his disbelieving interrogator (Irrfan Kahn) how he could
possibly have known all the answers on the
Indian version of Who Wants To Be A
Millionaire. Boyle is clearly having a grand time
playing with the form and flash of Bollywood
epics and orchestrates a crowd-pleasing payoff. But the movie’s real heat comes from the
soulful performances of Patel and stunning
newcomer Freida Pinto as Slumdog‘s starcrossed lovers. —Now Magazine ####! —
The Globe and Mail ####! —Monday
Kelly Reichardt (USA, 2008, 81 minutes; PG)
Cast: Michelle Williams, Will Pat ton.
#####! Wendy And Lucy is a blistering social critique wrapped in an urgent drama, built around an
incredible performance by Michelle Williams as a
woman driving through Oregon on her way to Alaska
with a few possessions, a dwindling supply of money
and her enthusiastic dog, Lucy. Unexpected car trouble
triggers a cascade of unpleasant events that send the
increasingly desperate Wendy racing around a small
town, bleeding cash and seeing her options melt away
before her eyes. Wendy and Lucy works powerfully as
both a wrenching character study and a mournful commentary on the economic desperation of small-town
Americans. –Now Magazine
“FIENDISHLY FUNNY!” –The Guardian
MAY 6 & 7 (7:00 & 9:10)
WELCOME TO THE STICKS
BIENVENUE CHEZ LES CH’TIS
Dany Boon (France, 2008, 107 minutes; PG)
Cast: Dany Boon, Kad Merad, Zoe Felix,
Anne Marivin, Philippe Duquesne.
MAY 8 & 9 (7:10 & 9:15)
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!
–Screen Actors Guild
DOUBT
John Patrick Shanley (USA, 2008, 103 minutes;
rated G) Starring Meryl Streep, Phillip
Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Viola Davis
The biggest box-office smash in French history
shows the French in the mood to laugh at themselves. This is a hicks-in-the-sticks tale about a
post office manager (Kad Merad) who has a nice
outpost in the South of France but ends up banished to a rainy town in the north. The townspeople speak a dialect called Ch’ti, which to Philippe’s
ears is little more than gibberish... Dany Boon’s
deeply charming comedy might dispel the notion
that the French cannot laugh at themselves. The
director’s own turn as a particularly dim-witted
mailman is also a piece of terrific comedy. An
American remake starring Will Smith is already
planned, but the French original will be very hard
to top. –-Vancouver International Film Festival
John Patrick Shanley adapted his own Pulitzerwinning play for this compelling drama about
an archconservative nun (Meryl Streep) and a
progressive priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman)
clashing in a working-class Bronx parish in
1964. Principal of the parish school, the nun
suspects the priest of molesting a 12-year-old
boy—the school’s first black student. Lacking
any evidence and hamstrung by the church’s
male-dominated chain of command, she
embarks on a vendetta that leads her to the
edge of a moral abyss. Shanley skillfully opens
up the play’s action on-screen while preserving
its ambiguity about the characters’ motives.
Streep and Hoffman are pitch-perfect, and Amy
Adams is also superb as a young nun caught
up in the conflict. –Chicago Reader
MAY 13 & 14
(7:10 & 9:00)
MAY 15 & 16 (7:00 & 9:20)
TROUBLE
the WATER
Tia Lessin & Carl Deal (USA,
2008, 90 minutes; rating TBA)
“MORE THRILLING THAN ANY
HOLLYWOOD
SPECTACLE.”
–Salon
WINNER! GRAND JURY PRIZE
–Sundance Film Festival
This astonishingly powerful documentary is at once horrifying and exhilarating. Directed and produced by
Fahrenheit 9/11 producers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, Trouble the Water takes you inside Hurricane Katrina
in a way never before seen on screen. The film opens the day before the storm makes landfall—just blocks
away from the French Quarter. Kimberly Rivers Roberts, an aspiring rap artist, is turning her new video camera
on herself and her 9th Ward neighbors trapped in the city. As the hurricane begins to rage and the floodwaters
fill their world, Kim and her husband Scott continue to film their harrowing retreat to higher ground and the dramatic rescues of friends and neighbors. The filmmakers document the couple’s return to New Orleans, the devastation of their neighborhood and the appalling repeated failures of government. Trouble the Water is a
redemptive tale of self-described street hustlers who become heroes. –Zeitgeist Films
“ESSENTIAL, UNIQUE VIEWING.” –Entertainment Weekly
THE INTERNATIONAL
Tom Tykwer (USA/Germany/UK, 2009,
119 min; 14A) Cast: Clive Owen,
Naomi Watts, Armin Mueller-Stahl.
From the director of Run, Lola, Run.
In this gripping thriller, Interpol Agent Louis
Salinger (Clive Owen) and Assistant
District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (Naomi
Watts) are determined to bring to justice
one of the world’s most powerful banks.
