Sunday Night Film Club – Boston

Written and directed by Academy Award(r) nominee Damien Chazelle, La La Land tells the story of Mia (Emma Stone), an aspiring actress, and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a dedicated jazz musician, who are struggling to make ends meet in a city known for crushing hopes and breaking hearts.

Set in modern day Los Angeles, this original musical about everyday life explores the joy and pain of pursuing your dreams.

Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy fights through grief and trauma to regain her faith, console her children, and define her husband’s historic legacy.

This eerily seductive mind-bender is a dark, dreamlike descent into the depths of the unknown. Ten-year-old Nicolas (Brebant) lives in a remote seaside village populated only by boys his age and adult women. But when he makes a disturbing discovery beneath the ocean waves a dead boy with a red starfish on his stomach Nicolas begins to question everything about his existence. What are the half-remembered images he recalls, as if from another life? If the woman he lives with is not his mother, then who is she? And what awaits the boys when they are all suddenly confined to a hospital? The long-awaited new film from the acclaimed director of Innocence is awash in the haunting, otherworldly images of a nightmare.

Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck), is the resident handyman for a small apartment complex in a Boston suburb. He spends his days shoveling snow, fixing leaks, and doing his best to ignore the tenants’ small talk. He spends his evenings either alone in his basement apartment or nursing a beer at his local, where he’ll pick a fight with anyone who throws a glance his way.

When he receives the news that his older brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) has died of a congenital heart condition and that, to his unpleasant surprise, he’s been appointed legal guardian of Joe’s teenage son, Patrick (Lucas Hedges), Lee returns to his nearby seaside hometown, a place of both cherished and painful memories. Despite the sudden loss of his father, and in stark contrast to his uncle, Patrick is full of life. A popular student, he juggles hockey, band practice, and two girlfriends. As this mismatched pair stumbles through the mundane details of estate planning and the awkward strain of adolescence, Lee is forced to confront his past, revealed seamlessly through flashbacks, and the realities of his present.

High-school life gets even more unbearable for Nadine when her best friend, Krista, starts dating her older brother.

Note: This is a reserved-seating showing, the host will be sitting in Row F.

Denis Villeneuve directed this science-fiction suspense film about Earth’s response to a possible alien invasion. After extraterrestrial spacecraft plant themselves at various locations around the globe, a linguist (Amy Adams) and a theoretical physicist (Jeremy Renner) must find a way to communicate with the mysterious visitors in order to learn what they want and whether they pose a threat to humanity. Forest Whitaker and Michael Stuhlbarg co-star.

A former neurosurgeon embarks on a journey of healing only to be drawn into the world of the mystic arts.

Note: This is opening weekend and reserved seating, you should probably purchase tickets in advance. Sean, the host, will be sitting in Row F. Also, Daylight Savings Time ends at 2am on Sunday, so make sure to double check your clocks.

Note: This film is the opening night of the IFFBoston Fall Focus. Passes are required. Download and print your pass. Please arrive early. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis and is NOT guaranteed. Theatre is not responsible for seating over capacity.

Writer-director Barry Jenkins made waves with his feature debut MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY (IFFBoston 2008). Not only did it give the hipster-romance-indie genre a much-needed shot of artistic vigour, butunlike most of those filmsit took place in an America where race and class are defining aspects of life. Now, Jenkins sophomore feature MOONLIGHT makes good on MELANCHOLYs promise. This is an impeccably crafted study of African-American masculinity from a vital creative voice in contemporary cinema. Though his story is set in Miami, Jenkins shuns the familiar neon-lit aesthetic that the likes of Michael Mann have associated with the Florida hot spot. Instead, he shows a different kind of life, miles away from South Beach, in an area hit by a crack epidemic. Its here that we meet young Chiron. Bullied at school and beaten down by a harsh home life, Chiron risks becoming a statistic: another black man dominated and ultimately destroyed by the system. Despite his small stature and taciturn nature, Chiron is a survivor, and, as he grows, it becomes clear that his real battle isnt even on the streets. Its an internal one: reckoning with his complex love for his best friend. MOONLIGHT takes Chiron from childhood to his teens to adulthood, but it absolutely defies coming-of-age conventions. Instead of offering a clear progression of time, Jenkins plunges us into an atmospheric subjectivity, an impressionistic vision of Chirons psyche in which sensuality, pain, and unhealed wounds take centre stage with staggering power. Anchored in an unforgettable performance by emerging talent Trevante Rhodes (as the older Chiron), MOONLIGHT explores the human need to feel connected. But although its themes could be called universal, they are firmly grounded in a specific understanding of African-American experience. This film was waiting to be made, and Jenkins was the one to make it.

“Based on the acclaimed book Denial: Holocaust History on Trial, Denial recounts Deborah E. Lipstadts (Academy Award(r) winner Rachel Weisz) legal battle for historical truth against David Irving (BAFTA nominee Timothy Spall), who accused her of libel when she declared him a Holocaust denier.”