July Film Club #2

 Our second film for the month of July is Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is a 2009 stop motion animated comedy directed by Wes Anderson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Noah Baumbach. The project is based on the 1970 children's novel of the same name by Roald Dahl. George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, and Owen Wilson star. The plot follows the titular character Mr. Fox (Clooney), as his spree of thefts result in his family, and later his community, being hunted down by three farmers known as Boggis, Bunce, and Bean.

The film currently holds a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert gave it 3.5/4 stars saying this in his review, "The art design is a large part of the film's appeal. It stays fresh all the way through. Think back to the color palettes of "The Darjeeling Limited" and "The Life Aquatic". The film is based on the famous children's book by Roald Dahl, which like all of his work, has ominous undertones, as if evil can steal in at any moment. These animals aren't catering to anyone in the audience. We get the feeling they're intensely leading their own lives without slowing down for us. Like the hero of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory", also based on one of his books, the creatures of Dahl's valley seem to know more than they're letting on; perhaps even secrets we don't much want to know. Children, especially, will find things they don't understand, and things that scare them. Excellent. A good story for children should suggest a hidden dimension, and that dimension of course is the lifetime still ahead of them."

We will be meeting Thursday, July 27 at 5:30 pm

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2igjYFojUo

Hope to see you there!

July Film Club #1

Our first film for July is The Darjeeling Limited.

The Darjeeling Limited is a 2007 comedy drama film directed by Wes Anderson, which he co-produced with Scott Rudin, Roman Coppola, and Lydia Dean Pilcher, and co-wrote with Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman. The film stars Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Schwartzman as three estranged brothers who agree to meet in India a year after their father's funeral for a "spiritual journey" aboard a luxury train. The cast also includes Waris Ahluwalia, Amara Karan, Barbet Schroeder, and Anjelica Huston, with Natalie Portman, Camilla Rutherford, Irrfan Khan, and Bill Murray in cameo roles.

The film has a 69% on Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert gave it 3.5/4 stars saying this in his review, " Anderson uses India not in a touristy way, but as a backdrop that is very, very there. The casting of the brothers is also a good fit. Their personalities jostle one another in a family sort of way; they're replaying old tapes. Then they have unplanned adventures as a result of the obscure medications, and end up off the train and in the "real" India with all of that luggage. But Anderson doesn't have them discover one another, which would be cliché; instead, they burrow more deeply inside their essential natures. I said the movie meanders. It will therefore inspire reviews complaining that it doesn't fly straight as an arrow at its target. But it doesn't have a target, either. Why do we have to be the cops and enforce a narrow range of movie requirements? Anderson is like Dave Brubeck, who I'm listening to right now. He knows every note of the original song, but the fun and genius come in the way he noodles around. And in his movie's cast, especially with Owen Wilson, Anderson takes advantage of champion noodlers."

We will be meeting Thurday, Jul 20 at 5:30pm

Here's a trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2R7O2IlndM

Hope to see you there!

June Film Club #2

 Our second film in our Summer Series is The Royal Tenenbaums.

The Royal Tenenbaums is a 2001 American comedy-drama film directed by Wes Anderson and co-written with Owen Wilson. It stars Danny Glover, Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Bill Murray, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, and Owen Wilson. Ostensibly based on a nonexistent novel, and told with a narrative influenced by the writing of J.D. Salinger, it follows the lives of three gifted siblings who experience great success in youth, and even greater disappointment and failure in adulthood. The children's eccentric father, Royal Tenenbaum (Hackman), leaves them in their adolescent years and returns to them after they have grown, falsely claiming he has a terminal illness. He works on reconciling with his children and ex-wife (Huston). With a variety of influences, including Louis Malle's 1963 film The Fire Within and Orson Welles' 1942 The Magnificent Ambersons, the story involves themes of the dysfunctional family, lost greatness, and redemption. An absurdist and ironic sense of humor pervades the film.

