Our movies for 2013

Here are our films to review in 2013!

Movie Club list for 2013

Date: 23 Feb

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)

Directed by: Banksy

Documentary/Comedy

Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from post-hurricane New Orleans to the separation barrier on the Palestinian West Bank. He fiercely guards his anonymity to avoid prosecution. An eccentric French shop keeper turned documentary maker attempts to locate and befriend Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner. Includes footage of Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Invader and many of the world’s most infamous graffiti artists at work, on walls and in interview. As Banksy describes it, “It’s basically the story of how one man set out to film the un-filmable. And failed.” (IMDB)

 

Fight Club (1999)

Director: David Fincher

Drama

A ticking-time-bomb insomniac and a slippery soap salesman channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground “fight clubs” forming in every town, until an eccentric gets in the way and ignites an out-of-control spiral toward oblivion. Written by Anonymous

 

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Date: 4 May

 

The Experiment (2001)

Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel

Drama/Thriller

A German film based on the infamous “Stanford Prison Experiment” conducted in 1971. A makeshift prison is set up in a research lab, complete with cells, bars and surveillance cameras. For two weeks 20 male participants are hired to play prisoners and guards. The ‘prisoners’ are locked up and have to follow seemingly mild rules, and the ‘guards’ are told simply to retain order without using physical violence. Everybody is free to quit at any time, thereby forfeiting payment. In the beginning the mood between both groups is insecure and rather emphatic. But soon quarrels arise and the wardens employ ever more drastic sanctions to confirm their authority.

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New release

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Date: 29 June

Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975)

Director: Peter Weir

Drama/Mystery

Peter Weir’s haunting and evocative mystery set in 1900, Australia,  a mystical place where the British have attempted to impose their Christian culture with such tweedy refinements as a girls’ boarding school. After gauzily-photographed, nicely underplayed scenes of the girls’ budding sexuality being restrained in Victorian corsets, the uptight headmistress (Rachel Roberts) takes them on a Valentine’s Day picnic into the countryside, and several of the girls, led by the lovely Miranda (Anne Lambert) decide to explore a nearby volcanic rock formation. Something — and there is an unspoken but palpable emphasis on the inherent carnality of the place — draws four of the girls to explore the rock. Three never return. No one ever finds out why.

Abridged from a review by Robert Firsching, Rovi

Dancer in The Dark (2000)

Director: Lars Von Trier

Crime/Drama/Musical

Selma is a Czechoslovakian immigrant, a single mother working in a factory in rural America. Her salvation is her passion for music, specifically, the all-singing, all-dancing numbers found in classic Hollywood musicals. Selma harbors a sad secret: she is losing her eyesight and her son Gene stands to suffer the same fate if she can’t put away enough money to secure him an operation. When a desperate neighbor falsely accuses Selma of stealing his savings, the drama of her life escalates to a tragic finale.

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Date: 31 Aug

Waltz with Bashir (2008)

Director: Ari Folman

Documentary | Animation | Biography

One night at a bar, an old friend tells director Ari about a recurring nightmare in which he is chased by 26 vicious dogs. Every night, the same number of beasts. The two men conclude that there’s a connection to their Israeli Army mission in the first Lebanon War of the early eighties. Ari is surprised that he can’t remember a thing anymore about that period of his life. Intrigued by this riddle, he decides to meet and interview old friends and comrades around the world. He needs to discover the truth about that time and about himself. As Ari delves deeper and deeper into the mystery, his memory begins to creep up in surreal images. Written by intipress@aol.com.

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New release

 

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Date: 19 Oct

Run Lola Run (1998)

Director: Tom Tykwer

Action/Thriller

An adrenaline rush of a film concerning a young woman (Franka Potente) who must gather 100,000 marks in twenty minutes to help bail her boyfriend (Mortiz Bleibtreu) out of a difficult situation that could result in his death. Few films have as much energy and sheer excitement as this one, which explores three different scenarios on how the situation evolves, and how the slightest change in time can produce drastically different results.(Dan Schultz – Reviewer, Rotten Tomatoes)

Gangsters Paradise: Jerusalema (Formerly ‘Jerusalema’) 2008

Directed by Ralph Ziman

Action/Crime/Drama

An unflinching look into the crime, corruption and the transgressions of those looking to survive in the most crime-infested district of Johannesburg. A young hoodlum’s rise from a small-time criminal to a powerful crime entrepreneur during the turbulent years before and after the fall of apartheid.

Warning: May contain South African accents

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Date: 4 Jan (date to be reviewed)

Raining Stones (1993)

Directed by Ken Loach

Drama/Comedy

Stars: Bruce Jones, Julie Brown and Gemma Phoenix

Storyline from IMDb:

This film tells the story of a man devoted to his family and his religion. Proud, though poor, Bob wants his little girl to have a beautiful (and costly) brand-new dress for her First Communion. His stubbornness and determination get him into trouble as he turns to more and more questionable measures, in his desperation to raise the needed money. This tragic flaw leads him to risk all that he loves and values, his beloved family, indeed even his immortal soul and salvation, in blind pursuit of that goal.

This film has got it all (except explosions and aliens): lots of humour, family stuff, menace, religion, morality, blue-collar Manchester and Ricky Tomlinson!

 

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New release