Movies – Page 421 – We Are Movie Geeks

Ian McKellen is Sherlock Holmes In New Trailer For Bill Condon’s MR HOLMES

Ian McKellen leads a stellar cast including Laura Linney, Hiroyuki Sanada, Hattie Morahan, Patrick Kennedy, Roger Allam, Frances de la Tour, Phil Davis and newcomer Milo Parker in Bill Condon’s MR HOLMES. The film reunites McKellen with director Bill Condon after their collaboration on the Academy Award-winning GODS AND MONSTERS.

Based on the novel A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin, the intriguing premise for MR HOLMES reimagines Sherlock Holmes as a real person whose adventures have been turned into best-selling novels by his friend and partner Dr John Watson. Now old and in failing health, the famously rational detective is forced to engage for the first time with his emotions as his mental powers dwindle.

One of the key elements that made MR HOLMES such a pleasure for Bill Condon was the opportunity of reuniting with Ian McKellen after the success of Gods and Monsters. In both films, the focus is an elderly man – hugely famous in this film, of cult notoriety in the earlier film – forced to face up to his disintegrating mind and impending mortality, and how he finds solace in the burgeoning friendship with a younger person in the prime of their physical and mental health.

“Having made Gods and Monsters 17 years ago, Ian and I had always wanted to work together again and I had never found anything I ever thought worthy of sending to him. When I read this script, I thought this would be great for him and was so thrilled when I got the call back that he said it was a part and a half and he jumped right in as he did on Gods and Monsters. We were joking that when we did Gods and Monsters he was in his mid-late 50s playing James Whale towards the end of his life and now here in his 70s he’s playing Holmes at 93. I do have this knack for making him older than he is so we were saying all that is left is Methuselah which we can do when Ian is 90.”

McKellen was intrigued by the slow burn of the story. “It’s a mystery, a thriller,” explains the actor. “We find Holmes aged 93 living in retirement in the south of England where he keeps bees and is looked after by his housekeeper who has a son. That’s the beginning of it. The story creeps up on you and gets more complicated as it unfolds.”

The film’s score is by Carter Burwell (GODS AND MONSTERS). Watch a clip from the movie HERE.

MR. HOLMES will open in theaters this Summer.

For more on the film, visit:
http://facebook.com/mrholmesfilm
http://twitter.com/mrholmesfilm (@mrholmesfilm)
http://instagram.com/mrholmesfilm (@mrholmesfilm)

Classic French Film Festival Begins March 13th in St. Louis

Qui aime les films français ?

If you do and you live in St. Louis, you’re in luck! The Seventh Annual Robert Classic French Film Festival — co-presented by Cinema St. Louis and the Webster University Film Series begins March 13^th. The Classic French Film Festival celebrates St. Louis’ Gallic heritage and France’s cinematic legacy. The featured films span the decades from the 1930s through the early 1990s, offering a comprehensive overview of French cinema. The fest is annually highlighted by significant restorations.

This year features recent restorations of eight works, including an extended director’s cut of Patrice Chéreau’s historical epic QUEEN MARGOT a New York-set film noir (TWO MEN IN MANHATTAN) by crime-film maestro Jean-Pierre Melville, who also co-stars; a short feature (“A Day in the Country”) by Jean Renoir, on a double bill with the 2006 restoration of his masterpiece, THE RULES OF THE GAME, and the wild comic adventure THAT MAN FROM RIO with New Wave icon Jean-Paul Belmondo and the tragically short-lived Françoise Dorléac. The fest also features a trio of other newly restored films — Robert Bresson’s A MAN ESCAPED, Leos Carax’s BOY MEETS GIRL, and Eric Rohmer’s A TALE OF WINTER — and the 2002 restoration of Jean Cocteau’s timeless version of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Every program features introductions and discussions by film scholars and critics. The discussions will place the works in the contexts of both film and French history and provide close analyses. All films are in French with English subtitles.

Où faut-il être tenu ?

Webster University’s Winifred Moore Auditorium, 470 E. Lockwood Ave.

Combien sont les billets ?

$12 general admission; $10 for students, Cinema St. Louis members, and Alliance Française members; free for Webster U. students.

Advance tickets can be purchased through Brown Paper Tickets at brownpapertickets.com. In the “Find an Event” search box, type “Classic French.” A service charge will apply, and only full-price $12 tickets are available in advance.

Voici le line-up:

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 1946, 93 min., B&W, 2002 restoration – Fri, March 13 at 7:30pm

Jean Cocteau’s sublime adaptation of Mme. Leprince de Beaumont’s fairytale masterpiece — in which the pure love of a beautiful girl melts the heart of a feral but gentle beast — is a landmark of motion-picture fantasy, with unforgettably romantic performances by Jean Marais and Josette Day. The spectacular visions of enchantment, desire, and death in “Beauty and the Beast” have become timeless icons of cinematic wonder.

