Summer 2001

House of Mirth
Thursday, June 14 at 7:00 pm
Friday, June 15 at 7:00 pm

Meticulously adapted from Edith Wharton's 1905 novel, The House of Mirth has director Terence Davies and X-Files star Gillian Anderson (in a breakthrough film role) tapping directly into the venality of Wharton's New York society. As the ill-fated socialite Lily Bart, Anderson perfectly conveys the understated wit and craftiness of a woman who knows how to play the game, and yet learns too late that it's loaded with ruthless, unspoken rules. Rising above the traditional crop of "marriageable girls," Lily is desired by any number of men who could ensure her place among the moneyed elite, but she deflects their courtship; lawyer Lawrence Selden (Eric Stoltz) is her true love but, tragically, his modest financial status leads them both into a cycle of unfulfilled romance. The House of Mirth evolves from stately reserve to become a devastating portrait of class cruelty. Heavy stuff, to be sure, but expertly crafted and blessed by Anderson's complex and heartbreaking performance. ­Jeff Shannon, 2000, Australia, English & French w/ English subtitles, Color, 140 min.

Unbearable Lightness of Being
Saturday, June 16 at 7:00 pm
Sunday, June 17 at 3:00 pm
Sunday, June 17 at 7:00 pm

An extraordinarily well-made adaptation of the acclaimed novel by Milan Kundera about a young Czech doctor (played by Daniel Day-Lewis) of the 1960s who has a way with women and an aversion to politics but who finds himself caught up in his country's political turmoi­and a crisis of commitment with the women in his life. Lena Olin and Juliette Binoche are the two vastly different women who occupy his attention and to some extent represent different sides of his values and personality. Directed by Philip Kaufman, this adaptation unfolds just like a good book, taking its time but never meandering as it paints a vivid picture of the character's life and times. This rich, erotic, fascinating character study with allegorical overtones is a touchstone for many filmgoers. Sensual, intelligent, and beautifully acted by the three leads; strikingly photographed by Sven Nykvist. ­ Tom Keogh, 1988, USA, English, Color, 171 min You Can Count On Me / June 21 & 22 Thursday & Friday at 7pm & 9:15pm You Can Count On Me is one of the best movies you're likely to see this year, or any other year, for that matter. Distinguished by a subtle script and outstanding performances, the film is a directorial debut from writer/director Kenneth Lonergan. Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo star as Sammy and Terry, siblings who have grown up in a small town in upstate New York. Sammy, a single mother still living in bucolic Scottsville and employed by the local bank. Her life revolves around Rudy (Rory Culkin), her eight-year-old son. Sammy is thrilled when Terry comes to visit, even though he is a major screw-up. Sammy goes off to work and trusts her brother with her son. With her adult brother around to take up some parenting slack, Sammy begins to loosen the control grip she has tried to maintain on life. She looks at her boyfriend (Jon Tenney) differently. She looks at her new boss (Matthew Broderick) differently. You Can Count On Me is a story about family, particularly about the assumption of family roles versus who you are every day in the outside world. It's often very funny and it's quite touching. It works because of the affection one develops for the characters. Sammy and Terry have a way of 'being' around each other that really captures the best (and maybe also the worst) of family relationships. ­Liz Braun, Toronto Sun. 2000, USA, English, 109 mins, Rated R.

You Can Count on Me
Thursday, June 21 at 7:00 pm
Thursday, June 21 at 9:15 pm
Friday, June 22 at 7:00 pm
Friday, June 22 at 9:15 pm

You Can Count On Me is one of the best movies you're likely to see this year, or any other year, for that matter. Distinguished by a subtle script and outstanding performances, the film is a directorial debut from writer/director Kenneth Lonergan. Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo star as Sammy and Terry, siblings who have grown up in a small town in upstate New York. Sammy, a single mother still living in bucolic Scottsville and employed by the local bank. Her life revolves around Rudy (Rory Culkin), her eight-year-old son. Sammy is thrilled when Terry comes to visit, even though he is a major screw-up. Sammy goes off to work and trusts her brother with her son. With her adult brother around to take up some parenting slack, Sammy begins to loosen the control grip she has tried to maintain on life. She looks at her boyfriend (Jon Tenney) differently. She looks at her new boss (Matthew Broderick) differently. You Can Count On Me is a story about family, particularly about the assumption of family roles versus who you are every day in the outside world. It's often very funny and it's quite touching. It works because of the affection one develops for the characters. Sammy and Terry have a way of 'being' around each other that really captures the best (and maybe also the worst) of family relationships. ­Liz Braun, Toronto Sun. 2000, USA, English, 109 mins, Rated R.

