ARTS ARRAY Guitarists of Three Different Rock Generations: Led Zeppelin’S Jimmy Page, U2’S the Edge, and Jack White of the White Stripes

IT MIGHT GET LOUD Monday and Tuesday, March 29 and 30 You don’t have to be a musician to appreciate It Might Get Loud, an unconventional documentary featuring three iconic ARTS ARRAY guitarists of three different rock generations: Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, U2’s The Edge, and Jack White of the White Stripes. As director Davis Guggenheim did with the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth, here he makes the passionate commitment of the three guitarists mesmerizing. They make lots of music together, but the filmmaker also Film Series • Spring 2010 unearths lots of nuggets about creativity and the artistic impulse. (97 minutes) THE SOLOIST Monday and Tuesday, April 5 and April 6 One of the most emotionally powerful films of 2009 wasThe Soloist, a film based on a true story in which Robert Downey, Jr. plays a journalist who befriends, and tries to help, a schizophrenic and homeless man played by Jamie Foxx. Directed by Joe Wright, whose previous film wasAtonement , the film deals honestly with the limitations imposed by mental illness. There will be discussions by mental health professionals after the Monday afternoon showing and the Each film will be shown at the Tuesday evening showing. (117 minutes) Abingdon Cinemall at 4 p.m. and again at 7:30 p.m. on the AN EDUCATION scheduled dates. Monday and Tuesday, April 12 and 13 Critics have proclaimed that a star was made in the performance by young British Actress, Carey Mulligan, in the starring role in this film which won the World Cinema Audience Award at last year’s Sundance Festival. Mulligan stars as Jenny, a young person on the cusp of adulthood, bright and intelligent but inexperienced and desperately wanting to be a sophisticate. A chance meeting with an older man, David (played by Peter Sarsgaard), provides the “education” into adulthood. (100 minutes)

BROKEN EMBRACES Monday and Tuesday, April 19 and 20 The new film from Pedro Almodóvar, the Spanish auteur who is considered the world’s greatest living director, is a lavish melodrama tinged with humor showcasing the talents of Penélope Cruz, Almodóvar’s muse. The story is told in Every Little Step • The Stoning of Saroya M • A Serious Man • Capitalism: A Love Story • Precious • flashback by Harry Caine, a blind screenwriter, who reveals that before an auto accident took his sight and the life of his No Impact Man • Red Cliff • Coco Before Chanel • The Road • Waltz with Bashir • It Might Get Loud • love, he was a famous film director. The film, complicated and multilayered, is really a fantasy about what it means to live The Soloist • An Education • Broken Embraces • Young Victoria • The Wonder of It All for movies. (128 minutes) YOUNG VICTORIA Monday and Tuesday, April 26 and 27 On the eve of her 18th birthday and ascension to the English throne, young Princess Victoria (Emily Blunt) is caught in a royal power struggle. Her first years of rule are turbulent, and the court is filled with intrigue, but it is her blossoming The Arts Array Film Series is a cultural outreach program sponsored by Virginia Highlands love affair with Prince Albert (Rupert Friend), the suitor who wins her heart, that will determine the strength of her reign. Can she dedicate her life to her country and her heart to the one man she truly loves? (104 minutes) Community College, the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center, Abingdon Cinemall, Virginia Intermont College, King College, and Emory & Henry College. THE WONDER OF IT ALL The Arts Array Film Series is a cultural outreach program sponsored by Virginia Highlands Community Monday and Tuesday, May 3 and 4 StudentsCollege, and employees the Southwest of the Virginia sponsoring Higher Education institutions Center, are admittedAbingdon Cinemall, free. Virginia Intermont College, This inspirational new documentary interviews seven of the twelve Apollo astronauts who walked on the surface of the GeneralKing admission College, isand $7.50. Emory & Henry College. moon 40 years ago. The film covers the early lives and careers of the astronauts, then progresses through anecdotes about the moon landings and ends with more metaphysical discussions about how their spirituality has been affected by their For more information, contact Ben Jennings, Arts Array Coordinator, at (276) 739-2447 Students and employees. of the sponsoring institutions are admitted free. off-world experiences. Abingdon resident Ron Wells will introduce and lead discussions of the film and his involvement in or [email protected] the Apollo program. Barter Theatre will premiere a new play about the space race,The Blue-Sky Boys, this summer. General admission is $7.50.