New Times critic Jean Oppenheimer enthuses: “So enchanting it takes your breath away, Jean Cocteau’s 1946 live-action version of the famous fairytale remains one of the most magical films ever made…. The exquisite costumes and sets were by Christian Bérard, Georges Auric contributed the score and cinematographer Henri Alekan was the wizard on camera. His use of trick photography and hand-crafted special effects puts all of today’s digitally generated, effects-laden movies to shame.” Britain’s the Observer asserts that “Beauty and the Beast” “does not look so much imported from the 1940s as blown in from another world…. Cocteau’s film is antic and playful, but there is real pain (and genuine eroticism) behind its flamboyant façade. ‘La belle et la bête’ is full of wonder and mystery. It’s cinema’s ultimate love story, dressed up as a monster.

With an introduction and post-film discussion by Andrew Wyatt, film critic for St. Louis Magazine’s Look/Listen arts-and-entertainment blog and the Gateway Cinephile film blog.

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RULES OF THE GAME Director: Jean Renoir 1939, 106 min., B&W, 2006 restoration – Saturday, Mar 14 at 7:30pm

This double bill by one of cinema’s true masters, Jean Renoir, co-stars the French countryside. “The Rules of the Game,” is a scathing critique of corrupt French society cloaked in a comedy of manners. Widely considered one of the greatest films ever made, “The Rules of the Game” lays bare some ugly truths about a group of haut bourgeois acquaintances during a weekend at a marquis’ country château. Subjected to cuts after its premiere, the film was reconstructed in 1959 and is presented here in its 2006 restoration.

“There are about a dozen genuine miracles in the history of cinema, and one of them is Jean Renoir’s supreme 1939 tragi-comedy ‘The Rules of the Game,’” writes Michael Wilmington in the Chicago Tribune. “Renoir’s masterpiece — whose echoes can be seen in films from Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Smiles of a Summer Night’ to Robert Altman’s ‘Gosford Park’ — is a love roundelay that’s also the most complex, astonishingly varied and brilliant of all ensemble comedy-drama films, a tale of frantically crisscrossing amours, set to the music of Mozart, Saint-Saens and Chopin, in a form that switches freely from farce to romance, satire to tragedy.”

Shown with:

A Day in the Country/Partie de campagne

Jean Renoir, 1936/1946, 41 min., B&W, new restoration

Based on a story by Guy de Maupassant, “A Day in the County” — begun in 1936 but not released until 1946 — is a tenderly comic idyll about a city family’s picnic and the romancing of the mother and grown daughter by two local men.

Time Out London says of “A Day in the Country”: “It may be only a featurette, but this masterly adaptation of a Maupassant story is rich in both poetry and thematic content.… Witty and sensuous, it’s pure magic.”

With an introduction and post-film discussion by Diane Carson, professor emeritus of film at St. Louis Community College at Meramec and film critic at KDHX.

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THAT MAN FROM RIO – Director: Philippe de Broca – 1964, 110 min., color, new restoration – Sunday, March 15 at 7:30pm

Though best known for the 1970s rep-house fave “King of Hearts” (1966), director Philippe de Broca first established his reputation with this spectacularly entertaining spoof of the Bond-style adventure film. Beginning when a blow-dart-wielding thug steals a rare statuette from the Musée de l’Homme and kidnaps an anthropologist (Jean Servais of “Rififi”), “That Man from Rio” kick-starts its nonstop action and never eases off the throttle. Following the theft, serviceman Adrien (Jean-Paul Belmondo) arrives in Paris on an eight-day leave just in time to see fiancée Agnès (Françoise Dorléac, Catherine Deneuve’s sister) similarly snatched from the streets. Adrien follows in frantic pursuit, and a globe-spanning chase ensues — moving first to Rio and then to Brasilia and involving motorcycle, airport baggage carrier, cable car, Amazon riverboat, seaplane, and jungle vine — with Belmondo performing his own heart-stopping stunts.

The Village Voice’s Stephanie Zacharek raves: “‘That Man from Rio’ is a crazy delight, a stylish, early-’60s pastiche that folds in every adventure-movie cliché you’ve ever seen, and possibly invents a few new ones. De Broca … orchestrates all this mishegas with verve and wicked wit, and in vibrant, wide-screen color, no less. The too-muchness is the fun, though de Broca still finds ways to let the charm of his actors shine through: A scene in which the very proper Parisian Agnès dances barefoot with a group of adorable Brazilian kids makes the most of Dorléac’s dazzling, impish energy. And you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Belmondo’s Adrien come thisclose to parachuting into the jaws of a peckish, waiting crocodile.”

With an introduction and post-film discussion by Renée Hirshfield, adjunct professor of film studies at Southwestern Illinois College.

