Tuesday, 12/30 Pieces of April 6:30, Veronica Guerin 8:30
Wednesday, 12/31 Pieces of April 5:00, Veronica Guerin 7:00, The Station Agent 9:00
Thursday, 1/1 The Station Agent 2:00, Veronica Guerin 4:00, Pieces of April 6:00
A special plea to Cinema Center supporters: Calendar Girls opens at Rave this week. If you cannot wait to see it, go and enjoy! But if you can wait, please do. Cinema Center will bring Calendar Girls as quickly after it closes at Rave as we can. Seeing it here supports us and saves you money!
Also, if you haven’t seen The Station Agent, ask anyone who has & they’ll tell you not to miss it!
Thanks for your support.
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Masked & Anonymous, The Station Agent & The Runaround
Masked & Anonymous
"The music is great. Dylan and his band do a half-dozen songs that crackle with energy."— Philadelphia Inquirer. "A fascinating, vexing, indulgent, visionary, pretentious, mesmerizing pop culture curio."—Washington Post. “A strange and convoluted film that is as rewarding as a Dylan song, and just as perplexing."—Seattle Post Intelligencer. “An exhilarating and sometimes puzzling jumble that explores the dangers of power, the nature of Americana and the Bob Dylan myth, among many, many other things."—Salon.com. 112 min., PG-13.
Friday at 8:30PM, Saturday at 8:30PM, Sunday at 3PM, Monday at 8:30PM, Tuesday at 8:30PM, Wednesday at 6:30PM, Thursday at 6:30PM
The Station Agent
“A movie with an intellectual existence both on and off the screen, as well as an emotional resonance that is difficult to shake."--Newsday. "A masterful film and a bracing movie experience."--Hollywood Reporter. "Yes, this is a comedy, but it's also sad, and finally it's simply a story about trying to figure out what you love to do and then trying to figure out how to do it."--Roger Ebert. "The best advice to filmgoers who appreciate smart, mature, humanist movies is, simply, Go."--Washington Post. "A delicate, thoughtful and often hilarious take on loneliness."—New York Times. "Dinklage's face and demeanor, his sense of solitude, ballasts some of the film's loonier episodes. There's always something on his mind, and you're always wondering what it is."—Boston Globe. 90 min., Rated R. (for language.)
Friday at 6:30PM, Saturday at 6:30PM, Sunday at 1PM, Monday at 6:30PM, Tuesday at 6:30PM, Wednesday at 8:30PM, Thursday at 8:30PM
The Runaround
This locally produced independent film, which was shot in Fort Wayne last winter, was written, directed, and produced by Fort Wayne native Nathan Gotsch, and stars Michael Oberholtzer, also a former resident of the Summit City. The Runaround is a 34-minute action comedy starring Oberholtzer and Mike Mauloff, who recently made his national television debut on PAX-TV’s It’s A Miracle, hosted by Roma Downey (Touched by an Angel). The two play cash-strapped roommates Jason Hollopeter and Chad Ellis, who agree to make a delivery for Jason’s former little league coach (Robert Rouse) in exchange for a large sum of money and, in the process, become entangled in a seamy criminal underworld populated by mafia stool pigeons, burly foot soldiers, and a deceptively sadistic mob boss, played by former Broadway star Harvey Cocks. Culminating in a dramatic meeting between Jason, Chad, and the mob boss, The Runaround features a frenetic car chase through the streets of downtown Fort Wayne and showcases locations throughout the city, including Club Soda and the historic Fairfield Apartments.
In lieu of admission, moviegoers will be asked to make a $2.00 donation to Community Harvest Food Bank or donate three cans of food.
