News

Among the many films scheduled for the 7th Annual Roxbury Film Festival, to be held throughout Boston August 17 – 21, is a short film which won both Best Film and Audience Favorite at last fall’s Chlotrudis Short Film Festival. DWAINE’S BIG GAME follows a local man’s pursuit of perfection – on the bowling lanes, that is – and manages in the space of a few minutes to reveal a very big heart.

The Chlotrudis Short Film Festival is held every autumn. This year, the festival’s 6th, will be held on Monday October 3, 2005 at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline. It is a juried competitive event, with a cash award for the winning Best Film. Over the years, films in competition have spanned the world, with entries from as far away as Australia and Israel, and as nearby as a neighborhood bowling league in Boston.

In addition, a fund-raising silent auction will also be held, with chances to bid upon prizes that include free weekends at exclusive hotels, certificates for luxury services like massages or personal shopping, and VIP passes to several of the area’s film festivals. The Short Film Festival is one way Chlotrudis honors and supports independent filmmakers, while providing an opportunity for Boston area audiences to enjoy a night of some of the best short films around.

In addition to DWAINE’S BIG GAME, the Roxbury Film Festival features screenings of a variety of new films spotlighting filmmakers of color. Special guest Billy Dee Williams, who is appearing in two of the festival’s films, will be on hand on opening night. Check out the full line-up at www.roxburyfilmfestival.org.

Hello Everyone,

There are so many great films playing in Boston this week that it’s very difficult to chose which one to see on Monday night. For a change of pace that’s sure to be a lot of fun, we’ll be heading to the Kendall Square Cinema for the 7:10 screening of THE ARISTOCRATS. Comedians of all generations tackle the same dirty joke in what turns out to be an examination of the varied comedy styles in the world today.

Comedy veterans and co-creators Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza capitalize on their insider status and invite over 100 of their closets friends’who happen to be some of the biggest names in show business (George Carlin, Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Carey, Gilbert Gottfried, Bob Saget, Paul Reiser, Sarah Silverman, etc.)’to reminisce, analyze, deconstruct and deliver their own versions of the world’s dirtiest joke, an old burlesque routine too extreme to be performed in public. One of the smash hits of the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, this star-studded comedy extravaganza is sure to stretch the limits of its audience’particularly how loud and long they can laugh!
DIRECTOR: Paul Provenza

CAST: Chris Albrecht, Jason Alexander, Hank Azaria, Steven Banks, Shelley Berman, Lewis Black, David Brenner, Mario Cantone, Drew Carey, George Carlin, Mark Cohen, Billy Connolly, Tim Conway, Pat Cooper, Wayne Cotter, Andy Dick, Frank DiGiacomo, Phyllis Diller, Susie Essman, Carrie Fisher, Joe Franklin, Mike George, Todd Glass, Whoopi Goldberg, Judy Gold, Eddie Gorodetsky, Gilbert Gottfried, Dana Gould, Allan Havey, Eric Idle, Dom Irrera, Eddie Izzard, Richard Jeni, Penn Jillette, Jake Johannsen, Alan Kirschenbaum, Jay Kogen, Sue Kolinsky, Paul Krassner, Cathy Ladman, Lisa Lampanelli, Richard Lewis, Wendy Liebman, Bill Maher, Howie Mandel, Merrill Markoe, Jay Marshall, Jackie Martling, Chuck McCann, Michael McKean, Eric Mead, Larry Miller, Owen Morse, Martin Mull, Kevin Nealon, Taylor Negron, Rick Overton, Gary Owens, Trey Parker, Otto Peterson, Emo Philips, Peter Pitofsky, Kevin Pollak, Paul Reiser, Andy Richter, Don Rickles, Chris Rock, Gregg Rogell, Jeffrey Ross, Jon Ross, Rita Rudner, Bob Saget, T. Sean Shannon, Harry Shearer, Sarah Silverman, Bobby Slayton, Dick Smothers, Tom Smothers, Carrie Snow, Doug Stanhope

But if you can only see a single film this week, and you enjoy Asian films like Tsai Ming Liang’s WHAT TIME IS IT THERE? then you must head to the Kendall Square Cinema to see TONY TAKITANI. This gorgeous adaptaion of a Haruki Murakami short story is gorgeously elegant, powerfully moving, and a true work of art. Please take some time out of your busy schedule to see this film during it’s one week run.