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TWO MEN IN MANHATTAN – Director: Jean-Pierre Melville 1959, 84 min., B&W, new restoration – Friday, March 20 at 7:30pm

Although Jean-Pierre Melville occasionally contributed cameo performances in others’ films, “Two Men in Manhattan” features the only starring role for the director of such crime classics as “Bob le Flambeur.” When a French UN delegate disappears into thin air, reporter Moreau (Melville) and hard-drinking photographer Delmas (Pierre Grasset) are sent on an assignment to New York City to find him. Their only lead is a picture of three women. Employing a smoky jazz score and featuring stunning black-and-white cinematography that beautifully captures the gritty streets at night, “Two Men in Manhattan” is both a love letter to NYC and an homage to the American film noir.

The LA Times writes: “Melville got to exercise his vision stateside only twice. Among his 13 features, none was shot entirely on U.S. soil. The closest he came to a full-blooded American production was ‘Two Men in Manhattan,’ a jazz-infused nocturne in which the director, in his only starring role, plays a journalist on a quest that’s not quite credible but always intriguing.… In a filmography that includes such triumphs as ‘Le Samouraï,’ ‘Le Cercle Rouge’ and ‘Army of Shadows’ — all greeted rapturously by critics in their recently restored versions — ‘Two Men’ is, without question, a lesser work. But though it lacks the urgency of Melville’s better-known films, his mastery of mood, informed by his singular synthesis of Gallic existentialism and B-movie grit, invigorates every frame.”

With an introduction and post-film discussion by Robert Garrick, attorney, board member of the French-preservation nonprofit Les Amis, and former contributor to the davekehr.com film blog.

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QUEEN MARGOT – 1994, 159 min., color, new restoration and director’s cut – Saturday, March 21 at 7:30pm

Marguerite of Valois — known as Margot (Isabelle Adjani) — is sister to King Charles IX. In a political move to reconcile France, a country ripped apart by the Wars of Religion, the Catholic Margot is forced to marry the Protestant King Henri of Navarre (Daniel Auteuil) in a wedding engineered by Margot’s mother, Catherine de Medici (Verna Lisi). But the marriage is just scheming Catherine’s opening gambit: She intends to cut off the heads of the warring factions, killing their leaders and neutralizing the Protestants, and six days after the couple’s wedding, the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre is carried out. As thousands are murdered in the streets of Paris, a wounded Protestant, La Môle (Vincent Perez), desperately knocks on Margot’s door. Margot not only hides the young man and tends to his wounds, she eventually falls in love with him and switches her allegiances. Based on Alexandre Dumas’ novel, “Queen Margot” was awarded the Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize and won five Cesar Awards.

“Plenty of blood is spilled in the late Patrice Chéreau’s masterful 1994 wars of religion epic ‘Queen Margot,’” observes the LA Times. “But more important, blood also courses through the movie’s veins like a beautiful, dangerous and twisty river…. Chéreau’s and screenwriter Danièle Thompson’s lively adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ novel remains a model of heaving, combustible history, in which period lavishness and performance energy aren’t mutually exclusive. Splendidly acted and tautly executed, with the restoration of Chéreau’s 2007 director’s cut stressing Philippe Rousselot’s kinetic, beautifully florid cinematography, ‘Queen Margot’ depicts the perversity of rule and the bitter grace of hard-won compassion with the most assured of brush strokes.”

With an introduction and post-film discussion by Cate Marquis, film critic for the St. Louis Jewish Light and co-founder of the St. Louis Film Critics professional association.

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BOY MEETS GIRL – 1984, 110 min., B&W, new restoration – Sunday, March 22 at 7:30pm

In this debut feature by Leos Carax (“Holy Motors,” “Pola X”), Alex (Denis Lavant) has just been dumped by his girlfriend in favor of his best friend. Fascinated by first times — first break-up, first attempted murder — Alex decides to strangle his friend but gives up before finishing the deed. Wandering the evening streets, Alex overhears another romantic uncoupling when Mireille (Mireille Perrier), a girl from provincial France who has come up to Paris to make commercials, is left by her boyfriend. When these two tormented souls run into each other at a party, they’re fated to begin a doomed relationship.

The Village Voice describes “Boy Meets Girl” as “a debut feature of extraordinary passion and vigor. It premiered at the International Critics’ Week at the Cannes film festival, and it hit the French cinema like a lightning bolt — sudden and electrifying.” And the New Yorker’s Richard Brody writes: “The meteoric first film by Leos Carax — which he made at the age of twenty-three, in 1984 — hurls Alex (Denis Lavant), an aspiring filmmaker, through a permanently nocturnal Parisian atmosphere of poetic coincidences and crazy risks, out of one desperately romantic relationship and into another…. Ecstatic cinema and ecstatic living are joined in a pressurized promise of glory and misery, a flameout waiting to happen — and to be filmed.”

With an introduction and post-film discussion by Lionel Cuillé, the Jane and Bruce Robert professor of French and Francophone studies at Webster University.

