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Wednesday 9/17 Gentleman’s Agreement Thursday 9/18 Trembling Before G-d 5:15, Northfork 7:00, Winged Migration 9:00 Last Show for Trembling Before G-d!
I Capture the Castle, Northfork, & Winged Migration
I Capture the Castle
Opens Friday, September 19th "Neither conventionally told nor resolved, and able to make the most eccentric situations believable, I Capture the Castle is both an ordinary story and a special one -- and that, finally, is the secret of its success."-- Los Angeles Times. "A refreshingly mature look at first love and life's often-rough transitions." – Dallas Morning News. “3 1/2 Stars.”—Roger Ebert. "It may be best to think of I Capture the Castle as a kind of comfy chair with a few frayed edges and telltale leaks in its upholstery. Perfect furniture, in other words, for a lazy summer afternoon." – Newsday. 113 min., Rated R. “The R rating ("for brief nudity") is another attempt by the MPAA to steer teenagers away from useful and sophisticated entertainments, and toward vulgarity and violence. If this movie is R and "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" is PG-13, then the rating board has no shame. Better the Angels as strippers than an innocent nipple during a swim in the castle moat?”—Roger Ebert Friday 6:30PM, Saturday at 6:30PM, Sunday at 4PM, Monday at 7PM, Tuesday at 7PM, Wednesday at 7PM, Thursday at 9PM
Winged Migration
"Winged Migration is a marvel.”—Los Angeles Times. “A movie of awesome beauty and innovation…”—Chicago Tribune. “Who wants to see a documentary about birds of every feather who migrate across forty countries and seven continents? You do. Winged Migration is a movie miracle; it soars.”—Rolling Stone. In a summer full of digitally enhanced machines ("The Matrix Reloaded") and mutants ("X2"), you won't see anything more amazing and electrifying than the soaring birds in this marvelous movie.”—L.A. Daily News. 90 min., Rated G. Saturday at 2PM & 4PM, Sunday at 2PM, Monday at 5:15PM, Tuesday at 5:15PM, Wednesday at 5:15PM, Thursday at 5:15PM
Northfork
“Four Stars! A masterpiece! A visionary epic! There has never been a movie quite like Northfork!”—Roger Ebert. “Dreamy and entrancing. At a moment when so many films strive to be as obvious and interchangeable as possible, it is gratifying to find one that is puzzling, subtle and handmade.”—The New York Times. “Magical! A thoroughly original accomplishment of a high artistic order! A provocatively bold stroke of imagination. Full of sly touches.”—Los Angeles Times. "A powerful, surreal fable, one that requires a small amount of patience from the viewer in exchange for a moving experience."—Dallas Morning News. "Like the best work of David Lynch, Northfork is that rare movie that draws you in more (rather than alienating you) at precisely those moments when you least understand it."—Variety. 94 minutes, Rated PG-13. Friday at 8:45PM Saturday at 8:45PM, Sunday at 6:15PM, Monday at 9PM, Tuesday at 9PM, Wednesday at 9PM, Thursday at 7PM
I Capture the Castle
"I have relived this particular day many times. It is a golden memory, and I am suspicious of it.... Perhaps it really was a happy day." With that intriguing voiceover, accompanied by sunny visuals of a young and hopeful English family in an open car on their way to an old Suffolk castle that will become instead their dank, cold and unhappy home for the next 10 years, begins the story of younger daughter Cassandra ("Nicholas Nickleby's" Romola Garai, simple perfection), a diary-keeper who dreams of becoming a writer like--well, not quite like--her creatively burned-out father Mortmain ("Fairy Tale's" Bill Nighy, a bit given to dramatics). And Cassandra, like older sister Rose ("City of Ghosts'" Rose Byrne, quite good as a desperate gold-digger: "I’d marry a chimpanzee if he had money"), dreams of falling in love--although there are no boys living anywhere near the impoverished family's far-flung outpost. Until, that is, two young and rich American gentlemen ("Gangs of New York's" Henry Thomas and "We Were Soldiers'" Marc Blucas, both convincingly good-hearted) come on scene. First-time feature director Tim Fywell brings a certain literate sensibility from his BBC TV work to "I Capture the Castle,” which itself is based on a 1948 novel by British writer Dodie Smith, who later penned "The Hundred and One Dalmatians." Despite its high-class producer imprimatur (David Parfitt won an Oscar for "Shakespeare in Love"), as captured here the tale seems less aimed for the older art-house crowd than for teenaged girls eager for discerning and intelligent drama--in the same "serious" way that, say, Franco Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet” was; however, an inexplicable R rating--for a momentary scene in which Cassandra’s bohemian-painter stepmother ("Siren's" Tara FitzGerald) disrobes to better experience an evening countryside rain--will bar most of that prime distaff demographic. What could bring a specialized buzz to "I Capture the Castle" is the performance by Garai, whose plain but passionate face proves fertile ground for Fywell's camera and whose voice seems perfectly attuned to Smith's text as adapted by screenwriter Heidi Thomas (who paired with Fywell on the BBC's "Madame Bovary"). Although much of her character’s activity is reactive, Garai provides the film’s heart; every key action or decision of her family or the fellows seems to seep through her and become imprinted on her soul, and her most effective work occurs in the silent registrations of their lighter or darker moralities on Garai’s argent face. 113 min., Rated R.
