A romantic comedy about a blind date gone wrong. Two guys, set up by straight friends, realize they have nothing in common, other than their love for movies, and their need to confront their issues.
Antigone
A little known film version of the classic greek drama Antigone, made in 1962. Antigone, daughter of Oediupus, stands up against her uncle Creon and is condemned to being buried alive.
Asylum St. Spankers w/ Steamboat Bill, Jr.
Austin's Asylum St. Spankers score the classic film Steamboat Bill, Jr. Steamboat Bill is about a meek college boy who returns home to work for his burly riverboat captain dad. While he's working, uh oh, a cyclone hits.
* Big Eden
Henry Hart returns to Big Eden, Montana to take care of his sick grandpappy. Once there, he runs into his boyhood crush and causes the local store owner, Pike Dexter, to have a big crush on him.
Bread and Tulips
If your idea of Italian food is the Olive Garden, this is probably not a movie for you. Slightly pudgy and in her 40s, Licia Maglietta is no sexpot; but she does have a sensuality that builds an alluring center to this well-paced and subtly funny fairytale. After being accidentally ditched by her obnoxious and disinterested family, Maglietta impulsively hitchhikes to Venice. There, her personality--long sublimated to family chores and a cheating husband--begins to slowly emerge as a coy, robust, and hard-headed woman. Sort of like a menopause wet dream.
Bully
Larry Clark's (Kids) third film is a true story in which a group of children murder the school bully. It's good, if you like incredibly disturbing, completely unrealistic films about American suburbia. No really, if you liked Kids, I'm sure you'll like this film, but expect to leave the theater feeling like you just saw your mom in a porn.
The Closet
An accountant at a condom factory realizes he's about to be fired. Divorced, alienated from his 17-year-old son, he contemplates suicide, but is instead given some rather odd advice from his neighbor, a retired psychiatrist: Announce that you are gay at work, and the powers that be will be too frightened to fire you, lest they get slapped with a nasty lawsuit. The accountant takes his neighbor's advice, and, well, hilarity ensues.
Come Undone
Mathieu spends another boring summer with his family of women. But wait, he meets a hot boy while selling candy, begins a love affair, and comes out to his relatives.
Curse of the Jade Scorpion
Curse of the Jade Scorpion isn't nearly as entertaining as it wants to be. Allen plays his usual riff on his 60-year-old neurotic, womanizing self, this time as C.W. Briggs, a claims investigator for a large insurance agency.
* The Deep End
Though it comes dressed in the icy blue clothes of a suspense thriller, The Deep End is a far more interesting creature. Using its intricate plot as shrewd camouflage, the film serves as an examination of the evolving relationship between a lonely mother and her gifted teenage son, whose sexuality (homo) is such an impenetrable subject that Mom (the ineffable Tilda Swinton) would rather navigate a murder cover-up, blackmail, and death threats than talk to the lad directly. (Sean Nelson)
Downtown 81
Filmed in 1980 and 81, this film was "lost" due to a "lost" budget and some "lost" footage. Jean Michel Basquait wanders the streets of NY trying to sell a painitng and runs into all sorts of underground art peeps and musicians. Lacking plot, but big on the name drop. See review this issue.
Experimental Shorts
Emulsion Trough presents Experimental Shorts coming from every angle. Pussy Buffet, Blowing Bubbles, and the hysterical Adoring Caucasian border on porno, or at least capture physical desire. Westward Ho, Cookie Hopkins, and the untitled Erica Hill piece all explore the self-discovery involved in realizing you're gay. Some of the shorts are good, others are crap.
* Ghost World
Fans of Daniel Clowes' epochal comic novel about the listless inner teen life have been awaiting this adaptation by Crumb director Terry Zwigoff for years now, and the film delivers, though not in the direct way you might have anticipated. Clowes' super-detached geek queens Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) have graduated from high school, and, bored, they answer a personals ad placed by über-dork vinyl junkie Seymour (an R. Crumb surrogate played brilliantly by Steve Buscemi) responds. As an experiment, Enid decides to educate Seymour in the ways of love, and her world begins to crumble. (Sean Nelson)
Glass House
Ruby Baker gets delt a serious shit sandwich when her parents die and she goes to live with some family friends that turn out to be raving psychos.
Glitter
Mariah Carey stars in a movie similar to her life story, minus the nervous breakdown part. She leaves behind a bad childhood to become a pop diva. She starts dating a naughty boy DJ who helps get her career off the ground--although shit ain't easy then either.
