Sunday Night Film Club – Boston

Please Give is writer-director Nicole Holofcener’s (Friends with Money, Lovely & Amazing) perceptive—and devastatingly funny—take on modern life’s contradictions, good intentions and shaky moral bearings.

Kate (Catherine Keener) has a lot on her mind. There’s the ethics problem of buying furniture on the cheap at estate sales and marking it up at her trendy Manhattan store (and how much markup can she get away with?). There’s the materialism problem of not wanting her teenage daughter (Sarah Steele) to want the expensive things that Kate wants. There’s the marriage problem of sharing a partnership in parenting, business and life with her husband Alex (Oliver Platt) but sensing doubt nibbling at the foundations. And there’s Kate’s free-floating 21st century malaise—the problem of how to live well and be a good person when poverty, homelessness, and sadness are always right outside the door.

With the world now aware of his dual life as the armored superhero Iron Man, billionaire inventor Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) faces pressure from the government, the press, and the public to share his technology with the military. Unwilling to let go of his invention, Stark, along with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), and James “Rhodey” Rhodes (Don Cheadle) at his side, must forge new alliances — and confront powerful enemies.

Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post-hurricane New Orleans to the separation barrier on the Palestinian West Bank. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. Exit Through the Gift Shop tells the incredible true story of how an eccentric French shop keeper turned documentary maker attempted to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner. The film contains exclusive footage of Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Invader and many of the world’s most infamous graffiti artists at work, on walls and in interview. As Banksy describes it, “It’s basically the story of how one man set out to film the un-filmable. And failed”

The Magnetic Fields have never made it easy for those who would categorize their music. Originally labeled “art pop” musicians when their first album contained no guitar, they have since continued to befuddle genre watchdogs with a quirky blend of synth, strings, experimental percussion, pop overtones, folk undertones, and, of course, that magical special ingredient: Stephin Merritt’s deep, lulling vocals. Merritt’s tone massages a catalog of richly poignant lyrics that are quite the rare find in the pop-music thicket—often most notable for their delicate simplicity.

On the other hand, Merritt himself has never made it easy for those who would categorize him. His intense demeanor has been the subject of many a sour rumor over his 20-plus-year career. Some of these ill reports he may indeed have earned through antisocial behavior. Some, however, were bitter and undeserved cuts—the price he suspects he must pay for being “a high-profile sitting duck.”

Directors Kerthy Fix and Gail OÂ’Hara provide us with comfortable, homey access to Merritt and the most important, grounding influence in his life: his decades-long friendship with his chipper musical collaborator Claudia Gonson. On his home turf, in the apartment that has doubled as the studio for the lionÂ’s share of his recordings, Merritt is anything but prickly or uncooperative. He is a reflective, passionate, and even playful artist who is producing many of the great songs of his generation.

KICK-ASS tells the story of average teenager Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), a comic-book fanboy who decides to take his obsession as inspiration to become a real-life superhero. As any good superhero would, he chooses a new name — Kick-Ass — assembles a suit and mask to wear, and gets to work fighting crime. ThereÂ’s only one problem standing in his way: Kick-Ass has absolutely no superpowers. His life is forever changed as he inspires a subculture of copy cats, meets up with a pair of crazed vigilantes — including an 11-year-old sword-wielding dynamo, Hit Girl (Chloë Moretz) and her father, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) — and forges a friendship with another fledgling superhero, Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). But thanks to the scheming of a local mob boss Frank DÂ’Amico (Mark Strong), that new alliance will be put to the test.

Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning star in this music-fueled story of the ground breaking, all girl, teenage rock band of the 1970’s: The Runaways. The film follows two friends, Joan Jett and Cherie Currie, as they rise from rebellious Southern California kids to rock stars of the now legendary group that paved the way for future generations of girl bands. With it’s tough-chick image and raw talent, the band quickly earns a name for iteself.

Four pals are stuck in a rut in adulthood: Adam (John Cusack) has just been dumped, Lou (Rob Corddry) is a hopeless party animal, Craig (Craig Robinson) is a henpecked husband, and Jacob (Clark Duke) does nothing but play video games in his basement. But they get a chance to brighten their future by changing their past after a night of heavy drinking in a ski-resort hot tub results in their waking up in 1986.

When a successful British ghostwriter, The Ghost, agrees to complete the memoirs of former British Prime Minister Adam Lang, his agent assures him it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. But the project seems doomed from the start-not least because his predecessor on the project, Lang’s long-term aide, died in an unfortunate accident. The Ghost flies out to work on the project, in the middle of winter, to an oceanfront house on an island off the U.S. Eastern seaboard. But the day after he arrives, a former British cabinet minister accuses Lang of authorizing the illegal seizure of suspected terrorists and handing them over for torture by the CIA-a war crime. As The Ghost works, he begins to uncover clues suggesting his predecessor may have stumbled on a dark secret linking Lang to the CIA-and that somehow this information is hidden in the manuscript he left behind

A masterpiece in the beautiful main theater at the Coolidge with a new 35mm print. ’nuff said.