Sunday Night Film Club – DC

Frances Ha, a modern comic fable from Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale), explores New York, friendship, class, ambition, failure and redemption. Frances (co-writer Greta Gerwig), the exuberant 27-year-old heroine, is always on the move without ever seeming to get anywhere. The truth is she knows exactly where she wants to go, she’s just unwilling to make the kind of compromises that might get her there. A fount of optimism, Frances is singularly compelling because she never lets anythingincluding realityslow her down. Frances lives in New York, but she doesn’t really have an apartment. Frances is an apprentice for a dance company, but she’s not really a dancer. Frances has a best friend named Sophie (Mickey Sumner), but they aren’t really speaking anymore. Frances throws herself headlong into her dreams, even as their possible reality dwindles. Frances wants so much more than she has, but lives her life with unaccountable joy and lightness. Director/co-writer Baumbach shot this exhilarating comedy in black and white, using the music of Georges Delerue, composer for Truffaut’s French New Wave classics.

The crew of the Starship Enterprise returns home after an act of terrorism within its own organization destroys most of Starfleet and what it represents, leaving Earth in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Capt. James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) leads his people (Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana) on a mission to capture a one-man weapon of mass destruction, thereby propelling all of them into an epic game of life and death.

Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) first met in their twenties in Before Sunrise, reunited in their thirties in Before Sunset, and now, in director/co-writer Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight, they face the past, present and future. Jesse’s a successful novelist, and they’re in Greece at a writer’s retreat, staying in the bucolic country villa of an older expat writer, Patrick (Walter Lassally). As a treat, their Greek friends have gifted Jesse and Celine with a night at a luxurious seaside hotel while they babysit their young twin daughters Ella and Nina (Jennifer and Charlotte Prior). Feeling the undercurrent of friction between them, Celine wants to beg off, but their friends insist. They set off on foot through the spectacular countryside, enjoying each other’s company, talking, teasing, debating, flirting. But for Jesse and Celine, realities intrude: the weight of children, work, ambitions, disappointments and the strains of an evolving, deepening relationship. Their idyllic night tests them in unexpected ways, and before the clock strikes midnight, their story again unfolds.

You are encouraged to purchase your ticket in advance at https://tickets.landmarktheatres.com/(S(h2ihhan2f1ma02d2zp0gj0jx))/Ticketing.aspx?TheatreID=264&MovieID=14644&ShowDate=6/2/2013&ScheduleID=114553

In the inspired, genre-twisting new film Stories We Tell, Oscar-nominated writer/director Sarah Polley (Away From Her) discovers that the truth depends on who’s telling it. Polley is both filmmaker and detective as she investigates the secrets kept by a family of storytellers. She playfully interviews and interrogates a cast of characters of varying reliability, eliciting refreshingly candid, yet mostly contradictory, answers to the same questions. As each relates their version of the family mythology, present-day recollections shift into nostalgia-tinged glimpses of their mother, who departed too soon, leaving a trail of unanswered questions. Polley unravels the paradoxes to reveal the essence of family: always complicated, warmly messy and fiercely loving. Stories We Tell explores the elusive nature of truth and memory, but at its core is a deeply personal film about how our narratives shape and define us as individuals and families, all interconnecting to paint a profound, funny and poignant picture of the larger human story.

With her narrative feature debut, writer/director Xan Cassavetes (Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession) has crafted a stylish, bloody and erotic supernatural tale. Kiss of the Damned is the story of Djuna (Josephine de La Baume), a beautiful vampire who tries to resist the advances of the handsome, human screenwriter Paulo (Milo Ventimiglia), but eventually gives in to temptation.

When her troublemaker sister Mimi (Roxane Mesquida) arrives unexpectedly, Djuna’s love story is threatened and the whole vampire community becomes endangered. Recalling the best and smartest of racy European genre films from the 1960s and 1970s, Kiss of the Damned is the story of vampires trying to find the meaning in everlasting life, and thrillingly contrasts the loveliness and brutality of classic vampire tales. Also starring Anna Mouglalis, Michael Rapaport and Riley Keough.

