Samurai Cinema
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AFIPreview19 8/8/05 12:53 PM Page 1 AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE GUIDE August 26-November 8, 2005 TO THEATRE AND MEMBER EVENTS VOLUME 2• ISSUE 5 AFIPREVIEW Samurai Cinema First-Run Features: SAVE THE GREEN PLANET FUNNY HA HA TROPICAL MALADY PICKPOCKET Special Screenings: Jane Fonda Live with DC Labor Filmfest Korean Film Festival Asian Pacific American Film Festival THE WICKER MAN NOSFERATU DER GOLEM Happy Birthday Mahalia Jackson! Plus: French Cinema Under the Occupation Still Blazing: Mel Brooks The Lubitsch Touch HARAKIRI AFIPreview19 8/8/05 12:53 PM Page 2 NOW PLAYING FEATURED FILMS 2 SAVE THE GREEN PLANET! Washington, DC Sci-Fi Comedy from Korea Premiere Engagement 2 TROPICAL MALADY: SAVE THE GREEN PLANET! Love & Death in the Jungle [Jigureul jikyeora!] 2 FUNNY HA HA: Life, Post-College Opens Friday, August 26 3 2005 DC Labor Filmfest: Jane Fonda Live with Shin Ha-gyun is a sensitive, blue-collar sad sack hopped up on conspiracy theories and NINE TO FIVE, Barbara Kopple & More sci-fi films. His life has been derailed by one bad break after another. Yet he knows there’s 4 Korean Film Festival with Shin Sang-ok & no such thing as bad luck. Only one thing Choi Eun-hee, Live on Stage! could have made such a mess of his life... aliens! Nasty, disgusting space invaders who 5 XVI Washington Latin American Film Festival have infiltrated human society. Sly extrater- 8 2005 Asian Pacific American Film Festival restrials planning to destroy our planet at the next lunar eclipse. One of them possesses the 9 Samurai Films from the Masters: Royal Genetic Code needed to contact the Kurosawa, Kobayashi, Okamoto & More Crown Prince and stop the destruction. That alien just happens to be Shin Ha-gyun’s old boss, the CEO of Yuje Chemicals, Baek Yun-shik. First-time director Jang Jun-hwan has 10 About AFI marshaled every trick in his cinematic arsenal to unleash a full-out moviemaking assault on the audience. DIR/SCR Jang Jun-hwan; PROD Cha Seoung-jae and Kim Sun-ah. South 11 Calendar Korea, 2003, color, 118 min. In Korean with English subtitles. UNRATED. 12 French Cinema Under the Occupation 12 Robert Bresson’s PICKPOCKET Washington, DC Premiere Engagement 13 Ernst Lubitsch, Part 1 14 Still Blazing: Mel Brooks TROPICAL MALADY 14 Mid-Atlantic Regional Showcase, [Sud pralad] Local Docs: DC’s 930 F STREET & Opens Friday, September 2 Baltimore’s WE ARE ARABBERS Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and an official selec- 15 Halloween Treats! British Horror Classic: tion of the New York Film Festival, both in THE WICKER MAN; Silent Screams 2004. TROPICAL MALADY, the lyrical and mysterious film by maverick Apichatpong NOSFERATU & THE GOLEM, Weerasethakul (BLISSFULLY YOURS), one with Live Musical Accompaniment of the most prominent young directors of the Thai New Wave, chronicles the mysti- 15 CinemAfrica: NERIA cal love affair between a young soldier and 15 Cinema Tropical: MAIDS the country boy he seduces, soon to be disrupted by the boy’s sudden disappearance. Local legends claim the boy was trans- 16 Mahalia Jackson Birthday Celebration formed into a mythic wild beast, and the soldier journeys alone into the heart of the Thai jungle in search of him.—Strand Releasing. DIR/SCR Apichatpong Weerasethakul; 16 Montgomery College Series PROD Charles de Meaux and Alex Moebius. Thailand, 2004, color, 118 min. In Thai UNRATED. 16 WRQX Presents: U2, RATTLE AND HUM with English subtitles. Win tix to see U2 in concert! Washington, DC Premiere Engagement On the cover: Brazil’s REDEEMER, courtesy of GNC-TV FUNNY HA HA Inset: HARAKIRA, courtesy of Janus Films Opens Friday, September 2 AFI Preview editor: Annie Collier Rehill Deftly observes the inherent silliness of post- AFI Preview designer: Melissa Kelly, Auras Design college life in contemporary America. Information is correct at press time. Films and schedule subject to Anchored by a revelatory performance by • BUY FEE • • NO SERVICE ONLINE: WWW.AFI.COM/SILVER TICKETS change. Check www.AFI.com/Silver for updates. Kate Dollenmayer, FUNNY HA HA creates a landscape entirely populated by nonprofes- AFI PREVIEW (ISSN-0194-3847) is published every six weeks by the American Film Institute’s office at 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring, MD. Signed articles do not neces- sional actors, all perfectly cast as the kind of sarily reflect the official institute policy. © 2005 American Film Institute. All rights aimless 20-somethings who would do a favor reserved. Reproduction in part or whole without permission is prohibited. Editorial, pub- for a friend by acting in his independent lishing and advertising offices: AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, 8633 Colesville Rd., film. The movie also features a solid comic Silver Spring, MD 20910 (301.495.6720). Subscription price: $50.00 per year. All subscrip- turn by writer/director Andrew Bujalski. tions also include