December Film Club

Hey everybody!

Thanks to everyone who made it out for Dunkirk, we had a small group, but some really great discussion following the film.

As always, I apologize for the this late update, but it's been so busy that time just got away from me.  For the month of December, and following my theme of the past few years of unconventional Christmas movies, I've decided to show Michael Dougherty's wonderful horror/comedy/Christmas film, Krampus.

Krampus is a 2015 American dark fantasy comedy horror film based on the eponymous character from Austro-Bavarian folklore, written and directed by Michael Dougherty and co-written by Todd Casey and Zach Shields.  The film stars Adam Scott, Toni Collette, David Koechner, Allison Tolman, Conchata Ferrell, Emjay Anthony, Stefania LaVie Owen, and Krista Stadler.  Three days before Christmas, the prosperous but dysfunctional Engel family gathers for Christmas.  Max Engel remains a firm believer in Santa Claus and intends to send him a letter.  Max wants to continue family traditions, but tension among his relatives saps their Christmas spirit.  When his cousins read out his letter to Santa and mock him for still believing, he fights with them and yells out that he hates his family and even Christmas.  In a fit of anger, Max tears up the letter and throws it to the wind outside and it's swept up into the sky.  A severe blizzard engulfs the town and Max's actions and his family's lack of Christmas cheer, seemingly summon an evil Christmas entity.
The film currently holds a 67% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Peter Sobczynski, writing for Rogerebert.com, gave the film 3/4 stars saying this in his review, "Krampus was co-written and directed by Michael Dougherty, whose previous effort, Trick 'r Treat, paid homage to such classics as Tales from the Crypt and Creepshow, this film constantly bows to the altar of Gremlins, the Joe Dante classic that managed to find the perfect blend of creepiness, subversive humor and genuinely earned sentiment, to make it a seasonal favorite for viewers who prefer their Christmas entertainment to have a little more bite to it.  Despite the occasional rough patches...Krampus
feels as if it is maybe one or two rewrites away from being the alternative classic that it clearly wants to be.  It still has its charms, and just enough things going for it to warrant a mild recommendation.  Besides, do you think I want to get on the bad side of Krampus by panning his movie?  I may be naughty but I am not stupid."

We will be meeting Thursday, Dec. 19th at 6:15pm.  I hope you can make it out to this spooky, funny Christmas flick!

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6cVyoMH4QE

November Film Club

Hello everyone!

Hope you're all managing to stay warm with this increasingly colder weather!

Thank you to everyone who was able to make it out to Horror Fest last month.  The weather did its best to make it horrible, but we had a small group and enjoyed some spooky films.

For the month of November we will be following the trend of the last few years of watching a war film in honor of Veteran's Day.  We will be meeting Thursday, Nov. 21st at 6:15pm and the film I've picked is Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk.

Dunkirk is a 2017 war film written, directed, and produced by Christopher Nolan.  It depicts the Dunkirk evacuation of World War II.  Its ensemble cast includes Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Anuerin Barnard, James D'Arcy, Barry Keoghan, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, and Tom Hardy. Dunkirk portrays the evacuation from three perspectives: land, sea, and air.  It has little dialogue, as Nolan sought instead to create suspense from cinematography and music.  The film has extensive practical effects, and employed thousands of extras as well as historic boats from the evacuation, and period airplanes.  At the 90th Academy Awards, it received eight nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director (Nolan's first Oscar nomination for directing); it went on to win for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Film Editing.  Matt Zoller Seitz, writing for Rogerebert.com, gave the film 3.5/4 stars saying this in his review, "It has often been said that trauma wreaks havoc with one's perception of time.  This is one of the few works I can think of that considers that idea over the course of a whole feature, not just in self-contained sequences. (The backbone of Zimmer's score, appropriately, is a ticking clock.)  I admired the film throughout, and have been thinking about it constantly since I saw it.  This is a movie of vision and integrity made on an epic scale, a series of propositions dramatized with machines, bodies, seawater and fire.  It deserves to be seen and argued about.  They don't make them like this anymore.  Never did, really."

