Third Eye Film Series

Fall 2010 Season

brinmobile — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:05:41 +0000

The 2010 Fall season of the 3rd Eye Film Series begins on September 13th. All films are shown at 7 p.m. Here is the complete lineup:

Monday, Sept. 13th: Get Low

Directed by Aaron Schneider, and starring Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek, Lucas Black and Gerald McRaney

Robert Duvall stars in this American folktale about pain, guilt, loss and loneliness. A recluse living in the Tennessee backwoods decides it is time to die and, more importantly, to have a funeral party while he’s still alive. So he approaches the local funeral director about organizing a wake for his friends and enemies in his shack in the woods. An audience favourite at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival.

Monday, Oct. 11th: Winter’s Bone

Directed by Debra Granik, and starring Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes and Dale Dickey

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Feature at the Sundance Film Festival, Winter’s Bone follows seventeen-year old Ree Dolly in her struggle with poverty, adult responsibility and community traditions. It is also a quest narrative, as Ree embarks on a cross-country journey in pursuit of her dead-beat dad—and her own emancipation.

Monday, Nov. 8th: The Kids Are All Right

Directed by Lisa Cholodenko, and starring Annette Benning, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Mia Wasikowska

Paying close attention to the nuances of everyday family life, this film centres on the mid-life parenting crisis of a lesbian couple whose lives are thrown upside down when the anonymous sperm donor and ‘father’ of their two teenaged children suddenly enters their lives. With an intelligent script and strong comic performances from Annette Bening, Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Aright has garnered wide critical acclaim.

Monday, Dec. 13th: Force of Nature: The David Suzuki Movie

Directed by Sturla Gunnarsson

Suzuki is an iconic figure of Canadian documentary-film-making. In his documentary Gunnarson plays on Suzuki’s familiar public role by moving between a sold-out speaking engagement in Vancouver, where Suzuki is speaking about climate change, and a narrative about Suzuki the private figure. The film is a fitting tribute to a Canadian public intellectual, now in his seventy-fifth year.

Winter 2010 Season

brinmobile — Wed, 05 May 2010 20:05:27 +0000

Here is the lineup for the 2010 Winter/Spring Season:

Capitalism: A Love Story

January 11th
Capitalism: A Love Story
Directed by Michael Moore
(USA, 2009)

In his latest film, Michael Moore asks what price America pays for its love of capitalism. As financial institutions run amok and families lose their savings, the American dream is looking more like a nightmare. Moore takes us into the lives of ordinary people whose worlds have been turned upside down by the economy, and goes looking for explanations, paying careful attention to the 2008 bank bailout. Was this really the best hope for the US? More info

An Education

February 8th
An Education
Directed by Lone Scherfig
(UK 2009)

Winner of the audience award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, this collaboration between Danish director Lone Scherfig and British screenwriter and novelist Nick Hornby is truly impeccable. Set in England in the early sixties, An Education is a nuanced coming-of-age narrative about an ambitious student named Jenny who is off to Oxford to prep for university when she meets a dashing, older man who takes her off course. Despite its familiar plot-line, the film offers a fresh and compelling look at its characters and their situation. More info

A Serious Man

March 8th
A Serious Man
by Joel and Ethan Coen
(USA, 2009)

Dry, hilarious and gloriously absurd, A Serious Man takes viewers back to the Coen brothers’ home turf of Minnesota. It’s 1967 and Larry Gopnik wants to be taken seriously. His children steal from him, his wife pesters him for a divorce, his brother has annexed his couch and the family bathroom, and a disgruntled student threatens to sabotage his reputation as he goes up for tenure at his college. Desperately clinging to his sanity, Larry seeks counsel from the wise and elusive Rabbi Nachtner. The Coen brothers at their best. More info

Good Hair

April 12th
Good Hair
Directed by Jeff Stilson
(USA 2009)

Comedian Chris Rock serves as guide in this investigative documentary about the politics and economics of “good” hair in African America. Rock asks tough, smart questions as he goes from salon to street corner to industrial giant. Aided by celebrities and ordinary people, he aims to bring common sense to an arena ruled by a complicated history and a certain amount of vanity. He uncovers a hidden economy that stretches from black neighbourhoods in the US to the businesses that harvest women’s hair in India to the Korean-American brokers who sell this straight hair to African-American women so they can look more European. It’s a black thing, but everybody’s involved. More info

Screenings are at 7 pm every second Monday of each month at the Empire Capitol Theatre (Main Street, Antigonish).

