Notorious C.H.O
Thursday & Friday, Sept. 5th & 6th - 7pm & 9pm

Outrageous Stand-Up Comedy
Filmed live in Seattle, the movie captures Cho’s boisterously entertaining one-woman show. A brilliant, taboo-busting comedian in the spirit of Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and George Carlin. Margaret Cho is known as much for her raunchy humor as she is for her enormous contributions as a social equalizer and healing force. "As in her cult hit, I’m the One That I Want, she comments on sex, drugs, family and the detritus of pop culture with both lacerating wit and generosity of heart. And she’s never less than fearless in her marriage of politics and biting humor, whether riffing on the sexuality of her parents or her forays into lesbian S&M. " (Excerpt by Ernest Hardy, LA Weekly) USA, 2002,English, Color, 95 min., unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, Stereo) Co-Sponsored by The Boulder Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. More information at: www.boulderfilms.org or (303)494-1518

Official website

Y Tu Mama Tambien
Saturday & Sunday, Sept. 7th & 8th - 7pm & 9:15pm

Nominated for a Golden Globe for best foreign language film
All too rare in this life of film watching do you get a chance to watch a movie that literally plays as a revelation. A movie that unfurls across a screen as if to say, "No, this is how you do it." Alfonso Cuarón, the director behind the sublime movies A LITTLE PRINCESS and GREAT EXPECTATIONS has traveled back to Mexico to make what many feel, including myself, is his absolute best work to date. This is simply an amazingly human film. A movie that feels all at once to be real, entertaining, literate and fantastical. (Excerpt by Harry Nowles, Ain't it Cool Movie Reviews) MEXICO/USA, 2001, Spanish, Color, 105 min., unrated, 35mm (1:85:1, Dolby Digital) Official website

About a Boy
Tuesday, September 10th - 7pm & 9:15pm

From the writer of High Fidelity
Most of us have uttered this familiar refrain: The movie is never as good as the book. About a Boy flies in the face of that maxim. Adapted from Nick Hornby's acerbic and keenly observed novel about an unlikely friendship between a fatherless boy and a self-absorbed cad, About a Boy is that rare film that's as clever and moving as the book on which it was based. We've seen plenty of movies that follow the letter of the plot but miss the whimsy and spirit of the writer. (Harry Potter and The Shipping News come to mind.) Fortunately, About a Boy captures the mood and feel of the book, while adhering closely to the story. (Excerpt by Claudia Puig, USA TODAY) UK/USA/FRANCE, 2002, English, Color, 101 min., PG-13, 35mm (1:85:1?, DTS/Dolby Digital/SDDS) Official website

Baran
Wednesday, September 11th - 7pm & 9pm

From the director of THE COLOR OF PARADISE
'Baran' blends warmth and humor in a tale that examines the plight of undocumented workers in Tehran.
"Baran" is a superlative work, offering a rich emotional experience that at the same time calls attention to the seemingly endless suffering of the Afghan people. Majidi has shown that the best way to involve audiences in social injustice and political issues is through the heart. (Excerpt by Kevin Thomas, Times Staff Writer) Iran, 2001, Farsi/Dari, Color, 94 min., PG, 35mm (1:85:1?, DTS/Dolby Digital/SDDS) Official website

THE DANGEROUS LIVES OF ALTAR BOYS
Thursday & Friday, September 12th & 13th - 7pm & 9:15pm

With animation by Todd McFarlane... The young teens of the beautiful, emotion-charged "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" face perils real and imagined--although not of the type raised by the current furor over pedophile priests. Instead, this imaginative film, adapted from Chris Fuhrman's celebrated 1994 coming-of-age novel, suggests that life may be full of wonders but it is also a terrifically risky business. These young people discover, in their initial collision of innocence with experience, that part of growing up is having to acknowledge that life is fragile and ever uncertain, its dark undertow lurking never too far beneath an often deceptively placid surface. "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" leaves us with the feeling of the inevitable, inescapable intermingling of good and evil. (Excerpt by Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times) USA, 2002, English, Color, 104 min., R, 35mm (1:85:1?, Dolby EX 6.1) Official website

Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival
Chris Smith's hour-long documentary Home Movie drops in on the oddball inhabitants of five unconventional living spaces: a gator farmer on a bayou houseboat, an inventor and his would-be actress girlfriend in their gizmo-cluttered pad, a hippie family in a converted missile silo, feline-lovers with an obsessively cat-customized abode, a Hawaiian treehouse dweller. Inspired by a grand Robsjohn Gibbings quote ("The surroundings that householders crave are glorified autobiographies"), the film is slight but sweetly inquisitive, and its participants are endlessly fascinating. Home Movie is being paired with the cult-fave short Heavy Metal Parking Lot, John Heyn and Jeff Krulik's extensively bootlegged anthropological artifact that surveys the acres of spandex and big hair gathered outside a Judas Priest show in 1986. (Excerpt by Dennis Lim, Village Voice) USA, 2001, 1986, English, Color, 65 min. & 16 min., Unrated, 35mm (ratio n/a, Mono) Official website

Human Nature
Monday, Sept. 16th - 7pm & 9pm

A French comedy starring Patricia Arquette brought to you by the people behind BEING JOHN MALKOVICH.
Like its characters, Human Nature defies categorizationit’s a blend of screwball comedy, musical, romance and melodrama. But what makes the film unique are its sly, oblique references to the nature-vs.-nurture debate and to Piaget's theory of social cognition. Screenwriter Kaufman seems to be saying we're all social constructions, whether we start out as the cultured Nathan or the primitive Puff. Thus, everyone desires aspects of both nature and civilization. (Excerpt by Eric Monder, filmjournal.com) France/USA, 2001, French/English, Color, 96 min., R, 35mm (ratio n/a, Dolby Digital) Official website

Two Towns of Jasper (w/directors in-person for intro & Q&A)
Wednesday, Sept. 18th, 7pm only

Free screening with filmmakers present for Q&A.
In the wake of one of the most graphic racially motivated murders of the past 50 years, Whitney Dow and Marco Williams went to Jasper to get both sides of the story: the white side and the black side. For one year (spanning the separate trials James Byrd's three killers), a black crew filmed reactions of local black residents while a white crew filmed reactions of local white residents -- both teams worked independently for the entire year. The final product is compelling in both revealing the ingrained racism that defines the town and in illuminating a sense of racial harmony disproportionate to the crime... (Excerpt by Difterama.com) USA, 2002, English, Color, 90 min., unrated, 35mm (ratio n/a, mono). This program was made possible by a grant from the Roser Visiting Artist Program and the Conference on World Affairs Atheneum. Official website

A winner at the Cannes Film Festival
Manni Moretti's small, touching film "The Son's Room" is a portrait of a closely knit Italian family whose contented middle-class existence is shattered with the death of the teenage son, Andrea (Giuseppe Sanfelice), in a scuba-diving accident. As most of us know too well — especially in light of the events of Sept. 11 — tragedy has a way of striking out of nowhere, leaving the survivors stunned, grief-stricken, angry and desperately groping for answers and for some stability.
"The Son's Room" remains deeply respectful of its characters and their loss while refusing to milk the tragedy for tear-jerking sentiment. Muted and pastel-shaded in tone, it gently urges people to bear up (like its characters), as it follows the rituals of interment, mourning and the tentative signs of emotional recovery... (Excerpt by Stephen Holden, New York Times) France/Italy, 2001, Italian, Color, 99 min., R, 35mm (1:85:1?, Dolby Digital) Official website

Promises
Saturday & Sunday, Sept. 21st & 22nd - 7pm & 9:15pm

Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature
Rather than focusing on political events, the seven children featured in Promises offer a compelling human portrait of the Israeli & Palestinian conflict. The film draws viewers into the hearts and minds of Jerusalem’s children by giving voice to those captured by the region's hatreds as well as those able to transcend them. These seven children are between the ages of 9-13, an age group that rarely has the opportunity to speak for itself. They are less self-conscious and polite than teenagers and adults. They speak directly and without self-censorship and are both true mirrors of their cultures and spokespeople for future generations of Israelis and Palestinians. USA, 2001, English/Arabic/Hebrew, Color, 106 min., unrated, 35mm (aspect ratio n/a, Mono) Official website

Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival
In August 1999 an experiment in documentary filmmaking began... Ten students at John Marshall High School in Los Angeles were given video cameras to film their lives. There were no limitations on what they could shoot. After one week, the cameras were given to ten new students, who filmed their lives for a week, then handed the cameras on. Like chain letters, these cameras were passed from student to student for an entire year. CHAIN CAMERA is the profound vision of young America told through the stories captured by these cameras. USA, 2001, English, Color, 90 min., Unrated, 35mm (aspect ratio n/a, mono). Official website

New, restored CinemaScope print!
... Siddhartha is a joy to watch. Though slow and stylised, it addresses its great questions with honesty and integrity and provokes thought. The beautiful locations, including the ground of palaces which no Western filmmaker had previously been allowed to use, draw us into its introspective flow as calmly as the great Ganges which is featured so effectively in the film... The questions Siddhartha raises are as relevant now as then: questions of time, honesty, balance, love, and goals... (Excerpt by Tim Richards, Festivale Movie Reviews) USA, 1972, English, Color, 94 min., R, 35mm (CinemaScope, Mono) Official website

NO ONE UNDER 18 ADMITTED - Won Best Actor, Best Actress, and Grand Prize of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival
''The Piano Teacher'' is scandalous in subject without being alarmist in execution, which is how the film's last two confrontations gain their crushing dramatic force. Even the fearless Huppert - who with the surprisingly good Magimel and the indomitable Girardot are Haneke's secret weapons - conveys the film's restraint without exuding boredom or hauteur. Restraint is this movie's mystery and its miracle. No matter how gruesome it is, mercifully, it's always holding back. (Excerpt by Wesley Morris, Globe Correspondent) Austria/France, 2001, French, Color, 130 min., unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, Dolby Digital) This program was made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Ministry of Culture (CNC). Official website

A spy spoof starring Eddie Griffin from the writer of Austin Powers.
Undercover Brother nakedly aspires to be a black Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery. Considering Powers' success, Undercover Brother's appearance isn't surprising, but its quality is. Undercover Brother stars Eddie Griffin as an ace special agent whose wardrobe and sensibility never made it past the blaxploitation era. Summer films generally brim with high-concept fare promising escapist fun, but Undercover Brother is the rare popcorn movie that delivers. High-spirited and kinetic, it's the most endearingly goofy low comedy since How High. (Excerpt by Nathan Rabin, The Onion) USA, 2002, English, Color, 86 min., PG-13, 35mm (1:85:1?, DTS/Dolby Digital/SDDS) Official Website

The Chess Players
Wednesday, October 2nd - 7pm only

Film by acclaimed Indian director Satyajit Ray
Fans of Indian master Satyajit Ray's tender realism may be pleasantly surprised or shocked beyond belief by The Chess Players (1977). A political allegory with a gallivanting visual style that can suggest Kenneth Anger's costume campiness, Monty Python's collage-style animation and sudsy TV historical drama, The Chess Players is a distinctly garish shift for the famously restrained, humanistic director... (Excerpt by Felicia Feaster, atlanta.creativeloafing.com ) India, 1977, English/Urdu, Color, 129 min., unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, ?)

Rocco and His Brothers
Thursday & Friday, Oct. 3rd & 4th - 7pm only

Martin Scorsese presents
For the first time, Luchino Visconti's uncut and uncensored 180-minute masterpiece, Rocco and His Brothers is now available. A chronicle of family loyalty and disintegration, it is one of the most powerful and emotionally charged movies ever made. Rosaria Parondi and her five sons journey north to Milan to seek a better life but the industrial north proves just as unforgiving as the desolate south. Simone becomes the first brother to find success - but his career as a boxer flounders when he meets Nadia, a beautiful prostitute. When Simone's possessiveness drives Nadia away, she falls in love with his younger brother, Rocco. The lovers set in motion a shattering chain of events for which the family's traditional values leave them unprepared. Rocco and His Brothers is the most dramatic and spectacular film of the director's astonishing career. Visconti's sweeping operatic style of filmmaking influenced the work of directors Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. (Excerpt by http://www.milestonefilms.com/blurb/FRoccob.html ) France/Italy, 1960, Italian, B&W, 175 min., unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, Mono) Official website

