By Zee Grega
September 5th, 2008 @ 11:48 AM
film
- In Destry Ride Again, James Stewart is a deputy of the old Wild West who doesn’t like guns and Marlene Dietrich is a sultry showgirl who catches his eye when he reluctantly rides to town to clean up corruption. A comedy that pokes fun at the cowpoke genre in a lovi8ng way, Destry Rides Again is witty, charming, and great fun, further enlivened by Dietrich’s impressive musical numbers. At the Grand Illusion.
- Late night at the Grand Illusion: Who needs good acting, quality camera work or even a coherent plot when you’ve got the delightfully atrocious 70s teen sex comedy Hollywood High?
- Even though I’m not exactly a big fan of baseball itself, one of my favorite film genres is the baseball film, in part because they’re never really about baseball. The best of them use the sport an excellent metaphor to examine various aspects of the human condition. One of the best of them is Bull Durham, starring Kevin Costner as an aging player sent in to help prepare rookie Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon as the baseball groupie who serves as the third point of their romantic triangle. At the Central Cinema; see if they’ll give you some peanuts with your beer for the full baseball fan experience.
- The Human Condition is the title of Masaki Kobayashi’s epic film about Kaji, a WWII socialist soldier in Japan struggling with issues of patriotism and injustice. The director’s full vision takes over nine hours of film; SIFF is allowing film goers the opportunity to see the whole movie without spending an entire day in the theater by splitting it up in the three parts. Part One plays Friday through Thursday and shows Kaji’s attempts to improve the miserable conditions of the forced labor camp he is charged with supervising. His attempts to make life better for the prisoners earn him torture and other punishments, including being forced into the army of a nation he is not sure he is able to defend.
- Saturday morning’s Films4Families selection is one of the most charming and likable movies for children ever filmed, The Secret of Roan Inish. Fiona is a young girl living with her depressed widower father in a bleak Irish industrial city sent for the sake of her health to live with her grandparents in a fishing village on the ocean. Her grandfather tells her stories of the family’s history and their departure from their previous home, the tiny island of Roan Inish. As she makes her way through town, Fiona hears other stories, too: how one of her ancestors married a Selkie, a magical half-seal, half-woman and how the sea stole away her own baby brother, Jamie. The young girl, masterfully brought to vivid and realistic life by young actor Jeni Courtney, plots her way out to Roan Inish where she spies what she believes to be her young brother, living wild with the seals. A brave and hard-working girl, with the help of her cousin she undertakes a quest designed to reunite her family with the child they all believe to be dead. The Secret of Roan Inish is visually stunning and emotionally engaging in a sincere, truthful way. I recommend it for all children and anyone with a love of good stories with strong characters.
- NWFF presents a strange fairy tale of a film, La France. After Camile’s husband disappears in the chaos of WWI, she disguises herself as a man and sets up to find him, along the way joining a troupe of soldiers holding their own secrets.
- Midnight at the Egyptian: a group of young performers pursue their love of acting, singing and dancing at Camp.
