It seems scores of folks (from the First Lady on) have been talking up this drama mixed with fantasy. Beasts of the Southern Wild has been nominated for four Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and–the youngest nominee so far for–Best Actress). Set in a remote corner of the Louisiana bayou, this is the story of
Hushpuppy, played with feral eloquence by 6-year-old Quvenzhané Wallis. When not warming up cat food for dinner—lighting the stove with a blowtorch!—the dandelion-haired heroine ministers to her pig, chickens and rough-but-loving father, Wink (Dwight Henry—a New Orleans baker by trade), who’s grievously ill.
Alone in her tumbledown trailer, Hushpuppy ponders the nature of time and her place in the cosmos. “The whole universe depends on everything fittin’ together just right,” she says. Her fervent imagination fills the screen with magic, from the motes glowing in the air to visions of aurochs, fearsome prehistoric behemoths that will reclaim the earth as ice caps melt. She’s convinced that animals and her absent mother—who she’s told “swam away” years earlier—talk to her, sometimes in code.
Zeitlin auditioned several thousand Gulf Coast girls for the role of Hushpuppy, initially conceived as age 9 to 12. “Of the 20 callbacks, half were white,” he recalls. Wallis, who’s black, showed up “looking like a warrior. She wasn’t exactly how we had imagined the character, but her spirit was the spirit of the movie.”
Though Wallis had never acted before, she handled direction and her director like an old pro. After one take, Zeitlin sidled up to her and said, “That was good. I just need a little more subtlety.” Wallis put him in his place. “I said, ‘I’m 6 years old!’” she recalls. “‘Do you really think I know what subtlety means? Come on! Gimme a kid word!’”
This film screens on Wednesday, March 6 at 6:45 PM in the Community Room of the Oswego Public Library (120 East 2nd Street). The event is free and open to all and, as always, we’ll follow the film with a discussion. For more information on the film, please visit its website: http://www.foxsearchlight.com/beastsofthesouthernwild/
Okay, so we’re taking a break from the offbeat holiday fare for a look back at an little-seen gem from director Mitchell Leisen and writer Preston Sturges: Remember the Night. The 1940 romantic comedy/drama paired Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray (so memorably seen starring together in Double Indemnity). Stanwyck is a “hardboiled shoplifter faced with staying in jail over Christmas, but given bail by prosecuting attorney MacMurray and taken to visit his family for the holiday. Playing superbly on the personae of his leads, Leisen creates a movie of warmth and immense style” (Time Out Film Guide). The free screening is Wednesday, December 12 at 6:30 pm in the Community Room of the Oswego Public Library (120 East 2nd Street). The black & white film runs 94 minutes and a discussion will follow the screening.
Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck star in “Remember the Night”
The series that brings new independent films to communities across the mid-Atlantic, On Screen/In Person, continues Tuesday, October 9 at 7 PM with Amit Ashraf’s Runaway. The film tells the story of Babu, who has made it his life’s mission to find the men who seek to disappear in the crowds of Dhaka and return them to their families and villages. But Akbar is a man with powerful connections; Babu races to return him home before Akbar’s pursuer catches up. Director Amit Ashraf will be on hand to lead a question and answer session after the screening at the Oswego Cinema 7 (138 West 2nd Street, Oswego) Tickets are $7 (adults), $5 (seniors) and $3.50 (students). The series is made possible through the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts’ Regional Touring Program and is brought to Oswego through the SUNY Oswego Cinema & Screen Studies Department and ARTSwego (with support from Zurich Cinema as well as the Oswego Film Club and OFG).
From 2012: Friends With Kids; Jeff, Who Lives at Home; Margaret; Never Stand Still (doc); Rampart; Salmon Fishing in Yemen; The Secret World of Arrietty; We Need to Talk About Kevin
From 2011: The Artist; Being Elmo (doc); A Better Life; Carnage; Coriolanus; A Dangerous Method; The Elephant in the Room (doc); Everything Must Go; Hell and Back Again (doc); If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front (doc); Into the Abyss (doc); The Last Mountain (doc); Martha Marcy May Marlene; Melancholia; My Week With Marilyn; Project Nim (doc); Rejoice and Shout (doc); The Skin I Live In; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; Trollhunter; The Way; Young Adult
The On Screen/In Person film series is returning to Oswego for a new season. The first event is the screening of Gen Silent on Tuesday, September 25, featuring a discussion with director Stu Maddux after the film. The documentary asks six seniors in the LGBT community about the discrimination they face as they navigate the health/senior care system. How do they face the fear, isolation and bullying they face? Bestselling novelist Patricia Cornwell said, “Every single person should see this film…. It deserves an Oscar.” Please visit the film’s website: stumaddux.com/GEN_SILENT
The screening is at 7 p.m. at the Oswego Cinema (138 West 2nd Street). Tickets are $7 for adults, $5 for seniors, and $3.50 for students. Tickets for the entire series of six films are also available: $30 for adults, $22 for seniors, and $15 for students. Tickets are available at the Oswego Cinema box office of online at tickets.oswego.edu.
