Director Tim Burton's unique take on the classic Lewis Carroll story in which Alice falls down a rabbit-hole into a fantasy realm populated by talking cards, the raging Red Queen, and stark raving Mad Hatter. Cast: Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter.

(Tim Burton, USA, 2010, 108 minutes)

• Central Library   Saturday, Sep 18, 2010 (2:00 p.m.)
    Wheeler Auditorium

• Whole Family
 

Stanley Kubrick’s picture, based on Gustav Hasford's novel Short-Timers, chronicles the dehumanization and the brutality of a Marine Corps basic training camp at Parris Island, South Carolina during the Vietnam War and reveals the terrors and devastation of the once beautiful city of Hue in Vietnam. The first third of Full Metal Jacket follows Privates Joker (Matthew Modine) and Pyle (Vincent D'Onofrio) through their brutal and desensitizing drilling by Sergeant Hartman (Lee Ermey). The rest of the film continues in Vietam with now Corporal Joker, who has become a Marine Combat Correspondent. Kubrick fills this fragmented story with unforgettable images of war and inhumanity.  (Director: Stanley Kubrick, Great Britain, 1987, 116 min., color)

“The best war movie ever made.”
- Jay Scott, TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL

“The ultimate Vietnam movie? Even after PLATOON? I’d say yes.”
- Richard Freedman, NEWHOUSE NEWSPAPERS

“Nothing less than a masterpiece.”
- George Kirgo, CBS—THE MORNING PROGRAM

For more information, see:

Movie Review Query Engine

Internet Movie Database

Wikipedia

Screenplay 

The Kubrick Site

• Central Library   Saturday, Sep 25, 2010 (10:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.)
    Wheeler Auditorium

• Adults
 
• Seniors
 

(directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, USA, 2009, 96 minutes)

To celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 - October 15), the Pratt presents a special screening of this award-winning debut feature film by writer-director Cary Joji Fukunaga. Fukunaga spent two years researching the film by spending time with people on the trains and with gangsters in Central America. Sin Nombre (Spanish for "without a name") tells the story of two parallel perilous journeys of Latin American outsiders seeking the promise of "El Norte" in America. Sayra, a beautiful young Honduran woman, joins her father and uncle on an odyssey en route to a better life in the United States. Along the way she crosses paths with an outcast Mexican gang member who is trying to outrun his violent past and elude his former associates. Together they must rely on faith, trust and street smarts if they are to survive their increasingly perilous journey towards the hope of new lives.

• Central Library   Saturday, Sep 25, 2010 (2:00 p.m.)
    Wheeler Auditorium

• Adults
 

Still Bill is an intimate portrait of soul legend Bill Withers, best known for his classics, "Ain't No Sunshine," "Lean on Me," "Lovely Day," "Grandma's Hands," and "Just the Two of Us." With his soulful delivery and warm, heartfelt sincerity, Withers has written the songs that have resonated deeply within the fabric of our times.

Filmmakers Damani Baker and Alex Vlack offer a unique and rare look inside the world of this fascinating man. Through concert footage, journeys to his birthplace, interviews with music legends, his family and closest friends, Still Bill presents the story of an artist who has written some of the most beloved songs in our time and who truly understands the heart and soul of a man.

www.stillbillthemovie.com

• Central Library   Saturday, Oct 02, 2010 (2:00 p.m.)
    Wheeler Auditorium

• Teens
 
• Adults
 
• Seniors
 

This chilling fairytale is set against the backdrop of the fascist regime in 1944 Spain. Ofelia is a lonely and dreamy child who finds a magical world inside a stone labyrinth, where she encounters the legendary faun Pan, who tells her she must complete three dangerous tasks to return to her underground home. Ofelia uses this fantasy world to deal with the real world filled with post-war Fascist repression. Starring Ariadna Gil, Ivana Baquero, Doug Jones, Manolo Solo. Directed by Guillermo del Toro, Spain, 2007,112 minutes. In Spanish with English subtitles) 

For more information:

Movie Review Query Engine 

Internet Movie Database 

Official site 

Wikipedia 

• Central Library   Saturday, Oct 16, 2010 (10:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.)
    Wheeler Auditorium