And if you feel like seeing several movies this week, you might also want to check out Werner Herzog’s quirky doc GRIZZLY MAN, Jim Jarmusch’s new smash indie hit BROKEN FLOWERS, or a new family drama called JUNEBUG. And if animation is your bag, do check out the 2nd Annual Animation Bash playing this weekend at both the Brattle and the Coolidge Corner Theatres.

And the fun doesn’t stop yet! This week marks the kickoff of the 7th Annual Roxbury Film Festival! After a private opening reception and screening of the film THE VISIT on Wednesday night at the the Roxbury Center for the Arts at Hibernian Hall, (gold pass holders only) the public opening night for the festival kicks off on Thursday night with a conversation with Billy Dee Williams at the Tower Auditorium at the Massachusetts College of Art followed by the opening night film, CONSTELLATION at the Museum of Fine Arts. Check out the website for an exciting weekend of film at the Roxbury Film Festival. This is the kind of week that indie film fans dream about!

That’s it for this week. (Isn’t it enough?)
See you at the movies!

Playing this week, August 12 – 18.

Brattle Theatre, Cambridge
2nd Annual New England Animation Bash!
Competition Show (Fri. – Mon.)
The Place Promised in Our Earlier Days (Fri.)
Gumby Superstar! (Sat.)
Corporate Cartoons (Sat.)
An Evening with Emily Hubley (Sat.)
RISD Spotlight (Sat. & Sun.)
The Iron Giant (Sun. & Mon.)
Avoid Eye Contact (Sun.)
Summer of Rock! Celebrating 50 Years of Rock & Roll On Screen. Double Feature!
Dazed & Confused (Tue. & Wed.)
School of Rock (Tue. & Wed.)
Recent Raves!
Oldboy (Thu.)

Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline
Broken Flowers
Murderball
March of the Penguins
Me and You and Everyone We Know (Fri. – Sun. & Tue. – Thu.)
Up for Grabs (Fri. – Sun. & Tue. – Thu.)
New England Animation Bash!
Avoid Eye Contact (Fri.)
Offensive Animatnion (Fri.)
Competition Show (Sat. & Sun.)
Cartoons Too Violent for Children (Sat.)
Pick a Winner (Sun.)
Special Event
Company One and Coolidge Corner Theatre Benefit Auction (Mon.)

FEI Theatres Capitol Theatre, Arlington
Howl’s Moving Castle
Mad Hot Ballroom
Crash (ineligible)

Harvard Film Archive, Cambridge
Anything Goes: Film within a Film
The Spirit of the Beehive (Fri.)
Frankenstein (Fri.)
Anything Goes: Mexico
Que Viva Mexico! (Sat. & Mon.)
Santa Sangre (Sat. & Mon.)
Anything Goes: Dysfunctional Families
Fists in the Pocket (Sun.)
Les Enfants Terribles (Sun.)
Anything Goes: Nuns
Mother Joan of the Angels (Tue.)
Th’se (Tue.)
Anything Goes: The Brothers Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky
A Nest of Gentry (Wed.)
Slave of Love (Wed.)
Anything Goes: King Lear
King Lear (Brook) (Thu.)
King Lear (Kozintsev) (Thu.)

Hollywood Hits Theatre, Danvers
The Beat That My Heart Skipped
March of the Penguins
Mad Hot Ballroom

Landmark Theatres
Kendall Square, Cambridge
Tony Takitami
Grizzly Man
Junebug
The Aristocrats
The Edukators
Saint Ralph
The Beat That My Heart Skipped
Happy Endings
Me and You and Everyone We Know

Embassy Cinema, Waltham
Last Days
Junebug
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Murderball
Mad Hot Ballroom
March of the Penguins

Loew’s Harvard Square, Cambridge
The Great Raid
Broken Flowers
March of the Penguins
The Last Day

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Sex and Cinema
Antares (Fri. – Mon.)
Cinema Tropical
The Middle of the World (Fri. & Sat.)
Italian Cinema Today
After Midnight (Sat.)
My Mother’s Smile (Sat.)
New England Film Arts Presents:
Nothing Like Dreaming (Sat., Sun. & Thu.)
Roxbury Film Festival
Constellation (Thu.)

The Newburyport Screening Room, Newburyport
Yes

West Newton Cinema, West Newton
Saint Ralph
The Beat That My Heart Skipped
The Beautiful Country
Paper Clips
My Summer of Love
Ladies in Lavender
Walk on Water

COMING SOON!