Formula One legend Ayrton Senna is the subject of the documentary that screens Monday 6/25
OFG is teaming up with the Oswego Public Library (OPL) for a new endeavor; Intersections: Screen + Page.
At the suggestion of librarian Edward Elsner, we’ll explore the life of the Brazilian Formula One driver Ayrton Senna (in the award-winning documentary Senna)–the hero of one of the main characters (a race car driver himself) in the bestselling novel by Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain. Everyone is invited to read the book in anticipation of the event Monday, June 25 in the Community Room of the Oswego Public Library (120 E 2nd St).
At 6:30 PM, we’ll screen Senna. Directed by Asif Kapadia, the documentary won the World Cinema Audience Award for Documentary Film at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Rated PG-13, the film runs 1 hour, 44 minutes.
After the screening, we’ll discuss both the film and the novel, exploring their common themes. The event is free and open to the public.
On Tuesday, April 17 at 7 pm, the On Screen/In Person documentary wraps up for this season with Milking the Rhino. Director David E. Simpson will be in attendance and lead a question and answer session after the screening at the Oswego Cinema 7 (138 West 2nd Street).
The Maasai tribe of Kenya and Namibia’s Himba, two of the oldest cattle cultures, are in the midst of upheaval. Emerging from a century of ‘white man conservation’ that turned their land into game reserves and fueled resentment towards wildlife, they are now vying for a piece of the wildlife-tourism pie. Charting the collision of ancient ways and Western expectations, the film tells intimate, hopeful, and heartbreaking stories of people facing deep cultural change.
Tickets are $7 (adults), $5 (seniors), and $3.50 (students)–available online at tickets.oswego.edu or at the theatre box office.
The On Screen/In Person documentary series continues with Proceed and Be Bold! at 7 pm Tuesday, March 27 at the Oswego Cinema (138 West 2nd Street). Director Laura Zinger will be on hand and will lead a talk-back after the screening. The film’s subject is Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. Once a middle class computer programmer, Kennedy is now known for his controversial posters and book art. The film follows Kennedy as his promotes his work in art galleries and meets the people who ‘understand him even better than he can,’ as he puts it, in an effort to learn about what causes him to create his charged works of art, and how people react to them. Tickets are $7, $5 for seniors, and $3.50 for students. Available at tickets.oswego.edu or at the theatre.
After sweeping the Oscar categories, The Artist comes to Oswego! Join us for a Night Out at the Movies for the 7:20 PM show Sunday, March 4 at the Oswego Cinema 7 and join us for a discussion (in the upper level lobby) after the screening.
Yes, here with more updates on what’s available at the Oswego Public Library and at its sister facilities in the North Country Library System (NCLS)! We screened Margin Call earlier this month; it’s available on DVD on the shelves at the Oswego Public Library as is one of last year’s Night Out features, Moneyball.