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MON UNCLE – Director: Jacques Tati – 1958, 116 min., color, new restoration – Friday, March 27 at 7:30pm

Slapstick prevails again when Jacques Tati’s eccentric, old-fashioned hero, Monsieur Hulot, is set loose in Villa Arpel, the geometric, oppressively ultramodern home of his brother-in-law, and in the antiseptic plastic-hose factory where he gets a job. The second Hulot movie and Tati’s first color film, “Mon Oncle” is a supremely amusing satire of mechanized living and consumer society that earned the director the Academy Award for best foreign-language film.

Describing “Mon Oncle” as “pure, abstract slapstick, full of delightful visual wit, droll physical humor, and Gallic irony,” critic and programmer James Quandt writes: “In this hyperdesigned satire about the impersonality, tedium, and sterility of modern life, Tati plays the uncle of the title, whose sister is married to Monsieur Arpel, a plastics manufacturer. The Arpels live in a white horror of hygienic perfection, with a pristine yard, an arsenal of gadgets, and a fountain shaped like a fish that reminds one not of nature but of the factory that produced it. Importing disorder into this cold, soulless place, with its forbidding gate and garden, Hulot delights his nephew with his aptitude for accidents.”

With an introduction and post-film discussion by Jean-Louis Pautrot, professor of French and international studies at St. Louis University.

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A TALE OF WINTER – Director: Eric Rohmer – 1992, 114 min., color, new restoration – Saturday, March 28 at 7:30pm

Eric Rohmer was unsurpassed at creating intelligent romantic comedies and intelligent female characters. “A Tale of Winter,” one of his most genial and audacious films, is a superb example of both. With Rohmer’s characteristic delight in surprise and paradox, winter, not spring, is seen as the season of rebirth and renewal, and its tale begins on a sunny beach. A young couple, Félicie and Charles, meet while on holiday and fall deeply in love. In a fatal slip, she gives him the wrong address, and, as a result, he disappears from her life. Five years later, at Christmas time, Félicie is a hairdresser in the Paris suburbs with a daughter (by Charles) and two lovers: the successful Maxence and the intellectual Loïc. She loves them both, but, as she says, “There’s love and love,” and the love that counts is the one she still holds for the long-lost Charles.

“This is Rohmer at his very best,” says Time Out London, “effortlessly and unsentimentally charting the absurd complexities of human psychology, while creating a compelling contemporary fairytale firmly rooted in the banality of everyday existence. It has, as ever, enormous compassion, wit and insight, and its ending is exquisitely affecting.” And the Chicago Reader’s Jonathan Rosenbaum concludes: “Rohmer has become such a master of his chosen classic genre — the crystalline philosophical tale of character and romantic choice — that this is a nearly perfect work, in performance as well as execution.”

With an introduction and post-film discussion by Robert Hunt, former film critic for the Riverfront Times and former adjunct professor of film studies at Webster University.

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A MAN ESCAPED – Director: Robert Bresson – 1956, 101 min., B&W, new restoration – Sunday, March 29 at 7:30pm

With the simplest of concepts and sparest of techniques, Robert Bresson made one of the most suspenseful jailbreak films of all time in “A Man Escaped.” Based on the account of an imprisoned French Resistance leader, this unbelievably taut and methodical marvel follows the fictional Fontaine’s single-minded pursuit of freedom, detailing the planning and execution of his escape with gripping precision. But Bresson’s film is not merely about process — it’s also a work of intense spirituality and humanity.

David Denby writes in the New Yorker: “Robert Bresson’s ‘A Man Escaped,’ from 1956, begins with a shot of a young man’s hands as he is taken to a prison in Lyon during the German Occupation of France, and it returns to those hands as they scrape, cut, twist, bend, climb, kill, and, finally, release a rope that leads to freedom. It is not only the greatest of all prison-break movies but also an astoundingly detailed account of the activities of homo faber — man the toolmaker, or, in this case, man the escape artist, who begins with only a heavy spoon and, piece by piece, creates the means of his physical and spiritual liberation…. The prisoner’s lonely ardor is enhanced by Mozart’s Mass in C Minor; the ending of the movie, as the music wells up, is pure elation.”

With an introduction and post-film discussion by Pier Marton, video artist and self-designated unlearning specialist at the School of No Media.

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Ca sonne pas super ?

For more information, visit Cinema St. Louis’ site HERE

http://www.cinemastlouis.org/home

THE GODFATHER with Live Music by The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra March 27 – 29th

“It’s a Sicilian message. It means Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes.”

