Movie Intelligence
Following are the films currently showing in our region, listed in order of their Metacritic score.* For a synopsis of the film and excerpts from the reviews that led to the score, click on the Metascore next to the film title. For show times, click on the theater name in the Movie Theaters directory at right.
Metascore/film title/(theaters)
98 Metropolis (TSL)**
95 Days of Heaven (Clark)
87 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (Beacon, Hudson Movieplex)
85 The Tree of Life (Spectrum)
82 The Trip (Spectrum)
81 Midnight in Paris (Spectrum)
80 Le Quattro Volte (Upstate)
78 The Guard (Upstate)
75 Tabloid (Crandell, Little Cinema)
72 Terri (Spectrum)
68 Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Bank Street, Beacon, Cinerom, Fairview, Lyceum, Regal Berkshire, Roosevelt)
68 Crazy, Stupid, Love (Beacon, Crandell, Spectrum, Triplex)
64 Fright Night (Bank Street, Beacon, Cinerom, Hudson Movieplex, Lyceum, Regal Berkshire, Roosevelt)
62 The Help (Bank Street, Bantam, Beacon, Cinerom, Fairview, Images, Lyceum, Moviehouse, Regal Berkshire, Roosevelt, Spectrum, Triplex)
61 Our Idiot Brother (Beacon, Cinerom, Hudson Movieplex, Lyceum, Regal Berkshire, Roosevelt, Spectrum)
59 The Tree (TSL)
58 Sarah’s Key (Cinerom, Little Cinema, Moviehouse, Spectrum, Triplex, Upstate)
55 Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (Hudson Movieplex, Regal Berkshire)
50 Final Destination 5 (Beacon, Hudson Movieplex, Roosevelt)
48 30 Minutes or Less (Hudson Movieplex, Regal Berkshire)
48 Glee: the 3-D Concert Movie (Hudson Movieplex)
48 One Day (Bantam, Cinerom, Lyceum, Moviehouse, Regal Berkshire, Spectrum, Triplex)
47 Colombiana (Fairview, Lyceum, Regal Berkshire, Roosevelt)
37 Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (Bank Street, Hudson Movieplex, Lyceum, Regal Berkshire, Roosevelt)
37 Conan the Barbarian (Hudson Movieplex, Regal Berkshire)
30 The Smurfs (Beacon, Hudson Movieplex, Regal Berkshire, Roosevelt)
*Metacritic is a site that weighs film reviews from dozens of sources, averaging the results to achieve a score—the closer to 100, the more positive the reviews.
**Free
Unscored
The Debt (Spectrum, Triplex)
Ken Kesey’s Search for a Kool Place (TSL)
Pruitt-Igoe Myth (TSL)
The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (PS/21)**
Berkshire Jewish Film Festival
Metropolitan Opera Live on HD Tickets: Met Members/August 19, General Public/August 29 (Bardavon, Beacon, Clark, Mahaiwe, TSL)
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 08/25/11 at 08:14 AM • Permalink
Shorts: A Filmmaking Roundtable and A Juried Contest for Young Filmmakers
The Columbia Land Conservancy and The Chatham Film Club are seeking entries for a juried competition. Filmmakers 16 to 25 are invited to submit original shorts (max. 30 minutes) about land conservation, agriculture, land-use planning, environmental education, or outdoor recreation, all aspect of the Conservancy’s work. A jury of filmmakers, conservationists, and arts professionals will select the winning film, which will be shown in October at the FilmColumbia Festival. The winning filmmaker will receive a cash prize. All entries must be submitted in DVD format to the Chatham Film Club before August 1.
IS183 Art School, in collaboration with the Berkshire Film and Media Commission, is hosting a series of discussions about the process of filmmaking with industry professionals on Tuesdays, 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m., July 26 and August 2. Admission/free/. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 07/06/11 at 08:46 AM • Permalink
Crandell Celebrates Anniversary with Special Screenings
This weekend, the Chatham Film Club, which bought Chatham’s historic Crandell Theatre last year, is celebrating its one-year anniversary as owners with a weekend of special movie events, including two rarely seen Buster Keaton silent films, with live musical accompaniment, and the local premiere of Project Nim, a documentary by the makers of the 2009 Oscar-winner, Man on Wire. Their new film was inspired by a book, Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human by Spencertown author Elizabeth Hess.