Here’s a rundown of some notable films from 2011 that are available in the NCLS system. (Italics indicates an OFG/Night Out screened film):
Beginners / A Better Life / Bobby Fischer Against the World (doc) / Buck (doc) / Contagion / The Debt / Drive / 50/50 / Hot Coffee (doc) / The Ides of March / Ingredients (doc) / Jane Eyre / Magic Trip (doc) / Margin Call/ Midnight in Paris / Moneyball / Page One: Inside the New York Times (doc) / Saint Misbehavin’ (doc) / Sarah’s Key / Tree of Life / Win Win
From 2010:
The American / Animal Kingdom / Babies (doc) / Beautiful Boy / Bhutto (doc) / Bill Cunningham New York (doc) / Biútiful / Black Swan / Blue Valentine / Cave of Forgotten Dreams (doc) / Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer (doc) / The Company Men / The Conspirator / Cyrus / Exit Through the Gift Shop(doc) / Fair Game /The Fighter / Gasland (doc) / The Ghost Writer / Greenberg / Green Zone / Inside Job (doc) / Jack Goes Boating / Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story (doc) / The Kids Are All Right / Kings of Pastry (doc) / The King’s Speech / Let Me In / Make No Little Plans: Daniel Burnham and the American City (doc) / Never Let Me Go / Night Catches Us / Of Gods and Men / 127 Hours / Phil Ochs: There But for Fortune (doc) / Please Give / Rabbit Hole / Restrepo (doc) / The Runaways / Scott Pilgrim vs the World / The Social Network / Temple Grandin / The Tillman Story (doc) / The Town / True Grit / Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives / Waiting for Superman (doc) / Waste Land (doc) / Winter’s Bone / You Don’t Know Jack
From 2009:
Amreeka / Antichrist / The Art of the Steal (doc) / Away We Go / Brief Interviews with Hideous Men / Bright Star / Brothers / Brothers at War (doc) / Capitalism: A Love Story (doc) / City Island / Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky / Cold Souls / Crazy Heart / An Education / Fantastic Mr. Fox / (500) Days of Summer / Five Minutes of Heaven / Get Low / The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest / The Girl Who Played With Fire / The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo / I Am Love / The Informant!/ In the Loop / It Might Get Loud (doc) / The Last Station / Last Train Home / The Limits of Control / Looking for Eric / Mary and Max / The Men Who Stare at Goats / The Messenger / Moon / The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (doc) / Mother and Child / No Greater Love (doc) / No One Knows About Persian Cats / Paper Heart / Precious / Reel Injun (doc) / The Road / The Secret of Kells / A Serious Man / A Single Man / Soundtrack for a Revolution (doc) / South of the Border (doc) / Speaking in Code (doc) / State of Play / Tetro / Thirst / A Town Called Panic / Up in the Air / Vanishing of the Bees (doc) / Waking Sleeping Beauty (doc) / When You’re Strange: A Film About the Doors (doc) / Where the Wild Things Are / The White Ribbon / World’s Greatest Dad / The Young Victoria / Youth in Revolt
The On Screen/In Person series continues with the screening of Concrete, Steel & Paint on Tuesday, February 14 at 7PM at the Oswego Cinema 7 (138 West 2nd Street). The film’s co-director, Cindy Burstein, will be at the event and take questions from the audience after the screening.
When men in a Pennsylvania state prison join with victims of crime to create a mural about healing, their views on punishment, remorse, and forgiveness collide. Finding consensus is not easy, but as participants move through the creative process, mistrust gives way to surprising moments of human contact and common purpose. This complex story raises important questions about crime, justice, and reconciliation–and dramatically illustrates how art can facilitate dialogue about difficult issues.
On Screen/In Person brings independent American films and their filmmakers to communities throughout the Mid-Atlantic; the series is presented here by ARTSwego, SUNY Oswego’s Cinema and Screen Studies Program with support from SUNY Oswego’s Film Club, Zurich Cinema, and OFG.
Tickets are $7 adults, $5 seniors, and $3.50 students.
OFG, along with the Economics Department of SUNY Oswego, will be screening the 2011 Wall Street drama Margin Call on Monday, February 20 at 7 PM in the SUNY Oswego Campus Center. After the screening, we’ll be discussing the film, the investment industry it depicts, and the aftermath of the financial crisis.
The first feature-length film of writer/director J.C. Chandor, the film’s impressive cast includes: Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Stanley Tucci, Zachary Quinto, Paul Bettany, Simon Baker, and Demi Moore.
As the movie opens, people at the firm are being summoned to a glass-walled conference room and politely told to clear out. Among the victims is an uncomplaining risk-management executive, Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci), who, leaving with nineteen years of his life in a cardboard box, passes a flash drive to Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto), one of the young analysts. “Be careful,” he says. Staying late on the trading floor, and plugging Dale’s numbers into standard volatility models, Sullivan quickly understands: if the mortgage-backed securities currently on the company’s books, which are heavily leveraged, decline in value by an additional twenty-five per cent, the company’s losses will be greater than its total market capitalization.
“Margin Call” is one of the strongest American films of the year and easily the best Wall Street movie ever made. It’s about corporate manners—the protocols of hierarchy, the rituals of power, and, most of all, the difficulty of confronting flagrant habits of speculation with truth. (David Denby, TheNew Yorker)
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2011/10/31/111031crci_cinema_denby#ixzz1losQy6AM
OFG, with ARTSwego, will host a free community event with Pakistani filmmaker Ayesha Khan on Wednesday, February 15 at 6 PM in the Community Room of the Oswego Public Library (120 East 2nd Street). We will screen the documentary Ms Khan produced, Made in Pakistan. The film focuses on the lives of four young professionals in Pakistan during the state of emergency under President Musharraf in 2007. The hour-long film won the Audience Choice Award for Best Documentary at the New York South Asian International Film Festival.