VHCC is an EEO/AA Institution Every Little Step NO IMPACT MAN Monday and Tuesday, January 18 and 19 MONDAY AND TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22 AND 23 A Chorus Line was a landmark Broadway musical, first staged in 1975 in which a bunch of eager, nervous, I’ll-die-if- Colin Beavan, author, and newly self-proclaimed environmentalist, decides to leave behind a life of liberal I-don’t-get-it dancers audition for a Broadway musical. This documentary, about a revival of the show in 2006, cuts complacency for a vow to make zero environmental impact for one year. No more automated transportation, no between the actual auditions and an audiotape of director Michael Bennett (the creator of the original show). The more electricity, no more non-local food, no more material consumption . . . no problem. That is until his espresso- documentary celebrates Bennett’s original vision as well as reflecting the fierce backstage reality of the 2006 casting guzzling, Prada-worshipping wife Michelle, and their young toddler, enter the fray. He and his family—and the process. (96 minutes) audience--go through a learning process about how difficult it is to be environmentally responsible. There will be discussions following all of the showings. (90 minutes) The Stoning of Saroya M Monday and Tuesday, January 25 and 26 Red Cliff Based on a real story, French journalist Freidoune Sahebjam stops in an Iranian town when his car breaks down. Monday and Tuesday, March 1 and 2 There an old woman tells him the harrowing tale of her niece Saroya, who, just the day before, was stoned to death by villagers as punishment for trumped up charges of infidelity which have been brought by her husband to get rid Legendary Hong Kong action specialist John Woo and international superstar Tony Leung unite in this historical of her. The film reveals many painful truths about life in post-revolutionary Iran and the subjugation and abuse of drama about the decisive battle in the formation of modern China: the legendary Battle of Red Cliff in 208 A.D. women in many Islamic cultures. (114 minutes) The most expensive Asian film ever made, Red Cliff in its spectacle of warriors, horses, spears and projectiles harkens back to the epic Hollywood films of De Mille and Griffith. And like those American masters of the historical epic, it captures intimate character portraits against the backdrop of history. (148 minutes)

A Serious Man Monday and Tuesday, February 1 and 2 Coco Before Chanel Comic filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen, following their Academy Award-winning filmNo Country for Old Men, Monday and Tuesday, March 8 and 9 have made the most personal film of their career, a portrait of their childhood in the 1960s. The film is a portrait of Larry Gopnick, a college physicist, whose life is flying apart: his wife is leaving him, his brother is in trouble with Audrey Tautou stars in this film biography of the iconic French fashion designer Gabrielle “Coco”” Chanel. As the law, and his children are smoking marijuana and listening to rock music. With their characteristic humor the the title suggests, the film is about Coco’s personal life during her formative years before her clothing designs Coens explore serious issues of faith, family, mortality and misfortune. (104 minutes) transformed her into a globally recognized household name. The film is comparable to the great Edith Piaf biopic a couple of years ago, La Vie en Rose. Both films are crowd pleasers and are rags to riches stories of independent, talented women who climbed out of poverty to great fame and fortune. (110 minutes) Capitalism: A Love Story Monday and Tuesday, February 8 and 9 The Road Michael Moore, America’s leading documentary filmmaker, here tackles the essential issue that he has been Monday and Tuesday, March 15 and 16 examining his entire career: the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and If civilization was destroyed, what shreds of humanity would remain in those who survived? The Road, Cormac by default, the rest of the world). Using Moore’s comic—as well as borderline tragic—effects the film traces the McCarthy’s Pulitzer-prize winning, lyrical novel, presents an intimate portrait of a father and son struggling to evolution of American capitalism from the 1950s (when Moore was growing up) to the corporate excesses that survive in a post-apocalyptic world. At the heart of this story are two astounding performances, Viggo Mortensen helped to lead to the collapse of the American economy in the fall of 2008. (186 minutes) as the father and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the son, and the desaturated landscape, filmed primarily in treeless mining country outside Pittsburgh and in post-Katrina New Orleans. (119 minutes)