Girlfight
Saturday, June 23 at 7:00 pm
Saturday, June 23 at 9:15 pm
Sunday, June 24 at 3:00 pm
Sunday, June 24 at 7:00 pm

Defiantly tomboyish Diana Guzman (Michelle Rodriguez) lives with her dismissive father and younger brother, Tiny, in a project in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. She's a sullen high school junior, as uninterested in romance and sex as she is in her studies, and so quick to fight in the hallways she's on the verge of expulsion. Tiny is studious and artistic, so much so that their father is paying for boxing lessons for him. Diana persuades Tiny's coach to teach her how to box. As she trains and grows stronger in his care, Diana begins to change inside. And as she starts to compete in amateur bouts against both women and men, she also begins to fall for handsome featherweight Adrian (Santiago Douglas). This kind of story wouldn't work without a convincing, charismatic actor at its center. But Rodriguez, in a powerful, nuanced debut that has rightly been called Brandoesque, does more than make the film work - she makes it sing. ­Jonathen Forman, NYPOST.com. 2000, ºUSA, English/Spanish, Color, 110 mins, Rated R.

Snatch
Thursday, June 28 at 7:00 pm
Thursday, June 28 at 9:15 pm
Friday, June 29 at 7:00 pm
Friday, June 29 at 9:15 pm

Guy Ritchie's Snatch is another slapsticky, ghoulishly amusing, incredibly violent underworld comedy. It's a round-robin farce with everyone after, or influenced by someone after, a gigantic diamond that's snatched in the opening sequence by a gang of thieves led by a Neanderthal hood named Franky Four Fingers (Benicio Del Toro). The main character and narrator is Turkish (Jason Stratham), a London slot-machine-arcade owner and illegal fight promoter who tells us the long, meandering, flash-back story of how he, his sidekick Tommy (Robbie Gee) and seemingly half the London underworld become involved with the stone after Franky manages to lose it. There's also One-Punch Mickey O'Neil (Brad Pitt), the Irish Gypsy bare-knuckle champion; Bullet Tooth Tony (Vinnie Jones), a sociopathic killer; and an unnamed but unusually stupid dog with a penchant for swallowing diamonds, squeaky toys and other large objects. Ritchie has a likably fast-paced visual style, a gift for grungy atmosphere and an unshakably jolly affection for his menagerie of low-life characters that's fairly infectious. ­William Arnold, Seattle Post Intelligencer. 2000, UK, English,100 min, Rated R

Pollock
Saturday, June 30 at 7:00 pm
Saturday, June 30 at 9:30 pm
Sunday, July 1 at 3:00 pm
Sunday, July 1 at 7:00 pm

As an actor portraying the inner turmoil of Jackson Pollock ­ the revolutionary abstractionist known for his splatter-and-drip painting style ­ Ed Harris gives a commanding, potent performance in Pollock that is a torrential mix of the artist's chaotic talent and his more chaotic psyche. As a director depicting Jackson Pollock's world, Ed Harris captures with vivid, lively authenticity both the astute yet pretentious buzz of the 1940s Manhattan art scene and his subject's tumultuous personal life, marked by hard drinking and a stormy long-term affair with fellow painter Lee Krasner (Marcia Gay Harden). Harris creates an imposing, invigorating cinematic biography fueled by its subject's stubborn, manic energy and his strangely uncommunicative charisma. Harris does a startlingly affecting job of drawing the viewer into Pollock's realm, sharing with us the sensation of his artistic epiphanies and the evolution of his provocative, avant-garde style. Harris's performance is never more intense or credible than when he's bent over a painting in progress. Harris's directorial debut is a sturdy, compelling accomplishment from its dramatic imagery to its spectacularly dynamic, ironically upbeat score to its cast full of memorable performances. ­Rob Blackwelder, SPLICEDWIRE. 2000, USA, English, Color, 117mins, Rated R.

Dark Days
Thursday, July 5 at 7:00 pm
Thursday, July 5 at 9:00 pm
Friday, July 6 at 7:00 pm
Friday, July 6 at 9:00 pm

It's easy to see why Dark Days picked up not one, not two, but three major awards at Sundance 2000 ­ it's the kind of compelling, relentless cinema vérité documentary that defines the genre. Marc Singer's film follows a group of homeless men and women who eke out an utterly marginalized existence living in the benighted Amtrak tunnels beneath New York City. Scrounging bits of plywood, tarp, and pilfered electricity from Con Ed, they reside in ramshackle lean-to's in near-darkness a scant 50 feet from the onrushing trains that cut a strobing swath through their encampment at all hours of the day and night. Singer, who first heard of this atypical micro-society on television and then decided to explore the tunnels for himself, eventually joined the homeless and spent two full years beneath the streets of Manhattan. ­Marc Savlov, The Austin Chronicle. USA, 2000, English, 84 mins, Color, not rated.