During the evening, guests will be able to sample some typical South Asian food as they view the film and discuss it informally. The event is free but guests are asked to register in advance by contacting artswego@oswego.edu or calling 315-312-4581.
Producer, director, and actress Ayesha Khan visits Oswego as part of Caravanserai: A place where cultures meet, connecting US audiences with artists from the Muslim world. ARTSwego is only of only five US arts groups chosen to host the 2011-12 Caravanserai season. The program is an initiative of Arts Midwest, with support from the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, South Arts, and the NEA. More information on Caravanserai and on Made in Pakistan is found at http://www.caravanserai-arts.org and http://www.oswego.edu/arts
Oh, of course we love the holiday movie classics…but sometimes you just need something a bit bracing to counter all the sweet that envelops us this time of year. With that in mind, we present the film Roger Ebert called a “rather brilliant lump of coal for your stocking hung by the fireside with care. How else to explain an R-rated Santa Claus origin story crossed with ‘The Thing’?”…Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale.
The unjolly Santa is this tale was inspired by from the Finnish version: a “pagan figure, named Joulupukki known for wearing goatskins and horns. But instead of giving presents, he demanded them in return for not causing trouble!” (BBC)
The film, from Finnish director Jalmari Helander, is a prequel of sorts to his celebrated Rare Export shorts. The film is in Finnish with subtitles and runs 84 minutes–and remember: it’s rated R. We’ll screen it and then discuss it starting at 7 PM in the Community Room of the Oswego Public Library. It’s free and all are welcome.
The next OFG event (sponsored with SUNY Oswego’s Civic Engagement coalition and Science Café ad hoc group) will be the documentary Forks Over Knives.
The 2011 documentary traces the separate journeys of two men, nutritional scientist T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., professor emeritus at Cornell University, and surgeon Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn of the Cleveland Clinic. Their work leads both men to focus on a plant-based diet as key to health, warding off—and dealing more effectively with—many of the diseases that afflict us. In an interview in The New York Times, Campbell noted, “We should not be relying on the idea that genes are determinants of our health. We should not be relying on the idea that nutrient supplementation is the way to get nutrition, because it’s not. I’m talking about whole, plant-based foods. The effect it produces is broad for treatment and prevention of a wide variety of ailments, from cancer to heart disease to diabetes.” In addition to giving the perspective of medical and health professionals, the film tells the stories of patients who are using whole food diets to help treat their chronic conditions. The film, written and directed by Lee Fulkerson, is rated PG and runs 90 minutes. The movie’s website is www.forksoverknives.com.
The free screening (open to the public) will be Wednesday, November 2 at 7 PM in the Community Room at the Oswego Public Libary (120 East Second Street). A discussion will follow the film.
More than half of the films that OFG has shown (or gone to see at the Oswego Cinema as our Nights Out at the Movies) are available on DVD from the North Country Library System. A total of 15 can be found at the Oswego Public Library; more than 40 are at one or more of the other libraries in the North Country system (which includes Jefferson, Lewis, Oswego, and St Lawrence counties)–including the film we screened last week, Of Gods and Men! (Some of these DVDs may be Blu-Ray only). To check on the availability of any of these (or to browse), please go to the online catalog you’ll find on the Oswego Public Library site (http://www.oswegopubliclibrary.org/) or the North County site (http://www.northcountrylibraries.org/
At the Oswego Public Library:
Akeelah and the Bee, American Blackout, Bride & Prejudice, The Cove, Crazy Heart, Enron: the Smartest Guys in the Room, The Forest for the Trees, He Died With a Felafel in His Hand, An Inconvenient Truth, Inside Job, Munich, Syriana, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Who’s Camus Anyway?, Winter’s Bone
At other libraries in the North Country Library System:
Aurora Borealis, Becoming Jane, Black Swan, Charlie Wilson’s War, The Class, The Constant Gardener, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Doubt, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Familia, Fast Food Nation, The Fighter, Food, Inc., Frozen River, Gran Torino, Hotel Rwanda, I’m Not There, The Informant!, The King’s Speech, The Kite Runner, The Last King of Scotland, León, the Professional, Letters from Iwo Jima, Let the Right One In, Man on Wire, Monster Thursday, The Narrow Margin, Of Gods and Men, Persepolis, A Prairie Home Companion, The Producers (2006), Proof, The Reader, Running With Scissors, The Savages, Shopgirl, Slumdog Millionaire, Sugar, Super Troopers, Thank You for Smoking, Top Hat, Transamerica, The Upside of Anger, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, The World’s Fastest Indian
OFG continues its Best of the Festivals series with the 2010 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prize winner for Best Film, Of Gods and Men. The film will be shown at 6:45 PM in the Community Room of the Oswego Public Library (120 East Second Street) Wednesday, October 12. A question and answer session and discussion will follow the screening (which is free and open to the public).