I hope you are able to make it out to this fantastic film.

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cmgiys2n1o

Crete Library Film Club 9th Annual Horror Fest

Hey everybody!

October is already flying by and Halloween will be upon us soon enough and with it, my favorite Film Club event: Horror Fest.  This year we will be meeting Wed. and Thurs. the 30th and 31st.  We will be following the same format we have for the past 9 years.  Both nights we will be watching double features.  The first movie starts at 5pm each night, and the second, some time around 6:45pm.  Some of them are bit a longer this year and time will be a little tighter than usual, so the earlier we can start the second film the better, but we will make it work.

For this year's theme, I've chosen four films put out by the production company A24.  I haven't been disappointed by one of their releases yet, so I always get excited when I see their logo pop up before a film.  Their horror offerings are great examples of how a movie can be a horror movie but still be as compelling a drama, comedy, or otherwise.  So, without further ado, your 2019 Horror Fest lineup:
(click the titles for trailers)

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 30th

It Comes at Night-5:00pm
The Killing of a Sacred Deer-6:45pm

THURSDAY, Oct. 31st

The Blackcoat's Daughter-5:00pm
Hereditary-6:45pm

I hope you can make it out for this spooky Film Club tradition.  Below are more in-depth looks at each film.  Hope to see you there!

It Comes at Night is a 2017 American horror film written and directed by Trey Edward Shults.  It stars Joel Edgerton, Carmen Ejogo, Christopher Abott, Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Riley Keough.  A highly contagious outbreak has ravaged the world.  Paul, his wife Sarah, and their teenage son Travis have secluded themselves in their home deep in the woods in an undisclosed location.  Their peace is disturbed when a stranger arrives.  The film has an 87% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Brian Tallerico, writing for Rogerebert.com, gave the film 3.5/4 stars saying this in his review, “It’s important that Shults’ vision of the end of the world opens not with an attack but with the kind of event that forever twists the trajectory of a young man’s life: the death of a loved one.  It is a movie in which the villains are loss, grief, pain, fear, and distrust-very human emotions and it has no traditional undead brain eaters.  There are no zombies in the streets, boogeymen in the basement or witches in the woods-and yet it is one of the most terrifying films in years.  Most of all, It Comes at Night is a film in which the true elements of fear come from within, not from outside.  Sure, it’s not exactly a new concept-George A Romero, John Carpenter and Stanley Kubrick have created the cinematic templates for such a thing but it’s remarkable to consider how much horror mileage that Shults gets out of a film with no traditional villains.  In a sense, it’s a reverse horror films, one that tells us, “Sure, the outside world is scary, but it’s distrust and paranoia that will truly be your undoing.  The real enemy is already inside.  Now try and get some sleep.” Good luck with that last part.

The Killing of a Sacred Deer is a 2017 psychological thriller film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, from a screenplay by Lanthimos and Efthymis Filipou.  It stars Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Barry Keoghan, Raffey Cassidy, Sunny Suljic, Alicia Silverstone, and Bill Camp.  The film follows a cardiac surgeon who secretly befriends a teenage boy with a connection to his past.  He introduces the boy to his family, who begin to fall mysteriously ill.  The film currently holds an 80% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Brian Tallerico, writing for Rogerebert.com gave the film 3.5/4 stars, saying this in his review, “Farrell is phenomenal here, finding the shades of a man whose greatest sin may be his refusal to admit he’s only human.  In the end, that may be the message of the film-when you play God, you must deal with the consequences.  The Lanthimos-Farrell dynamic is one of those relationships in which the creator and actor are so clearly on the same page it invigorating.  That’s a good word for The Killing of a Sacred Deer.  It’s a film that challenges viewers in such fascinating ways and feels so refined in its filmmaking that it’s invigorating to watch.  It’s a rare movie indeed that can be this alternately terrifying, hysterical, strange, and heartbreaking, often in the same scene.  Like the Greek myth that inspired the film, it feels powerful enough to be timeless.