August Events from The Boston Jewish Film Festival

LOST EMBRACE returns to the Museum of Fine Arts for two screenings

The Boston Jewish Film Festival co-presents a return two-screening engagement of last year’s popular Festival Closing Night Feature, LOST
EMBRACE at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. August 21 at 1pm and August 25 at 8pm.

LOST EMBRACE
Daniel Burman, Argentina, 2004
99 min., 35 mm, Spanish w/subtitles
August 21 at 1pm
August 25 at 8pm

Michael R. Colford
Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film, President

Hello Everyone,

Chlotrudis is giving you a choice next Monday, largely because the film that I really wants to see may not be to everyone’s taste. For those of you interested, come to the Brattle Theatre for the 7:00 screening of GODZILLA: FINAL WARS. That’s right, allegedly the last Godzilla movie to come out of Japan. This one opens on Friday, so if you can’t wait until Monday, feel free to catch it ahead of time. If you haven’t seen a Godzilla movie on the big screen, this is your chance!

Godzilla: Final Wars

(2004) dir Ryuhei Kitamura w/Masahiro Matsuoka, Rei Kikukawa, Akira Takarada, and Kane Kosugi [124 min]

“After half a century of Godzilla films, Toho decided the time had come to give the monster an extended vacation’ but he would be sent off with a bang. To craft a Godzilla film unlike any seen before, executive producer Shogo Tomiyama recruited 35 year-old director Ryuhei Kitamura, who was known for his kinetic action films. Working with writers Wataru Mimura and Isao Kiriyama, Tomiyama and Kitamura crafted an ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ tale combining elements of many of Toho’s most popular classic monster movies, Hong Kong martial arts, and American blockbusters to create GODZILLA FINAL WARS’ As for the real stars of GODZILLA FINAL WARS; the film features a stunning fifteen giant monsters. In addition to Godzilla, the lineup includes Rodan, Mothra, Gigan, Angilas, Minya, Manda, King Caesar, Ebirah, Kamakiras, Kumonga, a cameo by Hedorah, the American Godzilla (rechristened Zilla), and new version of King Ghidorah called Keizer Ghidorah, and the new mysterious alien called Monster X.” ‘ Godzilla expert, Keith Aiken

If the Godzilla stuff just doesn’t do it for you, you may want to check out the new German film, THE EDUKATORS at the Kendall Square Theatre. I caught this well-written satire in P-Town, and director Hans Weingartner really capitalizes on the excitement and style of the new German cinema in the tradition of RUN, LOLA, RUN, but puts his own unique political spin on this entertaining story. Some of you may be tempted to rush to the new Jim Jarmusch film, BROKEN FLOWERS, starring Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Sharon Stone, Ruth Conroy, Jessica Lange, Tilda Swinton, and Julie Delpy, but if you can wait a week, this will probably be the Monday Night Movie of the week NEXT week. Either way, you won’t want to miss it.

My apologies for the missing entries this week. I had to put the page up early due to a vacation trip to the Poconos, and not all of the theatres have announced their line ups for next week. The full listing will be back next week.

That’s it for this week.
See you at the movies!

Playing this week, August 5 – 11.

Brattle Theatre, Cambridge
Exclusive Area Premiere!
Godzilla: Final Wars(Fri. – Mon.)
Summer of Rock! Celebrating 50 Years of Rock & Roll On Screen. Double Feature!
Breakfast Club (Tue.)
Repo Man (Tue.)
Big Time (Wed.)
Mystery Train (Wed.)
Recent Raves!
Funny Ha Ha (Thu.)

Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline
Broken Flowers
Murderball
March of the Penguins
Me and You and Everyone We Know

Harvard Film Archive, Cambridge
Actors: Martin and Lewis
Jumping Jacks (Fri.)
The Stooge (Fri.)
Actors: Simone Signoret
La Ronde (Sat.)
Th’se Raquin (Sat.)
Actors: Charles Laughton
Hobson’s Choice (Sun.)
Sidewalks of London (Sun.)
Actors: Wendy Hiller
I Know Where I’m Going (Mon.)
Outcasts of the Island (Mon.)
Actors: Alistair Sim
An Inspector Calls (Tue.)
The Belles of St. Trinian’s (Tue.)
Anything Goes: Film within a Film
Frankenstein (Wed.)
The Spirit of the Beehive (Wed.)
Anything Goes: Dysfunctional Families
Les Enfants Terribles (Thu.)
Fists in the Pocket (Thu.)