Northfork
One of the most hauntingly beautiful films ever made, the Polish brothers’ “Northfork” nimbly fuses history and fantasy in a ’50s-set fairy tale set in the titular Montana mining community. While the rest of the country is profiting from a postwar economic boom, this small town is about to vanish from the face of the earth under the waters of a river to be dammed up imminently. Three pairs of men in trench coats (James Woods and Mark Polish among them) glide across the flat plain, visiting the remaining holdouts who refuse to leave their homesteads. The men’s own futures are at stake, for they have been promised 1.5 acres of lakefront property in exchange for the secured evacuation of 65 properties. With 48 hours to go before the waters are reined in, time is running out. Meanwhile, sickly orphan Irwin (Duel Farnes) lies in a feverish coma under the care of a kindly priest (Nick Nolte). In his restless dreams, Irwin encounters an eccentric family--flamboyant Cup of Tea (Robin Sachs); wordless cowboy Cod (Ben Foster); androgynous Flower Hercules (Daryl Hannah), in a black pixie haircut and ruffled shirt; and Happy (Anthony Edwards), an amputee with wooden hands and multi-lensed spectacles--who are in search of the Unknown Angel. Desperate to go with them when they leave, Irwin brings evidence--feathers, a tranquilizer gun, bodily scars--proving that he is the one for whom they are looking. In the end these two storylines converge in a wholly unexpected way. Not only is the story intensely moving, but also the imagery throughout “Northfork” is lovely. Drawing from a palette of flat grays and browns, helmer Michael Polish and cinematographer David Mullen have produced a look reminiscent of an old, faded, sepia-toned photograph. Particularly poetic are the visions of the surface of a lake, churning from a disturbance below until a casket pops to the surface, and a church with a missing fourth wall, a priest preaching his final Sunday sermon while cow’s graze serenely in the background. In addition, in the otherworldly characters and a wooden dog-giraffe hybrid creature that beckons to Irwin from across the plain, Michael Polish and his brother Mark, with whom he produced and crafted the script, exhibit wild, evocative imagination. Yet the film is subtly humorous as well, with the reconstruction of the Biblical ark by a particularly devout polygamist family; debates on the differences between people who drive Fords and people who drive Chevys; and, in a scene of comic brilliance, the protracted guessing game of what the local diner might have on the menu with a waitress whose features are profoundly, shall we say, unique. Here, too, are anachronisms such as a quip about fast food and the throwaway line, delivered just so, “What are you talking about, Willis?” The jokes do take one out of the film for a moment, yet somehow, in the context of this quirky piece, they work. The final movement in the Polish brothers’ trilogy that also includes “Twin Falls Idaho” and “Jackpot,” “Northfork” is a classic for all time. Rated PG-13 for brief sexuality. Running time: 94 min.
Winged Migration
You won't find any purer example of the power of cinema than Jacques Perrin's Oscar-nominated documentary "Winged Migration." Here's the long and short of it: "Winged Migration" is 90 minutes of footage of birds flying, though Perrin looks at the variety of natural and man-made hazards birds face in the course of their semi-annual instinctive trek across great expanses of globe. And yet, with only these images and sounds of birds, a musical score and a minimum of narration, Perrin's film speaks volumes about the way these animals live in nature and, occasionally, in spite of nature. There is something heroic and awe-inspiring about their indomitable struggle to follow the instincts they were born with. There undoubtedly will be people who find this notion boring: Birds? Flying? That's it? I can see that on the Nature Channel. But give this movie a chance. Perrin's film is profound – and profoundly entertaining. You will look at the world in a different way after seeing "Winged Migration." 90 min., Rated G.