Delicatessen
Saturday, July 7 at 7:00 pm
Saturday, July 7 at 9:15 pm
Sunday, July 8 at 3:00 pm
Sunday, July 8 at 7:00 pm

In Delicatessen, French codirectors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro have wildly inventive imaginations that gravitate to the darker absurdities of human behavior, and their visual extravagance is matched by impressive technical skill. Here, making their feature debut, Jeunet and Caro present a postapocalyptic scenario set entirely in a dank and gloomy building where the landlord operates a delicatessen on the ground floor. But this is an altogether meatless world, so the butcher-landlord keeps his customers happy by chopping unsuspecting victims into cutlets, and he's sharpening his knife for a new tenant who's got the hots for the butcher's nearsighted daughter! Delicatessen is a feast (if you will) of hilarious vignettes, slapstick gags, and sweetly eccentric characters, including a man in a swampy room full of frogs, a woman doggedly determined to commit suicide (she never gets its right), and a pair of brothers who make toy sound boxes that "moo" like cows. This is the kind of comedy that springs from a unique wellspring of imagination and inspiration, and it's handled with such visual virtuosity that you can't help but be mesmerized. ­Jeff Shannon, 1991, France, French w/ English subtitles, Color, 100 min

Ratcatcher
Thursday, July 12 at 7:00 pm
Thursday, July 12 at 9:00 pm
Friday, July 13 at 7:00 pm
Friday, July 13 at 9:00 pm

This is an insightful, beautifully made film about hope and hopelessness. It's not uplifting, comforting entertainment, but it is certainly unforgettable. The story is told through the eyes of 12-year-old James (William Eadie), who lives with his family on a grotty housing estate, an environment made even worse by a dustbin strike. So mountains of rubbish surround the dingy buildings, creating a breeding ground for rats and other critters. While James' troubled parents (Tommy Flanagan and Mandy Matthews) wait to hear whether the council will give them a larger home with an indoor toilet, James and his sisters (Michelle Stewart and Lynne Ramsay Jr) play in the rubbish-strewn yards and along a dangerous canal. But James' troubles go far deeper, as he blames himself for his friend's drowning ... and even for his family's misfortune. ­Rich Cline, Cinezine; France, French w/ English Subtitles, Color, 93 min

Brazil (European Version)
Saturday, July 14 at 7:00 pm
Sunday, July 15 at 3:00 pm
Sunday, July 15 at 7:00 pm

In celebration of "strange cinema" the IFS chose anachronistic films. Rather than titles that took liberties with historical sequences, I picked films that create their own time and place. Of these, BRAZIL is the quintessential example, for it condenses the entire 20th Century into one moment. Terry Gilliam's unique vision, however, was inspired by so many real events that nothing is as far fetched as you might think. The dehumanization of corporate culture, the disparities between working classes, the degradation of our environment, love, adventure, all this and so much more can be found in BRAZIL. The film is so rich on all levels that repeat viewings reward one with new details and insights. The European cut of BRAZIL is 11 minutes longer than the US version, and it keeps intact a slightly darker tone than any other version. Ten years ago I experienced my proudest moment as a film programmer when eight months of negotiations paid off with an imported print. Our screening here in Boulder was so successful that the print did a national tour. Now such a task is made considerably easier by Universal Focus, a branch of Universal Studios that has been kind enough to entrust us with this wonderful film that is, as if you can't tell already, my own personal favorite. ­Pablo Kjolseth, IFS Director. UK, 1985, English, 142 minutes, color, 35mm, rated R.. 1985, UK, Color, 142 mins, Rated R. NOTE SPECIAL PRICE!