Hardball
Although Steve Buscemi would have made this version of Black News Bears particularly poignant, news flash: Keanu Reeves can actually act! Although he doesn't sustain the edgy character of a hard-on-his-luck gambling loser in every scene, he does manage a rather heart-tugging job as the coach for a little league team of foul mouthed (but, of course, delightfully loveable) housing project babies. In spite of an awkward, abrupt, and predictable ending, like the main character, the movie has some redeemable qualities--a believable underdog baseball team, thumping rap soundtrack, and stylized ebonics.
* Hedwig and the Angry Inch
John Cameron Mitchell wrote, directed, and starred in this Rocky Horror-cum-Velvet Goldmine-esque opus about a big-haired megalomaniac singing his/her way across the US. With 40-plus costume changes and songs that you will be singing for days, this is pure rock and roll candy which should be see on a big screen with big audio. (Michael Svoboda)
Henry V
Laurence Olivier directs and stars in Henry V, the classic Shakespeare story of Henry Pantagenet's quest for the throne of France.
Huge
Three minute digital shorts, which interpret the word "huge".
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
This latest (and reportedly last) entry in the Jersey-based Jay and Bob mythos finds our pot-dealing, Quick Stop-loitering, Laurel-and-Hardy-esque duo on a trip across the continent to stop a movie based on the comic book based on their (fictional) selves. If you haven't seen every other item in the Smith oeuvre, a lot of the humor will seem stupid. If you have, it'll still seem stupid, but it'll also seem humorous. If nothing else, this film probably establishes a new record for mentions of the word "clit" in a feature motion picture. It's the "Scarface" of "clit." Wow. Plus you get a look at Ben Affleck back when he was still drinkin'. (Marc Mohan)
Jeepers Creepers
A girl and her brother are road tripping home from college when shit... they encounter an indestructible force that desperately wants to chomp them. Unfortunately this is about a girl and her brother, so we can't expect those great scenes where coitus is interrupted by the indestructible force, or ewww, maybe we can.
Julie Johnson
Lili Taylor and Courtney Love play dissatisfied housewives that bust out of the confines o their boring lives. Once out, they realize that their husband's penises were a little boring too, and they just might be hot for each other.
Jurassic Park 3
Sam Neill returns as Dr. Alan Grant who, along with a hunky assistant, is tricked into returning to dinosaur island to search for the missing son of William H. Macy and Tea Leoni. That means our heroes have 50 minutes left to run around the island, avoid the bite-bite and the stomp-stomp, and somehow keep our interest with a script that's thinner than Charleton Heston's hairpiece. (Wm. Steven Humphrey)
Justice is Accountability: not violence
This will be a viewing of footage from last Sunday'a peace march in Portland.
Kilimanjaro: The Rooftop of Africa
A camera follows nine climbers up Mt. Kilimanjaro via the Machame Route and passing under the BreachWall. Slides of Tarngire, Ngorongoro and game areas in Tanzania will also be shown. A discussion about how to arrange a Kili climb and logistics of the trip will follow.
Matrisse
Gerard Depardie and Bulle Ogier, a burgler and a dominatrix, beome involved in a hardcore love/sex relationship. The masochism ends up looking ridiculous and funny, while the love ends up looking real.
Medea
Medea is brought to Corinth and the court of Creon by Jason and the Argonauts. She ends up causing the death of Creon's daughter and killing her own two sons.
Megiddo
Two men in love with the same woman must fight against each other over the fate of the world.
Monkey's Mask
A female private detective investigates the death of a poet (Micky), who disappeared after one of her readings. As Jill (the detective) begins to uncover Micky's secret life, she gets sucked in herself.
* O
A modern day, teenage reniactment of Shakespeare's Othello. Starring total dog Julia Stiles and two babes that would never go out with her in real life: Mekhi Phifer and Josh Hartnett.
* O Fantasma
A borderline porno, if you're looking for that. A slutty garbage man goes from boning tons of guys to dreaming about boning a dark stranger in rubber. Hot hot hot.
The Others
A well-executed, gothic, horror film in a Jamesian vein, starring Nicole Kidman as a post-war mom on a tiny British isle desperate not to let the new servants (including the great Fionnula Flanagan) expose her "photosensitive" children to daylight. The claustrophobic tension of the incredible house (the film's only set, and its true star) mounts through the eerie film as the truth, like the characters' lives, unfurls methodically in this truly frightening endeavor from Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar. As an added bonus, the always-gripping Christopher Eccleston (Jude, Elizabeth) has a supporting role. (Sean Nelson)
Our Lady of the Assassins
A bedraggled, soul-sick writer proves that you can go home again, but that if your home is murderous Medellin, you better expect some heavy existential catharsis... especially if you have a torrid affair with a young cartel soldier while you're seeking your redemption.