• Adults
 
• Seniors
 

(Dir. Jason Reitman, USA, 2009, 109 minutes)

Nominated for six Oscars (including Best Picture), Up in the Air by director Jason Reitman follows corporate downsizing expert Ryan Bingham (Best Actor nominee George Clooney) whose cherished life-on-the-road is threatened by Natalie Keener (Best Actress nominee Anna Kendrick), a young, overachieving woman who recommends that the company change the nature of the work by conducting its "firings" via remote computer access. Leading an empty life lived out of a suitcase, Ryan thinks he may have finally met the frequent-traveler woman of his dreams (Best Actress nominee Vera Farmiga) in this quirky comedy.

• Central Library   Saturday, Oct 16, 2010 (2:00 p.m.)
    Wheeler Auditorium

• Adults
 

(Directed by Jay Watson, 2007, 111 minutes, Rated PG)

This magical motion picture is rooted in one of the most enduring and intriguing legnds of our time. A young boy finds a mysterious enchanted egg. What hatches from it will set in motion an adventure that will take him on a journey of a lifetime as the sea creature of Scottish legend is born. Cast: Emily Watson, Alex Etel, Ben Chaplin, Brian Cox.

• Central Library   Saturday, Oct 23, 2010 (2:00 p.m.)
    Wheeler Auditorium

• Whole Family
 

(Directed by Sam Raimi, 2009, 99 minutes, PG-13)

Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) has a good job, a great boyfriend (Justin Long, "The Mac Guy"), and a bright future at her bank. But even nice girls can go to Hell, especially in the hands of director Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Army of Darkness, Darkman), whose 2009 horror-comedy spoof has been called "the most crazy, fun and terrifying movie in years!" 

Alison Lohman plays an ambitious loan officer vying for a coveted manager's position against her brown-nosing rival Reggie Lee when, to impress her boss, she denies a loan extension to an old Gypsy woman facing eviction (The Young and the Restless' Lorna Raver). She soon finds herself the recipient of a supernatural curse, which turns her life (and her cat's) into a living hell. Desperate, she turns to seer Rham Jas (Dileep Rao) to try and save her soul. While she battles evil forces working to push her to a breaking point, sit back and enjoy our Halloween treat that's a 99-minute rollercoaster ride of thrills, spills, and gross-out humor!

• Central Library   Saturday, Oct 30, 2010 (2:00 p.m.)
    Wheeler Auditorium

• Adults
 

(Directed by Dean DeBlois and Chris Sanders, 2010, 98 minutes, Rated PG)

Set in the mythical world of burly Vikings and wild dragons, and based on the book by Cressida Cowell, this action comedy tells the story of Hiccup, a Viking teenager who doesn't exactly fit with his tribe's longstanding traditions of heroic dragon slayers. Hiccup's world is turned upside down when he encounters a dragon that challenges how he and fellow Vikings see the world. Voices by Gerard Butler, America Ferrar and Jonah Hill.

• Central Library   Saturday, Nov 13, 2010 (2:00 p.m.)
    Wheeler Auditorium

• Whole Family
 

(Directed by Gordan Chan, Hong Kong, 1994, 103 minutes)

In celebration of the 70th anniversary of the birth of the legendary Bruce Lee (November 27, 1940), we present this 1994 remake of what is arguably his best film, The Chinese Connection (1972). It pairs martial arts superstar Jet Li and action choreographer Yuen Woo-ping (The Matrix) in a feature considered one of the greatest martial arts action films of all time.

Li plays Chen Zhen, a Chinese student living abroad who returns in 1937 to his native Shanghai after reading about the death of his kung-fu master Hou Ting-An. After determining that his master's defeat was the result of poisoning, Chen takes on a rival Japanese martial arts school, culminating in a final epic duel for both revenge and national pride against the ruthless "Supreme Killer," Japanese General Fujita. 

Cast: Jet Li, Shinobu Nakayama, Siu-hou Chin, Billy Chow. In Cantonese with English subtitles.

