An intellectual action-drama set in the world of competitive mixed martial arts
OPENS FRIDAY!
A docu-comedy questioning U.S. foreign policy from the director of "Super Size Me"
OPENING MAY 16th
A documentary about the alleged Abu Ghraib cover-up
COMING THIS SPRING
A morality fable from Woody Allen
COMING SOON
OPENS FRIDAY!
SHOWTIMES:
Fri May 9 @ 7:10 & 9:20
Sat May 10 @ 3:00, 7:10 & 9:20
Sun May 11 @ 12:40, 3:00, 7:10 & 9:20
Mon May 12- Thu May 15 @ 7:10 & 9:20
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Country of Origin: USA
Director: David Mamet
Starring:
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Alice Braga, Emily Mortimer, Tim Allen, Rodrigo Santoro, John Machado, Rebecca Pidgeon and Cyril Takayama
Official Website
Running Time: 105 minutes
This film has not yet been rated
Mike Terry, a Jiu-jitsu master has avoided the prize fighting circuit, instead pursuing a life of honor and education. His life is dramatically changed when he is conned by a cabal of movie stars and promoters. To regain his honor Terry must step into the ring for the first time in his life.
In “Redbelt,” David Mamet has taken a sturdy B-movie conceit — a good man versus the bad world, plus blood — tricked it out with his rhythms, his corrosive words and misanthropy, and come up with a satisfying, unexpectedly involving B-movie that owes as much to old Hollywood as to Greek tragedy. That may sound like a perilous combination, but the film’s visual moderation, contained scale and ambition keep it well tethered. It’s a fight film, purely if not simply, which of course also means it’s about the struggle to live.
OPENING MAY 16th
Country of Origin: France / USA
Director: Morgan Spurlock
Featuring:
Morgan Spurlock, Alexandra Jamieson
Official Website
Running Time: 95 minutes
This film has not yet been rated
Documentarian Morgan Spurlock rocketed to fame after daring to take on the fast food industry in the entertaining and much-lauded SUPERSIZE ME. For his follow-up, Spurlock wades back into controversial waters, and attempts something even more dangerous than a month of eating Big Macs: he decides to hunt down the globe's foremost terrorist, Osama Bin Laden.
When the film opens, Spurlock has just learned that his wife, Alex, is pregnant. Using this news as a springboard, he decides he must hunt down the "world's most dangerous man" in order to guarantee the safety of his new child. Thus begins Spurlock's journey into some of the most wartorn and perilous places on the globe: Egypt, Israel, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco. Spurlock travels from country to country, popping into mosques, fundamentalist Muslim schools, shantytowns, army bases, the Gaza strip, and the local mall, asking everyone along the way if they might know where he can find Osama.
The provocative question never fails to elicit an interesting response, and Spurlock uses it to open up a dialogue about the people's feelings and attitudes toward America and the war on terror. Throughout the film, Spurlock comes across as one of the most genial fellows you could ever meet, and his good-natured charm goes a long way in getting interviews with people who might otherwise become hostile when smirkingly asked, "Where's Osama?" While the film will undoubtedly spark a few heated debates, one thing is for certain: Spurlock does nice job of removing some of the mystery that surrounds the Middle East. He creates a very human portrait of the people, and reminds us that, at the end of the day, we are perhaps not so different.
COMING THIS SPRING
Country of Origin: USA
Director: Errol Morris
Cast:
Christopher Bradley, Sarah Denning, Joshua Feinman, Jeff L. Green, Merry Grissom, Roy Halo, Cyrus King, Daniel Novy, Zhubin Rahbar
Official Website
Running Time: 118 minutes
This film has not yet been rated
After winning the Oscar for 2003's THE FOG OF WAR, director Errol Morris turns to Abu Ghraib prison for this documentary. STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE uses two years of research to explore the horror behind the notorious photographs taken at the prison in Iraq and how the torture depicted wasn't an isolated incident.
Is it possible for a photograph to change the world? Photographs taken by soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison changed the war in Iraq and changed America's image of itself. Yet, a central mystery remains. Did the notorious Abu Ghraib photographs constitute evidence of systematic abuse by the American military, or were they documenting the aberrant behavior of a few bad apples? We set out to examine the context of these photographs. Why were they taken? What was happening outside the frame? We talked directly to the soldiers who took the photographs and who were in the photographs. Who are these people? What were they thinking?
Over two years of investigation, the filmmakers amassed a million and a half words of interview transcript, thousands of pages of unredacted reports, and hundreds of photographs. The story of Abu Ghraib is still shrouded in moral ambiguity, but it is clear what happened there. The Abu Ghraib photographs serve as both an expose and a coverup. An expose, because the photographs offer a glimpse of the horror of Abu Ghraib; and a coverup because they convinced journalists and readers they had seen everything, that there was no need to look further.
In recent news reports, the public has learned about the destruction of the Abu Zubaydah interrogation tapes. A coverup. It has been front page news. But the coverup at Abu Ghraib involved thousands of prisoners and hundreds of soldiers. We are still learning about the extent of it. Many journalists have asked about the smoking gun of Abu Ghraib. It is the wrong question. As Philip Gourevitch has commented, Abu Ghraib is the smoking gun. The underlying question that we still have not resolved, four years after the scandal: how could American values become so compromised that Abu Ghraiband the subsequent coverup could happen?
COMING SOON
Country of Origin: UK / USA
Director: Woody Allen
Starring:
Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell,Tom Wilkinson
Official Website
Running Time: 108 minutes
This film has not yet been rated
Cassandra's Dream is Allen's most grim and uncomfortable film to date, surpassing even Crimes and Misdemeanors and Match Point. In those films the upper class criminals get away with their deeds and get on with their lives (however psychically diminished those lives may be). Not so in Cassandra's Dream, where two lower-middle-class brothers commit a dark crime that not only shatters their humanity but also destroys their family ties and much more.
Terry (Colin Farrell) and Ian (Ewan McGregor) are two brothers who are sick of their lives and want something better (the something better, as is the case in most Allen films, is material gain). Terry is a dull-witted auto mechanic prone to gambling and booze who wants to own a sporting goods store. Ian pretends to be something he is not, driving around in borrowed vintage cars repaired by Terry and claiming to be a real estate investor; he actually works as a manager in his father's downscale restaurant. When Terry wins big at the dog races (betting on a dog named Cassandra's Dream -- Cassandra also being the name of a Greek mythological prognosticator of bad events) the brothers buy a boat they never could have afforded but for Terry's winnings and see this as a sign that there lives will now change. Their rich Uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson) arrives for a visit, and Terry and Ian decide to ask him for money to bankroll their dreams. Uncle Howard agrees to help them but at a cost neither of the brothers could have anticipated. All in the name of family.
In this unrelenting and uncompromising film, Allen directs with the ease of a master, filled his trademarked one-take scenes and tight compositions of his actors trapped in doorways and pushed to the side of the frame by walls constricting both the players and the audience in an airless, doom-laden atmosphere. Vilmos Zsigmond's drab and dank cinematography and Philip Glass' unsettling score further enhance Allen's directorial touchstones.