THE GODFATHER Screens with live music accompaniment by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra March 27-29th at Powell Hall in St. Louis

I’ve often said there’s nothing better than watching silent movies with live music, but what about watching sound movies with live music? When the movie is THE GODFATHER and the score is being performed by the award-winning St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, it just becomes one of those events that can’t be missed. Justin Freer conducts Nino Rota’s beloved score performed live by the STL Symphony with Francis Ford Coppola’s Academy Award®-winning full-length masterpiece shown from the Powell Hall stage beginning at 7pm Friday March 27 and 28, and 2pm Sunday March 29th. It’s an offer you cannot refuse!

“Do you renounce Satan?” asks a priest near the end of THE GODFATHER (1972) as he’s baptizing Michael Corleone’s son. “I do” replies Michael just before director Francis Ford Coppola ironically cuts to a montage of the bloody murders of the five rival family heads. It’s one of the most powerful, influential, and brilliantly edited sequences in cinema and perfectly paved the way for a second chapter adapted from Mario Puzo’s novel about crime, corruption, and family. Some feel THE GODFATHER PART II (1974) is actually a better film than the original and it’s only sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The sequel expanded the scope of the saga and offered Coppola a chance to go to a broader horizon but overall, the original is preferred because it breathed life into the gangster genre and gave crime films dramatic respectability. THE GODFATHER is cited as the very ‘favorite’ by more men of a certain age I know than any other film. THE GODFATHER PART III came out in 1990 to far lesser acclaim and many fans of the first two, including myself, have never given it a second visit. Perhaps it’s aged well and deserves rediscovery but I don’t see the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra performing a concert around that one anytime soon.

Don’t miss THE GODFATHER when it screens with live music accompaniment by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra beginning at 7pm March 27^th and 28, and 2pm Sunday March 29th at Powell Hall in St. Louis (718 N Grand Blvd)

Ticket information can be found HERE

http://shop.stlsymphony.org/single/SYOS.aspx?p=4520

GOD TOLD ME TO – Midnights at The Hi-Pointe This Weekend

“….God told me to!”

GOD TOLD ME TO screens midnights this Friday and Saturday (March 6^th and 7th) at The Hi-Pointe Theater (1005 McCausland Ave., St. Louis, MO 63117)

In the Fall of 1976, my father dropped me off at the Hi-Pointe Theater after church one Sunday because I’d been bugging him about seeing the new horror film RABID by David Cronenberg, a director who would soon become a favorite. RABID was the first half of a double feature that afternoon, paired with something called DEMON, which I knew nothing about except that it was rated R and was called DEMON. While I loved the gory RABID (and still do), my 14-year old mind was mostly just bewildered by the deranged religious madness and paranormal confusion on display in the less-gruesome DEMON. About a dozen years later, I rented the VHS of Larry Cohen’s GOD TOLD ME TO, and was surprised to see that it and DEMON were actually one and the same. By that time, I was a fan of maverick, NY-based Cohen, one of the great independent exploitation directors of the 1970s and 80s. His quirky output includes BLACK CAESAR (1973), IT’S ALIVE (1974), Q THE WINGED SERPENT (1982), and THE STUFF (1985), but his most unusual film still has to be that 1976 mind-bender GOD TOLD ME TO. This weekend I’ll be heading back to the Hi-Pointe, 39 years later, to see DEMON there again (this time under its proper title GOD TOLD ME TO) when it plays as part of Destroy the Brain’s Late Night Grindhouse midnight series.

Set in New York, GOD TOLD ME TO stars Tony LoBianco as Peter Nicholas, a Catholic police detective who feels a strong connection to a series of murders he’s investigating that are being committed by various random, seemingly normal, assailants who claim that God told them to kill. The first is a sniper who kills from the top of a water tower. Nicholas attempts to talk the sniper down and when he asks him why he did it, the sniper responds that “God told him to…” and then proceeds to jump to his death. Nicholas finds that killer and others, including a cop (played by Andy Kaufman!) who shoots up a St. Patrick’s Day parade, have been influenced by an androgynous religious cult leader played by Richard Lynch whose origins (and gender) are a mystery. Things start to get a little more complicated, but suffice it to say the Det. Nicholas isn’t what he seems to be and that his background is directly tied to the events that are taking place. I won’t give away too much more of the story, but metaphysics, spaceship footage from the TV show Space:1999, and Sylvia Sidney getting impregnated by an alien all figure into the story, as does the sight of a man with a vagina growing out of the side of his body (this of course is reminiscent of the vagina in Marilyn Chambers’ armpit in RABID, which I just seen the first time I saw GOD TOLD ME TO!!). Deborah Raffin (who played Charles Bronson’s girlfriend in DEATH WISH 3) plays Nicholas’ girlfriend while Sandy Dennis (who played Charles Bronson’s wife in her final film INDIAN RUNNER) plays his wife.

Don’t miss Larry Cohen’s GOD TOLD ME TO this weekend (March 6^th and 7th) midnights at The Hi-Pointe!

