Film Picks…with Lyle Firth
PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975)
Directed by Peter Weir
Three students and a school teacher disappear on an excursion to Hanging Rock, in Victoria, on Valentine’s Day, 1900. Widely regarded as being based on a true story, the movie follows those that disappeared, and those that stayed behind, but it delights in the asking of questions, not the answering of them.
VALS IM BASHIR (2008)
Directed by Ari Folman
One night at a bar, an old friend tells director Ari about a recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs. Every night, the same number of beasts. The two men conclude that there’s a connection to their Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early eighties. Ari is surprised that he can’t remember a thing anymore about that period of his life. Intrigued by this riddle, he decides to meet and interview old friends and comrades around the world. He needs to discover the truth about that time and about himself. As Ari delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, his memory begins to creep up in surreal images.
OLDBOY (2003)
Directed by Chan-wook Park
On the day of his daughter’s birthday, Ho Dae-su (Min-sik Choi) gets completely drunk and is arrested. His best friend No Joo-hwan (Dae-han Ji) releases him from the police station, and while calling home from a phone booth, Dae-su vanishes. Indeed he has been abducted and imprisoned in a room for fifteen years. One day, he is suddenly released, receives clothes, money and a cellular and meets the Japanese chef Mido (Hye-jeong Kang), and they feel a great attraction for each other. However, Dae-su seeks for his captor and the reason of his long imprisonment. While looking for revenge, Dae-su discloses deep secrets from the past.
LA CITÉ DES ENFANTS PERDUS- THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN (1995)
Directed by Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet
In a surrealistic and bizarre society, children have been abducted by a mad and evil scientist, Krank, who wants to steal their dreams and stop and reverse his accelerated aging process. When the gang of Cyclops kidnap Denree, the little brother of the former whale hunter One, he is helped by the young street orphan girl Miette, who steals for the Siamese Pieuvre, to reach the platform where Krank leaves with his cloned dwarf wife Mademoiselle Bismuth, his six cloned sons and a brain, and rescue the children.
IRRÉVERSIBLE (2002)
Directed by Gaspar Noé
Events over the course of one traumatic night in Paris unfold in reverse-chronological order as the beautiful Alex is brutally raped and beaten by a stranger in the underpass. Her boyfriend and ex-lover take matters into their own hands by hiring two criminals to help them find the rapist so that they can exact revenge. A simultaneously beautiful and terrible examination of the destructive nature of cause and effect, and how time destroys everything.
COMING SOON TO THEATERS…
THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT (March 27, 2009)
Directed by Peter Cornwell
Based on a chilling true story, Lionsgate’s THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT charts one family’s terrifying, real-life encounter with the dark forces of the supernatural. When the Campbell family moves to upstate Connecticut, they soon learn that their charming Victorian home has a disturbing history: not only was the house a transformed funeral parlor where inconceivable acts occurred, but the owner’s clairvoyant son Jonah served as a demonic messenger, providing a gateway for spiritual entities to crossover. Now, unspeakable terror awaits when Jonah, the boy who communicated with the dead, returns to unleash a new kind of horror on the innocent and unsuspecting family.
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE (October 16, 2009)
Directed by Spike Jonze
An adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s story, where Max, a disobedient little boy sent to bed without his supper, creates his own world–a forest inhabited by ferocious wild creatures that crown Max as their ruler. This film is highly recommended.
2012 (November 13, 2009)
Directed by Roland Emmerich
Never before has a date in history been so significant to so many cultures, so many religions, scientists, and governments. 2012 is an epic adventure about a global cataclysm that brings an end to the world and tells of the heroic struggle of the survivors.
AWAY WE GO (June 5, 2009)
Directed Sam Mendes
Directed by Academy Award winner Sam Mendes (“American Beauty”) from an original screenplay by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, this funny and heartfelt film follows the journey of an expectant couple (John Krasinski [“The Office’] and Maya Rudolph [“Saturday Night Live’]), as they travel the U.S. in search of the perfect place to put down roots and raise their family. Along the way, they have misadventures and find fresh connections with an assortment of relatives and old friends who just might help them discover “home” on their own terms for the first time. The movie features the music of Alexi Murdoch.
HUNGER (March 20, 2009)
Directed by Steve McQueen
HUNGER is the stunningly assured debut feature from Turner Prize-winning visual artist Steve McQueen. Winner of the 2008 Cannes Camera d’Or among other top international prizes, the film is a work of astonishing precision co-written by acclaimed Irish playwright Enda Walsh and starring Michael Fassbender (300, Tarantino’s upcoming INGLOURIOUS BASTARDS) in an unflinchingly passionate turn. HUNGER was an official selection of the Toronto, Telluride and New York film festivals. In 1981, a deadly serious battle takes place in the infamous H-block of Belfast’s Maze Prison. Republican inmates, led by Bobby Sands (Fassbender), refuse to eat until the British government acknowledges the IRA as a legitimate political organization. Steve McQueen’s commanding direction captures the physical details of their struggle. Is it suicide or martyrdom?
TYSON (April 24, 2009)
Directed by James Toback
Tyson is acclaimed indie director James Toback’s stylistically inventive portrait of a mesmerizing Mike Tyson. Toback allows Tyson to reveal himself without inhibition and with eloquence and a pervasive vulnerability. Through a mixture of original interviews and archival footage and photographs, a startlingly complex, fully-rounded human being emerges. The film ranges from Tyson’s earliest memories of growing up on the mean streets of Brooklyn through his entry into the world of boxing, to his roller-coaster ride in the fun house of worldwide fame and fortunes won and lost. It is the story of a legendary and uniquely controversial international athletic icon, a figure conjuring radical questions of race and class. In its depiction of a man rising from the most debased circumstances to unlimited heights, destroyed by his own hubris, TYSON emerges as a modern day version of classic Greek tragedy.
ANGELS & DEMONS (May 15, 2009)
Directed by Ron Howard
The team behind the global phenomenon The Da Vinci Code returns for the highly anticipated Angels & Demons, based upon the bestselling novel by Dan Brown. Tom Hanks reprises his role as Harvard religious expert Robert Langdon, who once again finds that forces with ancient roots are willing to stop at nothing, even murder, to advance their goals. Ron Howard again directs the film, which is produced by Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, and John Calley. The screenplay is by Akiva Goldsman and David Koepp. When Langdon discovers evidence of the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati – the most powerful underground organization in history – he also faces a deadly threat to the existence of the secret organization’s most despised enemy: the Catholic Church. When Langdon learns that the clock is ticking on an unstoppable Illuminati time bomb, he jets to Rome, where he joins forces with Vittoria Vetra, a beautiful and enigmatic Italian scientist. Embarking on a nonstop, action-packed hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and even to the heart of the most secretive vault on earth, Langdon and Vetra will follow a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that mark the Vatican’s only hope for survival.
LOCALS IN THE WORKS…
Local director Jonathan Demme has currently been working on the following projects:
MARLEY (T.B.A. 2010)
A documentary on the life, music, and legacy of Bob Marley.
NEIL YOUNG TRUNK SHOW (2009)
The film is an intimate look at Neil Young’s stage show, recorded in a small theater in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, on mostly hand-held cameras. “We did a home movie in a way,” said Demme to a Saturday afternoon crowd in Austin’s Paramount Theatre. “We did it all ourselves.”
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