Hollywood Hits Theatre, Danvers
The Beat That My Heart Skipped
March of the Penguins
Mad Hot Ballroom

Landmark Theatres
Kendall Square, Cambridge
The Edukators
The Year of the Yao
Saint Ralph
The Beat That My Heart Skipped
Happy Endings
Saraband
Elevator to the Gallows
Rize
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Howl’s Moving Castle

Embassy Cinema, Waltham
November
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Murderball
Mad Hot Ballroom
March of the Penguins

Loew’s Harvard Square, Cambridge
Broken Flowers
Murderball
March of the Penguins
Mad Hot Ballroom

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Italian Cinema Today
My Mother’s Smile (Fri. – Sun. & Thu.)
After Midnight (Fri. – Sun. & Thu.)
Art on Film
Edvard Munch (Sat. & Sun.)
New England Film Arts Presents:
Nothing Like Dreaming (Thu.)
Sex and Cinema
Antares (Thu.)

The Newburyport Screening Room, Newburyport
My Summer of Love

West Newton Cinema, West Newton
Saint Ralph
The Beat That My Heart Skipped
The Beautiful Country
Paper Clips
My Summer of Love
Ladies in Lavender
Walk on Water

COMING SOON!

July Events from The Boston Jewish Film Festival

Two screenings remain in the ‘Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center Summer Institute Presents The Boston Jewish Film Festival’ series: This week, don’t miss the Israeli hit feature Walk on Water. Sunday, August 7, catch the moving documentary PAPER CLIPS with special guests filmmaker Joe Fab and Whitwell, Tennessee Middle School Principal Linda Hooper (featured in the film).

Coming in August: we join with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston to offer you one last opportunity to catch last year’s sold-out Closing Night Feature, LOST EMBRACE.

Details follow below. For more information on all upcoming events, please visit http://www.bjff.org/events

—————————
The Summer Institute at the Martha’s Vineyard Hebrew Center film series continues:

Final screening next week:
Sunday, August 7 at 7:30pm
PAPER CLIPS

With Special Guest Speakers: Joe Fab, writer and co-director, PAPER CLIPS; Linda Hooper, Principal, Whitwell Middle School, who is featured in the film; and Kaj Wilson: Artistic Director, Boston Jewish Film Festival

PAPER CLIPS is a moving documentary about a inspired project that took place in what might seem the most unlikely of places: the rural mountain community of Whitwell, Tennessee, population 1600. In a quest to honor the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust, the students of Whitwell Middle School collected a paper clip for each life lost in the tragedy. Under the charismatic leadership of the school’s principal Linda Hooper, dedicated teachers and staff, the children’s Holocaust memorial has become an ongoing and powerful testament to the ecumenical spirit: ‘Changing the World’One Class at a Time.’ In English.

For details, see http://www.bjff.org/events/?id= 303

—————————
Coming soon:

LOST EMBRACE returns to the Museum of Fine Arts for two screenings

The Boston Jewish Film Festival co-presents a return two-screening engagement of last year’s popular Festival Closing Night Feature, LOST
EMBRACE at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. August 21 at 1pm and August 25 at 8pm.

LOST EMBRACE
Daniel Burman, Argentina, 2004
99 min., 35 mm, Spanish w/subtitles
August 21 at 1pm
August 25 at 8pm

Michael R. Colford
Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film, President

Was it just the other day that Chlotrudis congratulated Ellen Page for her placement on Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 film people to watch? Was it just this past March that Chlotrudis recognized Ellen with the Someone To Watch Award? Now we congratulate Ellen again, as FilmForce announces that she has been tapped to play Kitty Pryde (see image left) in X-Men 3, the next installment in the popular comic-based movie fraqnchise to be released next summer. (Thanks for the tip, Ned!) Kitty is a teen-aged mutant genius with the ability to phase through solid objects. Of all the possible Hollywood projects Ellen could have chosen, here’s one that is has the potential for a really great career move. After all, it hasn’t hurt Hugh Jackman’s credibilty!

Congratulations, Ellen! We new you’d be a star!