MUD is an adventure about two boys, Ellis and his friend Neckbone, who find a man named Mud hiding out on an island in the Mississippi. Mud describes fantastic scenarios-he killed a man in Texas and vengeful bounty hunters are coming to get him. He says he is planning to meet and escape with the love of his life, Juniper, who is waiting for him in town. Skeptical but intrigued, Ellis and Neckbone agree to help him. It isnt long until Muds visions come true and their small town is besieged by a beautiful girl with a line of bounty hunters in tow.

The world of Jim Grant (director Robert Redford), a public interest lawyer and single father raising his daughter in the tranquil suburbs of Albany, New York, is turned upside down when a brash young reporter named Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf) exposes his true identity as a former 1970s antiwar radical fugitive wanted for murder. After living for more than 30 years underground, Grant must now go on the run. With the FBI in hot pursuit, he sets off on a cross-country journey to track down the one person that can clear his name. Shepard, knowing this to be the opportunity of a lifetime for a journalist, is willing to stop at nothing to capitalize on it. As Grant reopens old wounds and reconnects with former members of his antiwar group, the Weather Underground, Shepard uncovers the shocking secrets Grant has been keeping for the past three decades. Based on the novel by Neil Gordon, this cat-and-mouse thriller’s all-star cast includes Julie Christie, Sam Elliott, Brendan Gleeson, Anna Kendrick, Brit Marling, Stanley Tucci, Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon.

The unthinkable happens when heavily armed and highly trained terrorists launch a bold daytime attack on the White House. The building is overrun, and President Benjamin Asher (Aaron Eckhart) and his staff are taken hostage. Luckily for Asher, former presidential security officer Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is on the scene. With time running out, it’s up to Banning to locate Asher’s son before the extremists do and rescue the president before his captors unleash their ultimate plan.

Cast: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman, Angela Bassett Director: Antoine Fuqua Genres: Action/Adventure, Suspense/Thriller

Academy Award winning director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours) returns to the big screen with the psychological thriller Trance. Simon (James McAvoy, X-Men First Class), a fine art auctioneer, teams up with a criminal gang to steal a Goya painting worth millions of dollars, but after suffering a blow to the head during the heist he awakens to discover he has no memory of where he hid the painting. When physical threats and torture fail to produce answers, the gang’s leader Frank (Vincent Cassel, Black Swan) hires hypnotherapist Elizabeth Lamb (Rosario Dawson, Sin City) to delve into the darkest recesses of Simon’s psyche. As Elizabeth begins to unravel Simon’s broken subconscious, the lines between truth, suggestion and deceit begin to blur, the stakes rise faster and more dangerously than any of the players could have anticipated.

The daring new movie from director Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine), The Place Beyond the Pines is a sweeping emotional drama powerfully exploring the unbreakable bond between fathers and sons. Luke (Ryan Gosling), a high-wire motorcycle stunt performer with a carnival passing through Schenectady in upstate New York, tries to reconnect with a former lover, Romina (Eva Mendes), only to learn that she has given birth to their son in his absence. Luke decides to give up life on the road to try and provide for his newfound family by taking a job as a car mechanic. Noticing Luke’s ambition and talents, his employer Robin (Ben Mendelsohn) proposes to partner with Luke in a string of spectacular bank robberies-which will place Luke on the radar of ambitious rookie cop Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook). Avery, who has to navigate a local police department ruled by the menacing and corrupt detective Deluca (Ray Liotta), is also struggling to balance his professional life with his family life, which includes his wife Jennifer (Rose Byrne) and their infant son. The consequences of Avery’s confrontation with Luke will reverberate into the next generation.

It is recommended that you purchase your tickets beforehand. Advance tickets can be purchased at http://www.landmarktheatres.com/tickets/default.asp