PHOENIX CINEMA DECEMBER & JANUARY WELCOME CONTENTS Tis the season to be jolly, dear Phoenix fans, we’re doing our part to make it so. WEEKLY E-MAIL WELCOME & CONTENTS 1-2 December leads with the filmmaker/cast screening of Chicken, an astonishing Stay up to date with all our dramatic debut by director Joe Stephenson. programming by subscribing MAIN FEATURES 3-13 to our free newsletter: e-mail We’re all on journeys of some kind and this batch of films runs the gamut. The [email protected] or PHOENIX FILM SALON + QUIZ 14 Homesman, with Tommy Lee Jones and Hilary Swank, tells a pioneer tale visit our website. of wilderness, wildness and meeting your match. With Kon-Tiki, based on a best- HOLIDAY SPECIALS 15-16 selling novel, we cling to a raft while crossing the Pacific in 1947. In Manakanama, we travel by cable car in Nepal, meeting unforgettable people en route. Bill FOLLOW US ONLINE BRINGING UP BABY 18 plays a curmudgeonly and misunderstood man with a good heart in Murray For news, chatter and St. Vincent. Big Eyes refers to the popular paintings of the 1960s associated with competitions, find us on FOR THE FAMILY 17, 19-21 artist Walter Keane. Christopher Waltz and Amy Adams play Mr. and Mrs. Facebook,Twitter and Keane in this surprising story. With a Big Bang performance, Eddie Redmayne CALENDAR 22-26 portrays physicist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything. Instagram. SPECIAL EVENTS 27-30 PHOENIX NIGHTS invites guest curators to host our monthly Friday late @PhoenixCinema night slot. 5 December Terry Jones presents the classic comedy Groundhog Day. PhoenixCinema SCREEN ARTS 31-32 International music party leader DJ Dan brings a New Year vibe 2 January. Phoenix_Cinema Excercise you brain at our USE IT OR LOSE IT FILM QUIZ in association FRIENDS OF THE PHOENIX 33-34 with Rochester Kino and PHOENIX FILM SALONS in association with Rochester Kino, with Nick Walker providing cerebral aerobics. FILM STUDIES 35 So many specials! Get your inner princess on with our Frozen Sing-a-long. Not EDUCATION 36-38 rocking the tiara? Sharpen up with Edward Scissorhands. We go to France for the WW1 story, Joyeux Noël, and to the North Pole to claim our Elf. CINEMA INFORMATION 39-40 Our Café warms the winter up with new soups and casseroles, and offers CAFÉ BAR 41 complimentary sherry and mince pies for Christmas. Why not give Phoenix Friends cards as gifts this year? They provide discounts BEHIND THE SCENES 42 year round and enable us to keep serving the community. Ask at our box office. BOX OFFICE 020 8444 6789 See you at the movies! WWW.PHOENIXCINEMA.CO.UK Elizabeth Taylor-Mead , Executive Director 52 HIGH ROAD, EAST FINCHLEY N2 9PJ 1 2 FROM FRIDAY 28 NOVEMBER FROM FRIDAY 28 NOVEMBER My Old Lady 12A Hockney 15 1hr 47. UK/France/USA 2014. Directed by Israel Horovitz. With Kevin 1hr 52. UK 2014. Directed by Randall Wright. With David Hockney. Kline, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith. The documentary follows the life of David Hockney from his humble Three time divorcee, recovering alcoholic and failed playwright Mathias Gold Bradford upbringing, to the hedonistic glamour of 1960s Hollywood and (Kevin Kline; A Fish Called Wanda) is down on his luck, that is until he inherits into his personal experiences of being a gay man during the AIDS epidemic a grand flat in Paris from his father. When Mathias visits in order to sell the in the 1980s. With access to previously unseen archive material, Hockney valuable property he is presented with an awkward dilemma: it is tied to an provides a fresh and candid insight into the life of the artist, in turn revealing old French property law stating that he must financially support the current the true roots of his art. Having already directed Lucian Freud: A Painted Life, resident’s life, that of the stubborn Mathilde Girard (Maggie Smith; The Best the documentary is in good hands with director Randall Wright and BAFTA Exotic Marigold Hotel, Ladies in Lavender), until they pass away. Mathilde’s winning producer Kate Ogborn whose recent work includes Ken Loach’s resistance to Mathias thaws gradually as does that of her daughter Chloé The Spirit of ’45. (Kristen Scott Thomas; Only God Forgives, Looking for Hortense) as they come to know more about Mathias and their shared history. 3 4 FROM FRIDAY 5 DECEMBER FROM FRIDAY 5 DECEMBER The Homesman 15 Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem PG 2hrs 03. France/USA 2014. Directed by Tommy Lee Jones. With Tommy 1hr 53. Israel/France/Germany 2014. Directed by Shlomi Elkabetz, Ronit Lee Jones, Hilary Swank, Grace Gummer, Miranda Otto, Meryl Streep. Elkabetz. With Ronit Elkabetz, Simon Abkarian, Rami Danon. In Hebrew, French and Arabic, with English subtitles. When three women (Miranda Otto, Sonja Richter, and Grace Gummer, exhibiting the early talent and beauty of her mother, Meryl Streep) are In Israeli law marriage and divorce fall within the jurisdiction of the driven mad by the isolation of American frontier life, the strong willed Mary Rabbinical, and not the civil, court. For a woman to therefore obtain a Bee Cuddy (Hilary Swank; Million Dollar Baby) must transport them to divorce (gett) she must seek the approval of her husband. Gett, The Trial of Iowa for their safety. En route she encounters the rugged army deserter, Viviane Amsalem explores these legal imbalances and contradictions through George Briggs (Tommy Lee Jones; No Country for Old Men, Lincoln), whom its powerless protagonist Viviane Amsalem (Ronit Elkabetz) and her three she recruits as muscle for the journey across the hostile Nebraskan plains. year battle to separate from her obstinate husband Elisha (Simon Abkarian). As director on his second major film, Tommy Lee Jones has created in The With this film sibling directors Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz bring their trilogy Homesman a psychologically gripping and enthralling road movie set amidst to a close and use the dark humour in their writing and the claustrophobic the expanse and grit of a classic western. courtroom setting to hold patriarchy up to judgement. 5 6 FROM FRIDAY 12 DECEMBER FROM FRIDAY 19 DECEMBER St Vincent 12A Kon-Tiki 15 1hr 42. USA 2014. Directed by Theodore Melfi. With Melissa McCarthy, 1hr 56. UK/Norway/Denmark 2012. Directed by Joachim Rønning, Espen Naomi Watts, Chris O’Dowd, Terrence Howard. Sandberg. With Pål Sverre Hagen, Anders Baasmo Christiansen, Gustaf Skarsgård, Agnes Kittelsen . In Norwegian, French, Swedish, with English subtitles. A debut from writer and director Theodore Melfi, St. Vincent sees Bill Murray (Moonrise Kingdom, Groundhog Day) back to his very best as the Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at both the Oscars and the dishevelled and lecherous Vincent who is tasked with caring for his Golden Globes, Kon-Tiki is a critically acclaimed adventure film about the neighbour’s child, Oliver (Jaeden Lieberher). Vincent goes about teaching Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl (Pal Sverre Hagen; Ragnorak, Max the wide-eyed Oliver the way of the world as he sees it (mainly filled Manus: Man of War) and his sea voyage across the Pacific Ocean. Heyerdahl with gambling, liquor and women) as the pious Brother Geraghty (Chris embarks on the journey as he sees it as the only way to conclusively prove O’Dowd: Cuban Fury, Calvary) does his best to do otherwise. The young that early South American settlers once populated Polynesia. With beautifully Lieberher is assured and pitch perfect as Oliver whose pairing with Murray shot scenes of glowing eels, leaping sea life and lush seascapes, Kon-Tiki evokes has echoes of a young Jason Schwartzman in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore. the sense of wonder and mystery created by Ang Li’s brilliant Life of Pi. 7 8 FROM FRIDAY 19 DECEMBER FROM FRIDAY 26 DECEMBER Friends of The Phoenix membership offers: 2 free tickets £2 offall regular screenings £2 off for a guest, twice a year & no booking fees £25 single or £40 joint Manakamana tbc Big Eyes tbc 1hr 58. Nepal/USA 2013. Directed by Stephanie Spray, Pacho Velez. With USA 2014. Directed by Tim Burton. With Amy Adams, Krysten Ritter, Chabbi Lal Gandharba, Anish Gandharba, Bindu Gayek. In Nepali and English. Christoph Waltz, Jason Schwartzman. Manakamana is a breathtaking documentary portrait of pilgrims and tourists Margaret Keane was a popular American painter from the 1950s and 1960s, as they travel in a cable car above jungle from the developing modern world and yet at the time nobody knew her name. Directed by Tim Burton, Big Eyes to the ancient Manakamana temple in Nepal. Shot by directors Pacho Velez unravels the mystery of Margaret Keane’s life (Amy Adams; American Hustle, and Stephanie Spray of Harvard’s famed Sensory Ethnography Lab entirely The Fighter) who’s paintings of children with wide melancholic eyes were falsely within the transparent bubble of the cable car, the film is made up of 11 claimed by her husband Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz; Django Unchained, completely uncut shots, giving it a uniquely natural quality in the way that it Inglorious Basterds) because, as he puts it, ‘Sadly, people don’t buy ‘Lady Art’.’ A observes its subjects. Produced by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, fearsome legal battle ensues as Margaret seeks to reclaim property of her art it also recalls the unflinching power of their documentary Leviathan. as well as reclaiming an important part of her own identity. Burton moves in a fresh direction, whilst retaining his characteristically surreal stamp, with this unusual real-life tale of false authorship and commercialism in modern art. 9 10 FROM FRIDAY 2 JANUARY FROM FRIDAY 16 JANUARY The Theory of Everything 12A Testament of Youth 12A 2hrs 03.