Priceless
Jean (The Valet's Gad Elmaleh), a shy young
bartender, is mistaken for a millionaire by a beautiful
seductress named Irene (Amelie's Audrey Tautou). When Irene
discovers his true identity, she abandons him, only to find
that a love-struck Jean has no intention of letting her get
away. Jean's comical attempts to gain her affections
gradually evolve into setting himself up as a gigolo at a
luxury hotel, until Irene finally starts to warm to her
persistent, persuasive suitor. Against the wildly
atmospheric backdrop of the south of France, Pierre
Salvadori (Apres Vous) directs this sexy and thoroughly
charming romantic comedy, which is a fresh re-imagining of
the cinema classic, Breakfast at Tiffany's. "Stop
laughing long enough, and you'll see that it's a picture
about compromised lives and love for sale. But no one who
watches Priceless will stop laughing for that long."-San
Francisco Chronicle. "4/5 Stars. The perfect frothy
fantasy for the obscene wealth gap era, Priceless (Hors de
Prix) stars a gorgeous, cellophane-thin Audrey Tautou as
Irene, a dedicated gold digger who finds herself
accidentally mixed up with a penniless bartender."-Los
Angeles Times. "A romantic comedy that takes risks
Hollywood wouldn't dream of."-Chicago Tribune. 113 min.,
Rated PG-13.
Married Life
A wry blend of dark humor, romantic
deception, and stylish melodrama--with an invigorating dash
of suspense--Married Life is an unconventional fable for
grown-ups about the irresistible power and utter madness of
love. After decades of marital contentment, Harry (Chris
Cooper) concludes that he must kill his wife Pat (Patricia
Clarkson) because he loves her too much to let her suffer
when he leaves her. Harry has fallen hard for the young and
lovely Kay (Rachel McAdams), but his best friend Richard
(Pierce Brosnan) wants to win Kay for himself. As Harry
implements his maladroit plans for murdering his wife, the
other characters are entangled with their own deceptions.
Like Harry, they race towards their passions but trip over
their scruples, seemingly well-intended towards all, but
truthful to none. Married Life is an uncommonly adult film
that surprises and confounds expectations. While it plays
with mystery, comedy, and intrigue, its ultimate concern
is: "What is married life?" In its sly way,
Married Life poses perceptive questions about the seasonal
discontents and unforeseen joys of all long-term
relationships. "4/5 Stars. Married Life, a
period comedy of manners merged with a suspenseful
psychological thriller, aspires to be a hybrid of the sort
that Alfred Hitchcock polished to perfection. "-New
York Times. "Cooper and Clarkson are sublime in
creating a marriage still filled with tenderness, even as
they lie to each other with breezy consistency."-Richard
Roeper. "You may not like it if you insist on counting
the deck after the game and coming up with 52. But if you
get 51 and are amused by how the missing card was made to
vanish, this may be a movie to your liking."-Roger
Ebert. "Stylish without being overly stylized,
intelligent without being boring, Married Life is a classy
throwback to the good old days when subtlety meant
something at the movies."-New York Observer. "Married
Life is much more about the enduring relationship between
husband and wife than it is about the excitement between
husband and girlfriend."-Entertainment Weekly. 90
min., rated PG-13.
My Blueberry Nights
In Wong Kar Wai's debut English language
feature, the internationally acclaimed director takes his
audience on a dramatic journey across the distance between
heartbreak and a new beginning. After a rough break-up,
Elizabeth (played by songstress Norah Jones in her screen
debut) sets out on a journey across America, leaving behind
a life of memories, a dream and a soulful new friend; a
café owner (Jude Law)--all while in search of something to
mend her broken heart. Waitressing her way through the
country, Elizabeth befriends others whose yearnings are
greater than hers, including a troubled cop (David
Strathairn) and his estranged wife (Rachel Weisz) and a
down-on-her luck gambler (Natalie Portman) with a score to
settle. Through these individuals, Elizabeth witnesses the
true depths of loneliness and emptiness, and begins to
understand that her own journey is part of a greater
exploration within herself. "In My Blueberry Nights,
Wong Kar-wai and his cinematographer, Darius Khondji, make
America look so pretty that you may have trouble
recognizing it."-New York Times. My Blueberry Nights hints
that buried in Wong's spicy odd noodlings may be an even
better conventional filmmaker."-Entertainment Weekly.