Admission is $7 and the pre-show begins at 11:30

The Hi-Pointe’s site can be found HERE

http://hi-pointetheatre.com/

The Facebook invite for the Friday night show can be found HERE

https://www.facebook.com/events/911367402218755

The Facebook invite for the Saturday night show can be found HERE

https://www.facebook.com/events/840515639339809

The Destroy The Brain.com site can be found HERE

http://www.destroythebrain.com/

WINGS Screening With Live Organ Music March 8th – St. Louis Theatre Organ Society

“Hello Yank, welcome to a very merry little war. And now how about a wee drop for the King and Uncle Sam?”

The 1927 silent classic WINGS will screen at 2pm on Sunday March 8th at the St. Louis Scottish Rite Cathedral Auditorium (3633 Lindell Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63108) with live organ music by Dr. Marvin Faulwell.

In 1927, the first Best Picture Oscar went to WINGS, a thrilling silent WW1 drama from director William S. Wellman. WINGS told the story of poor boy Jack (Charles Rogers) and rich boy David (Richard Arlen) who are in love with the same woman, which causes the two to become bitter enemies. When WW1 breaks out the two are thrown together and quickly become friends, although David is too nice to let Jack know that the girl back home doesn’t love him. Clara Bow plays the girl who is madly in love with Jack but he’s too blind to see it. It’s rather sad that this film is basically only remembered for winning the first Best Picture Oscar because it’s an incredible film from start to finish. The action stunts are incredible to watch and the scenes in the sky are just as thrilling. The majority of the 139-minute running time is all the action and there’s never a dull moment. One has to imagine what it was like making a film like this in 1926-27. Cameras were massive, heavy and hand-cranked. Consider this when viewing this amazing film’s flying sequences. Both Rogers and Arlen are terrific in their roles and never miss a beat. Bow steals the film as the playful girl in love with Jack. The way Bow moves has enough sexual energy that you can’t help but be fixated on everything she does. Her “nude” scene in front of the mirror is certainly among the highlights of the film. Henry B. Walthall appears briefly as David’s father and Gary Cooper has a very impressive, if short, role. Also worth mentioning is the greatly comical scene involving the champagne bubbles. In the end this is another shining example of the mastery of silent cinema and just more proof that you don’t need a computer to make great action scenes. Now lucky St. Louis silent film fans will have the opportunity to see WINGS on the big screen accompanied by live organ music.

The one-of-a-kind event takes place Sunday afternoon, March 8th, at 2:00 PM, when the St. Louis Theatre Organ Society will be a sponsoring the showing of WINGS. Dr. Marvin Faulwell will play his original score on the 4/53 recently restored Kimball Organ in its original installation at the St. Louis Scottish Rite Cathedral Auditorium. Admission is FREE, but donations will be accepted and highly appreciated. Proceeds will be shared by SLTOS and The Walker Scottish Rite Clinic for Children.

Parking is available in the Rite’s garage behind the building (off Olive Street) for $10.00, so carpooling to the theatre would make sense. The only access to the Scottish Rite is a walkway from the third level of the garage.

The St. Louis Theatre Organ Society (SLTOS) was formed in 1962 as a chapter of the American Theatre Organ Society. They were the 15th chapter of the national organization, and although small in numbers, they are still active in the metro area. A large part of their purpose is the recognition and preservation of the unique instruments and style of music known as Theatre Organ. SLTOS owns, maintains, and plays the organ on the third floor lobby of the Fabulous Fox Theatre on a volunteer basis to spread the joy of the music to the community. The organization also owns the Theatre Pipe Organ installed at the City Museum in downtown St. Louis.

Admission: Donations accepted for the benefit of St. Louis Theatre Organ Society (501c3) and the Walker Scottish Rite Clinic for Children (501c3). (http://www.srclinic.org/)

Julianne Moore in MAPS TO THE STARS Opens in St. Louis Friday at The Chase

How about that Julianne Moore? The red-headed actress followed up her Best Actress win at last year’s Cannes Film Festival with a win for the big one at The Oscars. But the two wins were for different films! MAPS TO THE STARS was the film she won at Cannes for. We Are Movie Geeks has not seen this latest thriller from cult director David Cronenberg, but we won’t miss it when it plays in St. Louis starting Friday exclusively at The Chase Park Plaza Cinema (212 N. Kingshighway in the Central West End)

MAPS TO THE STARS is about the Weiss family, who are making their way in Hollywood rife with money, fame, envy, and relentless hauntings. Stafford Weiss (John Cusack) is a famed TV self-help therapist with an A-list celebrity clientele. Meanwhile, Cristina Weiss (Olivia Williams) has her work cut out managing the career of their disaffected child-star son, Benjie (Evan Bird), a fresh graduate of rehab at age 13. Yet unbeknownst to them, another member of the Weiss family has arrived in town – mysteriously scarred and tormented Agatha (Mia Wasikowska), just released from a psych ward and ready to start again. She soon works her way into a friendship with a limo driver (Robert Pattinson) and becomes personal assistant to unraveling actress Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore), who is beset by the ghost of her legendary mother, Clarice (Sarah Gadon). But Agatha is on a quest for redemption – and even in this realm of the artificial, and the unearthly, she’s determined to find it, no matter what it takes.