Nine Queens
Saturday & Sunday, Oct. 5th & 6th - 7pm & 9:30pm

Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the American Film Institute Festival
Juan and Marcos are con-artists who find themselves involved in a once-in-a-lifetime scheme: all they have to do is sell a forged set of extremely valuable rare stamps, The Nine Queens. The tricky negotiations that ensue bring a cast of suspicious characters into the picture including Marcos' beautiful sister Valeria, Marcos' innocent younger brother Frederico, and a slew of thieves, conmen and pickpockets. As the action moves from humble barrios to luxury hotels, it soon appears that the whole city is part of an elaborate plot. (Excerpt by Hollywood.com) Argentina, 2000, Spanish, Color, 114 min., R, 35mm (1:85:1?, Dolby Digital) Official Website

SPIDER-MAN
Monday, October 14th - 7pm & 9:30pm

Sam Raimi's superhero specatcular
For all the well-founded lamentations directed at the decline of big-budget, hot-weather event movies, at least once a year a film justifies the existence of the summer blockbuster. Rising high on a short list of recent examples headed by The Matrix, Spider-Man brings the beloved comic-book character to the screen with both angst and action undamaged by the move. As a comic book, Spider-Man stood out for its recognition that loose ends, whether of story or psychology, can't always get tied neatly. Raimi's film stays as true to that spirit as it does to the spectacle of webslinging. (Excerpt from The Onion) USA, 2002, English, Color, 121 min., PG-13, 35mm (1:85:1?, DTS/Dolby Digital/SDDS) Official website

THE HERO
Wednesday, October 16th - 7pm only

Film By Indian acclaimed director Satyajit Ray
Based on his second original screenplay, Satyajit Ray cast Uttam Kumar in the title role of the hero (star). Uttam Kumar was a star of the commercial cinema in Bengal at that time.
The film takes place in a period of twenty-four hours on a train. The hero’s life is revealed through a series of flashbacks and dreams. The film explores the psychology of the star and his admirers. The best part of the film lies in its form. The train journey becomes a metaphor for the star’s life. The best scenes involve the star’s interaction with fellow passengers, a slice of affluent Bengali society. (Excerpt from Maanvi Media) India, 1966, Bengali, B&W, 120 min., unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, ?)

Denver International Film Festival at IFS, Boulder
Thursday through Sunday, October 17 through 20

For DIFF film screenings at IFS, click HERE

Official website

INSOMNIA

Monday, October 21st - 7pm & 9:30pm

From acclaimed director Christopher Nolan (Memento) comes the story of Will Dormer (AL PACINO), a veteran LAPD detective who travels to a small Alaskan town with his partner Hap to investigate the disturbing murder of a seventeen year-old girl. Dormer and Hap close in on the primary suspect, reclusive novelist Walter Finch (ROBIN WILLIAMS). Dormer is forced into a psychological game of cat-and-mouse by the brilliantly malevolent Finch, and becomes increasingly entangled in his web of manipulation.
(Excerpt from WarnerBros.com) USA, 2002, English, Color, 118 min., R, 35mm (1:85:1?, DTS/Dolby Digital/SDDS) Official website

WARM WATER UNDER A RED BRIDGE
Wednesday, October 23rd - 7pm & 9:30pm

Nominated for the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival
In several of the most ebullient sex scenes in any movie, Imamura manages to satirize the idealized plenitude of female biology just as he acknowledges its intoxicating impact, a warm sardonicism that extends to provincial life, romantic delusion, prostitution, and even racism. Even so, the movie is thrillingly original in its comic rhythms; Imamura never belabors a joke, and in fact often cuts them short, just to maintain a tipsy imbalance. Nonchalantly freaky and uncommonly pleasurable, Warm Water may well be the year's best and most unpredictable comedy. (Excerpt by Michael Atkinson, the Village Voice) Japan/France, 2001, Japanese, Color, 119 min., unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, Stereo) Official website

THE FAST RUNNER
Thursday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday, October 24th, 25th, 26th & 27th - 7pm only

