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Thursday, April 15th, 2010

Friday, April 16th, 2010

Black Dynamite

Shriver Hall 7:30 pm

Director: Scott Sanders Website: blackdynamitemovie.com Running Time: 90 min. Production Format: 35mm An outrageous action comedy-spoof following the exploits of an ex-CIA agent (Michael Jai White) and full-time ladies man out to avenge the death of his brother against kung-fu masters, drug-dealing pimps and The Man. Meet Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White), the smoothest, baddest cat on the street. He’s a ladies’ man and the man with a plan. He’s also a former C.I.A. agent out to avenge his brother’s death. Whether he’s taking down drug dealers or sweet-talking foxy mommas, he’s the man on the streets out to stop The Man. Take a wild ride from the mean streets of the ghetto to the pool halls of the inner city, all the way to the “Honky House” with this bad-ass, tough-as-nails action hero. BLACK DYNAMITE is a kung-fu-fighting, pimp-slapping, gun-blasting, outrageously over-the-top parody of ’70s-era blaxploitationfilms that delivers big action and even bigger laughs like nobody’s bizness. “Look out for this film. It’s Hilarious!” – SPIKE LEE

Saturday, April 17th, 2010

Rocket To Danger

Shriver Hall 3:30 pm

Director: Anne Peterson & Adam Sobel Website: http://www.slightlyflawed.com/danger/ Running Time: 90 min. Production Format: DVD Doris Dulwight is about to endure one of the most unpleasant rites for anyone in their early twenties…losing her childhood best friend. But for Doris, the situation is particularly devastating because her best friend, Stacey King, also happens to be the other half of Rocket to Danger, the hip-hop roller skating team Doris’ life has revolved around for the past eleven years. When Stacey gets a new girlfriend, a new job and for all intents and purposes, a new life, Doris tries everything in her power to keep things the same as they have been. Despite her best efforts, Stacey is more distant than ever, so in a desperate attempt to prove she does not need him, she does the unthinkable—holds an audition to replace his spot on the team. However, in trying to replace Stacey, she finds herself, and in finding herself, she finally accepts Stacey for the man he is becoming rather than the boy she wants him to be.

Jesus People

Shriver Hall 5:30 pm

Director: Jason Naumann Website: http://www.jesuspeoplefilm.com/ Running Time: 90 min. Production Format: DVD "Jesus People" started as a webseries on FunnyorDie.com with the description of "Spinal Tap" set in the world of Christian dance-pop. The web series found 1/2 million fans, thanks to a cast including Kate Flannery ("The Office"), Deborah Theaker ("Waiting for Guffman"), & Stephnie Weir ("Mad TV") In '08, production started on the feature featuring the same six lead actors - Joel McCrary, Edi Patterson, Damon Pfaff, Rich Pierrelouis, Lindsay Stidham, and Karen Whipple - and the addition of Nikki Boyer, Kevin Kirkpatrick, and Chris Fennessy. The supporting cast includes Mindy Sterling ("Austin Powers"), Jennifer Elise Cox ("The Brady Bunch Movie"), Laura Silverman ("The Sarah Silverman Program"), Wendi McLendon-Covey ("Reno 911"), Octavia Spencer ("Bad Santa"), Carrie Aizley ("For Your Consideration"), Shon Little ("Everybody Hates Chris"), Tim Bagley ("Knocked Up"), Catherine Reitman ("Thank You For Smoking"), Timothy Brennen ("Hancock"), Christen Sussin ("Curb Your Enthusiasm"), Robert Bagnell ("The Comeback").

