Sunday Night Film Club – Boston

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, December 18th at 6:15pm for “King Kong (2005)” at the Fenway 13. Look for Sean wearing a nametag and sitting in the little seating area in the lobby (between the ticket booths and the video games) about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion. This may be a very popular film, so showing up early or preordering tickets might be a good idea!

“Set in the 1930s, this is the story of a group of explorers and documentary filmmakers who travel to the mysterious Skull Island (near Sumatra) to investigate legends of a giant gorilla named Kong. Once there, they discover that King Kong is a real creature, living in a massive jungle where creatures from prehistoric times have been protected and hidden for millions of years. As the explorers search for the great ape, their quest puts them up against both Kong and his dinosaur enemies. Ultimately, it is the attention of a beautiful human woman that soothes Kong long enough for him to be subdued by the explorers and shipped back to New York, where his bleak future involves being put on display in front of humans… but how long can even the mightiest shackles of man hold back an ape 25 feet tall?”

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, December 11th at 6:15pm for “Syriana” at the Loews Harvard Square. Look for Sean wearing a nametag in the lobby about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.

“From writer/director Stephen Gaghan comes Syriana, a political thriller that unfolds against the intrigue of the global oil industry. From the players brokering back-room deals in Washington to the men toiling in the oil fields of the Persian Gulf, the film’s multiple storylines weave together to illuminate the human consequences of the fierce pursuit of wealth and power. As a career CIA operative (George Clooney) begins to uncover the disturbing truth about the work he has devoted his life to, an up-and-coming oil broker (Matt Damon) faces an unimaginable family tragedy and finds redemption in his partnership with an idealistic Gulf prince. A corporate lawyer faces a moral dilemma as he finesses the questionable merger of two powerful U.S. oil companies, while across the globe, a disenfranchised Pakistani teenager falls prey to the recruiting efforts of a charismatic cleric. Each plays their small part in the vast and complex system that powers the industry.”

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, December 4th at 7:05pm for “The Ice Harvest” at the Kendall Square Cinema. Look for Sean wearing a nametag and sitting in the little seating area in the lobby about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.

“A wickedly funny thriller that takes moviegoers on a wild ride brimming with larceny, lust and lethal behavior. In icebound Wichita, Kansas, it’s Christmas Eve, and this year Charlie Arglist (John Cusack) just might have something to celebrate. Charlie, an attorney for the sleazy businesses of Wichita, and his unsavory associate, the steely Vic Cavanaugh (Billy Bob Thornton) have just successfully embezzled $2 million from Kansas City boss Bill Guerrard (Randy Quaid). But the real prize for Charlie is the stunning Renata (Connie Nielsen), who runs the Sweet Cage strip club. Charlie hopes to slip out of town with Renata. But as daylight fades and an ice storm whirls, everyone from Charlie’s drinking buddy Pete Van Heuten (Oliver Platt) to the local police begin to wonder just what exactly is in Charlie’s Christmas stocking – and the 12 hours of Christmas Eve are filled with surprises.”

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, November 27th at 7:30pm for “Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic” at the Kendall Square Cinema. Look for Sean wearing a nametag and sitting in the little seating area in the lobby about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.

“Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic is written by Sarah Silverman, directed by Liam Lynch, and produced by Heidi Herzon, Mark Williams and Randy Sosin. Lynch, the fast­rising video and film director currently in production on the feature TENACIOUS D IN: THE PICK OF DESTINY, collaborated with Silverman to adapt her show to the screen. The film comprises Silverman’s performance before a live audience interwoven with stylish musical numbers and backstage intrigue. Bob Odenkirk, Brian Posehn and Silverman’s comedian/actor sister, Laura Silverman, make appearances along with Silverman’s band The Silver Men.

Silverman, who has been compared to the legendary Lenny Bruce, is known as one of the funniest and most provocative people in comedy. Despite the current political climate, in JESUS IS MAGIC she takes on such pitch­black topics as September 11 th , unwanted body hair, and the Holocaust, and spins them into decidedly un­politically correct comedic gold. As she says in the film, “When God gives you AIDS, (and God does give you AIDS, by the way) make LemonAIDS.”

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, November 20th at 7:30pm for “Walk the Line” at the Fenway 13. Look for Sean wearing a nametag and sitting in the little seating area in the lobby (between the ticket booths and the video games) about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.

“In 1955, a tough, skinny guitar-slinger who called himself J.R. Cash walked into the soon-to-be-famous Sun Studios in Memphis. It was a moment that would have an indelible effect on American culture. With his driving freight-train chords, steel-eyed intensity and a voice as deep and black as night, Cash sang blistering songs of heartache and survival that were gutsy, full of real life and unlike anything heard before. That day kicked off the electrifying early career of Johnny Cash (Joaquin Phoenix). As he pioneered a fiercely original sound that blazed a trail for rock, country, punk, folk and rap stars to come, Cash began a rough-and-tumble journey of personal transformation. In the most volatile period of his life, he evolved from a self-destructive pop star into the iconic “Man in Black” -– facing down his demons, fighting for the love that would raise him up, and learning how to walk the razor-thin line between destruction and redemption. As his music changed the world, Cash’s own world was rocked by the woman who became the love of his life: June Carter (Reese Witherspoon).”