The film was inspired by real events in the 1990s.
Lambert Wilson plays Christian, the head of a Cistercian monastery in Algeria: a spartan order devoted to contemplation and prayer. Their community has developed a happy relationship with the local Muslim villagers, based partly on the free outpatient clinic they provide. They have a quiet, supportive respect for each other’s traditions. But dark forces are gathering: intolerant jihadist forces have already murdered Croatian construction workers, and are rumoured to have the Catholic monks in their sights as the ultimate prize…. The monks must now decide: should they stay or should they go? Is going cowardice? Is staying arrogance? Is martyrdom their destiny? (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, December 2, 2010)
The film was directed by Xavier Beauvois. Of Gods and Men, in French and Arabic, runs 120 minutes and is rated PG-13. The film’s website is http://www.sonyclassics.com/ofgodsandmen/.
Join us for a Night Out at the Movies on Sunday evening at the Oswego Cinema 7. We’ll attend the 7:10 PM showing of Moneyball. The film, based on the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis, stars Brad Pitt as
Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s and the guy who assembles the team, who has an epiphany: all of baseball’s conventional wisdom is wrong. Forced to reinvent his team on a tight budget, Beane will have to outsmart the richer clubs. The onetime jock teams with Ivy League grad Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) in an unlikely partnership, recruiting bargain players that the scouts call flawed, but all of whom have an ability to get on base, score runs, and win games. It’s more than baseball, it’s a revolution – one that challenges old school traditions and puts Beane in the crosshairs of those who say he’s tearing out the heart and soul of the game. — (C) Sony Pictures
After the screening, we’ll gather in the upstairs lobby of the theater and discuss the film. We’ll be joined by SUNY Oswego professor Ranjit Dighe. Currently teaching a course on the economics of baseball at the college, Ranjit will bring his perspective on the business and art of baseball to our discussion.
ON SCREEN/IN PERSON is a series of six films followed by a Q&A with the film director(s) or producer that has been organized by the SUNY Oswego’s Cinema and Screen Studies Program with support from ARTSwego and the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation.
All On Screen/In Person screenings take place at the Oswego Cinema, 138 West 2nd Street, on Tuesday evenings at 7 PM. Tickets are available from any SUNY Oswego campus box office, online at tickets.oswego.edu, or from the Oswego Cinema. Adults$7 /Seniors $5/Students $3.50
These three series films are scheduled for Fall 2011:
Tuesday, September 20 @ 7 PM What’s ‘Organic’ About Organicw/ Director Shelley Rogers This film dives into the challenges that arise when a grassroots agricultural movement evolves into a booming international market. Though the stories of farmers who steward land from Harlem to the foothills of the Rockies, from upstate New York to Florida, the film offers audiences a deeper understanding of the complexities involved in creating a more sustainable food system.
Tuesday, October 25 @ 7 PM Beatboxing-The Fifth Element of Hip Hopw/ Producer Angela Viscido
In the late 70’s, a youth culture evolved in the poorer parts of New York that combined several disciplines under the name of hip hop. Apart from the four classic elements of graffiti, DJing, breakdancing, and rapping, the musical side of this culture was enhanced by a fifth element called ‘beatboxing’. From the hardship of poverty and the lack of instruments, a pioneer was inspired to imitate drum rhythms with his mouth – his brilliance creating the term ‘human beatbox’. Beatboxing features artists from New York, California, Florida, Spain, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, Austria and Germany, who demonstrate their amazing techniques.
Tuesday, November 15 @ 7 PM Out in the Silencew/ Directors Dean Hamer & Joe Wilson When a popular 16-year-old jock is brutally attacked for coming out at his small town high school, his mother reaches out for help to the only person she feels she can trust, an openly gay man who lives 300 miles away–native son and filmmaker Joe Wilson. Returning home with camera in hand, Wilson documents the harrowing but ultimately successful battle waged by the teen and his mom against recalcitrant school authorities, the efforts of a lesbian couple to restore an historic theater in the face of vitriolic anti-gay attacks, and his own unexpected friendship with an Evangelical preacher. As walls are torn down and bridges built, Out in the Silence offers a fascinating and moving commentary on America’s culture war.
