Beginning this Friday our film line-up for the next week is truly international. The Oscar nominated short films - animation, live action, documentary - come to us from France, Ireland, Belgium, Tunisia, South Korea, U.K. China, the U.S and the Czech Republic. My appreciation to Magnolia Pictures for making these short gems available to theatres every year.
We also have two feature documentaries about two remarkable women - Agnés Varda and Marion Stokes. Varda, the director of THE GLEANERS & I, THE BEACHES OF AGNÉS, and FACES PLACES, among many others, was a favorite filmmaker of mine. Her playful, profound work was one-of-a-kind, wise and illuminating. VARDA BY AGNÉS, her final film, is a personal summation of the director's own brilliant career. She acts as a spirit guide on a free-associative tour through her six-decade artistic journey, shedding new light on her films and photography, while offering reflections on everything from filmmaking to feminism to aging. This wonderfully idiosyncratic work of imaginative autobiography is a warmly human, touchingly bittersweet parting gift from one of cinema's most luminous talents. "The result is grand, warmhearted testament to her lifetime of creative connections, her art of self-transformation, and her relentless transformation of the art of cinema itself." - The New Yorker
For over 30 years Marion Stokes obsessively and privately recorded American television news twenty-four hours a day. A mystery in the form of a time capsule, RECORDER: THE MARION STOKES PROJECT delves into the strange life of a woman for whom home taping was a form of activism to protect the truth. And though her visionary and maddening project nearly tore her family apart, her extraordinary legacy is as priceless as her story is remarkable. "Outstanding...Stokes touched the nerve center of our times." -The New Yorker
Destin Daniel Cretton (SHORT TERM 12) directs the powerful, true story JUST MERCY, starring Michael Jordan, Jamie Foxx and Brie Larson. Jordan plays Bryan Stevenson, a Harvard law school graduate who heads to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned or who were never afforded proper representation. "JUST MERCY is that rarity, a movie that inspires." -Seattle Times
Only 4 tickets remain for McCABE AND MRS. MILLER, our classic film next Wednesday (2/5) in the Starlight. "McCABE AND MRS. MILLER is like no other Western ever made, and with it, Robert Altman earns his place as one of the best contemporary directors." -Roger Ebert
--Rocky