"Fortunately, Mr. Wong has made the perilous journey
into a new language without sacrificing his artistic soul
and very personal visual style."-New York Observer.
"This cool and cerebral film could be a hot arthouse
item."-Hollywood Reporter. 111 min., Rated PG-13.
RED HEROINE (Hong
Xia)
starring
Fan Xuepeng
and
directed by Wen Yimin 1929
Episode
six of RED KNIGHT-ERRANT a.k.a. RED HEROINE, the only
surviving episode of the 13-part serial, is also one of the
few complete and earliest extant silent martial arts films.
This a prime example of the Wuxia pain (errant knight
swordplay genre) often based on published novels or
serials. A band of outlaws raids a village and kidnaps a
maiden, causing the death of the young woman's grandmother.
The captive maiden is rescued by a mysterious Daoist hermit
and reemerges three years later as a full-fledged warrior,
flying to the sky to revenge her grandmother's death. While
generously sprinkled with anachronisms and prurient
incongruities (imagine a bandit's harem of beauties in
bikinis!), the film remains a robust telling of a young
woman's transformation from abject victim to resolute
warrior.
The Devil Music Ensemble presents Red Heroine
On Friday, Sept. 12 at 8PM the Devil Music Ensemble will perform
a live music performance with an amazing and virtually
unknown classic silent Chinese Kung Fu film called Red Heroine (directed by Wen
Yimin 1929). The performance consists of a projection
of this amazing film accompanied by a new original
soundtrack performed live by the DME.
This film is the only feature length Chinese martial arts
film from the silent era that still exists in its entirety!
The score created by the DME will be the only modern score
to be written specifically for this film!
The DME offers a very unique multimedia experience,
presenting a synthesis of live music and movie to entertain
and inspire audiences. The greatest asset of the DME is
their ability through music to control the audiences'
responses to what is being presented to them visually via a
silent film. Audience members often forget that a live band
is playing the soundtrack and are all of sudden snatched
out of the suspension of disbelief to see exactly how the
music for the film is unfolding before their eyes. It's a
thrilling effect.
Then She Found Me
Adapted from Elinor Lipman’s novel of the same name, Helen Hunt makes her feature directing debut with Then She Found Me, a touching story of schoolteacher April Epner (Hunt) and her very unlikely path towards personal fulfillment. Following the separation from her husband (Matthew Broderick) and the death of her adopted mother, April is contacted by her apparent birth mother (Bette Midler), who turns out to be a local talk show host Bernice Graves. As Bernice tries to become the mother to April that she was never able to be, April seems to find solace in the arms of the parent of one of her students (Colin Firth), only to find that the mystery to life’s questions cannot be solved by a simple revelation. “By the closing scene, I felt privileged to be along for April's emergence from the deep waters of daughterhood and her realization that when love knocks, the heart opens wide.”-Philadelphia Inquirer. “There's a gentle realism that makes room for laughs, drama and the slightest touch of farce, never spilling into the comically cheap and managing to explore subtler issues involving adoption.”-Chicago Tribune. “A funny and touching story about the way we create families both by blood and by choice.”-New York Observer. 100 min., Rated R.
Son of Rambow
A runaway audience smash at the Sundance Film Festival, SON OF RAMBOW is a hilariously fresh and visually inventive take on friendship, family, film heroes and the death-defying adventures of growing up in the video age. It all begins in 1980s Britain, when young Will Proudfoot, raised in isolation among The Brethren, a puritanical religious sect in which music and TV are strictly forbidden, encounters something beyond his wildest fantasies: a pirated copy of Rambo: First Blood. His virgin viewing of the iconic thriller blows his mind – and rapidly expanding imagination – wide open. Now, Will sets out to join forces with the seemingly diabolical school bully, Lee Carter, to make their own action epic, devising wildly creative, on-the-fly stunts, not to mention equally elaborate schemes for creating a movie of total commitment and non-stop thrills while hiding out from The Brethren. But when school popularity finally descends on Will and Lee in the form of, oui, the super-cool French exchange student, Didier Revol, their remarkable new friendship and precious film are pushed, quite literally, to the breaking point. “Son of Rambow evokes the rush of discovery that turns budding cinephiles into lifers -- that delight in finding a film that seems to express or coalesce some inchoate yearning, including a yen to share.”-Village Voice. “Bright and witty physical and optical visual touches spill off the screen, though the use of effects is scaled to the tale.”-Variety. 95 min.