Opening at the Harvard University Art Museums this month is Girls on Film, an installation by artists Julie Buck and Karin Segal of 70 photographs depicting female film-studio workers who posed for what are known as color-timing control strips. Buck and Segal retrieved these beguiling images from discarded film leaders-usually blank film attached to the ends of a print to protect it from damage when it is threaded through a projector. They created the photographic prints in the installation by restoring, editing, and enlarging selected frames.

On view through September 18, 2005, at Harvard’s Sert Gallery in the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Girls on Film presents the artists’ interpretation of this provocative imagery in a panoramic display that forms a continuous work of art. A tension develops between the found images and the formal and material effects the artists achieve with their edited and enlarged prints.

The installation foregrounds a technical process in film that is normally hidden from public view. “Through their compelling retrieval of these formerly discarded and anonymous images, Julie Buck and Karin Segal offer insight into a little-known aspect of film production,” said Thomas W. Lentz, Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard University Art Museums. “In the process, they introduce a type of image that should offer a new point of entry into discussions of both the cinema and its representations of women.”

Color timing is a fundamental tool the film industry used from the 1920s to the 1990s to establish visual continuity between shots that may have been filmed over several months, under different lighting conditions, and even on different film stocks. Color-timing strips-or “China Girls,” as they came to be known-were film frames of variously posed women that technicians in the processing lab used to achieve consistent color balance and tonal density throughout a film. Women’s skin was thought to offer a particularly nuanced tonal gauge. Some of the women posing for these shots were lab secretaries or technicians; others were models or actresses hired for the job.

Although these shots had a utilitarian purpose, the way the women were posed, lit, and filmed often mimicked the representational codes of commercial cinema. As the artists note, “If it were just about a [color] standard, no more than 20 prototypes would have been necessary. Obviously, the format offered an opportunity to play out poses that were a lot more than functional.” Perhaps as a result, these color-timing control strips took on a life of their own, sometimes reappearing as “pin-ups” in projection booths, for example. According to a lab technician familiar with the genre, says Buck, some of the most appealing of these strips were reproduced more than even the most successful Hollywood films.

Both artists conceive of their practice as rescuing these women from the margins of cinema, recasting them as movie stars in their own right. It was the creative exploitation of the format and the obsolescence of the functional device, however, that initially attracted Buck and Segal to these images. “As with so many processes, color timing is now accomplished digitally,” said Segal. “It is ironic, therefore, that the very digital technology that allowed us to recover and rework these images-elevating them to the status of icons or portraits-has also made them all but disappear from the film industry.”

About the Artists

Julie Buck and Karin Segal have worked in the film and art fields for the last 10 years. Girls on Film, their latest project, premiered at the Courthouse Gallery at the Anthology Film Archive in New York City in February 2005 before traveling to Harvard. Both Julie and Karin have supported the Chlotrudis Society in a variety of ways. We offer congratulations to them both!

JULIE BUCK, born in 1974 in Walnut Creek, California, is the head of conservation at the Harvard Film Archive. She has a degree in film history from Brigham Young University and a certificate in film preservation from George Eastman House. Buck has taught film at several Boston institutions and has curated film series throughout the Northeast. Buck is also a collage artist. She currently resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

KARIN RYWKIND SEGAL, born in 1973 in Tel Aviv, holds a degree in fine arts from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem and has exhibited her art in Boston, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv while curating film and video series in Boston. She is the assistant conservator and publicist at the Harvard Film Archive and resides in Boston.

indieWIRE reports that Ryan Fleck’s award-winning short film, GOWANUS, BROOKLYN, will be expanded into a feature length film. GOWANUS, which played at both the Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals, was a favorite of Chris & Diane’s when it screened at the 2004 Independent Film Festival of Boston. The film is about “Drey, a 12-year-old Brooklyn girl who discovers her teacher smoking crack after school and is compelled to investigate further.”

The feature would be called HALF NELSON, and already attached are Ryan Gosling and Anthony Mackie. It is hoped that Shareeka Epps, who starred in the short as Drey, might reprise her role in the feature. Fleck co-wrote the scipt with Anna Boden, who is producing along with Traction Media, the company behind the much-anticipated HARD CANDY.

Speaking of HARD CANDY, starring Chlotrudis Awards-winner Ellen Page, Lion’s Gate Films has recently announced a release date of December 23 for this controversial film. It’s later than I expected, but perhaps this means we’ll get to see it in Toronto!