MUSIC
10/18
Jenny Lewis and Jonathan Rice/Happy Birthday
@ Toad’s Place
New Haven, CT
$18/8 p.m.
10/20
Senses Fail/Bayside
@ Webster Theatre
Hartford, CT
$15/6:30 p.m.
10/22
Insane Clown Posse
@ Webster Theatre
Hartford, CT
$26/7 p.m.
Cute Is What We Aim For
@ Webster Underground
Hartford, CT
$12/6:30 p.m.
The Books
@ Pearl Street
Northampton, MA
$20/9 p.m.
10/23
Tech N9ne
@ Webster Theatre
Hartford, CT
$26/7 p.m.
FILM
10/20 – 10/23
The American
@ Trinity College
Hartford, CT
$8/7:30 p.m.
It’s always a pleasure to be able to re-introduce movies that were marketed (and usually failed) as Hollywood action films, but belonged in art theaters all along. The American is more Sergio Leone/Antonioni than Salt, and George Clooney shows intriguing depth as a killer-for-hire with poise, intelligence, and an existential froideur. After learning that he has been set up by a shadowy enemy, he hides out in a gorgeous mountain village east of Rome. But even friendship and an intensely erotic affair cannot shake his sense of impending danger. Anton Corijn, who made the moody biopic of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis (Control), cinematographer Martin Ruhe, and composer Herbert Gronemeyer combine to make the panoramic landscape an equal character in the drama – especially when experienced on Cinestudio’s wide screen. 105 min.
10/24 – 10/25
The Phantom of Liberty
@ Trinity College
Hartford, CT
$8/7:30 p.m.
The penultimate film of the great surrealist director Luis Bunuel (Viridiana, Belle de Jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie) returns to a subject that fascinated the 74-year-old artist all his life: the randomness, terror, and unexpected beauty of pure chance. The series of interlocking vignettes express Bunuel’s ridicule of convention and a hilarious sense of the absurd. In one scene, a little girl is reported missing by her parents to the police, even though she stands in the room, unseen; in another, wealthy guests sit around a table on toilets, only to excuse themselves to go into private cubicles to eat. “For my part, I see liberty as a ghost that we try to grasp. . . and we embrace a misty shape that leaves us with only a wisp of vapor in our hands.” – Luis Bunuel.
10/22 & 10/23
Jaws
@ Criterion Cinemas
New Haven, CT
$5/11:30 p.m.
Based on Peter Benchley’s best-selling novel, Steven Spielberg’s 1975 shark saga set the standard for the New Hollywood popcorn blockbuster while frightening millions of moviegoers out of the water. One early summer night on fictional Atlantic resort Amity Island, Chrissie decides to take a moonlight skinny dip while her friends party on the beach. Yanked suddenly below the ocean surface, she never returns. When pieces of her wash ashore, Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) suspects the worst, but Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton), mindful of the lucrative tourist trade and the approaching July 4th holiday, refuses to put the island on a business-killing shark alert. After the shark dines on a few more victims, the Mayor orders the local fishermen to catch the culprit. Satisfied with the shark they find, the greedy Mayor reopens the beaches, despite the warning from visiting ichthyologist Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) that the attacks were probably caused by a far more formidable Great White. One more fatality later, Brody and Hooper join forces with flinty old salt Quint (Robert Shaw), the only local fisherman willing to take on a Great White–especially since the price is right. The three ride off on Quint’s boat “The Orca,” soon coming face to teeth with the enemy. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Army of Darkness
@ Cinema City
Hartford, CT
$5/11:30 p.m.
The third in director Sam Raimi’s stylish, comic book-like horror trilogy that began with The Evil Dead (1982), this tongue-in-cheek sequel offers equal parts sword-and-sorcery-style action, gore, and comedy. Bruce Campbell returns as the one-armed Ash, now a supermarket employee (“Shop Smart…Shop S-Mart”) who is transported by the powers of a mysterious book back in time with his Oldsmobile ’88 to the 14th century medieval era. Armed only with a shotgun, his high school chemistry textbook, and a chainsaw that mounts where his missing appendage once resided, the square-jawed, brutally competent Ash quickly establishes himself as a besieged kingdom’s best hope against an “army of darkness” currently plaguing the land. Since the skeleton warriors have been resurrected with the aid of the Necronomicon (the same tome that can send Ash back to his own time) he agrees to face the enemy in battle. Ash also finds romance of a sort along the way with a beautiful damsel in distress, Sheila (Embeth Davidtz), and contends with his own doppelganger after mangling an important incantation. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