The Blackcoat’s Daughter is a 2015 Canadian-American supernatural psychological horror film written and directed by Osgood Perkins.  The film stars Emma Roberts, Kiernan Shipka, Lucy Boynton, Lauren Holly, and James Remar.  Over their winter break, two Catholic schoolgirls get left behind at their boarding school at which the nuns are rumored to be Satanists.  The film has a 73% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Scott Tobias, writing for NPR said this in his review, “For a first time director, Perkins shows remarkable confidence in building his unsettling premise on enigmas and ellipses, essentially deferring the answers to all questions until the final act.  When the twists finally arrive, they’re not surprising in and of themselves-the signs are not hidden well enough in plain sight-but the shocks sting hard, like a coiled snake that’s been waiting patiently in the underbrush.”

Hereditary is a 2018 American supernatural psychological horror drama film written and directed by Ari Aster, in his feature directorial debut.  It stars Toni Collette, Alex Wolf, Milly Shapiro and Gabriel Byrne as a family haunted after the death of their secretive grandmother.  It premiered on Jan. 21, 2018 in the Midnight Section at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival.  It was acclaimed by critics, with Collette’s performance receiving particular praise, and was a commercial success, making over $79 mil on a $10 mil budget to become A24’s highest-grossing film worldwide.  It holds an 89% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Matt Zoeller Seitz, writing for Rogerebert.com gave the film 4/4 stars saying this in his review, “Creepy beyond belief, Hereditary is one of those movies you shouldn’t describe in detail because if you do, it will not only ruin surprises but make the listener wonder if you saw the film or dreamed it.  The movie sustains a throb of dread throughout its first 90 minutes, and it’s final 30 are off-the-rails in the best way.  At times, Aster’s film seems to be attacking rationality itself, scraping and scratching and tearing at the thought structures and language we’ve developed over the millennia in order to live in the world with the ultimate goal of plunging us backwards in time so that we reconnect with the superstitious cave-mind that looked up at the sky when it started to rain and wondered what the tribe had done to anger the gods.”

September Film Club

Hey everybody!

Thank you to everyone who was able to make it out for our Summer Film Series!  We had some real great turnouts, great food and great movies, just "great" all around!

Before we get into our next special program in October, we will briefly return to the regular format of one film on the 3rd Thursday.  So, for this month, I thought we would revisit the filmography of Damien Chazelle by watching his breakout film, Whiplash.

Whiplash is a 2014 American drama film written and directed by Damien Chazelle.  It depicts the relationship between an ambitious jazz drumming student (Miles Teller) and an abusive instructor (J. K. Simmons).  Paul Reiser and Melissa Benoist co-star.  The film grossed $49 million on a budget of $3.3 million, and received widespread critical acclaim, with particular praise for Simmons' performance and Chazelle's screenplay.  At the 87th Academy Awards, it won Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Supporting Actor for Simmons and was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture.  The film currently holds a 93% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Brian Tallerico, writing for Rogerebert.com, gave the film 4/4 stars saying this in his review, "Whiplash is cinematic adrenaline.  In an era when so many films feel more refined by focus groups or marketing managers, it is a deeply personal and vibrantly alive drama.  Damien Chazelle has taken a relatively staid subject like the relationship between a music student and his teacher and turned it into a thriller built on a brilliant undercurrent of social commentary about what it takes to make it in an increasingly competitive and cutthroat world.  How far are you willing to push yourself to succeed?  How far are you willing to push someone else to force them on the path to success?  Carried by two electric performances, the tightest editing in a film this year and a daring screenplay that writes itself into a corner and then somehow finds an unexpected way out, Whiplash is as breathless as a drum solo, rising and falling just as the hopes and dreams of its protagonist climb and crash."

We will be meeting Thursday, Sept. 19th at 6:15pm.  I hope you can make it out for this fantastic film!

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d_jQycdQGo

August Film Club

Hey everybody!  It's August already and that means we have entered the last month of our Summer Film Series on Space.  A big thank you to everyone who made it out to see Europa Report.  We had a good turnout and great discussion and of course, great food.

