Tuesday, 2/24: 21 Grams 6:15; The Cooler 8:30
Wednesday, 2/25: The Cooler 6:30; 21 Grams 8:30
Thursday, 2/26: The Cooler 6:30; 21 Grams 8:30
Last Shows for The Cooler!
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The Triplets of Belleville & 21 Grams
21 Grams
--2 Academy Award Nominations
Benicio Del Toro - Best Supporting Actor, Naomi Watts - Best Supporting Actress
--Number 4 on the National Board of Review's Top Ten Films of the Year
Friday at 6:15PM, Saturday at 4PM & 8:30PM, Sunday at 4PM, Monday at 6:15PM, Tuesday at 6:15PM, Wednesday at 8:15PM, Thursday at 8:45PM
The Triplets of Belleville
-2 Academy Award Nominations– Best Animated Feature & Best Song
"A truly out-there piece of comic animation, the most outlandishly visual film of the year, this 80-minute French treat takes us into a world that can barely be described, a world unlike any we've seen before." – Los Angeles Times. "Comic, touching and a visual knockout." – Rolling Stone. "Impossible to describe, impossible to forget."—San Francisco Chronicle. "Most of the magic of this unusual movie comes from the freshness, imagination and sweet spirit of its animation, which is blissfully its own thing and does not show the influence of any of the reigning forces in the art form." – Seattle Post Intelligencer. 80 min., Rated PG-13.
Friday at 8:45PM, Saturday at 2:00 & 6:30PM, Sunday at 2PM, Monday at 8:30PM, Tuesday at 8:30PM, Wednesday at 6:30PM, Thursday at 7PM
21 Grams
Like "Mystic River," "21 Grams" is a grim, compelling and exceedingly well-acted meditation on life, death, guilt and redemption, starring a superlative Sean Penn. Clint Eastwood's traditionalist masterwork dealt with three childhood friends haunted by a long-ago event; "21 Grams," directed by Mexico's Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, making his English-language debut, uses a radically different style to focus on three strangers brought together by a new and terrible act of fate. Penn plays Paul, a math professor dying of coronary disease who gets a new lease on life, thanks to a heart transplant from a man (Danny Huston) who was cut down with his two young daughters in an automobile accident. Paul's nagging sense of guilt compels him to track down and - without revealing their link - try to help the man's widow, Christina (Naomi Watts), a former party girl who has resumed her cocaine habit following the tragedy. They become lovers and together decide to seek vengeance against Jordan (Benicio del Toro), a born-again ex-convict whose determination to stay straight with God's help was challenged when his truck accidentally plowed into Christina's family. In less talented hands, the screenplay by "Amores Perros" writer Guillermo Arriaga might seem like a glorified soap opera - the borrowed-heart trope is especially well-worn - but with this cast and director, you won’t want to miss a moment. That's not only because it's solid adult drama, but because Inarritu has eschewed a straight-line narrative in favor of a challenging, non-linear structure that sketches the basic story in the first few minutes, then keeps going back and forth to fill in more and more key details. Penn, del Toro and Watts create some of the year's richest, most wrenching characters, ably supported by Charlotte Gainsborough as Penn's estranged wife and Melissa Leo as del Toro’s stricken spouse. Stunningly photographed, largely with a hand-held camera, by Rodrigo Prieto (another member of the "Amores Perros" team) on gritty locations in Memphis and Albuquerque, "21 Grams” is also a visual tour de force - and a rare Hollywood product depicting class differences with any kind of honesty. The title refers to the weight - perhaps the soul - the body is said to lose at the precise moment of death. But "21 Grams" has no shortage of soul, wit or intelligence. 125 min., Rated R (violence, profanity, sex).
The Triplets of Belleville
"The Triplets of Belleville" is a bizarre yet beautifully composed piece of nutty whimsy. Madame Souza lives with her dour grandson, Champion, on a hill in Paris where a train always goes rattling by. Since the one thing he enjoys is bicycles, she buys him one. By the time he's an adult, Champion becomes a cycling prodigy. While competing in the Tour de France, he's kidnapped by the local mafia, which leads Grandma and their melancholic hound, Bruno, on Champion's trail. The journey takes them across the sea towards the magical city of Belleville, where Madame Souza encounters a curious trio of '30s-era musical hall sisters that lend a hand in finding Champion. Director Sylvain Chomet is a wizard at letting his jokes quietly brew to the surface. His macabre wit combines the cartoons of Gahan Wilson with some of the playful jest of Jacques Tati and the enchanted drawings of Otto Messmer and Max Fleischer. In its pure originality and off-key sense of humor, "The Triplets of Belleville" is a captivating experience. "A truly out-there piece of comic animation, the most outlandishly visual film of the year, this 80-minute French treat takes us into a world that can barely be described, a world unlike any we've seen before." – Los Angeles Times. "Comic, touching and a visual knockout." – Rolling Stone. "Impossible to describe, impossible to forget."—San Francisco Chronicle. "Most of the magic of this unusual movie comes from the freshness, imagination and sweet spirit of its animation, which is blissfully its own thing and does not show the influence of any of the reigning forces in the art form." – Seattle Post Intelligencer. 80 min., Rated PG-13.