Phaedra
A modern version of the greek drama. A husband sends his wife to find her stepson, who is in London, in hopes that the son will marry a rich associate's daughter. Trouble ensues, however, when stepmom and stepson start getting busy.
* The Princess and the Warrior
The second collaboration between director Tom Twyker and the stunningly beautiful German actress Franka Potente. This time around, though, the pair has replaced the frenetic Nintendo plot of Run Lola Run with a carefully paced romance. No, we're not talking about a fawning Julia Roberts running around with her estrogen hanging out, but an eerie and tragic fairytale where castles are replaced by an insane asylum, and Prince Charming by a stoic street punk.
Rock Star
Whoa. It'a like a dream come true. Marky Mark is in a cover band, and omigod, then gets to be the singer for the band he's covering. Gawd. I hope that happens to Helles Belles.
* Sexy Beast
Gal Dove (Ray Winstone) is a retired gangster, living high on a hill in the Costa del Sol, enjoying a lethargic existence. But he is as out of place here as the heart-shaped ceramic tiles on the floor of his pool. Bad news arrives in the shape of Don Logan (Ben Kingsley, so great), there to coax Gal back to England for a job. Gal resists, but Don won't take no for an answer, setting in motion a verbal boxing match so artful and intense, it turns the sprawling Spanish vista into a pressure cooker, in which Gal is forced to reckon for his ill-had comforts. A voice buried deep within Gal tells him--and us--that this can't last. Don is that voice, given brutal, relentless human form. In the fallout of their confrontation lies one of the finest films in recent memory.
Sordid Lives
All of a Texas family's skeletons come out when their grandmother drops dead during an adulterous affair.
Southern Comfort
A documentary on a 52-year-old woman who lives as a man, in the deep south.
* Student Video & Animation Fest
Video production and computer animation shorts produced by the Art Institute's Multimedia & Web Design and Media Arts & Animation students. The event is free to the public.
Summer Catch
No, not a story of hot, generation Y fishmongers... this is a baseball movie starring the acharismatic Freddie Prinze Jr. as a minor league pitcher who dreams of the majors while trying to get laid with trashy townies (or richies). Redemption, love, and teenage feel-ups ensue.
The Adventures of Felix
An awesome flick about a gay man on a trip to find his estranged father. He meets a bunch of cool people on the way, and eventually, reaches an epiphany. See review this issue. (Katie Shimer)
The Crowd
Made in 1928: A silent film about s young couple trying to make it in New York.
The Fiances
Director Ermanno Olmi depicts a welder who leaves his dad and fiancee for a job in Sicily. His experience goes awry and the welder ends up bitter and disillusioned.
The Fluffer
Accidentally mistaking Citizen Cum for Citizen Kane at the video store, an aspiring filmmaker named Sean watches the porn flick and falls head over heels with its star, Johnny Rebel. After finagling his way on to the set, he gains employment as The Fluffer, providing moral (as well as oral) encouragement to Johnny in this skewed gay romantic comedy.
The Scavengers
An old guy and a young guy comb the slopes of the Dolomites for salvage metal left over from the war. Sometimes they find undetonated bombs, and eventually they become obsessed with fnding El Dorado, a buried armored car. Directed by Ermanno Olmi, the film is a commentary on the absurdity of the daily grind.
* The Weekend
The family, boyfriend, and friends of Tony (who is dead of AIDS) get together for the weekend on the anniversary of his death. Everyone has a major freak out, but then learns from their feelings. See review this issue. (Katie Shimer)
Time Stood Still
Italian director Ermanno Olmi's first film. Two watchmen live in an alpine hut at a construction site, while the workers are on leave for the winter. One of the men breaks from his duties and is replaced by a happy young student form the city. Youth and cheer are something entirely foreign to the remaining watchman, who is used to being miserable and lonely, and this change turns his experience around.
Together
Hippie family learns to stop bitching and work together.
Trembling Before G_d
A portrait of Hasidic Jews living gay lifestyles, and how stinking hard it is.
Two Can Play that Game
Aside from Velvet Vivica Fox, the female performances are weak. But my lady and her sizzling victim, Morris Chestnut, along with hilarious friend-apist Anthony Anderson, sort of pull this shit off. Whether it's just that I'm a cracker voyeur, or the super-fine leading men that lull me into a forgiving fog when it comes to Afro RomComs (romantic comedies), I may never know. But I'm not dumb enough to care! Bring it! (Sara Daley)
* Vacation
The difference between a slapstick with no fizz and a film bursting with genius are the well-placed nuances. Well, maybe nuance is not the correct term for Anthony Michel Hall with a finger stuck up his nose, or Chevy Chase trying to seduce Christie Brinkley by spreading wide two slices of white sandwich bread and licking the baloney. But it is still genius.