Winner at the Cannes Film Festival
"The Fast Runner is a masterpiece. It is, by any standard, an extraordinary film, a work of narrative sweep and visual beauty that honors the history of the art form even as it extends its perspective. The Fast Runner also abounds with humor and sensuality. The combination of dramatic realism and archaic grandeur is irresistibly powerful. The most astonishing scene has already become something of a classic, a word that will quickly be bestowed on the film as a whole." (Excerpt by A.O. Scott, New York Times) Canada, 2001, Inuktitut, Color, 172 min., Unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, Stereo) Official website

BOURNE IDENTITY
Tuesday, October 29th - 7pm & 9:30pm

From the director of Swingers and Go
This popcorn action-thriller starts with Matt Damon floating in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea and not remembering squat. What he quickly learns, though, is that he has skills that would give James Bond and MacGyver a run for their money, and a bunch of mysterious creeps are after him. Soon he's Bourne to run, hitching a ride with Run Lola Run's Franka Potente and zipping around France trying to get to the bottom of his identity crisis (and, of course, kick some ass along the way). (Excerpt by E! Online) USA, 2002, English, Color, 118 min., PG-13, 35mm (1:85:1?, DTS/Dolby Digital/SDDS) Official website

WOMAN OF THE DUNES
Wednesday, October 30th - 7pm & 9:30pm

Nominated for two Academy Awards including Best Director and Best Foreign Languge Film.
One of the most compelling cinematic allegories ever made, Hiroshi Teshigahara's 1964 Woman in the Dunes is back in a sparkling new print that heightens the eroticism of its crisp black-and-white cinematography and highlights its status as avant-garde filmmaking. This movie is a triumph of style. But it also works allegorically as a commentary on the utter relentlessness and entrapment of life. The film's simple, stylistic layers touch on the harshness of life, on the way its socializes us and on being careful what you wish for. (Excerpt by Joe Baltake, Sacramento Bee) Japan, 1964, Japanese, B&W, 123 min., unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, ?) Official website

THE ISLE
Thursday & Friday, October 31st & November 1st - 7pm & 9pm

NO ONE UNDER 18 ADMITTED
Combine a sumptuous cinematography that captures the beauty of truly exotic locations, like Zhang Yimou's Red Sorghum, with shocking scenes that wouldn't be out of place in a low-budget exploitation film like I Spit on Your Grave, and you'll start to get an idea of what this Korean film achieves. While it can be said that the film has romance, suspense, and even highly attuned meditations on the human condition, it cannot be pegged to any one genre. Instead it ebbs back and forth between lyrical visuals that work on a profoundly metaphoric level, and vulgar scenes that are so explicit that people screamed just in their anticipation. (Excerpt by Pablo Kjolseth, moviehabit.com) South Korea, 2000, Korean, Color, 86 min., unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, Dolby SR) Official website

LADY AND THE DUKE
Saturday & Sunday, November 2nd & 3rd - 7pm & 9:30pm

The latest from Eric Rohmer.
With this true story of an Englishwoman in Paris and her friendship with the doomed Duke of Orleans, director Eric Rohmer has made a quietly revolutionary film about the French Revolution. Rather than build acres of sets, he commissioned delicate background illustrations of 18th-century Paris, then digitally inserted the actors. The effect is handsomely surreal. It's as if one were to look down at a plate of painted antique china and see it crawling with ants that, on closer inspection, were revealed to be teeny aristocrats chased by teeny rebels with bayonets.
And yet the two-dimensional stillness only heightens the couple's passionate sparring. The lady (Russell, looking like Alicia Silverstone with leonine hair) is resolutely royalist, while the Duke (Dreyfus, as boomingly sonorous as a cannon muffled in velvet) plays along with the bloody Jacobins. History has never looked less authentic-or felt more alive. (Excerpt by People) France, 2001, French, Color, 125 min., PG-13, 35mm (1:85:1?, Dolby SR) This program was made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Ministry of Culture (CNC). Official website

MINORITY REPORT
Tuesday, November 5th - 7pm only.

