Sunday Night Film Club – DC

In this twisted, darkly comic thriller, Robert Hanson (Jakob Cedergren) is a Copenhagen police officer who, following a nervous breakdown, is transferred to a small provincial town to take on the mysteriously vacated Marshal position. He subsequently gets mixed up with a married femme fatale (Lene Maria Christensen) who comes to him for help with her domestic problems. But can she be trusted? RobertÂ’s big city temperament makes it impossible for him to fit in, or understand the uncivilized, bizarre behavior displayed by the townspeople. Quickly spiraling downward into an intense fable reminiscent of the Coen BrothersÂ’ Blood Simple and No Country for Old Men, Terribly Happy displays a unique, often macabre vision of the darkest depths to which people will go to achieve a sense of security and belonging. DenmarkÂ’s official Oscar selection and winner of 19 international awards, including the Silver Hugo (for director/co-writer Henrik Ruben Genz) at the Chicago International Film Festival. (Fully subtitled).

As with all films in their opening weekends, we recommend you pre-buy your tickets at http://www.landmarktheatres.com/tickets/default.asp

Note: You may want to purchase tickets in advance.

Don’t miss this rare opportunity to see all five Academy Award nominees in the category of Best Animated Short and more! Program includes: French Roast (France), in which an uptight businessman in a fancy Parisian café who is about to pay his check finds out that he has lost his wallet; Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty (Ireland), in which a grandmother loses the plot as she tells her version of “Sleeping Beauty” to her terrified granddaughter; The Lady and the Reaper (Spain), in which a sweet old lady who is waiting for death so she can see her beloved husband once again is invited to enter death’s domain—if someone doesn’t ruin it for her; Logorama (Argentina), featuring spectacular car chases, an intense hostage crisis, and wild animals rampaging through the city; and A Matter of Loaf and Death (UK), the latest adventure from Nick Park, in which Wallace & Gromit start a new bread baking business. Although business is booming, Gromit is concerned by the news that a dozen local bakers have ‘disappeared’ this year, so he turns sleuth to protect his master and solve the escalating murder mystery. Program also features three bonus shorts: Pixar’s Partly Cloudy (USA), Poland’s The Kinematograph and Canada’s Runaway.

Learn more here: http://www.meetup.com/SNFCDC/calendar/12652206/

Stir crazy after a week stuck in the snow? Frustrated by traditional Valentine’s/Singles Awareness Day celebrations? Don’t want anyone to see you wearing red for lunar new year? Join SNFC – DC for some campy sci-fi thriller action on this (roughly) third anniversary of the group’s existence!

From fandango.com: Scott Stewart’s supernatural thriller Legion, scripted by Peter Schink, concerns a group of strangers in an out-of-the-way eatery who become the first line of defense when God, believing the human race is no longer worthy of Him, decides to end their existence. This motley crew’s only spiritual ally is the archangel Michael, played by Paul Bettany. Dennis Quaid, Tyrese Gibson, Charles S. Dutton, and Lucas Black co-star in the Screen Gems production. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

In the not-too-distant future, across the wasteland of what once was America, a lone warrior (Washington) must fight to bring civilization the knowledge that could be the key to its redemption and save the future of humanity.

Jeff Bridges (The Men Who Stare at Goats, The Big Lebowski) stars as the richly comic, semi-tragic romantic anti-hero Bad Blake in the debut feature film from writer-director Scott Cooper. Bad Blake is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who’s had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad canÂ’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician. As he struggles down the road of redemption, Bad learns the hard way just how tough life can be on one manÂ’s crazy heart. Co-starring Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall.

Nine is a vibrant and provocative musical that follows the life of world famous film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) as he reaches a creative and personal crisis of epic proportion, while balancing the numerous women in his life including his wife (Marion Cotillard), his mistress (Penélope Cruz), his film star muse (Nicole Kidman), his confidant and costume designer (Judi Dench), a young American fashion journalist (Kate Hudson), the whore from his youth (Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson) and his mother (Sophia Loren). The original 1982 Broadway production of Nine, as directed by Tommy Tune, was nominated for twelve Tony Awards and won five, including Best Musical. This feature film version is directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago).

As a teenage fan of Albert Camus and Jean-Luc Godard, Nick Twisp (Michael Cera) is most definitely out of his element when his mother and her boyfriend move the family to a trailer park. When a pretty neighbor named Sheeni (Portia Doubleday) plays records by French crooners, it’s love at first sight for frustrated virgin Nick. Upon learning that Sheeni is already dating someone, Nick launches a hilarious quest to find his way into Sheeni’s heart, and bed.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous super-sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, gets an update with this adaptation of Lionel Wigram’s comic book series by writer/director Guy Ritchie (RocknRolla) starring Robert Downey Jr. as the titular detective, with Jude Law stepping into the shoes of his sidekick, Dr. Watson. Heading up the rest of the cast are RocknRolla’s Mark Strong as the film’s villain, Blackwood, and Rachel McAdams portraying the love interest, Irene Adler.

The eagerly awaited 17th feature by one of the world’s leading directors, Pedro Almodóvar (Volver, Talk to Her), is a lavish melodrama tinged with humor, showcasing the spectacular talents of Penélope Cruz. The story is told in flashback by Harry Caine (Lluís Homar, Bad Education), a blind screenwriter, who reveals that before an auto accident took his sight and the life of his love, he was the famous director Mateo Blanc. He had fallen in love with his leading lady, Lena (Cruz), who had made a startling metamorphosis from secretary and bereaved daughter to sought-after movie star when the ruthless industrialist Ernesto Martel (José Luis Gómez) became her lover and patron. The film Mateo is making with Lena (for which the jealous Martel insists on being producer) is a kinky comedy called Girls and Suitcases, reminiscent of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. As Mateo and Lena try to get away together for a romantic tryst, Martel’s gay son is constantly following and videotaping them for a “making of” feature—which Martel uses for surveillance (even getting a lip reader to decode the lovers’ conversations).