Hello Film Lovers!
It should come as no surprise that this year’s Chlotrudis Monday Night Movie of the Week is the 5th Annual Chlotrudis Short Film Festival! Come to the Coolidge Corner Theatre for the 7 p.m. screening of 10 thought-provoking short films submitted from around the world (such as the Italian film, ONCE UPON A TIME THERE WAS A KING, pictured left.) Monday night has a special appeal as beginning at 6 p.m. in the Coolidge’s upstairs lobby, peruse an assortment of fantastic donations that make up the first Chlotrudis Benefit Silent Auction! Donations have been offerred from generous donors, including: The Boston Ballet, The Boston Jewish Film Festival, The Brattle Theatre, The Charles Hotel, Closet Smarts, The Coolidge Corner Theatre, Exhale Spa, Film Comment, Go Boston Card, Georgette Gagne, The Harding House, The Huntington Theatre, The Independent Film Festival of Boston, Johnny D’s Restaurant, Landmark Theatres in Kendall Square, The Provincetown International Film Festival, Sacco’s Bowl Haven, Susan Sargent, Talking Street and more. If for some reason you can’t make it to the Coolidge on Monday night, remember, you get a second chance on Wednesday night to exercise your right to vote at The Brattle Theatre, 7:30 p.m. Sorry, no silent auction on Wednesday night.
The 5th Annual Chlotrudis Short Film Festival expands this year into an additional venue. On Monday, November 1, films will be screened at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline, MA. On Wednesday, November 3, the festival expands across the river into the Brattle Theatre, Cambridge. Join members of the Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film to screen the 10 nominees for the Best Short Film of 2004. Admission is $8.00 / $7.00 for Chlotrudis and Coolidge members. A varied program features drama (like the Australian film STRAY HEART pictured right), comedy, foreign-language, documentary (as in Ronnie Cramer’s HIGHWAY AMAZON pictured below), and animated films. A sub-committee of the Chlotrudis Short Film Screening Committee viewed nearly 12 hours of short films in six different languages to present 10 films ‘ the best two hours.
Next week is going to be a very busy week for movie fans! In addition to the Chlotrudis Short Film Festival (and that pesky little thing that we ALL have do, namely VOTE) The Boston Jewish Film Festival celebrates not one, but TWO opening night films. The first, held on Wednesday night at the MFA, is a sophisticated, witty, and affectionate exploration of modern European Jewish identity called THE RASHEVSKI’S TANGO. On Thursday night, the BJFF celebrates at the Coolidge Corner Theatre with WONDROUS OBLIVIONS, a gently comic coming-of-age story, a portrait of British prejudice, and finally, a case for tolerance and standing up for what’s right. Director Paul Morrison’s Oscar-nominated film SOLOMON AND GAENOR screened at BJFF1999. A reception will follow the film. I plan on attending Opening Night at the Coolidge if anyone is interested in joining me!
Gerry Peary has a couple of pretty cool offerrings in his BU Cinematheque. Tomorrow (Friday) enjoy the 2004 Winners of the 31st Student Academy Awards. A thrilling 124-minute marathon of the best student films made in America, a selection by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences, Los Angeles. The following Thursday (November 4) enjoy an evening with Nancy Porter. The Lexington-based Porter is probably the most important, and prolific, women filmmaker in the history of public television. For twenty-five years, Porter has been directing brilliant, innovative documentaries for Nova, The American Experience, PBS Specials, and other programs, and, in the process, winning a National Emmy, a Cine Gold Eagle, and, in 1999, the First Women in Film & Video Image Award. Porter is most acclaimed for her dazzling biographical portraits, which have included looks at John Irving, the Wright Brothers, Harry Houdini, “Tip” O’Neill.
There are a lot of intriguing films opening up this week as well, including one we hope (?) to catch sometime on Saturday called THE MANSON FAMILY. Why is this particular film of interest to me, you ask? Namely the director and much of the cast were all college friends and colleagues of Scot’s at Wright State University! Over 7 years in the making, this film recently won the top award at the New York Underground Film Festival. Of course, Scot can’t wait to see some of his college friends in this film that’s sure to be an over-the-top, crazed experience. You may want to be in on the fun!
Other films being released this week include the latest by Brad Anderson (HAPPY ACCIDENTS, NEXT STOP WONDERLAND) THE MACHINIST, starring Chlotrudis Award winner Christian Bale; the latest film from the scintillating Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-Liang, GOOD BYE DRAGON INN; and Alexander Payne’s latest excursion into misanthropy (featuring the Chlotrudis nominees Paul Giamatti and the sublime Sandra Oh) SIDEWAYS. And a special plug goes to Chlotrudis fave David Gordon Green, whose latest film Boston Jewish Film Festival
Full schedule announced! Tickets on sale now!
BJFF Appetizer
Film as a Subversive Art: Amos Vogel and Cinema 16 @ the MFA (Wed.)
