September Film Club

Thank you to everyone who made it out for our Summer Series celebrating the work of the Coen Brothers, we have a had great time!

For the month of September we're going to get a little weird (we can't go a whole year without a little something strange). We will be watching Denis Villeneuve's bizarre and mysterious, Enemy.

Enemy is a 2013 surrealist psychological thriller film directed by Denis Villeneuve and produced by M. A. Faura and Niv Fichman. Written by Javier Gullón, it was loosely adapted from José Saramago's 2002 novel The Double. The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal in a dual role as two men who are physically identical, but different in personality. Mélanie Laurent, Sarah Gadon, and Isabella Rossellini co-star.

The film has a fresh rating of 73% on Rotten Tomatoes and Godfrey Cheshire writing for Rogerebert.com gave the film 2.5/4 stars saying this in his review, "As noted, Villeneuve and Gullon leave the meaning of all this an open question—or perhaps several questions at once. Is the French Canadian director’s tale of Anglo Canada an allegory of his culturally divided homeland? Is the cryptic story a symbolic meditation on something central to cinema, the fraught relationship between an actor and the “double” he fashions in creating a character who bears his likeness? Does it contain a whiff of Villeneuve’s feelings about Canada’s greatest art-film auteur prior to his arrival, David Cronenberg, whose “Dead Ringers” is one of cinema’s finest tales of doubles.

Take your pick, or better yet, supply your own reading. What seems certain is that Villeneuve is a very self-conscious artist whose estimable work descends from the European high-modernist tradition of decades past."

We will be meeting Thursday, Sept. 25 at 5:30 pm.

Here's a trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVvgt3jIUsc

Hope to see you there!

August Film Club #2

 Our final film of our Coen Brothers Summer Series is True Grit.

True Grit is a 2010 American Western film produced, written, and directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen. It is an adaptation of Charles Portis's 1968 novel. Starring Jeff Bridges and Hailee Steinfeld (in her theatrical-film debut), True Grit also stars Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and Barry Pepper. In the film, 14-year-old farm girl Mattie Ross (Steinfeld) hires boozy, trigger-happy lawman Rooster Cogburn (Bridges) to go after outlaw Tom Chaney (Brolin), who murdered her father, accompanied by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Damon), who is also hunting Chaney, and who has his own gripes with Cogburn. The Coens intended their film to be a more faithful adaptation of Portis's novel than the 1969 version starring John Wayne; in particular, they wanted to tell the story from Mattie's point of view.

The film currently holds a 95% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert gave it 3.5/4 stars saying this in his review, "What strikes me is that I’m describing the story and the film as if it were simply, if admirably, a good Western. That’s a surprise to me, because this is a film by the Coen Brothers, and this is the first straight genre exercise in their career. It’s a loving one. Their craftsmanship is a wonder. Their casting is always inspired and exact. The cinematography by Roger Deakins reminds us of the glory that was, and can still be, the Western.

But this isn’t a Coen Brothers film in the sense that we usually use those words. It’s not eccentric, quirky, wry or flaky. It’s as if these two men, who have devised some of the most original films of our time, reached a point where they decided to coast on the sheer pleasure of good old straightforward artistry. So let me praise it for what it is, a splendid Western. The Coens having demonstrated their mastery of many notes, including many not heard before, now show they can play in tune."

We will be meeting Thursday, Aug 28th at 5:30 pm.

Here's a trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOHGKCle-aY

Hope to see you there!

August Film Club #1

 Our first Coen Brothers film for the month of August is Burn After Reading.

Burn After Reading is a 2008 black comedy film written, produced, edited and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. It follows a recently jobless CIA analyst, Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), whose misplaced memoirs are found by a pair of dimwitted gym employees (Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt). When they mistake the memoirs for classified government documents, they undergo a series of misadventures in an attempt to profit from their find. The film also stars George Clooney as a womanizing U.S. Marshal; Tilda Swinton as Katie Cox, the wife of Osborne Cox; Richard Jenkins as the gym manager; and J. K. Simmons as a CIA supervisor.

The film has a 78% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert gave it 3/4 stars saying this in his review, "The Coen brothers’ “Burn After Reading” is a screwball comedy that occasionally becomes something more. The characters are zany, the plot coils upon itself with dizzy zeal, and the roles seem like a perfect fit for the actors — yes, even Brad Pitt, as Chad, a gum-chewing, fuzzy-headed physical fitness instructor. I’ve always thought of him as a fine actor, but here he reveals a dimension that, shall I say, we haven’t seen before. This is not a great Coen brothers’ film. Nor is it one of their bewildering excursions off the deep end. It’s funny, sometimes delightful, sometimes a little sad, with dialogue that sounds perfectly logical until you listen a little more carefully and realize all of these people are mad."

We will be meeting Thursday, Aug. 21 at 5:30 pm

Here's a trailer:

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

Hope to see you there!