Caveman's Valentine
Thursday, July 19 at 7:00 pm
Thursday, July 19 at 9:15 pm
Friday, July 20 at 7:00 pm
Friday, July 20 at 9:15 pm

A homeless urban psychotic (Samuel L. Jackson) discovers a frozen corpse in a tree outside his cave; the cops think it¹s an accidental death, but a strange obsession convinces our hero that is was murder, and he hesitantly takes on the role of a schizophrenic Sherlock Holmes. Adapted by George Dawes Green from his own novel, the film is a dual tour de force ­ for Jackson¹s bravura, all-stops-out performance and for the riveting, assured direction of Kasi Lemmons (Eve's Bayou). Balancing an intricate, ingenious plot with pointed character study, Lemmons and Jackson show us the character¹s struggle with demons real and imagined (assisted by some well-placed digital effects) both from his viewpoint and through the eyes of others. The result is a compelling, individual drama unlike any you¹re ever likely to see. ­ Jim Lane, The Sacramento News and Review. USA, English, Color, 105min, Rated R.

Seconds
Saturday, July 21 at 7:00 pm
Saturday, July 21 at 9:15 pm
Sunday, July 22 at 3:00 pm
Sunday, July 22 at 7:00 pm

Seconds, like Point Blank or Blow-up, is classic Sixties ­ the cinematography is consistently far-out, the parties are frantically groovy, and The Man lurks around every corner. Still, anyone who grokked John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate will love this bleakly comic horror story. Our protagonist (John Randolph) is a middle-aged square who's hounded by some shadowy corporation and a friend who "died" years ago. They convince him to surgically alter his appearance and disappear into a new life. When the bandages come off, he weeps with joy to see a handsome new face under all of the hideous stitches and sutures: Randolph has transformed into Rock Hudson. Though casting this mediocre screen hunk as an uptight businessman's alter ego was a stroke of pop genius for director Frankenheimer, it was Hudson's idea to have two actors play the lead, and his surprisingly thoughtful performance galvanizes this harrowing, cerebral thriller (and suggest Hudson's talents were under-utilized). A remake is currently underway, but it doesn't look promising ­ they don't make 'em this "heavy" anymore. ­Chris Baker, USA, English, 107 min

Chocolat
Thursday, July 26 at 7:00 pm
Thursday, July 26 at 9:30 pm
Friday, July 27 at 7:00 pm
Friday, July 27 at 9:30 pm

Lasse Hallstrom is an excellent filmmaker, and I like to think this film was a true labor of love for him, after the seriousness of The Cider House Rules, and for the remarkable cast he has put together. Juliette Binoche, Lena Olin and Johnny Depp in the lead roles are just terrific actors. Dame Judi Dench is, simply and truthfully, as fine as they come. Binoche, a wanderer with a young daughter, opens a chocolate shop in a small, French town. Nothing short of blasphemy, she opens it the day before Lent. Molina is the too-pure-to-be-true mayor of the town. Binoche doesn¹t even go to church. Her chocolates have almost supernatural powers. A fairy-tale she tells her daughter, about a Frenchman and a Mayan girl and ancient recipes and the north wind, sets up the fable that this film becomes. The fable takes place in France in the 1950s. At its best ­ which is virtually all of the time ­ the film looks like an idealized French film of the ¹50s, and it made me feel that same giddy joy those films made me feel the first time I saw them. ­Joel Siegel, Good Morning America. 2000, UK, English/French, PG-13, 121 min

Blue Velvet
Saturday, July 28 at 7:00 pm
Saturday, July 28 at 9:30 pm
Sunday, July 29 at 3:00 pm
Sunday, July 29 at 7:00 pm

"An instant cult classic ... there¹s no mistaking the exhilarating fact that [BLUE VELVET] is one of a kind" (Janet Maslin, The New York Times). David Lynch¹s jarring nightmare vision of an underworld lurking beneath the glossy veneer of small-town life was the American art-house phenomenon of the eighties. Convulsing with images of violent sexuality, the weird Blue Velvet is resolutely Dantean in theme and structure, tracing the involvement of a young man, Jeffrey, with a masochistic night-club singer, a sadistically unhinged drug dealer, and an agent of edifying love. The "dark wood" of Dante¹s poem is established at the film¹s outset with an extreme close-up of a severed ear, into which the spectator literally enters, the vixceral first step of a descent into a perverse parallel universe. But Jeffrey, like Dante, is granted a way out of his lost condition through the guidance of the loving girl-next-door, who, like Beatrice, forgives Jeffrey¹s deviation and finally rescues him from his terrifying foray into a criminal inferno. Unlike the comic ending of the Divine Comedy, much in Lynch¹s Paradise remains eerily amiss: and at the film¹s end we are left not so much comforted as confronted by the inexplicable demons that drive people form the "straight path" into realms of darkness. ­ excerpt from Cinematheque Ontario 1986, USA, English, Color, 120 min

The Dish
Thursday, August 2 at 7:00 pm
Thursday, August 2 at 9:15 pm
Friday, August 3 at 7:00 pm
Friday, August 3 at 9:15 pm

In a sheep pasture outside the little town of Parkes in New South Wales stands the pride and joy of Australian astronomy, a radio telescope the size of a football field. Most days it eavesdrops on the stars. In 1969, it gets a momentous assignment: relaying the television signals from the moon that will show Neil Armstrong's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Parkes is agog. This is the town's shining hour. The Dish, a smiling human comedy, treats the moon walk not as an event 240,000 miles away, but as a small step taken by every single member of mankind, particularly those in Parkes. With The Dish and The Castle, Sitch and his producing partner Michael Hirsh have made enormously entertaining movies. Perhaps just as importantly, they've made good-hearted movies. Recent Hollywood comedy has tilted toward vulgarity, humiliation and bathroom humor. "The Dish" has affection for every one of its characters, forgives them their trespasses, understands their ambitions, doesn't mock them and is very funny. ­Roger Ebert; 2000, Australia, English, color, 104 min.

Latcho Drom
Saturday, August 4 at 7:00 pm
Saturday, August 4 at 9:15 pm
Sunday, August 5 at 3:00 pm
Sunday, August 5 at 7:00 pm

For centuries the Gypsies have traveled the Earth, taking with them only what they could carry on their backs. But by the end of Latcho Drom, Tony Gatlif's visually arresting tribute to Gypsy culture, you may feel as if you've walked every single mile with them. Plotless and without dialogue, Latcho Drom (Safe Journey) traces Gypsy music back through all its origins and permutations. The movie shows Gypsies as a scorned people who are run out of pastures and apartments as undesirables. Some are so poor that in one eastern European locale they are forced to endure the winter living high up in the branches of trees. For many of them, music is their one true resource. Passed on from generation to generation, their songs function as a sort of folk history. Ageless and at the same time flexible enough to include comment on recent politics (as one Romanian ballad about Ceaucescu illustrates), the music changes with each country, along with the styles of the people too. But, as the movie points out, the song remains essentially the same. ­Hal Hinson, Washington Post Staff Writer 1993, France, French w/ English subtitles, Color, 103 min

Series VII
Thursday, August 9 at 7:00 pm
Thursday, August 9 at 9:00 pm
Friday, August 10 at 7:00 pm
Friday, August 10 at 9:00 pm

Sometimes the most astonishing thing about a movie is hidden right in plain sight. Series 7: The Contenders is a satire on reality TV, taking the world of Survivor and Temptation Island to its logical extension with a TV show where the contestants kill one another. The classic short story The Most Dangerous Game is also lurking somewhere in its history. No, it's not the idea that people will kill each other for entertainment that makes Series 7 jolting. What the movie correctly perceives is that somewhere along the line we've lost all sense of shame in our society. It's not what people will do, but what they'll say--what they eagerly reveal about themselves ­ that Series 7 assimilates without even being aware of it. The killing part is the satire, and we expect that to be exaggerated. The dialogue, I suspect, is not intended as satirical at all, but simply reflects the way people think these days. There are still many Americans who chooseº not to reveal every detail of their private lives the moment a camera is pointed at them, but they don't get on TV much. ­Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times; 2001, USA, English, Color, 86 min

Gadjo Dilo
Saturday, August 11 at 7:00 pm
Saturday, August 11 at 9:15 pm
Sunday, August 12 at 3:00 pm
Sunday, August 12 at 7:00 pm

Maybe it's the music. Maybe the dizzying steps of the dance ­ feet barely touching the ground, faster and faster, in an explosion of childish happiness. Maybe it's the women who talk dirty and scrub their skin with wild flowers, and sing songs of utter desolation. Maybe it's the freedom, the uninhibited pleasure the gypsies take in everything they do, the passion. Whatever the reason, Gadjo Dilo (Crazy Stranger) will get to you. The third and final film in his gypsy trilogy, Tony Gatlif's Gadjo Dilo tells the story of young Stéphane who searches the Romanian villages for the favorite singer of his deceased father. He has a recording of her voice, which he plays for anyone who cares to listen; he doesn't speak the language; he's lost; he's cold; he's hungry. That's when Izidor (Isidor Serban), claiming to recognize the voice on the tape, takes him home. But home is where the gypsies are, and Stéphane soon finds himself fascinated by their culture, intrigued by their habits, seduced by their women. Sabina (Rona Hartner), the beautiful dancer who's left her husband for other men, chooses him as her lover. ­Dayana Stetco, Orlando Weekly, 1998, France, French w/ English subtitles, color, 100 min