Banana Skin by Ali Atshani, (2008, 89 min.). This engaging comedy takes a light approach to death and the afterlife. Workaholic Hamid has everything the yuppie lifestyle requires, and no time to enjoy it until a freak accident delivers him at deaths door. Welcomed by the ghosts of his just-deceased uncle and another accident victim, Hamid discovers that being footloose in the city as a prankish spirit isnt such a bad deal after all. The plot thickens when a pretty lady-ghost comes on the scene and his uncle ponders matchmaking protocol in the great beyond. Description provided by the Gene Siskel Film Center.
one day only
Before the Burial by Behnam Behzadi (2008, 104 min.). About twenty years ago, Siamak, a medical student, is expelled from university and sent to prison for his political activities. His life is thrown into confusion in every possible way. Having become a bus driver after his release, he deeply regrets what has happened to him and decides to undertake some unfinished business before taking leave of this world on his fortieth birthday.
one day only
Special Engagements
Exclusive Area Premiere!
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 at 5:00, 7:15, 9:30
(2008) dir dir Kevin Rafferty [105 min]
Harvard Stadium, November 23, 1968: for the first time since 1909, the football teams of Harvard and Yale are both undefeated as they meet for their final game. Yale is heavily favored, with Brian Dowling, its captain and quarterback, satirized in classmate Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury strip. Harvard's lineman is Tommy Lee Jones - Al Gore's roommate. Kevin Rafferty (Atomic Cafe) intercuts original footage with the hilarious, suspenseful recollections of the 50 men who played in what has become one of college football's most famous games. - Notes from the Film Forum, NYC
We're thrilled to be hosting this engaging new documentary on the eve of the 40th Anniversary of this famous game! Please join us for an illuminating walk down memory lane that, not only opens up the details of this momentous match-up, but also touches on politics, sex, ethics, war, and class.
showing through wednesday
Repertory Series: John Boorman's Primeval Screen
Excalibur at 2:00
(1981) dir John Boorman w/ Nigel Terry, Helen Mirren, Nicolas Clay [140 min]
*Director John Boorman will appear schedule permitting.
Possibly the pinnacle of the "King Arthur" genre, EXCALIBUR follows its namesake, the sword Excalibur, through its many lives in Arthurian myth. It serves as almost a narrator through the rise and fall of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table - bearing witness to love, lust, adultery, battle, triumph, and defeat. Generally agreed to be among Boorman's finest films, EXCALIBUR succeeds in being both epic and romantic, earning its place at the head of the medieval pack.
final showing
Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, The Mistress and The Tangerine by Amei Wallach and Marion Cajoli (2008, 99 min.). This complex, fascinating, and unpredictable documentary about sculpture artist Louise Bourgeois shows how the emotions of the past reveal themselves in her evocative and often terrifying works. Strongly influenced by Surrealists like Brancusi and Picasso, the aggressive nature and elemental design is still used in her sculptures, installations, and drawings today. Bourgeois use of unorthodox materials and techniques fused with a postwar sensibility helped her create artwork that represented the emerging radical ideas of the body, gender and sexuality. The uncommonly elegant and evocative portrait reveals much about this haunting and haunted master. (The New York Times).
showing through nov 30
Directed by John Boorman, Appearing in Person
With Brendan Gleeson, Adrian Dunbar, Sean McGinley
UK 1998, 35mm, b/w, 124 min.
Print from Sony Pictures Classics
Boorman's career-long fascination with ambivalent or ambiguous protagonists reaches an apogee in the veritable antiheroof The General, a character closely modeled on real-life Dublin gangster Martin Cahill, who in the 1980s managed to run afoul not just of the law but also the Catholic Church and IRA. Boorman himself had a run-in with Cahill, who burgled the director’s house, stealing the gold record for Deliverance’s “Dueling Banjos.” In marked contrast to the large-scale canvases of Hope and Glory or The Emerald Forest, The General’s sober black-and-white cinematography marked a return to the simplicity of Boorman's early BBC documentaries and the unadorned force of Point Blank.
The Magner's Irish Film Festival Excellence Award
one day only
find/upload a trailer
What Remains by Steven Cantor (2006, 80 min.) Drawing upon her personal experiences as inspiration, Sally Mann creates a haunting series of photographs that speaks about the one subject that affects us allthe loss of life. Dark, beautiful, and revelatory, What Remains, is a five-part meditation on mortality, which explores the ineffable divide between body and soul, life and death, spirit and earth. It is one of the most exquisitely intimate portraits not only of an artists process, but also of a marriage and a life, to appear in recent memory. (New York Times, Gina Bellafante)
showing through nov 28
Box Office Babies presentation Fri, Sept 5 @ 1:00
“RIVETING. This exhilarating film makes you shake your head in amazement.” – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
On August 7th 1974, a young Frenchman named Philippe Petit stepped out on a wire illegally rigged between New York's twin towers, then the world’s tallest buildings. After nearly an hour dancing on the wire, he was arrested, taken for psychological evaluation, and brought to jail before he was finally released.
Following six and a half years of dreaming of the towers, Petit spent eight months in New York City planning the execution of the coup. Aided by a team of friends and accomplices, Petit was faced with numerous extraordinary challe
showing through tuesday
Certainly one of Kinos greatest achievements of the past 10 years has been bringing this fantastic resurrection of one of cinemas masterpieces to the U.S. Amid the gleaming towers of a gigantic city of the future the pampered son of the big boss himself is smitten by a young woman and follows her into the depths of the city where he discovers what really makes Metropolis run. As slavishly regimented workers with numbers instead of names toil amid smoke-belching machinery, he has a vision of slaves lining up for sacrifice. Meanwhile, his father anticipates unrest and makes plans to defuse it, inciting an eccentric inventor to fashion an agent provocateur, the robot-Maria one of the most indelible icons of science fiction film.
one day only
Fri, Oct 17 @ 1:00
Box Office Babies Presentation
Tues, Oct 21 @ 7:30
Off the Couch Presentation with discussion leader Steven Cooper, PhD
Please note: This show replaces our program originally scheduled for Oct 14
When Kym (Anne Hathaway) returns to the Buchman family home for the wedding of her sister Rachel (Rosemarie Dewitt), she brings a long history of personal crisis, family conflict and tragedy along with her. The wedding couple’s abundant party of friends and relations have gathered for a joyful weekend of feasting, music and love, but Kym—with her biting one-liners and flair for bo
showing through nov 27
"There's never been anything like this densely detailed phantasmagoria -- groundbreaking in substance, damned near earth-shaking in style." - Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal
From director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Millions) and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (The Full Monty) comes this darkly funny rags-to-riches story that was a breakout hit at this year's Toronto International Film Festival. SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE is the story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India’s “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?” But when the show breaks for t
showing through nov 27
Off the Couch Presentation Tues, Sept 9 @ 7:00 with discussion leader RACHEL SEIDEL, MD
In Woody Allen' latest, two young Americans spend a summer in Spain and meet a flamboyant artist (Javier Bardem) and his beautiful but insane ex-wife (Penelope Cruz). Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is straight-laced and about to be married. Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) is a sexually adventurous free spirit. When they all become amorously entangled, the results are both hilarious and harrowing.
dir. Woody Allen, w/ Bardem, Cruz, Johansson, and Hall
showing through tuesday
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