Based on a story by Phillip K. Dick
Stanley Kubrick may have gotten his revenge on Steven Spielberg with A.I., but he pays him back in Minority Report. Not only is it Spielberg’s best, but it could have been one of Kubrick’s as well. The latter’s influence is all-pervasive, but not overwhelming, and there are shades of Ridley Scott, Paul Verhoeven, Jean-Luc Godard, and Alfred Hitchcock — not to mention Shakespeare, Dante, and Sophocles, to name just a few. But the unrepentant Steven Spielberg of old is in the mix, too, that calculating maestro of sentimentality, simplemindedness, and platitudes; fortunately, he’s in the minority (say, 25 percent, and I won’t say which part). (Excerpt by Peter Keough, Boston Phoenix) USA, 2002, English, Color, 145 min., PG-13, 35mm (1:85:1?, DTS/Dolby EX 6.1/SDDS) Official website

METROPOLIS
Wednesday, November 6th - 7pm & 9:30pm

A classic film from acclaimed German director Fritz Lang
Generally considered the first great science-fiction film, Metropolis fixed for the rest of the century the image of a futuristic city as a hell of scientific progress and human despair. From this film, in various ways, descended not only Dark City but Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, Alphaville, Escape From L.A., Gattaca, and Batman's Gotham City. The laboratory of its evil genius, Rotwang, created the visual look of mad scientists for decades to come, especially after it was mirrored in Bride of Frankenstein. And the device of the ``false Maria,'' the robot who looks like a human being, inspired the Replicants of Blade Runner. Even Rotwang's artificial hand was given homage in Dr. Strangelove. (Excerpt by Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times) Germany, 1927, Silent, B&W, 123 min., unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, ?) Official website

Time Out
Thursday & Friday, November 7th & 8th - 7pm & 9:30pm

A winner at the Venice Film Festival
Time Out is as timely and wrenching a film as you'll find anywhere in these dog days of corporate downsizing. Vincent (the superbly subtle French stage actor Aurelien Recoing, in his first major film role) is deemed unnecessary after eleven years as a company drone. It's a common story. What's uncommon in this psychological spellbinder from writer-director Laurent Cantet (Human Resources) is that Vincent doesn't tell anyone - not his wife, Muriel (an outstanding Karen Viard), his parents, his three children or his friends. Instead, Vincent pretends to go to work each day until he invents a new job for himself as a United Nations envoy who takes frequent trips to Geneva. (Excerpt by Peter Travers, Rolling Stone) France, 2001, French, Color, 132 min., PG-13, 35mm (1:85:1?, Dolby Digital) This program was made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Ministry of Culture (CNC). Official website

THE LAST KISS
Saturday & Sunday, November 9th & 10th - 7pm & 9:30pm

Won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival
“The Last Kiss” could have been entitled “What’s It All About, Alfie, Italian Style, “ dealing as it does with The Meaning of Life, which is, according to writer-director Gabriele Muccino, “to find meaning in life.” Here is a philosophic insight that transcends the usual response to “What’s the most important thing in life?” “Happiness,” since the frantically partying young people in the story look happy, they are happy for the moment, but something is missing. They have not found meaning in their existence. (Excerpt by Harvey Karten, ThinkFilm) Italy, 2001, Italian, Color, 115 min., R, 35mm (1:85:1?, Dolby Digital) Official website

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Monday, November 11th - 7pm only

This is replacing Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones due to Lucas' idiosyncrasies.

ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS
Wednesday, November 13th - 7pm & 9pm

David Bowie's historic last concert as Ziggy Stardust
Legendary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker catches Ziggy playing guitar in 1973. The film, which wasn't released until 1983, captured the very last performance of David Bowie in his notorious alter-ego, the cross-dressing plastic rock star, Ziggy Stardust. Perhaps more than any other concert film, Ziggy is like a time machine. But Pennebaker captures more than just what's on the stage. The film opens capturing the crowds of people waiting in line for the concert, contrasted by Bowie's small entourage backstage. By also filming the almost fanatical fans in the audience while Bowie is singing, Pennebaker is able to capture more than just the end of a persona, but also the end of an era. (Excerpt by Vanessa Sibbald, Zap2it.com) UK, 1973, English, Color, 90 min., PG, 35mm (1:85:1?, ?) Official website