On Tuesday, September 6th at 9 PM the first film in the SUNY Oswego Reading Initiative (ORI) film series will run in the Campus Center Auditorium (132): Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death. Peter Bate directed this 2003 BBC documentary (released in the US in 2005); the film is unrated and runs 1 hour, 24 minutes. There’s no charge for the show.
The true story of what King Leopold did in the Congo, which was forgotten by the world for over 50 years. Leopold turned the Congo into his own private colony from 1885 to 1908. Under his control, the Congo became a gulag labor camp of shocking brutality. Leopold assumed the role of protector of Africans fleeing Arab slave traders, but, in reality, he exploited them as he amassed a personal fortune in this country rich in rubber. If the men failed to produce enough wild rubber, their families were held hostage and starved to death. Children’s hands were chopped off for late deliveries. It is agreed today, that the first Human Rights movement was spurred by what happened in the Congo. (Rotten Tomatoes website)
On Thursday, September 8 at 7 PM, there will be a free screening for the community of the documentary Race to Nowhere in the Ralph M. Faust Auditorium, Oswego High School.
Featuring the heartbreaking stories of young people across the country who have been pushed to the brink, educators who are burned out and worried that students aren’t developing the skills they need, and parents who are trying to do what’s best for their kids, Race to Nowhere points to the silent epidemic in our schools: cheating has become commonplace, students have become disengaged, stress-related illness, depression and burnout are rampant, and young people arrive at college and the workplace unprepared and uninspired. (from the film’s website: http://www.racetonowhere.com)
Presented by SUNY Oswego, ARTSwego, and the Oswego City School District, the film will be followed by a panel discussion and a reception at 9 PM in the auditorium lobby.
Weren’t we just posting about Heavy Metal Parking Lot? What do you know: it’ll screen Friday, June 8 at Rochester’s Dryden Theater with one of the film’s makers, Jeff Krulik, presenting it along with Heavy Metal Picnic.
The legendary short film Heavy Metal Parking Lot was on an OFG double bill with Anvil! The Story of Anvil in 2009. Here’s a nice piece on NPR’s music blog with background by one of the filmmakers, our friend Jeff Krulik,
John Heyn and Jeff Krulik, the guys who made "Heavy Metal Parking Lot"
and links to the film and some where-are-they-now material. Enjoy.
Interesting Slate article on Rotten Tomatoes–they looked at the trends through the years in the RT ratings of movies, actors, and directors–starting with the spectacular nosedive of M. Night Shyamalan’s directorial career. They’ve also provided a section when you can type in a name and see the output ratings graphed for careers from ’85 to today (that’s the Hollywood Career-O-Matic). Check it out. (Thanks, Barefoot Jim!)
This year’s Tribeca Film Festival running from April 20 to May 1 in Manhattan, is taking a newly adventurous approach to online distribution. Six features and 18 shorts will be streamed on the festival’s Web site during the event; the streams will be free, but in a throwback to the days of assigned seats in movie theaters, viewers will need to make reservations to watch the films online during designated 24-hour periods.
Among the features being shown online are David Dusa’s “Flowers of Evil,” a story of love and politics set in Paris and Tehran, in its American premiere, and Scott Rettberg’s “New York Says Thank You,” a post-9/11 documentary about New Yorkers helping other communities struck by disasters. Reservations can be made at tribecaonline.com beginning April 18 (April 12 for holders of American Express cards).
from the “Watchlist” column, Mike Hall, The New York Times, 3/27/11
OFG and SUNY Oswego’s Ecomomics Department present this year’s Academy Award winner for Documentary Feature, Inside Job. The film will screen at 7 PM in the SUNY Oswego Campus Center Auditorium. The show is free and open to the public; there should be a lot to discuss after the screening!
Here’s a black and white flier/handout for Ahead of Time’s upcoming reception, screening, and discussion at SUNY Oswego’s Tyler Hall on Thursday, March 10. Please feel free to print out and distribute!
SUNY Oswego presents Ahead of Time, the documentary on Ruth Gruber; the film will be screened Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 7 PM, at Tyler Hall in Waterman Theater on the SUNY Oswego campus. Following the screening, Ahead of Time Executive Producer Doris Schechter will discuss the film and a video chat with Ruth Gruber is planned. This event is free and open to the public.