For the month of August we have two more space related films: Hidden Figures and Prometheus.

Thursday, Aug. 15th at 6:15pm
Hidden Figures (2016) directed by Theodore Melfi

Hidden Figures is a 2016 American biographical drama film directed by Theodore Melfi and written by Melfi and Allison Schroeder.  It is loosely based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly about black female mathematicians who worked at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the Space Race.  The film stars Taraji P. Henson as Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who calculated flight trajectories for Project Mercury and other missions.  The film also features Ocatavia Spencer as NASA supervisor and mathematician Dorothy Vaughan and Janelle Monae as NASA engineer Mary Jackson, with Kevin Costner, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons, Glen Powell, and Mahershala Ali in supporting roles.  The film holds a 93% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Odie Henderson, writing for Rogerebert.com, gave the film 3.5/4 stars saying this in his review, "I've been a computer programmer for 29 and half years, so I suppose I would be a tad biased toward a film that uses FORTRAN as a means of exacting socially relevant revenge.  In Hidden Figures, the FORTRAN punch cards coded by Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) prove that she is not only qualified to be the first employee supervisor of color in the space program, but that her "girls" (as she calls them) have the skills to code the IBM mainframe under her tutelage.  Hopefully, Hidden Figures will inspire women and people of color (and hell, men too) with its gentle assertion that there's nothing unusual nor odd about people besides White men being good at math.  Under its great acting, bouncy Pharrell score and message is a film that's as geeked about math as a superhero film is about its comic book origins.  So much so that it does my mathematician's heart proud.  This is one of the year's best films."

Thursday, Aug. 22nd at 6:15pm
Prometheus (2012) Directed by Ridley Scott

Prometheus is a 2012 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof and starring Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Logan Marshall-Green, and Charlize Theron.  It is set in the late 21st century and centers on the crew of the spaceship Prometheus as it follows a star map discovered among the artifacts of several ancient Earth cultures.  Seeking the origins of humanity, the crew arrives on a distant world and discovers a threat that could cause the extinction of the human species.  While originally planned a direct prequel to his 1979 film Alien, Scott has stated it is instead merely set in the same universe as that film, sharing similar elements and ideas. The film currently has a 73% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert awarded it 4/4 stars saying this in his review, "Ridley Scott's Prometheus is a magnificent science-fiction film, all the more intriguing because it raises questions about the origin of human life and doesn't have the answers.  It's in the classic tradition of golden age sci-fi, echoing Scott's Alien (1979), but creating a world of its own.  I'm a pushover for material like this; it's a seamless blend of story, special effects and pitch-perfect casting.  Noomi Rapace continues here the tradition of awesome feminine strength begun by Sigourney Weaver in Alien.  Noomi Rapace wears a cross around her neck and believes life ultimately had a divine origin.  Her boyfriend, Charlie Holloway, accuses her, a scientist, of dismissing centuries of Darwinism.  Charlie digs at Elizabeth, suggesting the existence of aliens disproves her beliefs.  Her obvious response: Where did they come from?  This puzzle is embedded in an adventure film that has staggering visuals, expert horror, mind-challenging ideas and enough unanswered questions to prime the inevitable sequel."

I hope you can make it out for these wonderful films!

July Film Club

Hey everybody!

Thanks to everyone who joined us for our first 2 films of our Summer Space series, we had a good turnout, great food and a bit of discussion (as much as time would allow us).

For the month of July we will be watching Space Cowboys and Europa Report.

July 18th at 6:15pm
Space Cowboys (2000) Directed by Clint Eastwood

Space Cowboys is a 2000 American adventure drama film directed and produced by Clint Eastwood.  It stars Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner as four older "ex-test pilots" whose dreams of reaching space were ended after space flight tests were handed off to the newly created NASA.  In the present day, circumstances lead to them being sent into space to repair an old Soviet satellite.  Space Cowboys was well received by critics.  It has a 78% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert awarded the film 3/4 stars saying this in his review, "Space Cowboys tells a genre story where the heroes have come out of retirement for one last hurrah...The stuff in outer space is unexpected, the surprise waiting out there is genuine, and meanwhile, there's an abundance of charm and screen presence from the four veteran actors.  There's a reason Eastwood, Garner, Sutherland and Jones have remained stars for so long, and the movie gives them all characteristic scenes.  The actors know where the laughs and thrills are and respect them.  Eastwood as a director is as sure handed as his mentors, Don Siegel and Sergio Leone."