The film was received positively, it currently holds a fresh rating of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert gave it 3.5/4 stars saying this in his review, "One of the pleasures of the movie is the way it keeps us a little uncertain about how we should be reacting. It's like a guy who seems to be putting you on, and then suddenly reveals himself as sincere, so you're stranded our there with an inappropriate smirk. you can see this quality on screen in a lot of Owen Wilson's roles-in the half-kidding, half-serious way he finds out just how far he can push people. The Royal Tenenbaums is a heart profoundly silly, and loving. It stands in amazement as the Tenebaums and their extended family unveil on strategy after another to get attention, carve out space, and find love.  It doesn't mock their efforts, dysfunctional as they are, because it understands them-and sympathizes."

We will be meeting Thursday, June 29 at 5:30 pm

Here's a trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DNAI9bhBFU&t=25s

Hope to see you there!

June Film Club #1

Our first film of our Wes Anderson Summer Series is Rushmore.

Rushmore is a 1998 American comedy film directed by Wes Anderson about an eccentric teenager named Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman in his film debut), his friendship with rich industrialist Herman Blume (Bill Murray), and their shared affection for elementary school teacher Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams). The film was co-written by Anderson and Owen Wilson.

The film had a positive reception among film critics. The film helped launch the careers of Wes Anderson and Schwartzman while establishing a "second career" for Murray as a respected actor in independent cinema. It currently holds a 90% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and Roger Ebert gave the film 2.5/4 stars saying this in his review, "Anderson and Wilson are good offbeat filmmakers. They fill the corners of their story with nice touches, like the details of Max's wildly overambitious stage production of "Serpico". But their film seems town between conflicting possibilities: It's structured like a comedy, but there are undertones of darker themes, and I almost wish they'd allowed the plot to lead them into those shadows. The Max Fischer they give us is going to grow up into Benjamin Braddock. But there is an unrealized Max who would have become Charles Foster Kane."

We will be meeting Thursday, June 22nd at 5:30 pm

Here's a trailer:

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

Hope to see you there!

Film Club Summer Series: Directed by Wes Anderson

 Hey everyone! Summertime is here and in keeping with Film Club tradition, we have a new summer series. This summer we will be doing another Director Spotlight (it's been a few years since we've done that), and our highlighted director is Wes Anderson.

Like our previous Summer Series we will have 2 films a month for the months of June, July, and August. I will be out of town for one of the weeks of June, so, we'll have to flex the schedule a bit, but we'll make it work.

(This post will have a list of all the films we will be watching, but I'll have individual posts for each month as well as booklets here in the building.)

Wesley Wales Anderson (born May 1, 1969) is an American filmmaker. His films are known for their eccentricity and unique visual and narrative styles. They often contain themes of grief, loss of innocence, and dysfunctional families. Cited by some critics as a modern day example of the work of an auteur, three of Anderson's films have appeared in BBC Culture's 2016 poll of the greatest films since 2000.

He gained acclaim for his early work Bottle Rocket (1996), and Rushmore (1998). During this time, he often collaborated with Luke Wilson and Owen Wilson and founded his production company American Empirical Pictures, which he currently runs. He then received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Royal Tenenbaums (2001). His next films included The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), and his first stop motion film, Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) for which he received an Academy award for Best Animated Feature nomination, and then Moonrise Kingdom (2012) earning his second Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay nomination.

With Anderson's film The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), he received his first Academy Award nominations for Best Director and Best Picture, and won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture and the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay. The next films included his second stop motion film Isle of Dogs (2018), and The French Dispatch (2021). His next film, Asteroid City, is slated for release in June, 2023.

Anderson's cinematic influences include Pedro Almodóvar, Satyajit Ray, Hal Ashby, and Roman Polanski.

Anderson has chosen to direct mostly fast paced comedies marked by more serious or melancholic elements, with themes often centered on grief, loss of innocence, dysfunctional families, parental abandonment, adultery, sibling rivalry and unlikely friendships. The plots of his movies often feature thefts and unexpected disappearances, with a tendency to borrow liberally from the caper genre.

Anderson has been noted for extensive use of flat space camera moves, symmetrical compositions, knolling, snap-zooms, slow motion walking shots, a deliberately limited color palette, and handmade art direction often utilizing miniatures. These stylistic choices give his movies a highly distinctive quality that has provoked much discussion, critical study, supercuts, mash ups, and parody. Many writers, critics, and even Anderson himself, have commented that this gives his movies the feel of being "self-contained worlds," or a "scale model household". According to Jess Fox Mayshark, his films have a "baroque pop bent that is not realist, surrealist or magic realist," but rather might be described as "fabulist".

Film Schedule

(click title to view trailer)

June

6/22-Rushmore

6/29-The Royal Tenenbaums

July

7/20-The Darjeeling Limited

7/27-The Fantastic Mr. Fox

August

8/24-Moonrise Kingdom

8/31-The Grand Budapest Hotel

May Film Club

Hello everyone! For the month of May I've decided to show a film by the incomparable Coen Brothers. I thought I'd show one that doesn't get as much attention as some of their others. So, we will be watching The Man Who Wasn't There by Joel and Ethan Coen.

 The Man Who Wasn't There is a 2001 American epic satirical crime film written, directed, and produced by Joel and Ethan Coen. It stars Billy Bob Thornton, Frances McDormand, Michael Badalucco, Richard Jenkins, Scarlett Johansson, Jon Polito, Tony Shalhoub, and James Gandolfini. The film is set in 1949 and tells the story of Ed Crane, a withdrawn barber who leads an ordinary life in a small California town with his wife, who he suspects is having an affair with her boss. Crane's situation changes when a stranger comes to the barbershop and offers him the opportunity to join him as a partner in a promising new business, in exchange for an investment of ten thousand dollars. Drawn to the idea, Crane plans to blackmail his wife's lover for the money. The film is in black and white and employs voiceover narration, honoring classic film noir.

The film received positive critical review. It holds a certified fresh rating of 81% on Rotten Tomatoes, and Roger Ebert gave it 3/4 stars saying this in his review, "The Coen Brothers' The Man Who Wasn't There is shot in black and white so elegantly, it reminds us of a 1940s station wagon, chrome, wood, leather and steel all burnished to a contented glow. Its star performance by Billy Bob Thornton is a study in sad-eyed, mournful chain-smoking, the portrait of a man so trapped by life he wants to scream. The Man Who Wasn't There is so assured and perceptive in its style, so loving, so intensely right, that if you can receive it on that frequency, the film is like a voluptuous feast. Yes, it might easily have been shorter, but then it would not have been this film, or necessarily a better one. If the Coens have taken two hours to do what hardly anyone else could do at all, isn't it churlish to ask why they didn't take less time to do what everyone can do?"

We will be meeting Thursday, May 25th at 5:30 pm

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjO8u_9CqXI

Hope to see you there!

April Film Club

 Hey everyone, April is my birthday month so I generally just show one of my favorite movies, and for this time around we're going to watch James Gray's spectacular Ad Astra.

Ad Astra (Latin for "To the Stars") is a 2019 American psychological science fiction adventure drama film co-produced, co-written, and directed by James Gray. Starring Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler and Donald Sutherland, it follows an astronaut who ventures into space in search of his lost father, whose obsessive quest to discover intelligent life at all costs threatens the Solar System and all life on Earth.

The film received positive reviews and holds a certified fresh rating of 83% on Rotten Tomatoes and Brian Tallerico, writing for Rogerebert.com, gave it 4/4 stars saying this in his review, "There have been numerous sci-fi films about people who had to go to the reaches of space to find truths within themselves but none quite like James Gray's masterful 'Ad Astra.' Thematically dense and visually sumptuous, 'Ad Astra' may not work for those seeking an action/adventure thrill ride, but it works wonders below the surface, serving as an examination of masculinity, a commentary on how we become our fathers, and can even be read as a search for an absent God. This is rare, nuanced storytelling, anchored by one of Brad Pitt's career best performances and remarkable technical elements on every level. It's a special film."

We will be meeting Thursday, April 27th at 5:30pm.

Here's the trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6AaSMfXHbA

Hope to see you there!