Ruth Gruber
Ahead of Time tells the remarkable journey of 99 year-old Ruth Gruber. She defied tradition when, in 1931 at age 20, Ms. Gruber became the youngest person to earn a PhD. She continued to make history: becoming the first journalist to enter the Soviet Arctic in 1935, escorting Holocaust refugees from Italy to Fort Ontario’s Safe Haven* in a secret mission in 1944, covering the Nuremberg trials in 1946, and documenting the ordeal of the refugees aboard the ship Exodus 1947. The film is the directorial debut of noted cinematographer Bob Richman (The September Issue,An Inconvenient Truth, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster).
Doris Schechter opened the New York bakery My Most Favorite Dessert Company in 1982; she’s the author of the establishment’s 2001 cookbook as well as At Oma’s Table: More than 100 Recipes and Remembrances from a Jewish Family’s Kitchen (2007) which is, in part, a memoir of her family’s journey from Austria to Italy to the US (including a stay as refugees in Oswego). Ms. Schechter is one of the executive producers of Ahead of Time.
For more information on the film, please visit aheadoftimethemovie.com
*Oswego’s Safe Haven Museum and Education Center is dedicated to keeping alive the stories of the 982 refugees from World War II–allowed into the US as “guests” of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, they were housed at Fort Ontario from 1944 to 1946. For more information, please visit www.oswegohaven.org or contact the center: P.O. Box 846, Oswego NY 13126; phone 315.342.3003; e-mail safehaven@cnymail.org
National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation is running a series on this year’ Academy Award nominees for Documentary Feature. (They’ve featured Restrepo and Inside Job so far.) Look for OFG’s Monday evening presentation, Exit Through the Gift Shop, coming up.
We’ve been focused of late on some of the Academy Award nominated films. We screened Winter’s Bone and caught a few more of the Best Picture contenders at the Oswego Cinema with our Nights Out at the Movies. A few of the Documentary Feature Oscar nominees screened in and around Oswego last year–Restrepo and Gasland. We’ll show another of the docmentary contenders on Monday, February 21 at 6:30 PM in the Campus Center Auditorium, SUNY Oswego: Exit Through the Gift Shop. The screening is free and open to the public; a discussion will follow the film. Look for a screening of another nominated documentary, Inside Job, in March.
From the film’s website (www.banksyfilm.com), here’s the synopsis:
This is the inside story of Street Art – a brutal and revealing account of what happens when fame, money and vandalism collide. Exit Through the Gift Shop follows an eccentric shop-keeper turned amateur film-maker as he attempts to capture many of the world’s most infamous vandals on camera, only to have a British stencil artist named Banksy turn the camcorder back on its owner
with wildly unexpected results.
One of the most provocative films about art ever made, Exit Through the Gift Shop is a fascinating study of low-level criminality, comradeship and incompetence. By turns shocking, hilarious and absurd, this is an
enthralling modern-day fairytale… with bolt cutters.
Exit Through the Gift Shop has provoked much discussion just by its classification as nonfiction. Is the film’s story–and are its protagonists–for real? Calling itself “the world’s first Street Art disaster movie,” Exit Through the Gift Shop is a film by the British artist known as Banksy—the mysterious figure whose work has ranged from graffiti on the streets of Bristol to high-profile pieces shown in galleries. (A large audience saw a Banksy piece during an episode of The Simpsons last October: that dark opening sequence featuring scenes from a sweatshop.)
We’ve added a link to The New Republic‘s online film offerings, At the Movies. The site offers the criticism of Stanley Kauffmann (who has written about film for the magazine for the past 53 years), plus David Thomson’s reviews. The site also offers reviews (“TNR Film Classics”) from its archives.
All are welcome to join us at the 7:10 PM screening of The King’s Speech Monday, January 31 at the Oswego Cinema 7. Immediately after the film, we’ll assemble in the theater’s upstairs lobby and discuss the film (leading in the Oscar race with 12 nominations), the other Academy Award contenders, and recap 2010 in film.
The Library of Congress added another 25 films to its National Film Registry in December. Besides such popular works as Airplane! and All the President’s Men, several experimental and silent films were chosen. Here’s an experimental film by Mary Ellen Bute (with the Library staff notes):
Tarantella (1940)
“Tarantella” is a five-minute color, avant-garde short film created by Mary Ellen Bute, a pioneer of visual music and electronic art in experimental cinema. With piano accompaniment by Edwin Gershefsky, “Tarantella” features rich reds and blues that Bute uses to signify a lighter mood, while her syncopated spirals, shards, lines and squiggles dance exuberantly to Gershefsky’s modern beat. Bute produced more than a dozen short films between the 1930s and the 1950s and once described herself as a “designer of kinetic abstractions” who sought to “bring to the eyes a combination of visual forms unfolding with the … rhythmic cadences of music.” Bute’s work influenced many other filmmakers working with abstract animation during the ‘30s and ‘40s, and with experimental electronic imagery in the ‘50s.