July 25th at 6:15pm
Europa Report (2013) Directed by Sebastian Cordero

Europa Report is a 2013 science fiction film directed by Sebastian Cordero, starring Christian Camargo, Anamaria Marinca, Michael Nyqvist, Daniel Wu, Karolina Wydra and Sharlto Copely.  A found footage film, it recounts the fictional story of the first crewed mission to Europa, one of the four Galilean moons of Jupiter.  Despite a disastrous technical failure that causes the loss of all communications with Earth mission control and a series of crises, the crew continues its mission to Europa and finds mounting evidence of life on the moon.  The film received generally positive reviews from critics and holds an 80% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  Christy Lemire, writing for Rogerebert.com, gave the film 3/4 stars saying this in her review, "The beauty of Ecuadorian director Sebastian Cordero's film is the simplicity of its approach.  The found footage conceit has emerged as a favorite over the past several years but the application often seems erratic and selective.  Working from Philip Gelatt's script, Cordero keeps things consistent, elegant and streamlined.  Europa Report knows who its cultural forebears are, and know that you know them too.  A snippet of Strauss' The Blue Danube, used so famously in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, plays at a key moment, but it's just a taste, enough to bring a knowing smile to your face, mercifully not so much as to constitute full on parody.  Europa Report  actually may be understated to a fault, but that's preferable to gratuitous melodrama."

I hope to you can make it out to these excellent films!

See you there!

June Film Club

For the month of June, we will be watching Apollo 13 and Contact.

(click the titles for the trailers)
June 20th at 6:15pm
Apollo 13 (1995) Directed by Ron Howard

Apollo 13 is a 1995 space docudrama film directed by Ron Howard and starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise and Ed Harris.  The screenplay by William Broyles Jr., and Al Reinert dramatizes the aborted 1970 Apollo 13 lunar mission and is an adaptation of the book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13 by astronaut Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger.  The film depicts astronauts Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise aboard Apollo 13 for America's third Moon landing mission.  En route, an on-board explosion deprives their spacecraft of most of its oxygen supply and electric power, forcing NASA's flight controllers to abort the Moon landing, and turning the mission into a struggle to get the three men home safely.
The film received critical praise and holds a 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  Roger Ebert gave the film 4/4 stars saying this in his review, "This is a powerful story, one of the years best films, told with great clarity and remarkable technical detail, and acted without pumped-up histrionics.  It's about men trained to do a job, and doing a better one than anyone could have imagined.  The buried message is: When we dialed down the space program, we lost something crucial to our vision.  When I was a kid, they used to predict that by the year 2000, you'd be able to go to the moon.  Nobody ever thought to predict that you'd be able to, but nobody would bother."

June 27th at 6:15pm
Contact (1997) Directed by Robert Zemeckis

Contact is a 1997 American science fiction drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis.  It is a film adaptation of Carl Sagan's 1985 novel of the same name; Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan wrote the story outline for the film.  Jodie Foster portrays the film's protagonist, Dr. Eleanor "Ellie" Arroway, a SETI scientist who finds strong evidence of extraterrestrial life and is chosen to make first contact.  The film also stars Matthew McConaughey, James Woods, Tom Skerritt, William Fitchner, John Hurt, Angela Bassett, Rob Lowe, Jake Busey and David Morse.  The film has a 62% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert awarded it 3.5/4 stars later changing it to 4/4 and adding it to his list of Great Movies.  He said this in his review, "Movies like Contact help explain why movies like Independence Day leave me feeling empty and unsatisfied.  When I look up at the sky through a telescope, when I follow the landing of the research vehicle on Mars, when I read about cosmology, I brush against transcendence.  The universe is so large and old and beautiful, and our life as an intelligent species is so brief, that all our knowledge is like a tiny hint surrounded by a void.  Has another race been around longer and learned more?  Where are they?  We have been listening for only a few decades.  Space and time are so vast.  A signal's chance of reaching us at the right time and place are so remote they make a message in a bottle look reliable.  But if one came..."

