To all our Film Society members and supporters,
Hello everyone. As the spring comes to a conclusion the independent
films that Salt Lake Film Society brings you may be a little more
unfamiliar to you. The summer "blockbuster" time has a glut of fun
Hollywood films, which means traditionally that the indies released will
be gems that are well worth seeking out. Coming up we have David Mamet's
RED BELT, the endearing SON OF RAMBOW, FLAWLESS with Michael Caine and
of course YOUNG AT HEART which we're proud to bring you this month. So,
stay tuned to this e-mail for updates on when things open, and when they
leave! Thank you for all the support.
Opening this Week!
THE COUNTERFEITERS, winner of the Best Foreign Film Oscar this powerful
drama tells the true story of the largest counterfeiting operation in
history, set uo in 1936 during WWII.
**** Baltimore Sun
The Counterfeiters is in its own smart, trim fashion "The Bridge on the
River Kwai" of concentration-camp sagas.
Ends Thursday:
TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE- don't miss this Academy Award winning documentary
Held over!
MARRIED LIFE - with Pierce Brosnan
SMART PEOPLE - with Sarah Jessica Parker
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As we're reaching out into the community to let everyone know of our new
theater at Red Cliffs, we need your help! Tell all your friends and
family. We won't be able to do it without the support of you the
community, and we're so thrilled to be here offering what you haven't
had a chance to see in the past!
Xetava Coffee is the best in the state and it's available to you
exclusively at our theater - so, we're the only show in town that offers
a latte or americano with amazing cinema!
Word of Mouth marketing...
Many of the films Salt Lake Film Society brings will not have the
marketing budget for you to be able to see them on television ads or in
the papers, so please feel free to read our "tell me more" section below
that describes each film and lists details of cast with critical review
re-caps. This should hopefully get you enough information to want to
venture out for a night at the cinema!
Memberships are a great way to support our non-profit as well. Ask any
staff member and/or reply to this e-mail for details. Our first member
screening will likely take place in March. All memberships are
tax-deductible - what a way to see movies!
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QUICK LOOK at SHOWTIMES - RED CLIFFS CINEMAS
Behind the RED CLIFFS MALL 1750 E. RED CLIFFS DR.
THIS WEEK:
Thru Thursday April 24
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day 01:15, 4:05, 7:05, 09:25
Smart People 01:05, 4:10, 7:10, 09:40
Married Life 01:10, 4:00, 7:00, 09:30
Under The Same Moon 01:10, 7:15
Taxi To The Dark Side 04:15, 9:35
NEXT WEEK
FRI 4/25 - THU 5/1
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day 01:15, 4:05, 7:05, 09:25
Smart People 01:05, 4:10, 7:10, 09:40
Counterfeiters 01:10, 4:00, 7:00, 09:30
Under The Same Moon 01:10, 7:15
Married Life 04:15, 9:35
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TELL ME MORE...PLEASE!
(all star ratings are based on 4 star rating systems)
THE COUNTERFEITERS
Written and Directed by: Stefan Ruzowitzky . Starring: Karl Markovics,
August Diehl, and Devid Striesow
The true story of Salomon Sorowitsch, counterfeiter extraordinaire and
bohemian who was in captured by the Nazis in 1944. He agrees to help the
Nazis in an organized counterfeiting operation set up to finance the war
effort. It was the biggest counterfeit-money scam of all time. Over 130
million pounds sterling were printed under conditions that couldn't have
been more tragic or spectacular. During the last years of the war, as
the German Reich saw that the end was near, the authorities decided to
produce their own banknotes in the currencies of their major war
enemies. They hoped to use the duds to flood the enemy economy and fill
the empty war coffers. At the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, two
barracks were separated from the rest of the camp and the outside world,
and transformed into a fully equipped counterfeiters workshop.
"Operation Bernhard" was born. Prisoners were brought to Sachsenhausen
from other camps to implement the plan, and professional printers,
fastidious bank officials, and simple craftsmen all became members of
the top-secret counterfeiter crew. They had a choice: If they cooperated
with the enemy, they had a chance to survive as first-class prisoners in
a "golden cage" with enough to eat and a bed to sleep in. If they
sabotaged the operation, a sure death awaited them. For the
counterfeiters, it was not only a question of saving their own lives,
but also about saving their conscience as well...
**** Chicago Reader
The Counterfeiters poses some tricky moral questions, and its troubling
ambiguities rank a cut above the dubious uplift of "Schindler's List."
**** Entertainment Weekly
Without doing anything so divisive as taking sides, The Counterfeiters
pays sympathetic attention to those who play their cards to win even
when the rules are terrible, not least because the remarkable Markovics,
an Austrian TV actor with a pugnacious anvil of a head, is so riveting
as an unsaintly survivor.
TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE
Directed by: Alex Gibney
Taxi to the Darkside, the latest prize-winning documentary from
Oscar-nominee Alex Gibney, confirms his standing as one of the foremost
non-fiction filmmakers working today. A stunning inquiry into the
suspicious death of an Afghani taxi driver at Bagram air base in 2002,
the film is a fastidiously assembled, uncommonly well-researched
examination of how an innocent civilian was apprehended, imprisoned,
tortured, and ultimately murdered by the greatest democracy on earth.
Intermingling documents and records of the incident with candid
testimony from eyewitnesses and participants, the film uncovers an
inescapable link between the tragic incidents that unfolded in Bagram
and the policies made at the very highest level of the United States
government in Washington, D.C. Combining the cool detachment of a
forensic expert with the heated indignation of a proud American who
holds his country to a high standard, Gibney’s film reveals how the Bush
administration has systematically betrayed the very ideals it professes
to uphold.
**** Roger Ebert
This movie does not describe the America I learned about in civics
class, or think of when I pledge allegiance to the flag. Yet I know I
will get the usual e-mails accusing me of partisanship, bias, only
telling one side, etc. What is the other side? See this movie, and you
tell me.
**** Entertainment Weekly
Where "No End" is cool and measured, Taxi is hot, anguished, and
sometimes as difficult to watch as pictures of torture ought to be.
MARRIED LIFE
Directed by: Ira Sachs . Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Chris Cooper,
Patricia Clarkson, and Rachel McAdams
A wry blend of dark humor, romantic deception, and stylish
melodrama--with an invigorating dash of suspense--Married Life is an
unconventional fable for grown-ups about the irresistible power and
utter madness of love. After decades of marital contentment, Harry
concludes that he must kill his wife Pat because he loves her too much
to let her suffer when he leaves her. Harry has fallen hard for the
young and lovely Kay, but his best friend Richard wants to win Kay for
himself. As Harry implements his maladroit plans for murdering his wife,
the other characters are entangled with their own deceptions. Like
Harry, they race toward their passions but trip over their scruples,
seemingly well-intended toward all, but truthful to none. Married Life
is an uncommonly adult film that surprises and confounds expectations.
Although it plays with mystery, comedy, and intrigue, its ultimate
concern is: "What is married life?" In its sly way, Married Life poses
perceptive questions about the seasonal discontents and unforeseen joys
of all long-term relationships.
***1/2 New York Magazine
In Married Life, Ira Sachs aims a bit lower than Green but obliterates
his target: The funny, the scary, the campy, the sad--they’re all
splendidly of a piece.
*** Entertainment Weekly
Married Life congratulates its audience on a sophisticated, humorous
complicity in the obvious immorality of Harry's murder plans, as well as
in Richard's own ungentlemanly designs on his pal's gorgeous girl. Every
adult, the movie suggests, has got a secret.
SMART PEOPLE
Directed by: Noam Murro . Starring: Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker,
Ellen Page, and Thomas Haden Church
Professor Lawrence Wetherhold might be imperiously brilliant, but when
it comes to solving the conundrums of love and family, he's as downright
flummoxed as the next guy. His teenage daughter is an acid-tongued
overachiever who follows all too closely in dad's misery-loving
footsteps, and his adopted, preposterously ne'er-do-well brother has
perfected the art of freeloading. A widower who can't seem to find
passion in anything anymore, not even the Victorian literature in which
he's an expert, Lawrence seems to be sleepwalking through a very stunted
middle age. When his brother shows up unexpectedly for an extended stay
just as he accidentally encounters a former student, Janet, the
circumstances stir him from his deep freeze, with often comical,
sometimes heartbreaking consequences for himself and everyone around him.
***1/2 TV Guide
A sharp, superbly acted character-driven comedic drama.
*** New York Times
The great virtue of Smart People, attributable to Noam Murro's easygoing
direction as well as to Mr. Poirier's wandering screenplay, lies in its
general preference for small insights over grand revelations.
UNDER THE SAME MOON (LA MISMA LUNA)
Directed by: Patricia Riggen . Written by: Ligiah Villalobos . Starring:
Kate Del Castillo, Adrian Alonso, Jesse Garcia, Kate del Castillo
When the death of his grandmother leaves young Carlitos alone, he takes
his fate into his own hands and heads north across the border to find
his mother. As he journeys from his rural Mexican village to the L.A.
barrio, Carlitos faces seemingly insurmountable obstacles with a steely
determination and unfettered optimism that earn him the grudging
respect and affection of a reluctant protector, a middle-aged migrant
worker named Enrique. The unlikely pair finds their way from Tucson to
East L.A., but the only clue Carlitos has to his mother's whereabouts is
her description of the street corner from which she has called him each
Sunday for the last four years. Unaware that Rosario is just hours away
from returning to Mexico to be with her son, Carlitos and Enrique
desperately comb the vast, unfamiliar city for a place he has seen only
in his imagination.
**** Entertainment Weekly
The film says that the U.S. immigrant situation is untenable, but then
it forces US to ask: What should be done?
***1/2 TV Guide
It's an unexpectedly powerful little film that manages to say a lot of
what, despite all the talk on the subject, isn't being said in the
national debate on immigration.
MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY
Directed by: Bharat Nalluri . Written by: David Magee Simon Beaufoy .
Starring: Frances McDormand, Amy Adams, Ciaran Hinds, Shirley Henderson,
and Lee Pace
In 1939 London, Miss Guinevere Pettigrew is a middle-aged governess who
finds herself once again unfairly dismissed from her job. Without so
much as severance pay, Miss Pettigrew realizes that she must--for the
first time in two decades--seize the day. This she does, by intercepting
an employment assignment outside of her comfort level--as "social
secretary." Arriving at a penthouse apartment for the interview, Miss
Pettigrew is catapulted into the glamorous world and dizzying social
whirl of an American actress and singer, Delysia Lafosse. Within
minutes, Miss Pettigrew finds herself swept into a heady high-society
milieu--and, within hours, living it up. Taking the "social secretary"
designation to heart, she tries to help her new friend Delysia navigate
a love life and career, both of which are complicated by the three men
in Delysia's orbit: devoted pianist Michael, intimidating nightclub
owner Nick, and impressionable junior impresario Phil. Miss Pettigrew
herself is blushingly drawn to the gallant Joe, a successful designer
who is tenuously engaged to haughty fashion maven Edythe, the one person
who senses that the new "social secretary" may be out of her element and
schemes to undermine her. During the next 24 hours, Guinevere and
Delysia will empower one another to discover their romantic destinies.
(Focus Features)
****Reelviews
Adams shines brightly, reinforcing the image she projected in Junebug
and enhanced in Enchanted and Charlie Wilson's War. At this time of the
year, it's tough to find a more diverting way to spend 90 minutes in a
multiplex.
***Chicago Tribune
Style is a tricky, elusive thing, and this film doesn’t so much have it
as strive for it, constantly. But something in Watson’s story endures:
The wish-fulfillment truly satisfies. And with the war clouds gathering
by story’s end, the fairy tale acquires a bittersweet edge, nicely
cutting all that whipped cream.
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FILMS TO COME
In no particular release order
YOUNG AT HEART
REDBELT
SNOW ANGELS
SON OF RAMBOW
And many more....
Our staff here at the Salt Lake Film Society thanks all our supporters.
SLFS takes great care in hiring a staff that has a film history or
knowledge, so feel free to talk with any staff member about up coming
releases. They are a wealth of knowledge and I'm happy to take all
e-mail correspondence.
If you would like to volunteer for the Film Society events and earn
passes, please contact Amy Beth Leber at 801-746-0037
We thank you for your continuing support.
Tori Baker
Executive Director
Salt Lake Film Society...film festival all year long!
We do not sell any personal lists or information to any third party...
ever!
If you would like to be removed from this list, please reply to this
e-mail. If you could also let us know why we lost you, we can better
serve our community.
Salt Lake Film Society thanks Xmission for their donation of services.
--
Tori Baker
Executive Director
Salt Lake Film Society
tori_baker@???
(801) 364-1088
