Here it is! This is what we voted for – the Club Moofie Films for 2011.
What will Club Moofie say about these films? Who will win the coveted Moscar trophy this year?
Stay tuned…
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Movie Club List for 2011
Ladies Night
Date: Sat 5 March
The Kids Are Alright (2010)
I’m tempted to start this review by falling back on a tried-and-true movie critic formulation and saying something like “Lisa Cholodenko’s ‘Kids Are All Right’ is the best comedy about an American family since …” Since what? Precedents and grounds for comparison seem to be lacking, so I may have to let the superlative stand unqualified for now.
Which is fine: Ms. Cholodenko’s film, which she wrote with Stuart Blumberg, is so canny in its insights and so agile in its negotiation of complex emotions that it deserves to stand on its own. It is outrageously funny without ever exaggerating for comic effect, and heartbreaking with only minimal melodramatic embellishment.
But its originality — the thrilling, vertiginous sense of never having seen anything quite like it before — also .arises from the particular circumstances of the family at its heart. There is undeniable novelty to a movie about a lesbian couple whose two teenage children were conceived with the help of an anonymous sperm donor. Families like this are hardly uncommon in the real world, but Ms. Cholodenko (“Laurel Canyon,” “High Art”) and Mr. Blumberg have discovered in this very modern arrangement a way of refreshing the ancient and durable wellsprings of comedy.
The September Issue (2009)
The September Issue (2009-directed by RJ Cutler) (review paraphrased from Margaret Pomeranz’s review on “At the Movies”). THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE is a documentary about the September 2008 issue of the fashion magazine Vogue which was intended to be their biggest ever. At the centre of the action is Editor-In-Chief ANNA WINTOUR, on whom MERYL STREEP’S character was based in THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA. Wintour is a Brit, she’s cool, decisive and fashion designers practically bow at her feet. But there’s another woman who emerges from this film that is equally interesting, she’s Vogue’s Creative Director, fellow Brit GRACE CODDINGTON, a former model who is now one of the most famous fashion stylists in the world, and with good reason.
The value of this film is in the way it validates fashion as art. There is the creative tension between Wintour who pioneered celebrity fashion and Coddington. Wintour may have the ultimate power but Coddington has the real artistic talent. The insights the film gives into the superficialities of the industry are all there, but what emerged most strongly for me was the sheer beauty of what was being created in fashion and in the presentation of it by Coddington. The director was R. J. Cutler who had amazing access to this most fascinating world.
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Date: Sat 30 April
Heat (1995)
Hunters and their prey–Neil and his professional criminal crew hunt to score big money targets (banks, vaults, armored cars) and are, in turn, hunted by Lt. Vincent Hanna and his team of cops in the Robbery/Homicide police division. A botched job puts Hanna onto their trail while they regroup and try to put together one last big ‘retirement’ score. Neil and Vincent are similar in many ways, including their troubled personal lives. At a crucial moment in his life, Neil disobeys the dictum taught to him long ago by his criminal mentor–‘Never have anything in your life that you can’t walk out on in thirty seconds flat, if you spot the heat coming around the corner’–as he falls in love. Thus the stage is set for the suspenseful ending…. Written by Tad Dibbern <DIBBERN_D@a1.mscf.upenn.edu>
+ a current release (to be decided)
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Black & White Night
Date: Sat 25 Jun
Night of the Hunter (1955)
A religious fanatic marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real daddy hid $10,000 he’d stolen in a robbery.
With a very creepy Robert Mitchum (sporting the original LOVE/HATE tattoed knuckles), Shelley Winters and silent star Lilian Gish.
High Noon (1952)
On the day he gets married and hangs up his badge, lawman Will Kane is told that a man he sent to prison years before, Frank Miller, is returning on the noon train to exact his revenge. Having initially decided to leave with his new spouse, Will decides he must go back and face Miller. However, when he seeks the help of the townspeople he has protected for so long, they turn their backs on him. It seems Kane may have to face Miller alone, as well as the rest of Miller’s gang, who are waiting for him at the station… Written by Man_With_No_Name_126
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Date: Sat 27 Aug
The Social Network (2010)
On a fall night in 2003, Harvard undergrad and computer programming genius Mark Zuckerberg sits down at his computer and heatedly begins working on a new idea. In a fury of blogging and programming, what begins in his dorm room soon becomes a global social network and a revolution in communication. A mere six years and 500 million friends later, Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in history… but for this entrepreneur, success leads to both personal and legal complications. Written by Columbia Pictures
+ a current release (to be decided)
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Fantasy Night
Date: Sat 29 Oct
Pan’s Lanbyrinth (2006)
Pan’s Labyrinth (Spanish: El laberinto del fauno, “The Faun‘s Labyrinth”) is a 2006 Mexican Spanish-language fantasy film, written and directed by Mexican film-maker Guillermo del Toro. Pan’s Labyrinth takes place in Spain in May–June 1944, five years after the Spanish Civil War, during the early Franquist period. The narrative of the film interweaves this real world with a fantasy world centered around an overgrown abandoned labyrinth and a mysterious faun creature, with which the main character Ofelia interacts. Ofelia’s stepfather, the Falangist Captain Vidal, hunts the Spanish Maquis, anarchists who fight against the Fascist reign in the region, while Ofelia’s pregnant mother grows increasingly ill. Ofelia meets several strange and magical creatures who become central to her story, leading her through the trials of the old labyrinth garden.
Orlando (1992)
Young nobleman Orlando (Tilda Swinton) is commanded by Queen Elizabeth I to stay forever young. Miraculously, he does just that. The film follows him as he moves through several centuries of British history, experiencing a variety of lives and relationships along the way, and even changing sex.
Not only tells the story on film with brilliant visual design, but also tries to extend the plot as Woolf would have, had she lived to the end of the 20th century.
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Date: Sat 7 Jan
Moscars
The Messenger (2009)
While on a recent deployment to Iraq, US Army Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery is injured when an improvised explosive device goes off within close proximity to him. He is back in the States recovering from the more serious of those injuries, including one to his eye and leg. He has resumed a sexual relationship with his long time girlfriend Kelly, despite the fact that she is now engaged to another man who Will knows. With the few months Will has left in his enlistment, the army assigns him to the Casualty Notification Team in his area. Not having a background in counseling, psychology or grief management, he is unsure if he is well suited to this job. He is partnered with a career soldier, Captain Tony Stone, who teaches Will the precise protocol involved in the job. Tony tells Will, who quickly learns by on the job experience, that this job has its own dangers. As Will learns to adapt to the range of emotions of the next of kin… Written by Huggo
+ a current release (to be decided)
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Moscars
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Nominations for 2012 films
Club Moofie 