trophy wife

So I sat down to write the blog about the film Potiche and really just discovered I wanted to pay homage to Catherine Deneuve instead. I figure since RiverRun closed the festival with the film, word was already out on the gift that is Potiche so I'm covered right? Just in case here is a link to the review from Matthew Lucas in From the Front Row and the trailer below:

On to the Catherine Deneuve tribute:

First, is she not the coolest mademoiselle ever?

Seriously, here she is with fashion icon (second to Bill Cunningham, of course) Yves Saint Laurent. She was considered his muse btw.

I'm sure when this photo was taken all of the hommes were wishing they were this miniature dog. Apologies for my liberal use of French...I don't speak it, but wish I did.

France even used her likeness for a while as their national emblem Marianne (following in the footsteps of Bridget Bardot).

And after over 100 films she still knocks 'em out (this image actually does happen to be from Potiche).

And on a personal note and to wrap up my idol worship, in my research I discovered that Ms. Deneuve has her very own engraved Jaeger-LeCoultre watch, a company I spent two years in marketing with...a nice bow to wrap up the package.

We're not the only ones who love PBR

It's Friday, and that can only mean new movie night at a/perture. This week it's the Will Ferrell film Everything Must Go. In perusing reviews I found a common denominator that was nice, but didn't give full credit to Mr. Ferrell's body of work. Yes, he takes a turn as someone a little more serious, but I don't want to hear how this is his Punch Drunk Love or his Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. He's tried that already, with Stranger than Fiction. Mark Burger avoided stigmatizing Ferrell's past roles as brainless fodder, and since I'm very obviously biased I applaud him for that and reward him by linking his review of the movie.

What Will Ferrell pulls off in this movie is to draw you in to the story of Nick Halsey, a recently laid-off salesman who comes home to find his wife has left him and dumped all of his worldly possessions out in the front yard. While Will is front and center in this film and pulls of a stunning performance, he has some help from the cast. The son of the rapper Notorious B.I.G (I love it when they call me Jig Poppa - RIP Biggie), Christopher Jordan Wallace plays a neighborhood kid who needs some direction, but ends up providing that for Nick. Along the way run-ins with the pregnant neighbor with an absentee husband (Rebecca Hall), an old high school flame (Laura Dern) and Nick's AA sponsor (Michael Pena) help Nick realize the only way to get his life back is to let everything go.

Being distributed by the indie Roadside Attractions, I figured Everything Must Go could use some of those fancy quotes they throw on trailers and ads talking about why you should run out and see a film IMMEDIATELY. So I found some quotes from his movies that somehow also gave a nod to his newest flick.

"Dear Lord Baby Jesus, I want to thank you for this wonderful meal, my two beautiful son's, Walker and Texas Ranger, and my Red-Hot Smokin' Wife, Carley and this awesome movie, Everything Must Go."

- Will Ferrell as Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights

"Hey Mom, can we get some meatloaf, and go see that rad movie Everything Must Go?"

- Will Ferrell as Chaz in Wedding Crashers

"Well, um, actually a pretty nice little Saturday, we’re going to go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath, & Beyond and go to a/perture and catch Everything Must Go, I don’t know, I don’t know if we’ll have enough time.”

- Will Ferrell as Frank the Tank in Old School

"I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch and Everything Must Go. Here it goes down, down into my belly with some other wonderful a/perture concessions like cake balls, cheese straws, and chocolove bars."

- Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy? in Anchorman

If only I could have juxtaposed those into the trailer...speaking of which, after watching the snippet below, get excited about our own yard sale happening from 11-4 on Saturday on our patio (where you can enjoy the spring weather with refreshments of your choice from a/perture, even if you're not watching a movie).

Plus, while they last we still have some free t-shirts to giveaway with the purchase of an Everything Must Go ticket!!!!

monks

So based on the description of the film OF GODS AND MEN (opening today), you might think it is a film to skip out on....

Eight French Christian monks live in harmony with their Muslim brothers in a monastery perched in the mountains of North Africa in the 1990s. When a crew of foreign workers is massacred by an Islamic fundamentalist group, fear sweeps though the region. The army offers them protection, but the monks refuse. Should they leave? Despite the growing menace in their midst, they slowly realize that they have no choice but to stay... come what may. This film is loosely based on the life of the Cistercian monks of Tibhirine in Algeria, from 1993 until their kidnapping in 1996.

