2/7
THE YES MEN (US; 2003; d. Dan Ollman,
Sarah Price and Chris Smith)
The latest offbeat documentary
from the makers of American Movie follows the exploits of Andy Bichlbaum
and Mike Bonanno, a pair of “culture jamming” social activists.
Bichlbaum and Bonanno have impersonated World Trade Organization spokesmen at
a number of events—including a notorious appearance at SUNY Plattsburgh—at
which they criticize the WTO’s policies through their intentionally absurd
imitations. The film not only chronicles some of their exploits, but also their
audience’s frequent lack of recognition that anything out of the ordinary
is taking place. Karen Karbo of The Portland Oregonian writes that
“anyone who suspects that satire is dead need look no further than [this
film] to realize the art of lampooning is alive and well.”
(R; 80 min.)
2/14
PRIMER (US; 2004; d. Shane Carruth)
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize
for best drama at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, director Carruth’s
debut film is “a repeat-viewing brain twister to file along-side millennial
puzzle films like Mulholland Drive and Memento” (Dennis
Lim, The Village Voice). Two young engineers, tinkering in a garage
and hoping to invent their way out of their day jobs, come up with a contraption
that does something, though they aren’t quite sure what. As the two begin
to use the device, paradoxes and loopholes in time, space, and causality begin
to appear. Roger Ebert (The Chicago Sun-Times) says Primer
is “maddening, fascinating, and completely successful.” (PG-13;
78 min.)
2/28
BUS 174/ÔNIBUS 174 (Brazil;
2002; d. José Padilha)
This powerful, multiple award-winning documentary takes us into the world portrayed
fictionally in the recent Brazilian film, City of God. When Sandro,
a homeless man, commandeers a bus on the streets of Rio de Janiero in 2000,
the situation quickly spirals out of control. Using television footage from
the media that immediately surrounded the bus—the hostage taking received
the largest television ratings of the year in Brazil—and interviews with
police, social workers, street people, and others, to both narrate and look
beyond the event, José
Padilha’s film is “tense, engrossing, and superbly structured”
(J. Hoberman, The Village Voice). Bus 174 is “an extraordinary
movie, easily one of the best of the year” (Desson Thomson, The Washington
Post). (R; 122 min.)
3/7
MY MOTHER LIKES WOMEN/A MI MADRE LE GUSTAN
LAS MUJERES (Spain; 2002; d. Daniela Fejerman and Inés
Paris)
A delightful
blend of screwball comedy and drama, A Mi Madre le Gustan las Mujeres
"is a film about homophobia, hypocrisy, and love (Carla Meyer, The
San Francisco Chronicle). When Sofía (Rosa Maria Sardà, All
About My Mother) introduces her grown daughters to her new lover, their
liberal attitudes are turned upside down--Eliska is their age and she is--a
woman. Convinced they need to save their mother, neurotic Elvira (Lenor Waitling,
Talk to Her), her conservative older sister Gimena, and punk rock younger
sister Sol concoct a plan to break up the relationship. However, as often happens
in movies and in real life, things do not turn out the way the daughters, or
the audience, imagines. (NR;
96 min.)
3/21
BIG ANIMAL/DUZE ZWIERZE (Poland; 2000;
d. Jerzy Stuhr)
Krzysztof Kieslowski’s
thought provoking script, discovered after his death, has been adapted into
“a small and marvelous film” (A.O. Scott, The New York Times).
Like his Three Colors trilogy
and Decalogue, Duze Zwierze reflects “the mixed feelings
some people show toward free choice when it confronts them” (D. Sterritt,
The Christian Science Monitor). After an abandoned circus camel wanders
into their yard, Zygmunt and Marysia Sawicki (Stuhr and Anna Dymna) discover
it’s not easy to have a camel. Neighbors resent the intrusion, children
tease the poor beast, the town issues camel taxes, but Zygmunt stands firm.
“Jerzy Stuhr’s symbolic tale of one man’s struggle to keep
his camel rings with sly humor and disheartening observations on human nature,”
says Phil Villarreal (The Arizona Daily Star). (NR;
73 min.)