MAPS TO THE STARS has impressed the critics.

David Stratton of At the Movies called it:

“An abrasive, funny, smartly acted meditation on life in contemporary Hollywood.”

Criag Matheison at The Age called MAPS TO THE STARS:

“A scabrous journey through Hollywood’s malignant mindset that starts with narcissism and ends with death rituals.”

Ken Hanke of Mountain Express wrote that MAPS TO THE STARS

“…is a difficult movie — at once bitterly funny, deeply unsettling and sometimes a little silly. That’s not a bad description of Hollywood and the cult of celebrity, too.”

Liza Minnelli used to say: “The Chase is the Place to be in St. Louis!” Next week at least, she’s right!

Oscar-Winning Best Picture BIRDMAN Opens Friday at The Hi-Pointe in St. Louis

“People, they love blood. They love action. Not this talky, depressing, philosophical bullshit!”

St. Louis-area film fans who somehow have yet to see BIRDMAN are in luck. The Oscar-winning ‘Best Picture’ will open Friday, February 27th for a one-week run at St. Louis’ best theater The Hi-Pointe (1005 McCausland Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63117). I’m gonna see it again just so I can see it at The Hi-Pointe – and so should you !

Here are the showtimes for screening of BIRDMAN next week at The Hi-Pointe

Friday – Saturday – Sunday: (2:00, 4:45) and 7:30

Monday – Wednesday: (4:45) and 7:30

Thursday: (4:45)

The Hi-Pointe’s site can be found HERE

http://hi-pointetheatre.com/

MARS ET AVRIL Screens March 4th at Schlafly Bottleworks – “Strange Brew”

“One’s brain needs to dream in order to reboot.”

MARS ET AVRIL screens March 4th at Schlafly Bottleworks Restaurant and Bar in Maplewood

DANGER DIABOLIK, TARANTULA, THE THING WITH TWO HEADS – You never know what’s brewing at Webster University’s Strange Brew cult film series. It’s always the first Wednesday evening of every month, and they always come up with some cult classic to show while enjoying some good food and great suds. The fun happens at Schlafly Bottleworks Restaurant and Bar in Maplewood (7260 Southwest Ave.- at Manchester – Maplewood, MO 63143).

This month (Wednesday March 4th) Strange Brew is offering up something I’ve never heard of….but it sure looks interesting! It’s the 2012 French-Canadian sci-fi mindbender MARS ET AVRIL

Plot synopsis for MARS ET AVRIL: As the first human prepares to touch down on Mars, a charismatic Montreal musician enters into a tempestuous love triangle in this adaptation of the popular graphic novel of the same name. Jacob Obus (Jacques Languirand) is a musician who toys with time. Using instruments inspired by the female form and designed by his friend Arthur (Paul Ahmarani), Jacob creates music that seems to exist on another plane of reality. When Jacob and Arthur both fall for pretty photographer Avril (Caroline Dhavernas), the cracks in their friendship start to grow. Meanwhile, Arthur’s father Eugene (Robert Lepage), a noted cosmologist, has his own theories about the human race’s desire to reach Mars, and teaches Jacob that true love is a force more powerful than he ever imagined.

The critics have been digging MARS ET AVRIL!

Anton Bitel at Sight and Sound describes MARS ET AVRIL as:

“a meta-cosmo-poem with musical accompaniment, photographic imagery and much male longing and loneliness”

Shelagh Rowan-Legg at Twitch Film raves:

“Oh, what a wonderful, rich, glorious treat of a film MARS ET AVRIL is. A sci-fi steam-punk romance with a terrific score, it is a delight to the senses. Visually stunning, melodramatic in its storytelling, and unafraid to delve into deep philosophical musings…..this is a film that demands to be seen on the big screen, but is by no means an easy watch, in the sense that it does ponder big questions, and asks the spectator to stretch their imagination more than usual.”

Now you can experience the cosmic weirdness that is MARS ET AVRIL when it screens Wednesday night March 4^th at Schlafly Bottleworks Restaurant and Bar in Maplewood (7260 Southwest Ave.- at Manchester – Maplewood, MO 63143). The movie starts at 8pm and admission is $5. A yummy variety of food from Schlafly’s kitchen is available as are plenty of pints of their famous home-brewed beer.

New AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON Poster Unveiled

Just 65 days until AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON opens! (not that We’re counting) – now check out the new poster that the folks at Marvel Studios unveiled today:

Now that’s a cool poster! They’re all there. I even spot Elizabeth Olson in there as the Scarlet Witch. And there’s Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Quicksilver. Those two (who played husband and wife in last year’s GODZILLA) are not listed above the title. And where’s Paul Bettany as Vision? I guess that’s him with the yellow cape. Oh well, I Can’t wait!