MURDEROUS MAIDS
Thursday & Friday, November 14th & 15th - 7pm & 9:00pm

Based on a true story.
"Sylvie Testud and Julie-Marie Parmentier are eerily convincing! Murderous Maids has been holding its own in French cinemas since its release and may well garner awards for its talented leads! Pic has garnered enthusiastic press in France, where the Papin sisters have gathered as much ink over the years as the JonBenet Ramsey murder has in the U.S." (Excerpt from Variety) France, 2000, French, Color, 94 min., Unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, Dolby SR) This program was made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Ministry of Culture (CNC). Official website

MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT
Saturday & Sunday, November 16th & 17th- 7pm & 9:15pm

Based on the novel by Charlotte Armstrong.
Claude Chabrol, the most Hitchcockian of the New Wave directors, is at 70 not merely still working, but with this (his 53rd film) has made as many as his distinguished predecessor...
... Isabelle Huppert excels as the enigmatic Mika and Anna Mouglalis is a stunning new young talent in one of Chabrol's most intense psychological mysteries (Excerpt by George Perry, BBC films) France/Spain/Switzerland, 2000, French, Color, 99 min., Unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, Dolby Digital) This program was made possible with the support of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and the French Ministry of Culture (CNC). Official website

AUSTIN POWERS IN GOLDMEMBER
Monday, November 18th - 7pm & 9pm

The third in the popular series by Mike Meyers
He's back, baby!
It's been three years since Austin Powers, that swinging international man of mystery, has faced his arch-nemesis, Dr. Evil. But after Dr. Evil and his accomplice Mini Me escape from a maximum-security prison, Austin is called to action once more in this third installment of the highly successful "Austin Powers" movie franchise. Teaming up with the mysterious Goldmember, Dr. Evil hatches a time-traveling scheme to take over the world, one that involves the kidnapping of Nigel Powers, Austin's beloved father and England's most renowned spy. As he chases the villains through time, Austin visits 1975 and joins forces with his old flame, Foxxy Cleopatra, a streetwise and stylish detective. Together Austin and Foxxy must find a way to save Nigel and stop Dr. Evil and Goldmember from their mischievous mayhem. (Excerpt by austinpowers.com ) USA, 2002, English, Color, 90 min., PG-13, 35mm (1:85:1?, DTS/Dolby Digital/SDDS) Official website

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
Wednesday, November 20th - 7pm & 9pm

A beautiful and popular adaptation by Jean Cocteau - a restored print.
Jean Cocteau's first full-length movie (he wrote and directed it) is perhaps the most sensuously elegant of all filmed fairy tales. As a child escapes from everyday family life to the magic of a storybook, so, in the film, Beauty's farm, with its Vermeer simplicity, fades in intensity as we are caught up in the Gustave Doré extravagance of the Beast's enchanted landscape. In Christian Bérard's makeup, Jean Marais is a magnificent Beast; Beauty's self-sacrifice to him holds no more horror than a satisfying romantic fantasy should have. The transformation of the Beast into Prince Charming is ambiguous—what we have gained cannot quite take the place of what we have lost. (Excerpt by Pauline Kael, World Cinema) France, 1946, French, B&W, 96 min., unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, Mono) Official website

Trembling Before G-D
Thursday & Friday, November 21st & 22nd - 7pm & 9pm

Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for the Sundance Film Festival
Trembling Before G-d, is a documentary whose "characters" are real people with real problems. They are Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who want nothing more than a relationship with God and the right to follow their faith. They are also gay. And the very people with whom they would associate – family members, rabbis and the Jewish community at large – mostly reject them. Their courses of action may be different. But they grapple with similar moral dilemmas. But in Trembling, their lives remain in a sort of moral stalemate. And as we see, they may find relief but not resolution. (Excerpt by Desson Howe, Washington Post) Israel/USA, 2001, English/Hebrew/Yiddish, Color, 94 min., unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, Mono) Co-Sponsored by The Boulder Gay & Lesbian Film Festival. More information at: www.boulderfilms.org or (303)494-1518 Official website