Trust me it is not. It is an emotional, heartbreaking, and divinely-acted film about faith, community and devotion. It's the kind of film arthouse theaters love to screen not merely because it is a subtitled French film, but because it is a worldly film that encourages dialogue and further exploration into the historical events portrayed. Check out Mark Burger's review and the trailer below.

Last year Of Gods and Men won the Gran Prix at Cannes...so look at it this way...while the celebrities and paparazzi are partying it up on the beaches of Cannes as I write...you can experience your very own Cannes Film Festival at a/perture...just add a glass of wine.

"We all get dressed for Bill"

..so says Vogue editrix Anna Wintour and so would I if I had the most adorably fascinating octogenarian following me around town with his camera. But since Bill Cunningham is a die-hard New Yorker I doubt he'll be moving South anytime soon, so we'll just have to settle for watching him on the big screen when we open BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK today.

For decades, this Schwinn-riding cultural anthropologist has been obsessively and inventively chronicling fashion trends and high society charity soirées for the New York Times Style section in his columns “On the Street” and “Evening Hours.”

Documenting uptown fixtures (Wintour, Tom Wolfe, Brooke Astor, David Rockefeller—who all appear in the film out of their love for Bill), downtown eccentrics and everyone in between, Cunningham’s enormous body of work is more reliable than any catwalk as an expression of time, place and individual flair. In turn, Bill Cunningham New York is a delicate, funny and often poignant portrait of a dedicated artist whose only wealth is his own humanity and unassuming grace. Check out the LA Times Review for their endorsement.

Take a second to watch the trailer and I promise you will be hooked.









BCNY shows 5/6-5/12 at 5:30pm (except Monday). Yes, there are just six shows so make your plans now!

Fun with Rochester and Jane

Hello high schoolers (I'm including those of us who wish we could go back) - have a book report due tomorrow? Then I really can't think of a better book to pick up than Jane Eyre. Why? Is there a book that's been made into a movie more? Well, yes, but this one's gone the big and little screen route. And more importantly it's playing at a/perture right now. Normally when I hear titles like Wuthering Heights or anything that Emma Thompson's been in, I run for the hills or hope Lawren will want to see said movie with her mom, but this version of Jane Eyre has been a little different. Cary Fukunaga, the man behind the camera for Sin Nombre? Yes please. Michael Fassbender, that inglorious basterd who will be playing Magneto in the new X-Men movie and graced our screen in Fish Tank? Double yes. And Mia Wasikowska, the alright kid who went a little trippy in Alice in Wonderland. If there was a Golden Globe for crew with last names most fun to say out loud, this group would be a shoo-in.

Okay, we all know the story, or at least we're supposed to, since I have reportedly read this book about three times. But just in case, here's two cliff notes versions of the film, and why you should see it, one from Roger Ebert and the other that appeared in Relish this past week. Visually stunning, here's a taste of the movie that had the highest specialty debut of 2011:

I'm holding on for a hero 'til the end of the night

Wow, it's been a SUPER week since our last blog. Once again, the RiverRun International Film Festival proved how SUPER it is, bringing out a record crowd and continuing to showcase some SUPER films and parties. Aaron Katz was a juror at the festival, and then was kind enough to stick around while we showed his film Cold Weather and host some Q&As (thank you again, Aaron and everyone who attended). So how do we follow up on all this SUPERness? Why let's open the movie SUPER! Rainn Wilson stars as a short order cook who brings the self made superhero vigilante justice, with the help of sidekick Ellen Page, to the drug dealer who stole his wife away.

So, this may not be the easiest sell, but maybe my subliminal SUPER messaging has worked? No? How about two fabulous reviews, this one from local Yes! Weekly critic Mark Burger and this "deliciously gonzo" review in the current issue of Relish. Still not enough for you? What if we throw in a cute little kid and our staff dressed up as their own crime fighters?

And we'll top that with a chance to win a Becket level membership in our a/v society, good for two years. That's a $6 ticket plus $1 concession credit each time you visit a/perture (special events excluded) and free admission and popcorn on your birthday! Come dressed up in your best homemade superhero outfit for a chance to win. Need some inspiration? Check out the Super trailer below:

Only one week to catch it, so don't let the Crimson Bolt find out you committed the criminal mistake of missing it, or face the wrath of his wrench!

It may be Spring...but it's time for Cold Weather baby...