3/28
JAMES'S JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM/MASSA'OT
JAMES BE'ERETZ HAKODESH
(Israel; 2003; d. Ra'anan Alexandrowicz)
This “deceptively modest fable of innocence abroad resonates with the
situation within Israel and without” (J. Hoberman, The Village Voice).
Siyabonga Melongisi Shibe gives a stunning performance as James, a young Zulu
and devout Christian sent by his African village on a pilgrimage to the Holy
Land. At the airport James is suspected of entering the country illegally. Jailed
and awaiting deportation, he prays for God to intervene and, behold, a stranger
posts his bail. But, freedom has its price as James soon learns. “Greed
and God are neck and neck in this sly and insightful fable about a religious
pilgrimage derailed,” says Carla Meyer (The San Francisco Chronicle).
(NR; 90 min.)
4/4
TARNATION (US; 2003; d. Jonathan Caouette)
Jonathan
Caouette’s autobiographical documentary covers more than twenty years
of his life since the age of eleven, when he began filming himself and his surroundings
with an old Super-8 camera. The film—a montage of home movies, still photos,
and other audio-visual fragments—not only depicts his own turbulent coming-of-age
(and coming-out-of-the-closet) but also his mother’s gradual decline due
to mental illness. Michael Wilmington of The Chicago Tribune called
it “a film vision both painfully lucid and charged with delirium and ecstasy.”
(PG;
88 min.)
4/11
A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT/UN LONG DIMANCHE
DE FIANÇAILLES (France; 2004; d. Jean-Pierre Jeunet) ***
Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s magnificently engaging film, Un Long Dimanche
de Fiançailles “breaks all the rules,” combining WWI
war drama, romance, and mystery, says J. Baltake (The Sacramento Bee).
Mathilde (Amelie’s Audrey Tautou) and Manech (Gaspard Ulliel)
have been in love as long as they can remember. When Manech must go to war,
they are devastated by the separation. The film follows Manech onto the battlefield.
Then, with news of his death, the film circles back to Mathilde. She refuses
to believed he is dead and sets out to discover the truth. This must see film
by the director of Amelie is “a moving portrait of hope, determination,
tragedy and loss,” says Michael Booth (The Denver Post). (R;
134 min.)
***starts at 7:00 pm
4/18
BAD EDUCATION/LA MALA EDUCACIÓN
(Spain; 2004; d. Pedro Almodóvar)
Pedro Almodóvar (All About My Mother, Talk to Her)
returns to film noir for the first time in nearly a decade with this freewheeling
movie that simultaneously evokes John Waters and Alfred Hitchcock. Gael Garcia
Bernal (Amores Perros, Y Tu Mama Tambien) stars as three different
characters who feature in various strands of Almodóvar’s elaborately
interconnected stories about transsexual junkies, fallen priests, and desperate
filmmakers. Rene Rodriguez of The Miami Herald writes that Bad
Education is “Almodóvar’s ode to obsessive love, to
artistic passion, and to the cinema itself.” (NC-17; 109 min.)
4/25
MOOLAADÉ (Senegal and France;
2004; d. Ousmane Sembene)
The latest film from renowned Senegalese filmmaker (Black Girl) and
novelist (God’s Bits of Wood) Ousmane Sembene takes on the controversial
and emotionally charged subject of female genital circumcision. A group of six
young women who are slated for a female circumcision ritual seek moolaadé
(protection) from Collé (Fatoumata Coulibaly), an outspoken opponent
of the practice. A battle of wills ensues, pitting tradition against modernity.
A.O. Scott of The New York Times writes that this film “will
stay in my memory and inform my ideas long after other films have vaporized.”
(NR; 120 min.)
Cinema 10 is a non-profit, volunteer group which presents alternative film programming. We work to bring the best in American independent and foreign films to North Country audiences. If you have a suggestion or would like to get involved, please e-mail Holly Chambers. The Cinema 10 Board members are Chris Affre, Fran Bailey, Holly Chambers, Ed Clark, Viki Levitt, Anne Malone, Hilary Oak, Celine Philibert, Chris Robinson, Eric Schultze, David Sommerstein, Christino Tamon, and Donna Williamson.
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