KARMEN GEI
Saturday & Sunday, November 23rd & 24th - 7pm & 9pm

Based on the popular novel, Carmen, by Prosper Merimee
A whirlwind of a dance movie from Senegal, "Karmen Geï" reinvents the Bizet opera "Carmen" with sung dialogue and a soundtrack of sub-Saharan pop. Karmen is an outlaw queen of such irresistible aphrodisiac powers that no man or woman can fight her tractor-beam stare and dazzling grin. From her introduction, performing a torrid public lap dance for her female warden, she's presented as a seductive force of nature. The smitten jailer permits her to escape. Back on the streets of Dakar, Karmen returns to smuggling and revolutionary political activism. She's not a femme fatale but rather a fearless freedom fighter. (Excerpt by Colin Covert, Star Tribune) Canada/France/Senegal, 2001, French/Wolof, Color, 86 min., unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, Dolby)

MEN IN BLACK II
Tuesday, November 26 - 7pm & 9pm

Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are at it again
Eighty-eight minutes. Get in, get out. Load it with laughs, load it with surprises. Keep the eye moving, keep the story moving. If silly summer blockbusters must exist -- and we know they must -- they should all be as economical and lighthearted as "Men in Black II," which is in every way an improvement over the original "Men in Black" from 1997.
The new movie does something rare that all sequels should do. It takes everything good about the original and amplifies it, and everything bad about the original and eliminates it. (Excerpt by austinpowers.com ) USA, 2002, English, Color, 88 min., PG-13, 35mm (1:85:1?, DTS/Dolby EX 6.1/SDDS) Official website

DECASIA
Wednesday, December 4th - 7pm & 9pm

A trippy journey into film decay
Bill Morrison's Decasia is uncompromising, difficult and unbearably beautiful. The director's camera travels through a cavernous film lab, revealing a faceless individual pulling a strip of celluloid from developing fluid. There are three stories here: that of the archival footage, its layer of emulsion deterioration and their combined effect. It's a work of suggestive genius, its narrative open to interpretation. Decasia is so hypnotically ephemeral and grandiose that its seamless linkage of sound to image suggests a spiritual presence. Decasia is about the state of decay--the birth, death and rebirth of physicality itself.
(Excerpt by Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine) USA, 2002, English, B&W, 70 min., unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, Dolby Digital)

SEX AND LUCIA
Thursday & Friday, December 5th & 6th - 7pm & 9:30pm

NO ONE UNDER 18 ADMITTED
Lucia is an attractive, often braless Madrid waitress who flees to a sun-bleached Mediterranean island after the apparent death of her depressed live-in boyfriend Lorenzo, an author of autobiographical novels. In flashback you discover that it was on this island that Lorenzo once had a spectacular one-night stand with vacationing chef Elena - which, unbeknownst to Lucia, led to the birth of a daughter. That same Elena is now Lucia's landlady on the island - and all that Lucia knows is that Elena fled Madrid after a terrible tragedy. It seems that Lorenzo had discovered his daughter's existence - and secretly began hanging out with her and her gorgeous nanny Belen on the playground, and you're never quite sure if what you're seeing is part of the storyline or merely a scene from Lorenzo's novel. (Excerpt by Jonathan Foreman, NY Post) France/Spain2, 2001, Spanish, Color, 128 min., unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, Dolby Digital) Official website

CUBA FELIZ
Saturday & Sunday, December 7th & 8th - 7pm & 9pm

For the BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB crowd
Miguel Del Morales, the 76-year-old troubadour who strums and sings his way through Karim Dridi's uplifting film "Cuba Feliz," embodies the wandering minstrel as a man of the people and the repository of an impoverished nation's hard-won emotional wisdom. As he travels from one city to another in his native Cuba, meeting up with local musicians and jamming with them, Mr. Del Morales, who is known as El Gallo (the Rooster) suggests a Latin-American Willie Nelson (without his band), indefatigably making his way along his country's dusty roads.

In painting an unabashedly romantic picture of a nation whose songs spring directly from the lives of the people, the movie exalts the Marxian dream of honest working folk, with little to show for their labor, living harmoniously, joined in song. (Excerpt by Stephen Holden, New York Times) Cuba/France, 2000, Spanish, Color, 96 min., unrated, 35mm (1:85:1?, Dolby Digital) Official website