Fall 2009 Season

brinmobile — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:12:21 +0000

Sept. 14, 2009 — Food, Inc. (Robert Kenner)

Oct. 12, 2009 — Away We Go (Sam Mendes)

Nov. 9, 2009 — The Damned United (Tom Hooper)

Dec. 14, 2009 — Goodbye Solo (Ramin Bahrani)

Sept. 14, 2009 — FOOD, INC.

Director: Robert Kenner
With: Eric Schlosser, Michael Pollan
Running Time: 94 minutes
Country: USA
Year: 2009
Language: English
Distributor: Alliance Films

You are what you eat – a simple expression that bears scary implications as you watch Food, Inc. Director Robert Kenner draws upon the searing reportage of authors Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) to explore how modern developments in food production pose grave risks to our health and environment.

These writers aren’t radicals or even vegetarians (Schlosser admits that his favourite meal is a hamburger and fries), but they are crusaders when it comes to exposing problems and naming offenders. The documentary never resorts to stunts to make its point – just solid journalism, including hidden cameras that reveal unseemly practices.

Food, Inc. explains how unfettered corporations exploited laws and subsidies to create shocking monopolies. In one example, we learn how the food conglomerate Monsanto expanded its control over soybeans from two per cent of the American market to ninety per cent in the last dozen years.

Monsanto has the legal muscle of a Supreme Court decision, enabling it to litigate aggressively against small farmers; the decision was written by Justice Clarence Thomas, who happens to be a former Monsanto lawyer.

In opposition to these powerful interests are other interviewed sources, from a Republican mother who lost her two-year-old son to E. coli poisoning, to the founder of Stonyfield Farm Organic Yogurt, who flout s conventional left-wing dogma by seeing a positive side to Walmart.

The faces and landscapes featured in this film are beautifully photographed by cinematographer Richard Pearce. Two decades ago, he directed the drama Country, starring Sam Shepard and Jessica Lange, a film that heralded the decline of the family farm. Now his camera captures the industry that replaced that era. Along the way, we hear stories of heartbreak and outrage, but the film carefully channels these emotions toward opportunities for activism. Watching Food, Inc. gives you a strong appetite for better meals.

“With a constituency limited to anyone who eats, Food, Inc. is a civilized horror movie for the socially conscious, the nutritionally curious and the hungry.” – John Anderson, Variety

Oct. 12, 2009 — AWAY WE GO

Director: Sam Mendes
Cast: Maya Rudolph, John Krasinski, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jeff Daniels, Catherine O’Hara, Allison Janney
Running Time: 93 minutes
Country: USA
Year: 2009
Language: English
Distributor: Alliance Films

It was only a matter of time before acclaimed theatre and film director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road) made a road movie, and now the Oscar®-winning director takes us on an intimate ride across the continent with a charming pair of parents-to-be.

Saturday Night Live’s Maya Rudolph (A Prairie Home Companion) plays Veronica, a pregnant woman who is entering her final trimester when her nerdy but affable partner, Burt (John Krasinski, The Office, Shrek the Third), takes her for dinner with his parents (hilariously played by screen icons Jeff Daniels and Catherine O’Hara). Burt’s parents quickly inform the young couple of their sudden decision to move to Belgium, thereby giving Burt and Veronica no practical reason to remain in the neighbourhood.

With friends and relatives beckoning from across the country, they leave their tiny house and hit the road to find an ideal place to raise their child. So begins the search for a new home, and so begins our continental tour of North America.

As the pair connects with old friends and workmates in cities from Phoenix to Montreal, Mendes works in some great performances from the talented cast he has accrued. Maggie Gyllenhaal’s turn as a narcissistic, uber-feminist new-age professor named simply LN is hilarious, while Josh Hamilton and Allison Janney also have great fun with Vendela Vida and Dave Eggers’s laugh-a-minute script. But it is the way Rudolph and Krasinski subtly play off each other that is the movie’s real draw. Veronica and Burt have a serious dilemma, and the way they deal with the good and bad examples of parenting they witness during their travels invests us more fully in their relationship.

Like any parents, they want what is best for their baby, and through the amazing performances of Rudolph and Krasinski, so do we. They elevate an already extremely competent indie comedy to something with more depth.

