To all our Film Society members and supporters,
This week!
We are proud to bring VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA, Woody Allen's
critically acclaimed new dramatic comedy starring Scarlett Johansson,
Javier Bardem, and Penelope Cruz.
**** The New Yorker "Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona has a
natural, flowing vitality to it, a sun-drenched splendor that never
falters."
THE EDGE OF HEAVEN
A Turkish man travels to Istanbul to find the daughter of his father's
former girlfriend in one of the best reviewed movies of the year.
****Roger Ebert "The best approach is to begin with the characters,
because the wonderful, sad, touching The Edge of Heaven is more about
its characters than about its story."
AMERICAN TEEN
The touching and hilarious Sundance hit that follows the lives of four
teenagers in one small town in Indiana through their senior year of high
school.
**** San Francisco Chronicle "Shows how a documentary can be as moving
and suspenseful as the best narrative feature."
Held Over...
GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF HUNTER S. THOMPSON
From director Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and
Taxi to the Dark Side) comes a probing look into the uncanny life of
national treasure and gonzo journalism inventor Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.
"Johnny Depp, who paid for the 2005 funeral in which Thompson's ashes
were fired out of a cannon, narrates with just the right mix of awe and
impertinence."--Rolling Stone
BRIDESHEAD REVISITED
THE WACKNESS-moves to Tower
ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
MONGOL-moves to Tower
Ends Thursday 8/14...
PRICELESS
BRICK LANE
THE SINGING REVOLUTION
Global Film Initiative
Ten films for only $10!
At the Broadway we will be hosting the 5th Annual Global Lens showcase
of ten new foreign films over the course of one week. Starting Friday,
Sept. 5th and running through Thursday, Sept. 11. View all ten films for
only ten dollars. Tickets on sale now!
Summer of 35mm is in full swing!
Tickets available every Friday and Saturday night at the Tower!
Our remaining lineup:
August:
DR. STRANGELOVE
CLOCKWORK ORANGE
GOONIES
Churrasco e Cinema: Celebração Brasileira!
A Celebration of Brazilian Food & Film
On Aug 29th, the night before the Brazilian Cultural Festival at the
Gateway, the SLC Film Center, Governor’s Office of Economic Development,
and Gary Neeleman, Utah's Honorary Counsul of Brazil, invite you to
honor some of the people who have been the most influential in FILM in Utah.
*Kris and Paul Liacopoulos
founders of the Salt Lake Film Society - who saved the Tower and keep
the both the Tower and Broadway stocked with the best of films from
around the world.
*Leigh von der Esch of the Utah Office of Tourism and former head of the
Utah Film Commission
who brought the state of Utah into sharp focus for Hollywood studios for
23 years.
*Don Schain Producer of HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 1,2,& 3
keep on dancing!
*Utah filmmakers Jared and Jerusha Hess of NAPOLEON DYNAMITE and NACHO
LIBRE - taking Sundance by storm and profile of Spandex.
This celebration is being generously hosted by Tocano's Brazilian Grill
- with fabulous Brazilian food and entertainment. Come, enjoy dinner and
a movie in the part - Pioneer Park.
6pm: Dinner and Festivities - Tucanos Brazilian Grill at the Gateway
8:30pm: Film Screening... on the grass in Pioneer Park
THE YEAR MY PARENTS WENT ON VACATION, Brazil's submission to the 2007
Oscars! Rated PG
Dinner Tickets: $100 per person
Please call 801.746.7000 to save your place now!
Proceeds benefit programs of the SLC Film Center and Salt Lake Film Society
Open Mic Night!
August 27, 9:00 pm at the Tower Theatre
Show your short film at the Tower Theatre. All filmmakers welcome.
Submissions will be taken starting at 6pm on August 27th. Arrive early
with your film as spots for exhibiting the films fill quickly.
Submission fee is $5, admission is a suggested $1 donation. This is your
chance to have your work seen by an audience.
============================================================
QUICK LOOK at SHOWTIMES -
THIS WEEK:
Thru Thurs 8/14...