Precious Monday and Tuesday, February 15 and 16 Waltz with Bashir Newcomer Gabourey Sidibe gives the performance of the year in this hard-hitting film version of the novelPush Monday and Tuesday, March 22 and 23 by Sapphire. Harlem teenager Precious Jones has nothing in her favor: she’s pregnant for the second time with her We are living in a great age of a particular type of filmmaking—animation! Waltz with Bashir is an Israeli animated father’s child, she can’t read and write, and she is teased for being obese. Her home life is a horror, ruled by a mother film which is based on the confessional account of writer and director Ari Folman’s experiences as a young soldier who keeps her imprisoned emotionally. Precious’s instincts tell her that if she is ever going to break the chains of during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and particularly the massacre of Palestinians by Christian forces in refugee ignorance, she will have to dig deeply into her own resources. (110 minutes) camps in Beirut. Through animation the film is able to move through dreams, hallucinations and distortions of memories while being grounded in a horrible reality. (117 minutes) Every Little Step NO IMPACT MAN Monday and Tuesday, January 18 and 19 MONDAY AND TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 22 AND 23 A Chorus Line was a landmark Broadway musical, first staged in 1975 in which a bunch of eager, nervous, I’ll-die-if- Colin Beavan, author, and newly self-proclaimed environmentalist, decides to leave behind a life of liberal I-don’t-get-it dancers audition for a Broadway musical. This documentary, about a revival of the show in 2006, cuts complacency for a vow to make zero environmental impact for one year. No more automated transportation, no between the actual auditions and an audiotape of director Michael Bennett (the creator of the original show). The more electricity, no more non-local food, no more material consumption . . . no problem. That is until his espresso- documentary celebrates Bennett’s original vision as well as reflecting the fierce backstage reality of the 2006 casting guzzling, Prada-worshipping wife Michelle, and their young toddler, enter the fray. He and his family—and the process. (96 minutes) audience--go through a learning process about how difficult it is to be environmentally responsible. There will be discussions following all of the showings. (90 minutes) The Stoning of Saroya M Monday and Tuesday, January 25 and 26 Red Cliff Based on a real story, French journalist Freidoune Sahebjam stops in an Iranian town when his car breaks down. Monday and Tuesday, March 1 and 2 There an old woman tells him the harrowing tale of her niece Saroya, who, just the day before, was stoned to death by villagers as punishment for trumped up charges of infidelity which have been brought by her husband to get rid Legendary Hong Kong action specialist John Woo and international superstar Tony Leung unite in this historical of her. The film reveals many painful truths about life in post-revolutionary Iran and the subjugation and abuse of drama about the decisive battle in the formation of modern China: the legendary Battle of Red Cliff in 208 A.D. women in many Islamic cultures. (114 minutes) The most expensive Asian film ever made, Red Cliff in its spectacle of warriors, horses, spears and projectiles harkens back to the epic Hollywood films of De Mille and Griffith. And like those American masters of the historical epic, it captures intimate character portraits against the backdrop of history. (148 minutes)

Precious Monday and Tuesday, February 15 and 16 Waltz with Bashir Newcomer Gabourey Sidibe gives the performance of the year in this hard-hitting film version of the novelPush Monday and Tuesday, March 22 and 23 by Sapphire. Harlem teenager Precious Jones has nothing in her favor: she’s pregnant for the second time with her We are living in a great age of a particular type of filmmaking—animation! Waltz with Bashir is an Israeli animated father’s child, she can’t read and write, and she is teased for being obese. Her home life is a horror, ruled by a mother film which is based on the confessional account of writer and director Ari Folman’s experiences as a young soldier who keeps her imprisoned emotionally. Precious’s instincts tell her that if she is ever going to break the chains of during Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and particularly the massacre of Palestinians by Christian forces in refugee ignorance, she will have to dig deeply into her own resources. (110 minutes) camps in Beirut. Through animation the film is able to move through dreams, hallucinations and distortions of memories while being grounded in a horrible reality. (117 minutes) IT MIGHT GET LOUD Monday and Tuesday, March 29 and 30 You don’t have to be a musician to appreciate It Might Get Loud, an unconventional documentary featuring three iconic ARTS ARRAY guitarists of three different rock generations: Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, U2’s The Edge, and Jack White of the White Stripes. As director Davis Guggenheim did with the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth, here he makes the passionate commitment of the three guitarists mesmerizing. They make lots of music together, but the filmmaker also Film Series • Spring 2010 unearths lots of nuggets about creativity and the artistic impulse. (97 minutes) THE SOLOIST Monday and Tuesday, April 5 and April 6 One of the most emotionally powerful films of 2009 wasThe Soloist, a film based on a true story in which Robert Downey, Jr. plays a journalist who befriends, and tries to help, a schizophrenic and homeless man played by Jamie Foxx. Directed by Joe Wright, whose previous film wasAtonement , the film deals honestly with the limitations imposed by mental illness. There will be discussions by mental health professionals after the Monday afternoon showing and the Each film will be shown at the Tuesday evening showing. (117 minutes) Abingdon Cinemall at 4 p.m. and again at 7:30 p.m. on the AN EDUCATION scheduled dates. Monday and Tuesday, April 12 and 13 Critics have proclaimed that a star was made in the performance by young British Actress, Carey Mulligan, in the starring role in this film which won the World Cinema Audience Award at last year’s Sundance Festival. Mulligan stars as Jenny, a young person on the cusp of adulthood, bright and intelligent but inexperienced and desperately wanting to be a sophisticate. A chance meeting with an older man, David (played by Peter Sarsgaard), provides the “education” into adulthood. (100 minutes)

VHCC is an EEO/AA Institution