See more about Fist of Legend at:

IMDB 

DVD Verdict

• Central Library   Saturday, Nov 20, 2010 (2:00 p.m.)
    Wheeler Auditorium

• Adults
 

A woman desires to tell her child the story of her Tuscan village during World War II and of her villagers' brave escape from Fascism during the war's final days. As she wishes on a shooting star, recollections of the daring plan and search for freedom come alive. Directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani create a stunning tale of the Resistance imbued with the fairy tale flavor of a minstrel's song. (Italy, 1982, 106 min., color. In Italian with English subtitles)

The Best Film of the Year - National Society of Film Critics

One of The Year’s Ten Best! -Time Magazine - Newsweek - Vanity Fair - Hollywood Reporter -New York Daily News - Film Journal - Newsday - Los Angeles Times - A Herald-Examiner - Boston Globe - Boston Phoenix - San Francisco Chronicle -Washington Post - Aquarian - WNEW-TV - USA Today -

"Euphoric. So good it’s thrilling. Comedy, tragedy, vaudeville, melodrama—they're all here and inseparable. So robust that even its most tragic moments can be dizzyingly comic. The movie is not like anything else. It may be close to the rank of Jean Renoir’s bafflingly beautiful GRAND ILLUSION."  - Pauline Kael, NEW YORKER MAGAZINE

"True brilliance. The Tavianis have succeeded in capturing the emotional intensity and sweeping excitement of the period . . . a lyrical salute to their own past. Riveting images . . . pastoral beauty. . .heroic spirit. . . Wonderfully humorous." - Kathleen Carroll, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

"A marvel. A stirring, beautiful film . . . an early Renaissance mural comes to life. Hundreds of movies have been made about World War II, but none quite like this."- David Ansen, NEWSWEEK

"A magnificent film. Warmhearted, tough-minded, THE NIGHT OF THE SHOOTING STARS offers an earthly poetic view. I can't think of another film with so much heroism and so little rhetoric. It has some of the most amazing sequences I've seen in an Italian movie since the early works of Bertolucci." - David Denby, NEW YORK MAGAZINE

"THE NIGHT OF THE SHOOTING STARS has the angelic earthiness of Quattrocentro art, an unpredictable, often comic blend of sentimental naturalism and skillful hyperbole."- J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE

"Sheer beauty."  - Carrie Rickey, VILLAGE VOICE

For more information: 

Wikipedia 

Internet Movie Database

Movie Review Query Engine

The Taviani Brothers

The Taviani Brothers

• Central Library   Saturday, Nov 20, 2010 (10:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.)
    Wheeler Auditorium

• Adults
 
• Seniors
 

(Directed by Robert Zemeckis, 2009, 96 minutes, Rated PG)

Jim Carrey plays four separate roles in this updated animated version of the Charles Dickens classic directed by Robert Zemeckis (Back To the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Forrest Gump). The old miser Scrooge must face the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet-To-Come. The Spirits must help bring kindness to his otherwise cold heart and remind him of the man he used to be. Voices by Jim Carrey, Bob Hoskins and Robin Wright Penn.

• Central Library   Saturday, Dec 04, 2010 (2:00 p.m.)
    Wheeler Auditorium

• Whole Family
 

Amelie (Audrey Tautou ) is a shy young woman who has a love of life’s small pleasures. While she takes joy in the slightest things in life, she is still looking for love as well as the course her life should take. Her slightly dysfunctional family has fostered her tentative interaction with her neighbors as well as the customers of the Parisian restaurant where she waitresses. When she successfully tracks down the owner of a box of boyhood treasures that she found in her house, she begins to believe she might have the power to influence more of the people around her. This fairy-tale style film follows the heroine until she finds love and her place in life even though everyone around her has always underestimated her.  

Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, France, 2001, 121 min., color. In French with English subtitles. With Mathieu Kassovitz, Rufus, Yolande Moreau, Artus de Penguern, Urbain Cancelier, Dominique Pinon)

"There's so much here, and all of it delightful."
-- Desson Howe, WASHINGTON POST

"It deserves to be cherished, hugged and celebrated."
-- Jeffrey M. Anderson, SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER

For more information:

Movie Review Query Engine  

Internet Movie Database 

Wikipedia - Amelie 

Cinefiles 

Wikipedia – Jean-Pierre Jeunet 

• Central Library   Saturday, Dec 11, 2010 (10:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.)

• Adults
 
• Seniors