Broadway
Wackness 01:10, 4:15, 7:20*, 9:30 (*TUE 8/12 NO 7:20 PM SHOW)
Brideshead Revisited 01:00, 4:05, 7:05, 9:45
Gonzo 12:55, 4:25, 7:05**, 9:35 (** WED 8/13 NO 7:05 PM SHOW)
Brick Lane 01:20, 4:20, 7:10, 9:20
Encounters at The End of The World 01:05, 4:10, 7:15, 9:25
Mongol 01:15, 4:00, 7:00, 9:40
Tower Theatre
The Singing Revolution 4:30, 7:00*** (***TUE 8/12 NO 7:00 PM SHOW)
Priceless 9:15
NEXT WEEK
FRI 8/15 - THU 8/21
Broadway
The Edge of Heaven 01:20, 4:00, 7:00, 9:40
Brideshead Revisited 01:00, 4:05, 7:00, 9:45
Vicky Christina Barcelona 12:55, 3:00, 5:05, 7:10, 9:30
Gonzo 01:10, 4:25, 7:05, 9:35
Encounters at The End of The World 01:05, 4:10, 7:15*, 9:25 (* WED 8/20
NO 7:15 PM SHOW)
American Teen 01:15, 3:15, 5:15, 7:15, 9:15
Tower Theatre
Mongol (2:00 FRI thru SUN only), 7:00** (**TUES 8/19 AND WED 8/20 NO
7:00 SHOWS)
Wackness 4:30, 9:40
MIDNIGHT FRI 8/15 and SAT 8/16 Dr. Strangelove
=============================================================
TELL ME MORE...PLEASE!
(all star ratings are based on 4 star rating systems)
VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA
Written and directed by: Woody Allen . Starring:* *Scarlett Johansson,
Penelope Cruz, Rebecca Hall, Javier Bardem, Chris Messina, Patricia
Clarkson, and Kevin Dunn
Two young American women, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett
Johansson) come to Barcelona for a summer holiday. Vicky is sensible and
engaged to be married; Cristina is emotionally and sexually adventurous.
In Barcelona, they're drawn into a series of unconventional romantic
entanglements with Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), a charismatic painter,
who is still involved with his tempestuous ex-wife Maria Elena (Penélope
Cruz). Set against the luscious Mediterranean sensuality of Barcelona,
Vicky Cristina Barcelona is Woody Allen's funny and open-minded
celebration of love in all its configurations.
**** The New Yorker
Allen can be literal-minded about his thematic polarities, but, in this
movie, he has put actors with first-class temperament on the screen, and
his writing is both crisp and ambivalent: he works everything out with a
stringent thoroughness that still allows room for surprise.
**** Richard Roeper
Penelope Cruz deserves a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her
fiery, crazy, sexy work in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
***1/2 Variety
A sexy, funny divertissement that passes as enjoyably as an idle
summer's afternoon in the titular Spanish city.
AMERICAN TEEN
Written and directed by: Nanette Burstein
AMERICAN TEEN is the touching and hilarious Sundance hit that follows
the lives of four teenagers - a jock, a popular girl, a heartthrob, an
artsy girl and a geek – in one small town in Indiana through their
senior year of high school. We see the insecurities, the cliques, the
jealousies, the first loves and heartbreaks, and the struggle to make
profound decisions about the future.
**** San Francisco Chronicle
Shows how a documentary can be as moving and suspenseful as the best
narrative feature.
**** Baltimore Sun
The documentary American Teen is the most realistic movie you will see
all summer.
**** Entertainment Weekly
The players are timelessly familiar in American Teen, too. But filmmaker
Nanette Burstein tells their stories with a distinctly 21st-century pop
and audacity.
THE EDGE OF HEAVEN
Written and directed by: Fatih Akin . Starring: Nurgül Yesilçay, Baki
Davrak, and Tuncel Kurtiz
Nejat initially disapproves of his widower father Ali`s choice of
prostitute Yeter for a live-in girlfriend. But the young professor warms
to her when he learns that most of her hard-earned money is sent home to
Turkey for her daughter’s university studies. After Yeter`s accidental
death, Nejat travels to Istanbul to search for Yeter`s daughter Ayten.
Political activist Ayten has fled the Turkish police and is already in
Germany. She is befriended by a young woman, Lotte, who invites
rebellious Ayten to stay in her home, much to the displeasure of her
conservative mother, Susanne. When Ayten is arrested and her asylum plea
denied, she is deported and imprisoned in Turkey. Passionate Lotte
abandons everything to help Ayten. A tragic event brings Susanne to
Istanbul to help fulfill her daughter`s mission.
**** Roger Ebert
The best approach is to begin with the characters, because the
wonderful, sad, touching The Edge of Heaven is more about its characters
than about its story.
**** Boston Globe
With impeccable skill, Akin has made a film roiling with cruelty but
guided by tough political optimism. No, we can't all get along, but some
us of are trying.