On Saturday night, the Crandell will show Buster Keaton’s 1926 classic silent film, The General, which premiered the same year the Crandell opened, along with a second short silent film from 1927 called Dog Shy. Both films will have live piano accompaniment by Bernie Anderson, one of a handful of pianists trained to accompany showings of silent movies.
On Sunday afternoon, the Film Club will host another special event, the local premiere of Project Nim, a documentary directed by James Marsh, whose last film, the riveting Man on Wire won the Oscar for Best Documentary in 2009. Marsh’s new film explores the life of a chimpanzee called Nim Chimpsky, who was raised in a New York City townhouse during the 1970s by the LaFarge family, who taught him American Sign Language as part of an experiment to prove that language is not exclusive to human beings.
Director Marsh interviewed with a daughter of that family, Stephanie LaFarge, as well as many others whose lives crossed paths with Nim in his remaining years.
Elizabeth Hess, author of the book that inspired the documentary, served as a consultant on the film. Following the screening, she will chair a panel discussion. Other panelists include Joyce Butler of Great Barrington, MA, a key figure in his life during Nim’s New York years; Bill Tynan, also now living in Great Barrington, who, as a psychology student at Columbia University, participated in the 1970s language study; and Bob Ingersoll, who met and worked with Nim after the chimp retired to Oklahoma.
Project Nim opened the 2011 Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews, one of which dubbed it “the first great documentary of the year.”
Buster Keaton Double Feature
Crandell Theatre, Chatham
Saturday July 9th, 7 p.m.
Admission/flexible (generosity encouraged, as proceeds go toward on-going restoration)
Project Nim
Sunday, June 10, 2 p.m.
Admission/$10
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 06/29/11 at 06:06 PM • Permalink
BIFF and Pittsfield Honor Native Kent Jones
This weekend, June 2 through June 5, the Sixth Annual Berkshire International Film Festival (BIFF), will host screenings in theaters in Great Barrington and Pittsfield. In addition to some 70 independent feature films, documentaries and shorts from 15 countries, the festival includes Q&A sessions and panel discussions with filmmakers. Awards for the Next Great Filmmaker will be presented, and there will be Juried Prizes for narrative and documentary films.
This year, BIFF also honors area resident and Special F/X wizard Douglas Trumbull, a tribute that will include an exclusive screening of Tree of Life, Terrence Malick’s latest film, which recently won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Trumbull, a board member of the Berkshire Film and Media Commission, served as Visual Effects Advisor on the 2011 film, which stars Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, and Jessica Chastain.
On Saturday, June 4, at 1:30 p.m., Pittsfield native Kent Jones (right), a renowned film critic and preservationist, will screen and discuss his latest film collaboration with Martin Scorsese, A Letter to Elia. Past editor of Film Comment and former programmer of Manhattan’s Lincoln Center Film Society and the Walter Reade Theater, Jones is Executive Director of the World Cinema Foundation, as well as the author of several collections of film criticism, including Physical Evidence.
A Letter to Elia explores Scorsese’s relationship to the work of controversial director Elia Kazan, who made such seminal films as On the Waterfront, East of Eden, and A Streetcar Named Desire, and who became notorious for naming names during the McCarthy era’s House Committee on Un-American Activities hearings. Jones will screen the hour-long documentary on June 4 at 1:30 p.m. at the Beacon Cinema. It will be followed by a Q&A and a screening of Kazan’s 1960 film, Wild River.
Kent Jones spoke to RI correspondent Robyn Perry by phone this Memorial Day weekend, just after learning that Pittsfield Mayor James M. Ruberto will present him with the key to the city in a ceremony on June 3, at the Beacon Theatre.
R.P.: In the introduction to your book, Physical Evidence, you mention that you began your career at five cinemas in Pittsfield.
K.J.: People went to movies more than they do now. There were no multiplexes; there were five theaters up and down North Street. My mom was interested in newer movies—Midnight Cowboy, Five Easy Pieces.
When I got to be twelve, thirteen, there was a window that opened, between 1967 and about 1983, when a lot of very adventurous work was possible. To me the movie that was the death knell for that period was Ghostbusters. Everyone talks about Star Wars and Rocky, but when Ghostbusters came along…it’s a really funny movie, but it was a formula that people stuck to, and they’ve been milking it dry for the last thirty years. Movies became disposable, so now it doesn’t really matter what people think of The Hangover, Part II. It doesn’t matter what anybody writes about it.
Cabaret was a movie that made a huge impression on me. I remember seeing A Woman Under the Influence by Cassavetes on North Street. Truffaut, Casanova by Fellini, Marty [Scorsese]’s movies – I saw Mean Streets at the Paris Cinema. Hangover Part II was as unthinkable then as Chinatown is now.
RP: Was there a lot of discourse around the movies? Was everybody talking about them, or were you alone among your peers?
K.J.: There certainly weren’t a lot of people who were interested in Bogart movies; a few had fathers who were young when Bogart was new. Bogart was very important in those days for two different reasons. First, there was the nostalgia factor, as in the Woody Allen movie Play It Again, Sam, and second, Bogart was a counter-culture hero on college campuses. The scene in Casablanca when Ingrid Bergman walks back in, when his face seems to crumble—that kind of privately-held pain—it was something that was true of my father. That’s why cinema’s important, because in cinema you read peoples’ body language; you read what they’re not speaking.
RP Do you think you were looking for your father in movies? [The late Dana Jones, was WBRK radio’s “Voice of the Berkshires.”]
KJ: Oh yeah. I mean, I saw them with him, but yes, I was. Early thirties movies, to me, it’s like getting a glimpse of my grandparents.
RP How did you meet Scorsese?
KJ: A friend of mine’s girlfriend’s roommate—that’s how tentative it was—was working in his office, and they needed help with the video archive. Back in those days, Scorsese would tape everything on TV, buy everything that was available commercially on tape, and turn it into DVDs. When I went through the TV Guide, I knew exactly what he would and wouldn’t want, so I was able to cut through a lot. I knew film history; we had the same references.
RP How is your work in film restoration related to Letter to Elia, which you co-directed with Scorsese?
KJ: They’re not really related except for a powerful connection to the idea of film history. This is not a movie for film scholars, but for 16 year-olds living in Akron, Ohio, who have extremely limited access to movies, but an inkling of interest. Both of us would be really pleased if people saw it and thought, Gee, I’d like to see East of Eden and Wild River.
R.P. It’s surprising to see the list of Kazan’s accomplishments.
K.J. People get sidetracked by the milestones, and the HUAC testimony, and somehow lose track of “Oh, yeah, he’s the guy who changed American acting and invented The Actor’s Studio.” Staggering, when you think about it.
Our film is basically a back-and-forth between Scorsese and Kazan, through the way it’s edited; it’s Scorsese’s way of telling Kazan, after he’s gone, how much he and his films meant to him. Over a clip of Wild River, Scorsese says that there’s work you see that becomes your standard, and it’s not even conscious. I was interviewing Woody Allen the other day, and for him it was Ingmar Bergman. It depends on what you see and when. I’m sure Allen saw The Seventh Seal when it came out, in 1955.
R.P.: You believe artistic influence is about timing?
K.J.: I think it’s very much about timing, and that’s why it’s sad to think…although, anybody who gets a glimmer of interest in cinema is not going to content themselves with watching Hangover Part II, they’ll seek out stuff. It’s great that Netflix exists…it’s great that there’s a film festival in the Berkshires now, because that’s what’s needed to keep cinema alive: a film festival allows you to have a sense of community.
RP: What are plans for Letter to Elia beyond the Berkshire International Film Festival?
KJ: The film premiered at The Venice International Film Festival and at Telluride, where I was with it. It was on American Masters, and it actually won a Peabody. I was at the ceremony last week. Marty couldn’t go because he was getting a degree at Yale! And it’s part of a big box set of Kazan’s work that Fox put out. We didn’t make the film for American Masters or for the Fox set, we just made it, and we made it just the running time we wanted it to be, an hour, almost on the dot. —Robyn Perry
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 05/25/11 at 11:16 AM • Permalink
Project Native Film Festival
Project Native, the only native plant nursery and native landscape restoration specialists in our region, are also becoming environmental health activists. This weekend, to celebrate their 10th anniversary, they will be hosting a film festival in Great Barrington that kicks off at 10 a.m. on Sunday at the Triplex theater with a screening of Flow, Irena Salina’s award-winning documentary about the burgeoning cartel that is staking claim to the world’s most precious natural resource, water. Three restaurants, Allium, Rubi’s, and The Well are hosting panel discussions. For a complete schedule of events, click below.
Project Native Film Festival
Sunday, March 27, 10 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Great Barrington
Admission/free
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 03/16/11 at 07:36 AM • Permalink