There is powerful chemistry here, and the warmth these two generate onscreen is palpable.

“Terrific performances make this tender… film worth the trip.” – Michael Rechtshaffer, Hollywood Reporter

Nov. 9, 2009 — THE DAMNED UNITED

Director: Tom Hooper
Cast: Michael Sheen, Timothy Spall, Colm Meaney, Jim Broadbent
Running Time: 97 minutes
Country: United Kingdom
Year: 2009
Language: English
Distributor: Mongrel Media

Based on a novel by David Peace, The Damned United is an affectionate, tongue-in-cheek homage to English football in the 1970s. Reuniting the stellar partnership of screenwriter Peter Morgan and star Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon, The Queen), the film is a welcome alternative to the standard inspirational sports biopic and can most definitely be enjoyed without knowledge of the ins and outs of English football.

Set in 1974, The Damned United follows former England player Brian Clough (Michael Sheen) – now revered as one of the greatest English football managers – and his brief 44-day tenure as coach of the Leeds United football club. Prior to this posting, he successfully presided over Derby, lifting the club to new heights with the aid of his indispensable right-hand man, Peter Taylor (Timothy Spall, Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman), and the belief that the beautiful game “must be played beautifully.” Clough takes over Leeds from his rival Don Revie (Colm Meaney, Intermission), who was managing a squad that played more brutally than beautifully, and soon creates plenty of friction both on and off the pitch with his abrasive style.

Using a flashback structure, The Damned United’s careful attention to period detail and clever use of archival footage offers a compelling snapshot of another era. And Michael Sheen, much like his previous transformations in The Queen and Frost/Nixon, superbly channels the arrogance of a manager who took on the football establishment to shape a winning team.

Sharp, funny and thoroughly entertaining, The Damned United presents a compelling and passionate look at the near-religious fervour inspired by the beautiful game.

“Offering just enough football to satisfy the fans in the stands, The Damned United is also a pleasingly high-quality British drama with some terrific performances.” – Fionnuala Halligan, Screen International

Dec. 14 — GOODBYE SOLO

Director: Ramin Bahrani
Cast: Souléymane Sy Savané, Red West, Diana Franco Galindo
Running Time: 91 minutes
Country: USA
Year: 2009
Language: English
Distributor: E1 Entertainment

An audience favourite at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival®, Goodbye Solo is a rare cinematic gem. Even within the idiosyncratic world of American independent cinema, its director, Ramin Bahrani, stands out. Much like his earlier works, the highly lauded Man Push Cart and Chop Shop, Bahrani’s third feature, Goodbye Solo, uses perfectly cast actors and concentrates the action in a specific geographical place.

However, Goodbye Solo exhibits an artistic growth and thematic maturation, yielding an unusually rewarding experience for the viewer.

Followers of Bahrani’s work know that he immerses us into the lives of his characters with little ceremony, and Goodbye Solo is no different. In the first moment of the film , we find ourselves inside a cab driven by Solo (Souléymane Sy Savané), a Senegalese taxi driver living in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His passenger is seventy-year-old William (Red West), who books Solo to pick him up again two weeks hence for a long drive to a faraway mountaintop. Over the course of their negotiation, Solo comes to understand that William has a tragic plan for the end of his trip, and decides to befriend the man and dissuade him from his goal.

Solo is one of the most remarkable characters in recent cinema. He is good through and through, and lacks the North American self-consciousness about relationships. He believes that everyone should be engaged and concerned with one another. This “it takes a village” approach to life is anathema to William, who harbours pain, secrets and a desire for privacy, all of which keep him at odds with Solo.

Given the freshness and candour of the dialogue, it is hard to believe that Goodbye Solo followed a script. Much credit should be given to co-writers Bahrani and Bahareh Azimi for the creation of a story so graciously nuanced and complex. As William, West (best known as part of Elvis Presley’s Memphis Mafia) asks little of us but to witness, and as Solo, Savané shows us shadow, light, love and manhood with a natural charisma that fills the screen. With the aid of these extraordinary performances, Bahrani succeeds in his ultimate goal: delving deeply into the lives of his characters, he shows us ourselves.

“Carefully directed and convincingly acted… This film’s unsettling conclusions will likely haunt you long after other, slicker films have faded from view” – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times