membership in the American Film Institute. Send all remittances and FUNNY HA HA is an anachronistic indie correspondences about subscriptions, undelivered copies and address changes to: film—the sort of work made by the likes of John Cassevettes and Mike Leigh that defines American Film Institute, 2021 N. Western Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027, Attention: independent filmmaking a generation ago. Infused with the wry minimalism of early Jar- Membership. Periodicals postage paid at Silver Spring, Maryland and at additional mail- musch and the stream-of-consciousness observations of Richard Linklater’s best works, ing offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to AFI PREVIEW at American Film Bujalski has crafted a funny blend of absurdity and naturalism. DIR/SCR Andrew Bujalski; Institute, Membership Department, 2021 N. Western Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90027. PROD Ethan Vogt. US, 2003, color, 89 min. UNRATED 2 AFIPreview19 8/8/05 12:53 PM Page 3 LABOR FILM FESTIVAL Filmmaker Barbara BUTTHEAD, KING IL POSTO 2005 DC Labor Filmfest Kopple in Person with OF THE HILL and Fox’s soon-to-be- [The job] September 15 through September 21 HARLAN COUNTY, USA released IDIOCRACY). Sunday, September 18, 1:00; Tuesday, September 20, 8:30; Organized and presented by the Metropolitan Friday, September 16, 7:30; DIR/SCR Mike Judge; Monday, September 19, 8:45 Wednesday, September 21, Washington Council of the AFL-CIO, the Debs- PROD Daniel Rappa- port and Michael 5:30 (Montgomery College Series Legendary documentarian Barbara Showing, see p. 16 for details) Jones-Douglass Institute and the American Kopple won the first of her two Rotenberg. US, 1999, Sandro Panseri ven- Film Institute, DC Labor Filmfest 2005 boasts Academy Awards for this film about 89 min. RATED R tures from a small vil- a coal miners’ strike in “bloody Har- an array of new films and beloved classics IL POSTO lage to Milan in lan County,” Kentucky. “The film’s about work and workers, from the American AMERICAN search of employment. power comes from Kopple’s intimate DREAM But he finds himself on the bottom office place to the far-flung factories of the involvement with the people,” says Saturday, September 17, 1:00 rung of the bureaucratic ladder, with global economy. Special guest include Jane film writer Peter Biskind, “the risks daunting prospects, then finds rea- she took, the places—jails, court- Barbara Kopple won her second Fonda and Barbara Kopple. For more infor- son for hope. A tender coming-of- rooms, stockholders’ meetings—into Academy Award for Best Documen- mation, visit www.dclaborfilmfest.org. age story laced with sharp observa- which she forced her camera.” tary for this film about the 1985 tions on the dehumanizing aspects DIR/SCR/PROD Barbara Kopple. US, Hormel strike in Minnesota. In ●M AFI Member Passes will be accepted at of corporate enterprise. DIR/SCR 1976, 103 min. UNRATED addition to the usual struggle, this all screenings in the DC Labor Filmfest except Ermanno Olmi; SCR Ettore Lom- strike reveals conflicts between the • TO ORDER WWW.AFI.COM/SILVER TICKETS: • the special screening of NINE TO FIVE. local union and national leaders of bardo; PROD Alberto Soffientini. the United Food and Commercial Italy, 1961, b&w, 90 min. In Italian Workers Union. Kopple sacrifices with English subtitles. UNRATED OPENING NIGHT! the easy drama of good and bad for Director David a vastly more compelling portrait of OFF TO WAR Redmon in Person the disintegration of the American Sunday, September 18, 3:00 Dream. DIR/SCR/PROD Barbara with the Washington, Brothers and native Arkansan docu- MARDI GRAS: Kopple; PROD Arthur Cohn. US, DC Premiere of mentarians Brent and Craig Renaud MADE IN CHINA 1991, 98 min. RATED PG-13 track the soldiers of an Arkansas MARDI GRAS: MADE IN CHINA Director Filmmaker Barbara Thursday, September 15, 8:00 National Guard unit as they leave OFFICE SPACE Kopple has been invited to home to undergo a forced transfor- Ever wonder where those colorful attend this screening of mation to soldiering full-time in Mardi Gras beads come from? This Friday, September 16, 10:10; Saturday, September 17, 10:10 AMERICAN DREAM. Check Iraq. DIR/SCR/PROD Brent Renaud fresh look at globalization documents www.AFI.com/Silver for updates. and Craig Renaud. US, 2004, 80 “Work sucks.” This outrageous tale the beads’ journey from the battered min. UNRATED fingers of young women in a factory was ignored upon its theatrical in Fuzhou, China, to the necks of release, then discovered by legions Washington, revelers at Mardi Gras in New who have made it an all-time-great DC Premiere! Co-presented by Orleans. DIR/SCR/PROD David Red- cult classic. Written and directed by THE PHANTOM OF Cinema Tropical mon. US, 2005, 74 min. UNRATED Mike Judge (TV’s BEAVIS & MAIDS [Domésticas] THE OPERATOR Sunday, September 18, 4:50 [Le fantôme de l’opératrice] 25TH ANNIVERSARY! Saturday, September 17, 3:10 See page 15 for program note.