Sunday at 5:30PM, Monday at 5:30PM, Tuesday at 5:30PM, Wednesday at 5:30PM, Thursday at 5:30PM
Masked and Anonymous
The one thing that can be said with absolutely certainty about Masked and Anonymous: There's nothing else like it playing in theaters. It's the sort of oddity that used to turn up on art-house screens in the '80s -- those episodic indie pictures packed with quirky cameos and inscrutable dialogue, such as Alex Cox's Straight to Hell and Robert Frank's Candy Mountain. Bob Dylan stars as legendary but largely forgotten troubadour Jack Fate, who has spent years imprisoned in a sort of Third World version of contemporary America. Fate is sprung by concert promoter Uncle Sweetheart (John Goodman), who is putting together a benefit show and has been unable to line up a big star as headliner. As Fate makes his way to the concert, he encounters a variety of nutty characters, including a deranged animal lover (Val Kilmer), a revolutionary unsure which side he's fighting for (Giovanni Ribisi), and a ghostly minstrel (Ed Harris). When he arrives at the concert arena, he is dogged by a reporter (Jeff Bridges, in Big Lebowski mode) who relentlessly questions the mystique Fate has built up over the years. Confusing and enigmatic, Masked is clearly meant to be an allegory, but like many Dylan songs, it remains unclear exactly what it's an allegory for. It will certainly test the patience of many viewers, particularly non-Dylan fans, but there's a cracked integrity to the picture that eventually won me over. For some, however, the only saving grace of this film will be the live performances by Dylan and his touring band of many years, who turn in live-wire renditions of Cold Irons Bound and the standards Diamond Joe and Dixie. The absurdly loaded cast also includes Jessica Lange, Luke Wilson, Bruce Dern, Mickey Rourke, Angella Bassett, Cheech Marin, & Chris Penn. "The music is great. Dylan and his band do a half-dozen songs that crackle with energy."— Philadelphia Inquirer. "A fascinating, vexing, indulgent, visionary, pretentious, mesmerizing pop culture curio."—Washington Post. “A strange and convoluted film that is as rewarding as a Dylan song, and just as perplexing."—Seattle Post Intelligencer. “An exhilarating and sometimes puzzling jumble that explores the dangers of power, the nature of Americana and the Bob Dylan myth, among many, many other things."—Salon.com. 112 min., PG-13.
The Station Agent
An unexpected favorite at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was snapped up for distribution by Miramax and captured acting, writing and audience awards, “The Station Agent” is the gentle portrait of a tentative friendship among three quite disparate people. At four feet, five inches, Finbar McBride (Peter Dinklage) has been the object of curiosity and derision for most of his life. He has dealt with it by shutting himself off from most of the rest of the world. When his only friend and business partner dies, he inherits an abandoned train depot in lushly shot rural New Jersey and jumps at the chance to live there in isolation. It is not to be. He is immediately accosted by Joe (an infections Bobby Cannavale), who is bored to tears running the coffee truck nearby while his dad is laid up at home, and literally run off the road by painter Olivia (once again, the uber-talented Patricia Clarkson), who, estranged from her husband, is grieving the death of her young son. These chance meetings lay the foundation for solid friendships. “If you guys do something later, can I join you?” Joe asks Fin when he observes his budding relationship with Olivia. “We’re not doing anything later,” Fin replies. “But if you do,” Joe insists. The exchange goes on for comedic effect but also to intimate Joe’s desperation to make a human connection and Fin’s aversion to it. For Dinklage, particularly, this is the role of a lifetime. He is pitch-perfect as the monosyllabic conversationalist who is wholly satisfied to read about trains, watch trains and walk “the right of way” (along the train tracks) by himself. Yet he doesn’t truly enjoy the pastime without Joe and Olivia’s help, when he can finally chase trains in a car with a video camera. Clarkson, too, grapples with the complicated emotions of being friends with a man for whom she can be neither mother nor girlfriend. And Cannavale brings humor and energy to a storyline that could plunge into melodrama but doesn’t. Rarely has friendship--honest, genuine friendship--been portrayed so truthfully, with the gentle humor that belies real intimacy. (“I wanted to live near Joe,” Fin quips as the reason he moved into a deserted train station with no plumbing or electricity; “Can you come up here and talk?” Joe whines from the balcony where he is preparing dinner--he’s a great cook--as Fin and Olivia converse below. “Seriously, this sucks.”) And while theirs is a unique arrangement that they struggle with throughout the film, ultimately Fin, Joe and Olivia come to quite comfortable terms with it--their own. Running time: 90 min., Rated R.