MUSIC
11/17
Allstar Weekend
@ Toad’s Place
Hartford, CT
11/19
Combichrist
@ The Webster
Hartford, CT
$18/7 p.m. doors
11/20
Terror
@ The Waterfront
Holyoke, MA
The Acacia Strain
@ Waterfront Tavern
Holyoke, MA
11/24
Deep Banana Blackout/I Anbassa
@ Toad’s Place
New Haven, CT
$18.50/8 p.m. doors
FILM
11/19 – 11/20
The Goonies
@ Bow Tie Cinemas
Hartford, CT
$10/11:30 p.m.
Leonard Maltin wasn’t alone when he noticed similarities between Goonies and the 1934 Our Gang comedy Mama’s Little Pirate. Adapted by Chris Columbus from a story by Steven Spielberg, the film follows a group of misfit kids (including such second-generation Hollywoodites as Josh Brolin and Sean Astin) as they search for buried treasure in a subterranean cavern. Here they cross the path of lady criminal Mama Fratelli (Anne Ramsey) and her outlaw brood. Fortunately, the kids manage to befriend Fratelli’s hideously deformed (but soft-hearted) son (John Matuszak), who comes to their rescue. The Spielberg influence is most pronounced in the film’s prologue and epilogue, when the viewer is advised that the film’s real villains are a group of “Evil Land Developers.” The musical score makes excellent use of Max Steiner’s main theme from The Adventures of Don Juan, not to mention contributions by the likes of Richard Marx and Cyndi Lauper. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
11/21–11/23
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno
@ Trinity College (Cinestudio)
Hartford, CT
$8/7:30 p.m.
In 1964, director Henri-Georges Clouzot, whose films Wages of Fear, Quai des Orfèvres and The Raven are classics of 1940s French cinema, became obsessed with making an experimental film that would prove his relevance to the young & cocky directors of the Nouvelle Vague. Inferno is that legendary film, crushed by the mania that led to Clouzot’s heart attack, and the collapse of star Serge Reggiani. Luckily, Clouzot’s widow discovered 85 cans of the film, allowing Serge Bromberg to create a documentary mixing original footage with interviews and re-enacted scenes from the script. Most tantalizing in this lost film about sexual jealousy are the radiant images of the young Romy Schneider, undeniable muse of Clouzot’s dream. A “dazzling evocation of what may be one of the greatest films never made” – Catherine Wheatley, Sight & Sound.
CCSU
11/18
Eat Pray Love
@ Philbrick Camp
10 p.m./free
A woman who once made it her goal in life to marry and rear a family finds her priorities suddenly shifting in Ryan Murphy andJennifer Salt’s adaptation of author Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling memoir. In the eyes of many, Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) was a woman who had it all — a loving husband, a great career, and a weekend home — but sometimes one realizes too little too late that they haven’t gotten what they truly wanted from life. On the heels of a painful divorce, the woman who had previously looked forward to a contented life of domestic bliss sets out to seek her true destiny by traveling first to Italy, where she learns to appreciate nourishment; then to India, where she discovers the power of prayer; and finally to Bali, where she unexpectedly finds the meaning of true love. – Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
11/19
All the Presidents Men
@ Torp Theatre
2pm (opening reception at 1:30 pm)/free
As part of CCSU’s Classic Fridays Film Series, Professor Gil Gigliotti presents this true to life conspiracy classic from the 1970s. Tony Canella, associate professor of Journalism, will be presenting notes on the film.
Conspiracy film specialist Alan J. Pakula turned journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s best-selling account of their Watergate investigation into one of the hit films of Bicentennial year 1976. While researching a story about a botched 1972 burglary of Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate apartment complex, green Washington Post reporters/rivals Woodward (Robert Redford, who also exec produced) and Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) stumble on a possible connection between the burglars and a White House staffer. With the circumspect approval of executive editor Ben Bradlee (Jason Robards), the pair digs deeper. Aided by a guilt-ridden turncoat bookkeeper (Jane Alexander) and the vital if cryptic guidance of Woodward’s mystery source, Deep Throat (Hal Holbrook), Woodward and Bernstein “follow the money” all the way to the top of the Nixon administration. Despite Deep Throat’s warnings that their lives are in danger, and the reluctance of older Post editors, Woodward and Bernstein are determined to get out the story of the crime and its presidential cover-up. Once Bradlee is convinced, the final teletype impassively taps out the historically explosive results. – Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