So in the midst of the most amazing RiverRun International Film Festival yet, I haven't really made time to blog....that is until tonight when I get to share a really cool interview with director Aaron Katz. We'll get to the fun stuff in a second, but first business. Next week, Monday, April 18 thru Thursday, April 21, we will be screening the indy hit Cold Weather.

Cold Weather was written, directed and edited by Aaron Katz, who also by the way graduated from the UNCSA School of Filmmaking. He has already seen success with films such as Quiet City and Dance Party, USA. Aaron will be in town to serve as a Juror for RiverRun and he has graciously agreed to stay on for a couple of days while we screen his latest work. He will be stopping by a/perture on Monday 4/18 and Tuesday 4/19 for a q&a session following each screening.

Check out the interview below and trailer below that:

What film do you remember from film school at UNCSA having the greatest influence on you and why?

There were a lot of movies I saw for the first time while in school.

It's hard to narrow it down to just one. For some reason the main

thing that's occurring to me is Dr. Otto and the Riddle of the Gloom

Beam starring Jim Varney. I've never actually seen this film as an

audience member, but when I was learning to project in the NCSA

archives this was one of our practice prints.

Did you know that wikipedia cites you as one of the two founders of the mumblecore movement? Can you define mumblecore for us in your own words? When you made your first film Dance Party USA did you think it would lead to a movement?

Mumblecore is odd for everyone who made Dance Party and the other two

movies as well. Though it's mentioned often in conjunction with the

movies we've made, it feels completely outside of any part of making

those movies. It was coined (apparently, I wasn't there) by Andrew

Bujalski's sound mixer in a bar in Austin, TX sometime in 2005. I

guess he made a joke about people mumbling and making sound recording

difficult. Somehow this caught on with journalists and began to be

used to describe low budget films made by people like Bujalski, Joe

Swanberg, the Duplass Brothers, and me. On the one hand it was pretty

useful with Dance Party (which we made right after graduating from

NCSA) because that movie was so small and we didn't have money to hire

a publicist or anything. Honestly, we were just happy to have people

writing about the movie we made. Beyond that though the term can feel

a little frustrating, especially because it frequently has a

pejorative slant. Fortunately I don't think it's had much impact with

Cold Weather and most of the reviews focus on the movie itself rather

than contextualizing it within mumblecore.

You've shown all of your films at SXSW so far, what is it about that particular festival that really attracts you?

My feeling is that if it wasn't for SXSW no one would have ever seen

any of my movies. Back in 2006 SXSW was the first festival Dance Party

played in and the reason it played there is because the head

programmer at the time was a guy named Matt Dentler. Matt watched

every cold submitted screener and was willing to take risks on films

and filmmakers that no one had ever heard of. Additionally Austin is a

fun city and the community of filmmakers both from Austin and there

for the festival is really great.

So Cold Weather is a mystery film, have you always been a fan of the genre and did you always want to make a mystery at some point in your career or did the story idea just come to you all at once with no regard for the genre?

I'm a huge fan of the mystery genre, particularly in book form. The

script was originally not a mystery. It was just a story about a

brother and sister living together and getting to know each other

better. At that time I happened to be reading a book (from around the

same time period as Sherlock Holmes) about a gentleman thief named

Raffles. I had been reading a lot of older crime fiction and it

started to creep into the script. At first I wasn't sure if it was a

good idea because it was totally unplanned, but then I started having

a lot of fun with it. It made a lot of sense to me to have real

characters interacting with things usually only encountered in genre

fiction.

You've gotten some pretty amazing reviews from critics like Manohla Dargis, Roger Ebert and Christy Lemire for Cold Weather..kudos...and it got picked up for distribution by IFC Films...when you were filming, did you get the vibe that Cold Weather was going to be "bigger" than your previous films?

We had a bigger budget so the production itself was on a somewhat

bigger scale. We definitely hoped that we'd get a positive response,

but mostly we wanted to make movie that we were proud of. It was

exciting that the people at IFC loved the movie and it's been great

that critics understand the film.

The poster for Cold Weather is pretty cool...did you come up with that idea? Will you sign ours?

I love the poster. Marc Ripper, who graduated with me in 2004 and

produced Dance Party designed it. He based it off of the covers of

Penguin crime paperbacks from the 60s. I will sign yours.

Do you think you might ever come back and shoot a film in Winston-Salem?

I love Winston-Salem and I'd love to shoot something there at some point.

