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.”

I try not to spam this site or the newsletter much, but this announcement from the Brattle Film Foundation seemed important enough to merit it. If you are in the position to help out this cause, please visit the Brattle’s online donation form.

The Brattle Film Foundation (BFF), the nonprofit organization that programs and operates the Harvard Square’s landmark cinema, the Brattle Theatre, announced the most important fundraising effort in its 52-year history. The PRESERVE THE BRATTLE LEGACY CAMPAIGN is a two-year fundraising effort that is necessary to sustain repertory film programming at the Brattle. The Phase One goal is to raise $400,000 by the end of 2005; the Phase Two goal is to raise another $100,000 by the end of 2006. If BFF is not successful at meeting the goals set by Phase One of the campaign, BFF will be forced to cease operations at the Brattle Theatre, effectively ending the 52-year legacy of repertory film programming at the Brattle. The Brattle Theatre has outlasted most arthouse cinemas in the country. While landmarks like St. Mark’s and Bleeker Street in New York closed their doors long ago, the Brattle has survived. Of the Brattle’s current situation, Creative Director Ned Hinkle had this to say: “Repertory film programming at the Brattle simply cannot survive without significant community support. Our current challenges can only be overcome with the involvement of community members who want to keep the tradition of film programming alive at the Brattle Theatre.”

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, October 9th at 7:20pm for “MirrorMask” 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.

“Famed graphic novelists Neil Gaiman (screenwriter) and Dave McKean (director) combine their talents to create a dazzling, imaginative creation that resembles a cross between Labyrinth and Alice in Wonderland, but is entirely original. Helena (Stephanie Leonidas), a 15-year-old girl in a family of circus entertainers, often wishes she could run off and join real life. After a fight with her parents, her mother (Gina McKee) falls dangerously ill and Helena is convinced she is to blame. She dreams she is in a strange, doomed land with opposing queens, bizarre creatures and masked inhabitants, and only she can restore the balance by finding the MirrorMask.”

Join the Boston Sunday
Night Film Club this Sunday, October 2nd at 5:00pm for “Serenity” at the Boston
Common Loews. Look for Sean wearing a nametag in the main lobby on the ground floor about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.

“The crew of Serenity takes on any job that will pay, even if it’s not exactly legal. Malcolm Reynolds (Nathan Fillion), the captain, was on the losing side of a galactic war, and now all he has is his ship, named Serenity, and his loyal crew: his second in command and most trusted ally, Zoe (Gina Torres), her husband, the pilot, Wash (Alan Tudyk), the mechanic, Kaylee (Jewel Staite), and the muscle, Jayne (Adam Baldwin). When Malcolm takes on two new passengers, a young doctor, Simon Tam (Sean Maher) and his unstable, telepathic sister River (Summer Glau) he gets much more than he bargained for. The two are fugitives from The Alliance, the conglomerate that controls the galaxy. River learned something no one was ever supposed to know… and The Alliance will do anything to make sure no one will. Morena Baccarin, Ron Glass, and Chiwetel Ejiofor also star.”

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, September 25th at 5:40pm for “A History of Violence” at the Boston Common. 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.

“A stylized thriller from director David Cronenberg, A History of Violence examines how far a man is willing to go in his quest for redemption and to protect his family. Viggo Mortensen stars as Tom, a man who leads a quiet, charmed life with his loving wife and family in a small town. But when an unexpected incident turns bloody and brings unwanted attention to him, Tom is forced to return to his secret past in order to rescue his family from peril.”