Marvel Studios presents AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON, the epic follow-up to the biggest Super Hero movie of all time. When Tony Stark tries to jumpstart a dormant peacekeeping program, things go awry and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, are put to the ultimate test as the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. As the villainous Ultron emerges, it is up to The Avengers to stop him from enacting his terrible plans, and soon uneasy alliances and unexpected action pave the way for an epic and unique global adventure. Marvel’s AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON stars Robert Downey Jr., who returns as Iron Man, along with Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Mark Ruffalo as Hulk and Chris Evans as Captain America.

Together with Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and with the additional support of Don Cheadle as James Rhodes/War Machine, Cobie Smulders as Agent Maria Hill, Stellan Skarsgård as Erik Selvig and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, the team must reassemble to defeat James Spader as Ultron, a terrifying technological villain hell-bent on human extinction.

Along the way, they confront two mysterious and powerful newcomers, Pietro Maximoff, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Wanda Maximoff, played by Elizabeth Olsen and meet an old friend in a new form when Paul Bettany becomes Vision. Written and directed by Joss Whedon and produced by Kevin Feige, p.g.a., Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” is based on the ever-popular Marvel comic book series “The Avengers,” first published in 1963.

Get set for an action-packed thrill ride when The Avengers return in Marvel’s AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON on May 1, 2015.

Quick plot synopsis:

When Tony Stark jumpstarts a dormant peacekeeping program, things go awry and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, are put to the ultimate test as they battle to save the planet from destruction at the hands of the villainous Ultron.

SUPER SIZE ME Screens Thursday March 5th at Schlafly Bottleworks

“See, now’s the time of the meal when you start getting the McStomach ache. You start getting the McTummy. You get the McGurgles in there. You get the McBrick, then you get the McStomach ache. Right now I’ve got some McGas that’s rockin’. My arms… I feel like I’ve got some McSweats goin’. My arms got the McTwitches going in here from all the sugar that’s going in my body right now. I’m feeling a little McCrazy!”

SUPER SIZE ME screens at Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood next Thursday, March 5^th at 7pm. It is a benefit for Helping Kids Together

SUPER SIZE ME is a 2004 documentary by Morgan Spurlock who basically does an experiment to see what eating McDonald’s three times a day for 30 days can do to the body. When the film opens, he’s in excellent health. His girlfriend is a vegetarian so it’s obvious he eats well. Noting the increased problem of obesity in this country he decided to prove the potential dangers of fast food, and surprise! He gains weight and his cholesterol goes up, he feels sick, lethargic, etc. I used to occasionally go into McDonald’s, and then I saw this film. After seeing it, I will *never* go into any fast-food chain in the world, even if my life depended on eating something…….just kidding! (except the Chicken McNuggets! – after seeing how they are made in the film, I don’t think I’d ever eat them again – but I rarely ordered them before anyway).

In SUPER SIZE ME, Spurlock brings up some law suits that overweight people have filed against fast food companies saying their health problems and obesity are the fault of places like McDonald’s Look, exactly who would eat EVERY meal for 30 days at ANY restaurant?? Spurlock’s point is well taken and presented clearly, but if you choose to eat that much food each meal for a month what would you expect?? Most folk understand that McDonalds is not “health food” and act accordingly… People in the United States are going to have to start taking some responsibility for their actions…If someone eats himself into obesity it is their fault… Nobody shoves Big Macs into your mouth but you… It is just as easy to eat a salad and get some exercise… Let’s face it, people eat at McDonalds because it tastes good.. Don’t blame the corporation for an epidemic of obesity… Whatever happened to “Just Say No”? That said, SUPER SIZE ME is an interesting, funny, and enjoyable movie and I look forward to seeing it again when it plays Thursday, March 5^th at Schlafly Bottleworks in Maplewood.

The Facebook invite for the event can be found HERE

https://www.facebook.com/events/349263458592780

Doors open at 6:30pm. $6 suggested for the screening. A yummy variety of food from Schlafly’s kitchen is available as are plenty of pints of their famous home-brewed suds. A bartender will be on hand to take care of you. “Culture Shock” is the name of a film series here in St. Louis that is the cornerstone project of a social enterprise that is an ongoing source of support for Helping Kids Together (http://www.helpingkidstogether.com/) a St. Louis based social enterprise dedicated to building cultural diversity and social awareness among young people through the arts and active living. The films featured for “Culture Shock” demonstrate an artistic representation of culture shock materialized through mixed genre and budgets spanning music, film and theater. Through ‘A Film Series’ working relationship with Schlafly Bottleworks, they seek to provide film lovers with an offbeat mix of dinner and a movie opportunities. We hope to see everyone next Thursday night!

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