For the complete list, see the National Film Registry Board website:
Fresh on the heels of Tuesday’s Night Out at the Movies, let’s do it again next Tuesday (11/18). We’ll see the 7:20 PM screening at the Oswego Cinema 7 of Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, starring Natalie Portman. Immediately after the show, we’ll meet in the theater’s upstairs lobby and start our discussion on the film. (The theater’s usual admission charges apply; all are welcome to join us at the show and for our talk-back.)
That’s right–we’ve made it past the 10,000 views/hits mark! (And I know a big thanks must go to those folks who keep looking for SuperFly–our most consistent hit!)
It’s awards season and some of this winter’s high profile films are coming to town. The Fighter has opened at the Oswego Cinema 7 and we’ll be attending the 7:40 PM screening on Tuesday evening, January 11. Immediately afterwards, we’ll gather in the theater’s upstairs lobby to discuss the film. All are welcome to join us!
Come join us for a Patrick Swayze Christmas Monday, December 20 for a 7 PM free screening in the Community Room of the Oswego Public Libraryof the 1964 travesty Santa Claus Conquers the Martians as seen by Joel and the ‘bots.
If you’re not already familiar with the Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) series, check out their website:
The British film magazine Sight & Sound has published its list of the top films of the year (drawn from 85 critics who submitted their top five picks) :
1. The Social Network (David Fincher) 2. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) 3. Another Year (Mike Leigh) 4. Carlos (Olivier Assayas) 5. The Arbor (Clio Barnard) 6. Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik) 6. (tied) I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino) 8. The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu (Andrei Ujica) 8. (tied) Film Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard) 8. (tied) Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzman) 8. (tied) Poetry (Lee Chang-dong) 8. (tied) A Prophet (Jacques Audiard)
Congrats to Winter’s Bone (tied for sixth) for its win this week at the Gotham Independent Film Awards for best feature and best ensemble performance.
On Wednesday, December 1, at 8:00 PM in Lanigan 101, SUNY Oswego’s
Go Green Team will host a screening of the documentary film Gasland,
followed by a live interactive webcast conversation with director Josh Fox.
(SUNY Oswego is participating with other colleges and universities in a
nationwide screening).
What is it about the movie that attracts so many hits–especially when this site had so little to offer about it? (For our 9,000 hits to date, the post, “Superfly Screens at SUNY Oswego 2/25,” is the 5th most popular so far; it ranks 2nd for the last 3 months).
Feeling a bit sheepish that there’s not much there there….So, here’s a little more substance for those searching SuperFly, an excerpt from Todd Boyd’s 2007 book, The Notorious Ph.D’s Guide to the SuperFly ’70s:
We were saddened to learn of the death of Mark J. Wright who served as Program Director for the Cultural Resources Council of Syracuse & Onondaga County. Mark was responsible for advising and guiding OFG through the grant process, resulting in a grant awarded in November 2008–funds crucial to our efforts.
The funeral will be at St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral, at the corner of Montgomery and Fayette Streets in downtown Syracuse at 1:30 PM (not at Grace Episcopal Church, as originally scheduled) on Friday, November 19. Please enter the door on Fayette Street. Calling hours are Thursday, the 18th, from 4-7 PM at Farone & Son Funeral Home (1500 Park Street, Syracuse, faroneandson.com).
Here’s an update on Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation. (We’ve written about the organization and linked to its website). The Foundation’s 2010 film festival in New York is highlighting a Brazilian film long admired and long missing: Limite.
The French film critic Georges Sadoul called it ‘an unknown masterpiece’ and once flew all the way to Brazil, in vain, in hopes of seeing a complete version. Orson Welles, in Brazil in the early 1940s to make a movie of his own, did view it in its entirety and pronounced the experience ‘fabulous.’ More recently, both David Bowie and Caetano Veloso have also promoted it. (from “Brazil’s Best, Restored and Ready for a 21st-Century Audience”, The New York Times, 11/10/10; see link below).
It seems scores of folks (from the First Lady on) have been talking up this drama mixed with fantasy. Beasts of the Southern Wild has been nominated for four Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and–the youngest nominee so far for–Best Actress). Set in a remote corner of the Louisiana bayou, this is the story of