I hope you will be able to join us for the wonderful films!

Summer Film Club

Hey everybody!

First things first.  Thank you to everyone who came out to see Locke last month, we had a good turnout and great treats!  A big thank you to everyone.

Summer is fast approaching and with it our Summer Film Club.  The Summer Film Club is a little different than regular film club, where, instead of one film a month, we do TWO a month that fit into a certain theme.  To correspond with Summer Reading, the theme for this summer is going to be Space.  I know we just did space a couple years ago, but I found 6 more films that we haven't watched yet, so it'll work out.  To mix it up a bit, I chose 3 films that depict space travel realistically and 3 that are more in the science fiction realm.  We will meet the 3rd and 4th Thursday of each month at 6:15pm.  This post will be an overview of the whole summer and I'll have individual posts for each month to follow.

So, this is what the summer looks like:

(click the title for the trailer)

June 20th
Apollo 13 (1995)                                   
-Directed by Ron Howard

June 27th
Contact (1997)
-Directed by Robert Zemeckis

July 18th
Space Cowboys (2000)
-Directed by Clint Eastwood

July 25th
Europa Report (2013)
-Directed by Sebastian Cordero

August 15th
Hidden Figures (2016)
-Directed by Theodore Melfi

August 22nd
Prometheus (2012)
-Directed by Ridley Scott

All showtimes will be at 6:15pm

Science fiction and space in general account for some of my favorite films of all time, so this should be an enjoyable series.  I hope to see you there!

May Film Club

Hey everyone!  Happy May to you all!
Thanks to everyone who was able to come out for our screening of First Man, we had a good turnout and a nice (albeit short) discussion afterwards.  And those of you who bring food all the time, there aren't enough thanks that do you justice.
For the month of May, I've decided to show a film you may not have heard of, since it was a small release, but it is an expertly executed thriller and a gripping film.  We will be watching Steven Knight's Locke.

Locke is a 2013 British-American drama film written and directed by Steven Knight.  The film stars Tom Hardy in the title role, the only character seen on screen, as he holds a total of 36 speakerphone conversations with characters voiced by Olivia Colman, Ruth Wilson, Andrew Scott, Ben Daniels, Tom Holland and Bill Milner.  The film received critical acclaim, particularly for Hardy's performance.  The film currently holds a 90% certified fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and Glenn Kenny, writing for Rogerebert.com gave the film 3.5/4 stars saying this in his review, "With the exception of its opening shot, which shows its title character getting into his tricked-out BMW, the movie is a one-man show that takes place as the title character is taking a long, fateful drive.  The camera doesn't always stay in the car, but it's with Locke for the whole drive  We hear voices of others, but we don't see anyone else.  The self-imposed minimalism of the conceit challenges Knight to make a compelling cinematic work.  And it challenges the actor playing the title character more.  Fortunately, the actor is Tom Hardy, and boy does he do a job with his unusual, and unusually complex character.  In the end, Locke is a cinematic stunt that engrosses as it unspools, and pays dividends after it's been accomplished."

I thoroughly enjoyed this film and I hope you will as well.  We will be meeting Thursday, May 16th at 6:15pm.  Hope to see you there!

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyoO35P41YM

April Film Club

Hey everybody!

A great big thank you to everyone who was able to come out for Michael Collins last month.  We had a great crowd and some good (albeit short) discussion following the film. Oh, and as always, a great amount of food!  Thank you again, you make my job too easy.

For the month of April I will be following the tradition of playing whatever I feel like playing, without necessarily having a theme.  It's my birthday month, so it's usually just a wild card option, but, since this year is the 50th anniversary of the moon landing in 1969, to commemorate that historic, and monumental achievement, I've decided to play Damien Chazelle's First Man.