Uncovering myriad and reprehensible illegal activities, Salinger and Whitman follow
the money from Berlin to Milan to New
York to Istanbul. Finding themselves in a
high-stakes chase across the globe, their
relentless tenacity puts their own lives at
risk as their targets will stop at nothing.
—Sony Pictures
Featuring stunning
architectural photography and an
eye-popping, heart-stopping set piece in
New York’s Guggenheim Museum.
MAY 22
MAY 19, 20 & 21 (7:00 & 9:30)
SPECIAL
CHE Part One
“CHE”-A-THON!
Steven Soderbergh (France/Spain/USA, 2008, 132 minutes; English &
Spanish with subtitles; PG) Starring Benicio Del Toro, Demian Bichir.
Based on the memoirs of Ernesto “Che” Guevara
“TRULY EPIC...BOLD!” –The New York Times
‘A GREAT MOVIE. ‘CHE’ IS A THING TO BE
EXPERIENCED!” –The Village Voice
‘NOTHING IF NOT THE MOVIE OF THE YEAR!” —LA Weekly
What other director would expect us to follow him through a four-anda-half-hour epic about Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the Argentine doctor
who helped Fidel Castro pull off the Cuban revolution? Confession:
Despite my admiration for Steven Soderbergh and Benicio del Toro, the
Puerto Rican Oscar winner who plays Che, I dreaded seeing it. I was
wrong. First of all, no one who cares about organic film acting will want
to miss del Toro’s magnificent performance. Del Toro keeps you riveted....Diving into the movie’s riches is an experience you won’t forget or
regret. PART ONE shows the young Ernesto meeting Castro (Demián
Bichir) in 1956 and joining his rebel force to defeat U.S.-backed Cuban
dictator Fulgencio Batista. The scenes of warfare are intercut with Che
visiting the United Nations in 1964 and reveling in his image as a Marxist
icon. –Rolling Stone
MAY 26, 27 & 28
(7:00 & 9:30)
Today only!
See either film at
regular price or see
both for a special
price!
UVSS Students & Seniors: $ 7.75
Members, UVic Faculty/Staff/Alumni: $ 8.75
Non-members: $ 10.75
6:45 - CHE PART ONE
plus
9:10 - CHE PART TWO
please see May 19, 20, 21 and 26, 27, 28
for descriptions
BEST ACTOR - Benicio Del Toro -Cannes Film Festival
CHE Part Two
WATCHMEN
Zack Snyder
(USA, 2009, 163 minutes;18A)
"CHE is a piece of entertainment that delivers excitement, pathos
and pure filmmaking passion; it's a work of art worth thinking about
and arguing about, one the opens up possibilities and encourages
you to think and feel without telling you how to think and feel."
-Cinematical
PART TWO deals with Che in Bolivia, as he leads a 1966 campaign to
bring the spirit of the Cuban uprising to South America. Soderbergh
details a punishing series of skirmishes that result in Che’s capture and
execution. This section is nothing less than a blueprint for revolution
and the forces that can make or break it...Che is a work of grand ambition. The cinematographer Peter Andrews (a Soderbergh pseudonym)
grabs hold of a newfangled nine-pound digital camera and creates
images of startling beauty and immediacy. Che looks dazzling, whether
the camera is weaving through a battle or trying to bore into Che’s
haunted soul. As for the movie, it’s a reward to audiences eager to break
from the play-it-safe pack. Game on. —Rolling Stone
MAY 23 (7:10 & 9:15)
CASABLANCA
Michael Curtiz
(USA, 1942, 102 minutes)
The most splendidly
romantic
picture
ever made. Set
against the backdrop of espionage
in wartime French
Morocco, the story
of enigmatic nightclub owner Rick
(Humphrey Bogart)
and his unwitting
reunion with an old
flame
(Ingrid
Bergman) unfolds.
And the supporting
cast—which includes Claude Rains, Sydney
Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt, Dooley
Wilson—is nothing less than heaven-sent. —Mr.
Showbiz
Sponsored by Capital City
Volunteers, who will be holding a raffle and
draw. There will be some great prizes!
MAY 29 & 30
(6:45 & 9:45)
Steven Soderbergh
(France/Spain/USA, 2008, 133 minutes;
English & Spanish with subtitles; PG)
WINNER! BEST ACTRESS
MERYL STREEP
Cast: Jackie Earle Haley,
Patrick Wilson, Matthew
Goode, Billy Crudup,
Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Malin
Akerman, Carla Gugino,
Stephen McHattie, and
Matt Frewer
ABSOLUTELY DEVASTING!
Dense, intense, tragic and visionary, this is the kind of movie that keeps setting off bombs in your brain
hours after you’ve seen it. Immediately leaps near the top of the list of apocalyptic pop-culture operas,
alongside Blade Runner and the first Matrix. TERRIFIC! –Salon
Watchmen is set in an alternate
1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society. When one of
his former colleagues is murdered, the outlawed masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot
to kill all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion,
Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity...but who is watching
the Watchmen? —Warner Bros.