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Monday, February 17, 2020

February Film Club

Hey everybody!  Thank you to everyone who made it out for Logan Lucky and of course, a big thank you to everyone who brought snacks to share, you are always appreciated!

For the month of February I generally show something along the lines of a romance in honor of Valentine's Day, and this month I've decided to show Terrence Malick's To the Wonder.

To the Wonder is a 2012 American experimental romantic drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick and starring Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel McAdams, and Javier Bardem.  Filmed in Oklahoma and Paris, the film chronicles a couple who, after falling in love in Paris, struggle to keep their relationship from falling apart after moving to the United States.
The film received mixed reviews from critics.  It holds a 46% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 172 reviews.  To the Wonder was the final film reviewed by Roger Ebert prior to his death on April 4, 2013.  He awarded it 3.5/4 stars saying this in his review, "A more conventional film would have assigned a plot to these characters and made their motivations more clear.  Malick, who is surely one of the most romantic and spiritual of filmmakers, appears almost naked here before his audience, a man not able to conceal the depth of his vision. 'Well,' I asked myself, "why not?"  Why must a film explain everything?  Why must every motivation be spelled out?  Aren't many films fundamentally the same film, with only the specifics changed?  Aren't many of them telling the same story?  Seeking perfection, we see what our dreams and hopes might look like.  We realize they come as a gift through no power of our own, and if we lose them, isn't that almost worse than never having had them in the first place?  There will be many who find To the Wonder elusive and too effervescent.  They'll be dissatisfied by a film that would rather evoke than supply.  I understand that, and I think Terrence Malick does, too.  But here he has attempted to reach more deeply than that: to reach beneath the surface, and find the soul in need."

I hope you can make it out to this interesting and thought provoking film!

Here's the trailer:

Thursday, January 9, 2020

January Film Club

Happy New Year everyone!

Well, here we are, the big 2020.  Hopefully it is a wonderful year for everyone.  I will do my best to at least make sure you get to see some great films!

Thank you to everyone who was able to make it for our showing of Krampus last month, we had a nice turnout, some fun conversation and as always, some great treats.

Now, on to our next film.  To kick off the new year, I've decided to show Steven Soderbergh's heist comedy Logan Lucky.

Logan Lucky is a 2017 American heist comedy film directed by Steven Soderbergh, based on the debut screenplay of Rebecca Blunt.  Soderbergh came out of retirement to direct the film, and to distribute it independently through his own company.  The film features an ensemble cast consisting of Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Riley Keough, Daniel Craig, Seth MacFarlane, Katie Holmes, Hilary Swank, Katherine Waterston and Sebastian Stan, and follows the Logan family, who plan to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway and must avoid getting caught by the FBI.  The film holds a 92% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Matt Zoller Seitz, writing for Rogerebert.com gave the film 3.5/4 stars saying this in his review, "Soderbergh is one of the reigning masters of the heist picture: he did the Ocean's Eleven remake and its two sequels, plus Out of Sight and The Underneath.  This one's about a bunch of good ol' boys trying to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina.  The movie is put together with the no-fuss confidence of Soderbergh's best entertainments, staging comedic banter and suspense sequences with equal assurance, even playing sly perception games with the audience by making you wonder how smart or dumb the character (and the movie) actually are.  Soderbergh directs the script with his characteristic smoothness, moving through the story so deftly that you don't realize you've already gone from point A to point B until you're already en route to point C.  There's no wasted motion.  Everything happens as it does for a reason.  A lot of times you have no idea what you're looking at or why it's important until Soderbergh moves a bit to the left or shifts focus to make you go "Aha!"  There are few working directors who still know how to make a film this way.  Soderbergh is one of them."

We will be meeting Thursday, Jan. 16th at 6:15pm.  

I hope you are able to make it out to this wonderfully fun film!

Here's the trailer: