Sunday Night Film Club – Boston

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.

The cities of Zurich and Vienna on the eve of World War I are the setting for a dark tale of sexual and intellectual discovery. Drawn from true-life events, A Dangerous Method takes a glimpse into the turbulent relationships between fledgling psychiatrist Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender of Shame and Jane Eyre), his mentor Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen, A History of Violence) and Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley, Atonement), the troubled but beautiful young woman who comes between them. Into the mix comes Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel, Black Swan), a free-thinker who encourages Jung to cross therapist-patient boundaries. This exploration of sensuality, ambition and deceit sets the scene for the pivotal moment when Jung, Freud and Sabina come together and split apart, forever changing the face of modern thought. Screenplay by Christopher Hampton (Atonement, Dangerous Liaisons), based on his play The Talking Cure.

“A disgraced journalist and a computer hacker unravel a horrific family history when they investigate the case of a woman who disappeared 40 years ago. Daniel Craig stars in this film directed by David Fincher (The Social Network, Seven)”