First Man is a 2018 American biographical drama film directed by Damien Chazelle and written by Josh Singer.  Based on the book First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong by James R. Hansen, the film stars Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong, alongside Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Corey Stoll, Ciaran Hinds, Christopher Abbot, Patrick Fugit, and Lucas Haas, and follows the years leading up to the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon in 1969.  The film received critical praise, particularly regarding the direction, Gosling and Foy's performances, musical score, and the Moon landing sequence.

While the film was considered a commercial disappointment, grossing only $105 million against its $59 million production budget, it did nevertheless receive numerous award nominations and wins.  At the 91st Academy Awards it won for Best Visual Effects, along with nominations for Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing and Best Production Design.   It holds an 87% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Matt Zoeller Seitz, writing for Rogerebert.com gave the film 3/4 stars saying this in his review, "If you want to get an almost first-person sense of what it felt like to fly in one of the earliest supersonic planes or ride a rocket into orbit and beyond, "First Man" is the movie to see.  It makes the experience seem more wild and scary than grand, like being in the cab of a runaway truck as it smashes through a guardrail and tumbles down the side of a mountain.  Even when "First Man" stumbles as historical psychodrama, it still represents a giant leap forward for movies about the physical experience of flight.  I wouldn't call the test piloting and bastoff-and-orbit scenes artful, exactly-there's little poetry in the images-but I don't think they're aiming for that.  They're about single-mindedly putting you inside Neil Armstrong's body and brain pan, and giving you a sense of how hard it must have been to focus, work out equations and flip switches with all that noise battering the senses.  There might be a brief moment of beauty or peace, along with a sidelong glimpses through a window of the blue earth, the grey white moon, or the blackness of space, but that's generally all the aesthetic pleasure they get-and maybe all they can handle.  They expend most of their mental energy studying the instrument panels in front of them and trying to process the information that's being fed through their headsets by mission control, knowing that one missed fact for wrong choice could mean their deaths."

We will be meeting Thursday, April 18th at 6:15pm.

I hope you can make it out to this wonderful, intense, and deeply moving film about an American hero and mankind's unstoppable curiosity and ingenuity.

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSoRx87OO6k

March Film Club

Hey everybody!

Thank you to everyone who made it out for La La Land, we had a good group, good discussion and of course, great food!
For the month of March, I've decided to continue the trend of the past few years of showing something Irish in honor of St. Patrick's Day, so for this month, we will be watching Neil Jordan's Michael Collins.

Michael Collins is a 1996 historical biopic written and directed by Neil Jordan and starring Liam Neeson as Michael Collins, the Irish patriot and revolutionary who died in the Irish Civil War.  It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.  The film opens in the closing years of Britain’s rule over Ireland from its base in Dublin Castle, when Irish Republicans fight for Irish independence against Britain and its military and police forces.  With a budget of $25 million, with 10-12% from the Irish Film Board, it was one of the most expensive films ever produced in Ireland.  While filming, the breakdown of the IRA ceasefire caused the film’s release to be delayed from June to December.

The film currently has a score of 77% on Rotten Tomatoes from 47 reviews.  It was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Original Score.  Robert Ebert gave the film 3/4 stars saying this in his review, “Michael Collins paints a heroic picture of the Irish Republican Army’s inspired strategist and military leader, who fought the British Empire to a standstill and invented the techniques of urban guerrilla warfare that shaped revolutionary struggles all over the world.  Played by Liam Neeson in a performance charged with zest and conviction, Collins comes across as a clear-sighted innovator who took the IRA as far as it could reasonably hope to go.  Collins was arguably the key figure in the struggles that led to the separation of Ireland and Britain.  He was also, on the basis of this film, a man able to use violence without becoming intoxicated by it.  The film argues that if he had prevailed Ireland might eventually have been united, and many lives might have been saved.  We will never know.  But De Valera was right.  History has judged Collins at his expense.”

We will be meeting Thursday, Mar. 21st at 6:15pm.  Hope to see you there!

