Author: Boston SNFC Newsletter

This is likely to be a big film, so you should strongly consider pre-buying tickets!

Every year in the ruins of what was once North America, the Capitol of the nation of Panem forces each of its twelve districts to send a teenage boy and girl to compete in the Hunger Games. A twisted punishment for a past uprising and an ongoing government intimidation tactic, The Hunger Games are a nationally televised event in which “Tributes” must fight with one another until one survivor remains. Sixteen year old Katniss Everdeen volunteers in her younger sister’s place to enter the games, and is forced to rely upon her sharp instincts as well as the mentorship of drunken former victor Haymitch Abernathy when she’s pitted against highly-trained Tributes who have prepared for these Games their entire lives. If she’s ever to return home to District 12, Katniss must make impossible choices in the arena that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

When cops Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) join the secret Jump Street unit, they use their youthful appearances to go under cover as high-school students. They trade in their guns and badges for backpacks, and set out to shut down a dangerous drug ring. But, as time goes on, Schmidt and Jenko discover that high school is nothing like it was just a few years earlier — and, what’s more, they must again confront the teenage terror and anxiety they thought they had left behind.

From acclaimed director Agnieszka Holland (The Secret Garden, Europa Europa) comes In Darkness, an Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film. The drama is based on the true story of Leopold Socha (Robert Wieckiewicz), a sewer worker and petty thief in Lvov, a Nazi occupied city in Poland, who one day encounters a group of Jews trying to escape the liquidation of the ghetto. He hides them for money in the labyrinth of the town’s sewers beneath the bustling activity of the city above. What starts out as a straightforward and cynical business arrangement turns into something very unexpected: the unlikely alliance between Socha and the Jews as the enterprise seeps deeper into Socha’s conscience. The film is also an extraordinary story of survival as these men, women and children all try to outwit certain death during 14 months of ever increasing and intense danger.

Co-Presented by The Brattle and the Independent Film Festival of Boston 2012 (which is coming up soon – April 27May 7 – iffboston.org):

The newest from acclaimed British director Ben Wheatley (Down Terrace), KILL LIST is an intricately constructed film that almost begs to be seen more than once. A brilliant blend of family drama, crime thriller and terrifying psychological horror, KILL LIST tells the story of an ex-soldier turned contract killer who is plunged into the heart of human darkness. Eight months after a disastrous job in Kiev, Jay (Maskell) is pressured by his partner Gal (Smiley) into taking a new assignment. Neither man, however, no matter how hardened they may be, has any idea just how dark and twisted this new job is.

The film wisely avoids extraneous exposition, leaving the audience asking questions at the same time (and sometimes with the same level of desperation) as Jay and Gal. Wheatleys direction treats family confrontation and armed showdowns with a naturalistic shooting style, drawing us into Jays paranoid worldview before pulling the rug out from under us with a stunningly shocking ending. We can practically guarantee that this is one of those films that you will be talking about for weeks after seeing it.

Meet Dave Brown (Woody Harrelson), a cop long ago unleashed from the rules of the Los Angeles Police Department. Roving the streets in his black-and-white cruiser, he governs and punishes at will. His home life is a riddle. Somehow he has fathered children with two sisters (Anne Heche and Cynthia Nixon). Somehow he still lives casually with them both, slipping in and out of a family life that’s as tangled as his long career on the force. His own daughter calls him Date Rape. That’s because, years ago, Brown may have killed a rapist and gotten away with it. The shadow of the incident still haunts him, so when his Rampart division gets caught up in a corruption scandal, Brown makes an easy target. As the controversy seeps through the department and into city hall, this hardened, reckless officer finds himself at the center of a sordid L.A. story. Following up on The Messenger, writer/director Oren Moverman assembles an impressive team of talent for Rampart. The script is co-written by crime fiction legend James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential). The cast includes Ben Foster (also in The Messenger), Robin Wright, Sigourney Weaver, Steve Buscemi and Ice Cube. Although based on a real LAPD scandal from the nineties, Rampart easily transcends reportage.

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see all five Academy Award nominees in the category of Best Animated Short and more! Program includes: “Dimanche/Sunday” (Canada), in which every Sunday, it’s the same old routinethe train clatters through the village, Grandma will get a visit, and Dad dreams about his toolbox in church; “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” (USA), a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story, inspired in equal measures by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz and a love for books; Pixar’s “La Luna” (USA), a timeless coming-of-age fable of a young boy whose Papa and Grandpa take him to work for the very first time, rowing in an old wooden boat far out to sea; “A Morning Stroll” (UK), a whimsical tale in which a New Yorker meets a chicken on his morning walk; and “Wild Life” (Canada), the story of an Englishman who moves to Calgary on the Canadian frontier in 1909, but is singularly unsuited to it.

This gripping, fractured psychological drama follows Martha (Olsen), a troubled young woman who has just escaped from an abusive secular cult. With nowhere else to turn, she moves into her uptight sisters opulent Connecticut vacation home and tries to recover from her traumatic experiences. The film unfolds the layers of Marthas involvement with the cult in flashback scenes that draw us deeper and deeper into her damaged psyche.

Mallory Kane (Gina Carano) is a highly trained operative for a government security contractor. Her missions take her to the world’s most dangerous areas. After Mallory successfully frees a hostage journalist, she’s betrayed and left for dead by someone in her own agency. Knowing her survival depends on learning the truth behind the double-cross, Mallory uses her black-ops training to set a trap. But when things go awry, Mallory knows she’ll die unless she can turn the tables on her adversary.

Soon after her divorce, a fiction writer returns to her home in small-town Minnesota, looking to rekindle a romance with her ex-boyfriend, who is now happily married and has a newborn daughter.

Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break.