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, November 13th at 5:05pm for “The Squid and the Whale” at the Kendall Square Cinema. Look for Sean wearing a nametag and sitting in the little seating area in the lobby about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.

“The patriarch (Jeff Daniels) of an eccentric Brooklyn family claims to once have been a great novelist, but he has settled into a teaching job. When his wife (Laura Linney) discovers a writing talent of her own, jealousy divides the family, leaving two teenage sons to forge new relationships with their parents. Linney’s character begins dating her younger son’s tennis coach. Meanwhile, Daniels’ character has an affair with the student his older son is pursuing.”

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, November 6th at 7:00pm for “Jarhead” at the Fenway 13. Look for Sean wearing a nametag and sitting in the little seating area in the lobby (between the ticket booths and the video games) about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.

“Jarhead (the self-imposed moniker of the Marines) follows “Swoff” (Gyllenhaal), a third-generation enlistee, from a sobering stint in boot camp to active duty, sporting a sniper’s rifle and a hundred-pound ruck on his back through Middle East deserts with no cover from intolerable heat or from Iraqi soldiers, always potentially just over the next horizon. Swoff and his fellow Marines sustain themselves with sardonic humanity and wicked comedy on blazing desert fields in a country they don’t understand against an enemy they can’t see for a cause they don’t fully fathom… Foxx portrays Sergeant Sykes, a Marine lifer who heads up Swofford’s scout/sniper platoon, while Sarsgaard is Swoff’s friend and mentor, Troy, a die-hard member of STA-their elite Marine Unit.”

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, October 30th at 5:15pm for Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance at the Brattle Theatre. Look for Audra wearing a nametag in the theatre lobby about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion

“This is the story of Ryu, a deaf-mute, and his sister, who requires a kidney transplant. Ryu’s boss, Park, has just laid him off, and in order to afford the transplant, Ryu and his girlfriend develop a plan to kidnap Park’s daughter. Things go horribly wrong, and the situation spirals rapidly into a cycle of violence and revenge.”

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, October 23rd at 7:00pm for “Good Night, and Good Luck.” at the Loews Harvard Square. Look for Sean wearing a nametag in the lobby about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.

“Good Night, and Good Luck.” takes place during the early days of broadcast journalism in 1950’s America. It chronicles the real-life conflict between television news man Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) and Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Permanent Sub-committee on Investigations (Government Operations Committee). With a desire to report the facts and enlighten the public, Murrow, and his dedicated staff – headed by his producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney) and Joe Wershba (Robert Downey Jr.) in the CBS newsroom – defy corporate and sponsorship pressures to examine the lies and scaremongering tactics perpetrated by McCarthy during his communist ‘witch-hunts.’ A very public feud develops when the Senator responds by accusing the anchor of being a communist. In this climate of fear and reprisal, the CBS crew carries on regardless and their tenacity eventually pays off when McCarthy is brought before the Senate and made powerless as his lies and bullying tactics are finally uncovered.

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, October 16th at 4:30pm for “Capote” at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. Look for Sean wearing a nametag in the theatre lobby about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.

Just a side note: The Brattle Theatre needs your help!

“In November, 1959, Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and a favorite figure in what is soon to be known as the Jet Set, reads an article on a back page of the New York Times. It tells of the murders of four members of a well-known farm family—the Clutters—in Holcomb, Kansas. Similar stories appear in newspapers almost every day, but something about this one catches Capote’s eye. It presents an opportunity, he believes, to test his long-held theory that, in the hands of the right writer, non-fiction can be compelling as fiction. What impact have the murders had on that tiny town on the wind-swept plains? With that as his subject—for his purpose, it does not matter if the murderers are never caught—he convinces The New Yorker magazine to give him an assignment and he sets out for Kansas. Accompanying him is a friend from his Alabama childhood: Harper Lee (Catherine Keener), who within a few months will win a Pulitzer Prize and achieve fame of her own as the author of To Kill a Mockingbird.

Though his childlike voice, fey mannerisms and unconventional clothes arouse initial hostility in a part of the country that still thinks of itself as part of the Old West, Capote quickly wins the trust of the locals, most notably Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper), the Kansas Bureau of Investigation agent who is leading the hunt for the killers. Caught in Las Vegas, the killers—Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino)—are returned to Kansas, where they are tried, convicted and sentenced to die. Capote visits them in jail. As he gets to know them, he realizes that what he had thought would be a magazine article has grown into a book, a book that could rank with the greatest in modern literature. His subject is now as profound as any an American writer has ever tackled. It is nothing less than the collision of two Americas: the safe, protected country the Clutters knew and the rootless, amoral country inhabited by their killers. Hidden behind Capote’s often frivolous façade is a writer of towering ambition. But even he wonders if he can write the book—the great book—he believes destiny has handed him. “Sometimes, when I think how good it could be,” he writes a friend, “I can hardly breathe.”