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb0BCqgMPmo

February Film Club

Hey everybody!  Happy February to you all.  Hopefully the cold weather isn't here for much longer because I've about had enough.

Thank you to everyone who came out for The Matrix, we had a good turnout, great discussion and of course, great food!

For the month of February I've decided to show a romance movie, and not only a romance, but a musical romance.  We will be watching Damien Chazelle's wonderful La La Land.

La La Land is a 2016 American romantic musical film written and directed by Damien Chazelle.  It stars Ryan Gosling as a jazz pianist and Emma Stone as an aspiring actress, who meet and fall in love in Los Angeles while pursuing their dreams.  Having been fond of musicals during his time as a drummer, Chazelle first conceptualized the film alongside Justin Hurwitz while attending Harvard University together.  Moving  to Los Angeles in 2010, Chazelle wrote the screenplay but did not find a studio willing to finance the production without changes to his design.  Following the success of his 2014 film Whiplash, the project was picked up by Summit Entertainment.

La La Land was critically praised, especially for Chazelle’s screenplay and direction, Gosling and Stone’s performances, Hurwitz’s musical score, musical numbers, cinematography, and production values.  It won every category for which it was nominated at the 74th Golden Globes Awards.  It also received 14 nominations at the 89th Academy Awards, tying the record for the most Oscar nominations with All About Eve (1950) and Titanic (1997).  It went on to win for Best Director, Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Original Song, and Best Production Design.  It currently holds a 91% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Brian Tallerico writing for Rogerebert.com gave the film 3.5/4 stars saying this in his review, “It’s easy to let the world get you down sometimes...It’s easy to think that dreams don’t come true, and that love only exists in movies. La La Land serves to remind us that movies can still be magical, and they can still provide the channel for us to see magic in the world around us.  It’s not so much another day in the sun, as the characters sing in that opening number, but the dreams of the night before, the ones we wake up and try to fulfill, that keep us dancing.”

I hope you can join us for this excellent film!  Hope to see you there!

Here's the trailer: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pdqf4P9MB8

January Film Club

Happy New Year everybody!

Sorry for the late update again, I actually had this all done a week ago but forgot to do the blog.  I'll get this back on track next time, haha.  Anyway, thank you to everyone who was able to come out and celebrate Christmas with us, we had fun watching Die Hard.  Thank you to everyone who brought snacks to share, it was a regular smorgasbord as usual.

For the month of January I've decided to show one of my favorite sci-fi films of all time.  This year is actually the 20th anniversary of this film but since it was released in March of 1999, and I usually save March for something Irish themed, I figured we could start off the year with it instead.  This month's selection is none other than The Matrix.

The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction action film written and directed by The Wachowskis and starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano.  It depicts a future in which reality as perceived by humans is not quite what it seems.  Cyber-criminal and computer programmer Neo learns the truth and is drawn into a rebellion against the forces that work against the humans.  The Matrix is known for popularizing a visual effect known as “bullet time”, in which the heightened perception of certain characters is represented by allowing the action within a shot to progress in slow-motion while the camera moves at normal speed.  The film is an example of the cyberpunk sub-genre and contains numerous reference to philosophical and religious ideas.

The film holds an 88% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert awarded it 3/4 stars saying this in his review, "It's great looking, both in its design and in the kinetic energy that powers it.  It uses flawlessly integrated special effects and animation to visualize regions of cyberspace.  It uses f/x to allow its characters to run horizontally on walls, and hang in the air long enough to deliver karate kicks.  It has leaps through space, thrilling sequences involving fights on rooftops, helicopter rescues and battles over mind control.  And it has performances that find the right notes.  Keanu Reeves goes for the impassive Harrison Ford approach, "acting" as little as possible, and Laurence Fishburne finds a balance between action hero and Zen master.  The Matrix did not bore me.  It interested me so much, indeed, that I wanted to challenged even more."

As I said, this is one of my favorite Sci-Fi films with lots of great ideas and wonderful special effects.  It's just an enjoyable film overall, and I hope you can make it out.

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8e-FF8MsqU