Admission:Real Art Ways Members: $5
Seniors & Students Members: $4.50
Non-members: Regular Admission: $9.00
Seniors (62+): $6.25
Full-time Students with ID: $6.25
Film Fieldtrips Available for School Groups
Schedule subject to change. Call 860.232.1006 to confirm.
2 for 1 on Monday & Tuesday with the GHAC Let*s Go! Arts Card
Jellyfish
Winner of the Camera d’Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival
Poignant, often witty and exceedingly cinematic, JELLYFISH (MEDUZOT), tells the story of three very different Tel Aviv women whose intersecting stories weave an unlikely portrait of modern Israeli life. Batya, a catering waitress, takes in a child apparently abandoned at a local beach. Batya is one of the servers at the wedding reception of Keren, a bride who breaks her leg escaping a locked toilet stall, ruining her chance at a dream Caribbean honeymoon. And attending the event with an employer is Joy, a non Hebrew-speaking domestic worker who has guiltily left her son behind in her native Philippines.
As this distaff trio separately wends their way through Israel’s most cosmopolitan city, they struggle with issues of communication, affection and destiny—but at times find uneasy refuge in its tranquil seas.
(Israel/France, 2007) 78 min.
OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies
Hubert Boniesseur de Bath (Jean Dujardin) is a spy, the French answer to James Bond. Xenophobic, crass, in love with himself, Hubert nevertheless looks great in a tuxedo. This spoof of 70s big screen thrillers bears as much resemblance to the Pink Panther movies as it does to the Bond franchise. Sent to Cairo to investigate another agent's disappearance, Hubert links up with his slinky assistant (Berenice Bejo), an Egyptian who loves to Mambo and a nest of comic villains who disguise their activities by claiming to be in the chicken business. It's all a very classy production with great fight scenes and locations, but spiked with some of the best physical and verbal comedy seen on screens in a long time. (France, 2006) 99 min
Body of War
Body of War is an intimate and transformational feature documentary about the true face of war today. Meet Tomas Young, 25 years old, paralyzed from a bullet to his spine - wounded after serving in Iraq for less than a week.
Body of War is Tomas' coming home story as he evolves into a new person, coming to terms with his disability and finding his own unique and passionate voice against the war.
(US 87min)
Mister Lonely
Only Harmony Korine (writer of KIDS, auteur of GUMMO, JULIEN DONKEY-BOY) could weave Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, her daughter Shirley Temple and flying nuns into a hypnotically funny and truly poignant tale of the instability behind fanaticism and the redemption we can hope to find in one another. The film follows a lonely Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) who is invited by a beautiful Marilyn Monroe (Samantha Morton) to a commune full of other impersonators including the Queen of England, Madonna, Sammy Davis Junior and James Dean, in the Scottish Highlands. In a parallel story line, the incomparable Werner Herzog plays a Latin American priest who learns his missionary of nuns can literally fly.
(US, 2008, 108 mins)
Savage Grace
SAVAGE GRACE, based on the award winning book, tells the incredible true story of Barbara Daly, who married above her class to Brooks Baekeland, the dashing heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune. Beautiful, red-headed and charismatic, Barbara is still no match for her well-bred husband. The birth of the couple's only child, Tony, rocks the uneasy balance in this marriage of extremes. Tony is a failure in his father's eyes. As he matures and becomes increasingly close to his lonely mother, the seeds for a tragedy of spectacular decadence are sown. Spanning 1946 to 1972, the film unfolds in six acts. The Baekelands' pursuit of social distinction and the glittering 'good life' propels them across the globe. We follow their heady rise and tragic fall against the backdrop of New York, Paris, Cadaques, Mallorca and London.
(US, France, Spain, 94 min, 2007)
Mother of Tears
Horror film master Dario Argento turns his eye to a fabulous mythic story about Mater Lacrimarum, the Mother of Tears, the last of three powerful witches who have been spreading chaos throughout the world for centuries.
The only bulwark against Mother and her young women minion is Sarah, an art student with unfurling supernatural powers. Argento and his daughter Asia form a great team. Asia has just been winning praises for her new film The Old Mistress and here she also excels. Loopy, lush and delirious, the story Argento unspools makes him seem like a madman at the wheel of a speeding, sleek bus.
(US/Italy, 2007, 98 min)
The Animation Show 2008
Mike Judge, the Creator of "Beavis and Butt-head" and "Office Space," is back with an all new collection of the world's greatest animated short films. It's a groundbreaking program of hilarious adult animation from tomorrow's next great animators. The isn't a dirty "adults only" animation show, but the program does skew towards a mature audience with some explicit language and adult subject matter.
Matinée Movies
King of Masks
Real Art Ways screened this film years ago and audiences loved it. We're presenting it again, as a one-time screening, with a discussion following.
At the end of his life, The King of Masks (Chu Yuk), a master of an ancient and revered form of mask making, seeks to pass on his craft. However, tradition dictates that he can only teach the form to a male heir. Desperate to preserve his art, and in some sense himself, the heirless old man purchases a destitute child on the black market. When the boy reveals an unexpected secret, The King of Masks is torn between filial affection and ancient customs.
The Edge of Heaven
Nejat’s widower father chooses a prostitute, Yeter, for a live-in girlfriend. Nejat, a young professor, initially disapproves, but warms to her when he learns that she sends most of her hard-earned money home to Turkey for her daughter’s university studies. Events take Nejat to Istanbul to search for Yeter`s daughter Ayten, a political activist. Ayten, though, is already in trouble with the Turkish police. A compassionate foreigner abandons everything to help Ayten, and soon, plot lines intertwine, forever changing the lives of all the characters.