**** San Francisco Chronicle
The experience of seeing this film is cumulative, sober and profound.
**** Baltimore Sun
Though I love McCarthy's movie, The Edge of Heaven - with its virtuoso
narrative and frames packed to bursting with unruly life - has the
potency of "The Visitor" squared.
THE SINGING REVOLUTION
Written and directed by: James and Maureen Tusty
The year 1991 marked a time of change for the Republic of Estonia. This
small European nation decided to end the Soviet Union's power over them
in a completely radical way: by singing. Though it's tough to imagine
the former superpower giving in to simple songs, this documentary
chronicles the Estonian people's drive for freedom and their peaceful
way of attaining it.
**** Kansas City Star
If The Singing Revolution were a fictional film it would be dismissed as
a pie-in-the-sky fantasy. But it’s all true.
**** Variety
An emotionally and dramatically satisfying narrative.
**** Washington Post
It's a powerful story of a nation that, almost literally, sang its way
to freedom.
GONZO: THE LIFE AND WORK OF DR. HUNTER S. THOMPSON
Directed by: Alex Gibney . Starring: Johnny Depp, Jimmy Carter, George
McGovern, Pat Buchanan, Jann Wenner, Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Buffett, and Ralph
Steadman
>From Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney and producer Graydon Carter
comes a probing look into the uncanny life of national treasure and
gonzo journalism inventor Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. A fast-moving, wildly
entertaining documentary with an iconic soundtrack, the film addresses
the major touchstones in Thompson's life--his intense and ill-fated
relationship with the Hells Angels, his near-successful bid for the
office of sheriff in Aspen in 1970, the notorious story behind the
landmark Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his deep involvement in Senator
George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign, and much more. Narrated by
Johnny Depp.
**** New York Times
It is to Mr. Gibney’s great credit that while he pays due attention to
the outsize, cartoonish celebrity persona Thompson fell back on when his
literary powers began to wane, this film concentrates on the bold,
innovative journalism that secured Thompson’s reputation and assures his
immortality.
***1/2 Rolling Stone
Johnny Depp, who paid for the 2005 funeral in which Thompson's ashes
were fired out of a cannon, narrates with just the right mix of awe and
impertinence.
***1/2 Roger Ebert
It leaves you wondering, how was it that so many people liked this man
who does not seem to have liked himself?
BRICK LANE
Directed by: Sarah Gavron . Written by: Monica Ali (novel), Laura Jones,
Abi Morgan . Starring: Tannishtha Chatterjee, Satish Kaushik,
Christopher Simpson, and Zafreen
Nazneen’s life is turned upside down at the tender age of seventeen.
Forced into an arranged marriage to an older man, she exchanges her
Bangladeshi village home for a block of flats in London’s East End. In
this new world, pining for her home and her sister, she struggles to
make sense of her existence – and to do her duty to her husband. A man
of inflated ideas (and stomach), he sorely tests her compliance. Told
from birth that she must not fight her fate, Nazneen submits, devoting
her life to raising her family and slapping down her demons of
discontent. Until the day that Karim, a hot-headed local man, bursts
into her life. Against a background of escalating racial tension, they
embark on an affair that finally forces Nazneen to take control of her
life. Set in multicultural Britain, Brick Lane is a truly contemporary
story of love, cultural difference, and ultimately, the strength of the
human spirit.
***1/2 Roger Ebert
Tells a story we think we already know, but we're wrong: It has new
things to say within an old formula.
*** USA Today
A sensitive and occasionally poetic film, Brick Lane is an absorbing
tale of personal empowerment and emotional growth
BRIDESHEAD REVISITED
Directed by: Julian Jarrold . Written by: Jeremy Brock, Andrew Davies,
Evelyn Waugh (novel) . Starring: Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Hayley
Atwell, Emma Thompson, and Michael Gambon
A provocative and suspenseful drama, Brideshead Revisited tells an
evocative story of forbidden love and the loss of innocence set in the
pre-WWII era. In the film, Charles Ryder becomes entranced with the
noble Marchmain family, first through the charming and provocative
Sebastian Flyte, and then his sophisticated sister, Julia. The rise and
fall of Charles' infatuations reflect the decline of a decadent era in
England between the wars.
**** The Onion
It's rare to find a work that explores issues of faith without veering
into religious fundamentalism or militant atheism, which is reason
enough to revisit Brideshead one more time.
***1/2 Christian Science Monitor
It's a great piece of work in a movie that deserves to be seen even if
you swear undying allegiance to the BBC mini-series.