La Dolce Vita

Shriver Hall 7:30 pm

Director: Federico Fellini Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053779/ Running Time: 174 min. Production Format: 35mm In one of the most widely seen and acclaimed European movies of the 1960s, Federico Fellini featured Marcello Mastrioanni as gossip columnist Marcello Rubini. Having left his dreary provincial existence behind, Marcello wanders through an ultra-modern, ultra-sophisticated, ultra-decadent Rome. He yearns to write seriously, but his inconsequential newspaper pieces bring in more money, and he's too lazy to argue with this setup. He attaches himself to a bored socialite (Anouk Aimée), whose search for thrills brings them in contact with a bisexual prostitute. The next day, Marcello juggles a personal tragedy (the attempted suicide of his mistress (Yvonne Furneaux)) with the demands of his profession (an interview with none-too-deep film star Anita Ekberg). Throughout his adventures, Marcello's dreams, fantasies, and nightmares are mirrored by the hedonism around him. With a shrug, he concludes that, while his lifestyle is shallow and ultimately pointless, there's nothing he can do to change it and so he might as well enjoy it. Fellini's hallucinatory, circus-like depictions of modern life first earned the adjective "Felliniesque" in this celebrated movie, which also traded on the idea of Rome as a hotbed of sex and decadence. A huge worldwide success, La Dolce Vita won several awards, including a New York Film Critics CIrcle award for Best Foreign Film and the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Sunday, April 18th, 2010

San Francisco Stories	Mergenthaler 111 1:00 pm
Director: Raul Jocson Running Time: 102 min. Production Format: DVD Can an Asian man have an Asian fetish? Follow an Asian American man as he pursues the woman of his dreams through a series of nine stories set in San Francisco.

Rules of The Game

Mergenthaler 111 6:30 pm

Director: Jean Renoir Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031885/ Running Time: 110 min. Production Format: 16mm Now often cited as one of the greatest films ever made, Jean Renoir's La Règle du jeu/Rules of the Game was not warmly received on its original release in 1939: audiences at its opening engagements in Paris were openly hostile, responding to the film with shouts of derision, and distributors cut the movie from 113 minutes to a mere 80. It was banned as morally perilous during the German occupation and the original negative was destroyed during WWII. It wasn't until 1956 that Renoir was able to restore the film to its original length. In retrospect, this reaction seems both puzzling and understandable; at its heart, Rules of the Game is a very moral film about frequently amoral people. A comedy of manners whose wit only occasionally betrays its more serious intentions, it contrasts the romantic entanglements of rich and poor during a weekend at a country estate. André Jurieu (Roland Toutain), a French aviation hero, has fallen in love with Christine de la Chesnaye (Nora Gregor), who is married to wealthy aristocrat Marquis Robert de la Chesnaye (Marcel Dalio). Robert, however, has a mistress of his own, whom he invites to a weekend hunting party at his country home, along with André and his friend Octave (played by Jean Renoir himself). Meanwhile, the hired help have their own game of musical beds going on: a poacher is hired to work as a servant at the estate and immediately makes plans to seduce the gamekeeper's wife, while the gamekeeper recognizes him only as the man who's been trying to steal his rabbits. Among the upper classes, infidelity is not merely accepted but expected; codes are breached not by being unfaithful, but by lacking the courtesy to lie about it in public. The weekend ends in a tragedy that suggests that this way of life may soon be coming to an end. Renoir's witty, acidic screenplay makes none of the characters heroes or villains, and his graceful handling of his cast is well served by his visual style. He tells his story with long, uninterrupted takes using deep focus (cinematographer Jean Bachelet proves a worthy collaborator here), following the action with a subtle rhythm that never calls attention to itself. The sharply-cut hunting sequence makes clear that Renoir avoided more complex editing schemes by choice, believing that long takes created a more lifelike rhythm and reduced the manipulations of over-editing. Rules of the Game uses WWI as an allegory for WWII, and its representation of a vanishing way of life soon became all too true for Renoir himself, who, within a year of the film's release, was forced to leave Europe for the United States.. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Hamilton

Mergenthaler 111 9:00 pm

Director: Matt Porterfield Filmmaker will be attending. Running Time: 65 min. Production Format: 16mm Hamilton chronicles two summer days in the life of a young family: Lena, 17, and Joe, 20, two recent and accidental parents residing in a diverse suburban neighborhood in northeast Baltimore City. When the picture begins, Lena is looking for Joe. Lena, who lives with Joe's family, wants to see him before she leaves town for the month of August; she hasn't seen him for weeks. He's rented an apartment from a neighbor and works two jobs, providing her with money but very little time. Through Lena's search, we are introduced to her daughter, her family and friends, her neighborhood, and Joe, her baby's father.