(Germany/Turkey, 2007) 122 min.
Water Lilies
(La Naissance des Pieuvres)
Selected Premiere, 2007 Cannes Film Festival: Un Certain Regard
It's synchronized swimming season at the vast municipal swimming pool and social hub in the Paris suburb of Cergy. Floriane (Adele Haenel), a valued team member and star of the teen social set, confides in Marie (Pauline Acquart), who isn't on the team, and uses her as a cover for her romantic assignations. Marie's best friend, Anne (Louise Blachere), begins to feel expendable. This rich coming-of-age tale makes palpable the aching doubts and offhand cruelty of teenage girls.
(Belgium, 2007)
Up the Yangtze
In China, it is simply known as “The River.” But the Yangtze—and the life that surrounds it—is undergoing a truly spectacular transformation wrought by the biggest hydroelectric dam in history, the Three Gorges. From the vantage point of a luxury “farewell cruise” that wends its way up the River, we are witness to the dramatic shift: peasant families are forced to relocate their entire lives as floodwaters steadily engulf their villages; young tour-boat employees warily grasp at a more prosperous future; Western tourists catch a final glimpse of a disappearing culture. Returning to the scene of his grandfather’s riverbank youth, Chinese-Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang has crafted a singularly moving and cinematically breathtaking depiction of contemporary China and a disquieting glance into a future that awaits us all.
(Canada, 2007) 93 min.
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
Reopening a case that has inspired curiosity, controversy, and confusion for over three decades, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired is an extensive exploration of the circumstances that led up to – and the circus that followed – Polanski's conviction for having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. Zenovich had unprecedented access to several of the key players in the case, including the lawyers representing the case, the media covering it, and the unusually clear-eyed and candid victim. Unearthing a trove of telling footage from the past, and combining it with insightful interviews from today, she brings comprehension and clarity to events long clouded by myth and misconception. A thrilling examination of a case that became the prototype for innumerable Hollywood courtroom scandals to follow, the film becomes a brilliant discourse on the attraction/ repulsion that defines celebrity culture in contemporary America.
(US, 100 min, 2008)
My Winnipeg
Have you ever wanted to relive your childhood and do things differently? Guy Maddin (THE SADDEST MUSIC IN THE WORLD) casts B-movie icon Ann Savage as his domineering mother in attempt to answer that question in MY WINNPEG, a hilariously wacky and profoundly touching goodbye letter to his childhood hometown. A documentary (or "docu-fantasia" as Maddin proclaims) that inventively blends local and personal history with surrealist images and metaphorical myths, the film covers everything from the fire at the local park which lead to a frozen lake of distressed horse heads to pivotal and factually heightened scenes from Maddin's own childhood, all laced with a startling emotional honesty. MY WINNIPEG is Maddin's most personal film and a truly unique cinematic experience, winning the best Canadian film at the Toronto International Film Festival and the opening night selection of the Berlin Film Festival's Forum.
(Canada, 2007) 80 min.
Words and Music
The life stories of Broadway tunesmiths Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart are prettified for the screen in MGM's Words and Music. Billed fourth, the colorless Tom Drake plays Rodgers, but never mind that: the film belongs to Mickey Rooney, as the dynamic, self-destructive Lorenz Hart. Understandably, Hart's bisexuality is downplayed. According to MGM, his biggest problem in life is that he was never satisfied with his work. We are, however, especially when those great Rodgers & Hart tunes are performed by the likes of Judy Garland, Janet Leigh, Perry Como, Lena Horne, June Allyson, Cyd Charisse, Betty Garrett, Ann Sothern, Mel Torme, Allyn McLerie, Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen. The musical highlights include Garland's powerhouse rendition of Johnny One-Note, Kelly's Slaughter on 10th Avenue dance solo, Horne's interpretation of Where or When, Allyson's take on Thou Swell, and, best of all, Rooney's premiere performance of I'll Take Manhattan, which he allegedly had just written on the back of an automobile advertisement!
(1948, US, 122 min)
Anita O'Day, Life of a Jazz Singer
Before her death in November 2006 at age 86, Anita O'Day, one of jazz's most complex and rhythmic vocalists, smiled on the music world for six decades. This film portrait captures all the magic that took this sly Chicago native, a white girl who could hold her own against Billie and Ella, from Gene Krupa's bandstand to solo stardom. Film footage of Anita O'Day's appearance at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, immortalized in the 1960 documentary Jazz on a Summer's Day and excerpted here, may be the defining moment of the post-bebop era.
(US, 2007, 90 min)
Tekkon Kinkreet
From the creators of Animatrix comes this visually stunning, new anime film based on a popular Japanese manga written by Taiyo Matsumoto. In Treasure Town, where the moon smiles and young boys can fly, life can be both gentle and brutal — as it is for our heroes, Black and White. They are street urchins who watch over the city, doing battle with an array of old-world Yakuza and alien assassins vying to rule the decaying metropolis. TEKKON KINKREET is a dynamic tale of brotherhood that addresses the faults of present-day society, true love lost, and the kindness of the human heart.
Favela Rising
Film Field Trips for School Groups
See more info on our Education programs
Made possible with the support of Real Art Ways Members, Travelers, the George A. and Grace L. Long Foundation, the Fisher Foundation, the Hartford Courant Foundation, the Kohn-Joseloff Foundation and Lincoln Financial.
Mighty Times: The Legacy of Rosa Parks
Film Field Trips for School Groups
See more info on our Education programs
Made possible with the support of Real Art Ways Members, Travelers, the George A. and Grace L. Long Foundation, the Fisher Foundation, the Hartford Courant Foundation, the Kohn-Joseloff Foundation and Lincoln Financial.