THE WACKNESS
Written and directed by: Jonathan Levine . Starring: Josh Peck, Sir Ben
Kingsley, Method Man, Mary Kate Olsen, Olivia Thirlby, Famke Janssen,
and Aaron Yoo
The Wackness centers on a troubled high school student named Luke
Shapiro--a teenage pot dealer who forms a friendship with Dr. Jeffrey
Squires, a psychiatrist and kindred lost soul. When the doctor proposes
that Luke trade him weed for therapy sessions, the two begin to explore
both New York City and their own depression. ***1/2 Film Threat
If you have ever experienced the crushing effect of young love, you owe
it to yourself to check out this gem of a dark comedy.
*** USA Today
Both darkly funny and life-affirming, in an offbeat and offhanded way.
ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
Directed by: Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog confirms his standing as poet laureate of men in extreme
situations with Encounters at the End of the World. In this visually
stunning exploration, Herzog travels to the Antarctic community of
McMurdo Station, headquarters of the National Science Foundation and
home to eleven hundred people during the austral summer (Oct-Feb). Over
the course of his journey, Herzog examines human nature and Mother
nature, juxtaposing breathtaking locations with the profound, surreal,
and sometimes absurd experiences of
the marine biologists, physicists, plumbers, and truck drivers who
choose to form a society as far away from society as one can get.
**** Roger Ebert
It is a poem of oddness and beauty.
**** New York Times
Like many of Mr. Herzog's movies, fiction and nonfiction, Encounters at
the End of the World itself has the quality of a dream: it's at once
vivid and vague, easy to grasp and somehow beyond reach.
MONGOL
Written and Directed by: Sergei Bodrov . Starring: Tadanobu Asano
Mongol illuminates the life and legend of Genghis Khan. Based on leading
scholarly accounts and Mongol delves into the dramatic and harrowing
early years of the ruler who was born as Temudgin in 1162. As it follows
Temudgin from his perilous childhood to the battle that sealed his
destiny, the film paints a multidimensional portrait of the future
conqueror, revealing him not as the evil brute of hoary stereotype, but
as an inspiring, fearless and visionary leader. Mongol shows us the
making of an extraordinary man, and the foundation on which so much of
his greatness rested: his relationship with his wife, Borte, his
lifelong love and most trusted advisor.
**** Variety
This Central Asia-set historical epic from Russian helmer Sergei Bodrov
("Nomad") boasts breathtaking landscapes, dazzling cinematography,
bloody battles and unique traditions.
**** New York Times
Mongol -- or, as I prefer to think of it, "Genghis Khan: The Early
Years" -- is a big, ponderous epic, its beautifully composed landscape
shots punctuated by thundering hooves and bloody, slow-motion battle
sequences.
**** Wall Street Journal
I don't know the Mongolian word for panache, but Mongol's got plenty of
it. The battle scenes are as notable for their clarity as their
intensity; we can follow the strategies, get a sense of who's losing and
who's winning. The physical production is sumptuous.
PRICELESS
Directed by: Pierre Salvadori . Written by: Benoit Graffin Piere
Salvadori . Starring: Gad Elmaleh Audrey Tautou Marie-Christine Adam
Vernon Dobtcheff Jacques Spiesser Annelise Hesme.
Jean, a shy young bartender, is mistaken for a millionaire by a
beautiful, scheming opportunist named Irene. When Irene discovers his
true identity, she abandons him, only to find that love-struck Jean has
no intention of letting her get away. Jean's comical attempts to gain
her affections gradually evolve into setting himself up as a gigolo at a
luxury hotel, until Irene finally starts to warm to her persistent,
persuasive suitor. Against the wildly atmospheric backdrop of the south
of France, Pierre Salvadori directs this sexy and thoroughly charming
romantic comedy, which is a fresh reimagining of the
cinema classic Breakfast at Tiffany's. (Samuel Goldwyn Films)
****The Onion
Unlike Salvadori's previous comedy, 2003's "Après Vous," Priceless is
less preposterous, and more grounded in character.
****Oregonian
It's a fun and attractive ride.
****Los Angeles Times
A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of
nothing, or so the saying goes, but the unadulterated joy Irène takes in
throwing open the closet door to show Jean how this gold digging is done
is positively infectious.
=============================================================
FILMS TO COME
In no particular release order
TELL NO ONE
FROZEN RIVER
TOWELHEAD
BAGHEAD
MY WINNEPEG
THE LAST MISTRESS
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 and our video collection at the Tower Theatre. 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