Opening Night Film @ the MFA
The Rashevski’s Tango (Wed.)
Opening Night Film & Reception @ the Coolidge Corner Theatre
Wondrous Oblivion (Thu.)
Brattle Theatre, Cambridge
Exclusive Area Premiere
Good Bye Dragon Inn (Fri. – Thu.)
Midnite Madness
Army of Darkness (Fri. & Sat.)
Sunday Eye Opener
Good Bye Dragon Inn (Sun.)
Happy Halloween
Evil Dead 2 (Sun.)
5th Annual Chlotrudis Short Film Festival (Wed.)
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline
I Heart Huckabees
The Motorcycle Diaries
Films to See Before You Vote
Unconstitutional(Fri. – Sun.)
Unprecedented (Fri. – Sun.)
Uncovered/Soldier’s Pay (Fri. – Sun.)
Let’s Get Frank (Sat. & Sun.)
Pledge of Allegiance Blues (Mon.)
Trouble in Paradise (Mon.)
Hijacking Catastrophe (Tue.)
Liberty Bound (Wed.)
Control Room (Wed. & Thu.)
Move (Wed. & Thu.)
Midnites!
13 hour HORROR MOVIE MARATHON
with Peeping Tom, Psycho 2, Blood Feast, Friday the 13th Pt. 4, and much more. (Sat.)
5th Annual Chlotrudis Short Film Festival (Mon.)
Boston Jewish Film Festival
Wondrous OBlivion (Thu.)
Gerald Peary’s BU Cinematheque Room B-05, 640 Comm. Ave.
Filmmakers discuss their films in an intimate setting… for FREE!
The 2004 Winners of the 31st Student Academy Awards (Fri.)
An Evening With Nancy Porter (Thu.)
Porter will show a double bill of her 1993 American Experience, “Amelia Earhart,” and her 2004 work, “The Most Dangerous Woman in America,” made for Nova, a portait of Typhoid Mary.
Harvard Film Archive, Cambridge
Boston Latino Film Festival
A Silent Love (Fri.)
Mojados: Through the Night w/ Firecracker & La Guerra Que No Fue (Fri.)
Ver’a Villarroel: Accidental Diva w/ Come & Por Ella (Sat.)
Panel Discussion with Latino Public Broadcasting (Sat.)
Framingville (Sat.)
Discovering Dominga (Sat.)
Viva Chile M’! (Sat.)
Sexual Dependency (Sat.)
Cleopatra (sun.)
Tire Die/Toss a Dime Panel discussion with director Fernando Birri (Sun.)
Un se’ viejo con alas enormes (Sun.)
Radiografia de una mentira/ X-Rays of a Lie (Sun.)
Llaguno Bridge: Claves de una masacre/Clues of a Massacre (Sun.)
El Examen, Rastros, Gronk’s Tormenta: a Method, Freebox & Ventana: Searching for a Window (Sun.)
Mission Movie (Sun.)
Contemporary Hollywood Cinema
Top Gun (Mon.)
Cin’ Fran’s
Friday Night (Mon.)
Film Architectures
The Naked City (Tue.)
Selected Films of Roy Andersson
Something Happened, A World of Glory, & Roy Andersson’s Commercials (Wed.)
Adventures in Surrealism
The Seashell and the Clergyman w/ Blood of a Poet (Tue.)
The Moving Image and Visual Representation
Craig’s Wife (Wed.)
An Evening with Hara Kazuo
The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On Director in Person! (Thu.)
Hollywood Hits Theatre, Danvers
Birth
Around the Bend
Vera Drake
The Motorcycle Diaries
Garden State
Napoleon Dynamite
Gloomy Sunday
Shaun of the Dead
Landmark Theatres
Kendall Square, Cambridge
Sideways
Undertow
Zelary
Primer
Being Julia
Stage Beauty
Tarnation
The Motorcycle Diaries
The Manson Family
Embassy Cinema, Waltham
Undertow
Saw
The Motorcycle Diaries
What the #$*! Do We Know
Garden State
Loews Theatres Copley Place, Boston
Undertow
Being Julia
Woman Thou Art Loosed
Shaun of the Dead
Th’se: The Story of Saint Th’se of Lisieux
Vera Drake
Hero
Garden State
What the #$*! Do We Know
Napoleon Dynamite
Harvard Square, Cambridge
The Machinist
I Heart Huckabees
Vera Drake
Team America: World Police
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Boston Greek Film Festival
Eyes of Night (Fri.)
Kalabush (Sat.)
World’s Best TV Ads
British Advertising Films of 2003 (Sat.)
Back by Popular Demand
Since Otar Left (Fri. – Sun.)
Art on Film
Russian Ark (Sat.)
Boston Jewish Film Festival
Film as a Subversive Art: Amos Vogel and Cinema 16
The Rashevski’s Tango
The Newburyport Screening Room, Newburyport
The Motorcycle Diaries (starts Sat.)
Michael R. Colford
Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film, President