Last question...we've heard that you like the milkshakes from Cookout...what is your go-to shake?

Cookout is one of the main reasons I love North Carolina. My favorite

shake is the peanut butter banana, but there's a ton of other good

ones as well. I'm hoping to get at least five or six while I'm in

town. I also love West End Cafe and I'm hoping to go there as many

times as possible.

hipster heartbeats

For those of you who are either a part of the hipster crowd or curious about this mysterious culture, Heartbeats is the film for you. What you may ask is a hipster..here is the official wikipedia definition: In the late 1990s, the term began to be used in new, sometimes mutually exclusive ways. In some circles it became a blanket description for middle class and upper class young people associated with alternative culture, particularly alternative music, independent rock, alternative hip-hop, independent film and a lifestyle revolving around thrift store shopping, eating organic, locally grown, vegetarian, or vegan food, drinking local beer (or even brewing their own), listening to public radio, and riding bicycles.[1] Time described them as follows in a 2009 article: "take your grandmother's sweater and Bob Dylan's Wayfarers, add jean shorts, Converse All-Stars and a can of Pabst and bam — hipster."[5]

Basically Heartbeats is a hipster dramedy and here is the gist of the film: Heartbeats is a comic exploration of a romantically obsessed menage-a-trois. Part farce, part exploration of the complexity of love and desire, Heartbeats centers on two close friends, Francis (Xavier Dolan) and Marie (Monia Chokri), who find themselves fighting for the affections of the same striking young man (Neils Schneider). The more intimate the trio becomes, the more unattainable the object of their infatuation seems, sending the friends' obsession into overdrive. Directed by Xavier Dolan (whose previous film I Killed My Mother was a hit at last year's RiverRun) Heartbeats was a smashing success at the Cannes Film Festival taking home the Youth Prize. Here is a review for further encouragement to check out the film and the trailer below:

If you are really into the hipster scene after reading this blog...you should try playing hipster bingo...and don't worry we have restocked our supply of PBR in case there is a run!

Shout it loud and clear

To be honest, when Lawren told me we were opening Today's Special on April 1st, I thought she was either a little off her rocker or that this was some lame attempt at an April Fool's joke. Sure I would love to see the resurrection of the childhood show that paved the way for the hit movie Mannequin and taught me wonderful life lessons from a guy in a plaid hat and a puppet security guard.

Then I learned Today's Special is actually a movie about a chef, who happens to be Indian, but has no desire to cook Indian food. When his father has a heart attack, the struggling family business needs his help and he is forced to reach for the masala. Another comedy, with The Daily Show veteran Aasif Mandvi playing the son, Samir. I was just happy to see Ajay Naidu, who played Samir in Office Space working again. Then I was sad for Hollywood and my people that every major character in films had to be named Samir. Good news is that this is another light-hearted, easy to digest film (unlike the chicken vindaloo I had the other week) that this Hollywood Reporter critic believes you must see. Check out the trailer:

Two-thirds of our staff has already requested the week off to hit the Indian buffet after watching that trailer.

L'illusionniste

Today's blog was appropriately contributed by Genevieve..l'artiste...

If you found the visual storytelling and colorful characters of The Triplets of Belleville to be a nice departure from the highly-polished look of today's CGI animation, you will definitely want to catch The Illusionist. If you haven't seen Triplets and desperately need a break from the typical animation formula, you too will definitely want to catch The Illusionist.

Director Sylvain Chomet delivers an impressive visual follow-up to his earlier work in this stunning film, again not following a formulaic method of storytelling. One of the most amazing qualities about The Illusionist is the way that the scenes are at once still works of art on their own, yet at the same time, they wordlessly tell the story of an aging magician and a young fan who becomes his ward. As a French film set in France and Scotland, there is very little use of dialogue--indeed no subtitles at all. Perhaps in homage to Chaplin's Modern Times, Chomet's magician bumbles through various jobs in order to buy his young friend the things she sees in storefront windows. The characters they encounter are wildly entertaining, but also laced with a dark realism that you just don't get from Disney. Although tinged with this French existentialism, the combination of beauty, humor and reality communicated through animation is startling--and not to be missed.

Rated PG for 'mild thematic elements & smoking,' this film offers something for people of all ages, and I look forward to discussing it with young fans over the next week. (I am seriously dying to get a 5 year-old's reaction to this film!) It's spring break and there are weekday matinees just for you all! Check out the trailer: