Films for 2011/2012 Season

Director: Scott Cooper.   Starring: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell.   Age Certificate: 15.  

Jeff Bridges gives an Oscar-winning performance as a washed-out country music musician who finds romance and is forced to reassess his dysfunctional life.

“…delicate and truthful touches give the movie a sense of lived experience.”

Director: Benoit Delepine & Gustave Kervern.   Starring: Gérard Depardieu, Yolande Moreau, Isabelle Adjani.   Age Certificate: 15.  

A quirky road movie about  a recently retired French butcher (Gerard Depardieu) who has to drive around south-western France on his old Mammuth motorbike to gather documents from all his past employers in order to claim his state pension.

“…funny, sad and weird… always springing something new on the viewer…”

Director: Eric Lartigau.   Starring: Romain Duris, Marina Foïs, Niels Arestrup.   Age Certificate: Unknown.  

In a moment of madness or fear a successful lawyer and family man commits an act which propels him into a drastic plan to change his life forever.  The French title translates as “The Man Who Wanted to Live His Life”.

“…a clever movie about the powerful allure of starting again.”

Director: Giorgos Lanthimos.   Starring: Christos Stergioglou, Michele Valley, Aggeliki Papoulia.   Age Certificate: 18.  

A seemingly ordinary Greek couple are bringing up their children in ignorance of the world outside: even giving ordinary words different meanings.  Then an outsider is introduced and their scarily sealed world starts to crack open.

“…brilliant, disturbing and often frighteningly funny…leaves you questioning the world around us.”

Director: Michelangelo Frammartino.   Starring: Giuseppe Fuda, Bruno Timpano, Nazareno Timpano.   Age Certificate: U.  

A quiet meditation around the life and death of a goat herder in Calabria.  The title comes from Pythagoras, who lived in Calabria in the 6th century BC and apparently spoke of each of us having four lives – the mineral, the vegetable, the animal and the human – “thus we must know ourselves four times”.

“…an essay, a cinematic poem, a spiritual exploration of time and space, designed to make us think and feel about the world around us and our place in it”.

Director: David Michod.   Starring: James Frecheville, Guy Pearce, Joel Edgerton.   Age Certificate: 18.  

Based loosely on actual events, Animal Kingdom is a psychological crime story set in 1980s Melbourne. A youth finds himself caught between loyalty to a criminal family and survival, morality and the law.

“…has a touch of the biblical parables about its portrayal of predestined damnation and fate.”

Director: Kelly Reichardt.   Starring: Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood, Paul Dano.   Age Certificate: PG.  

In 1845 a party of settlers on the Oregon trail breaks off from the main wagon train putting their trust in a guide who seems less and less reliable as they wander through the un charted wilderness.

“… bleak, enigmatic and masterful … a haunting evocation of American pioneering …a western unlike any other.”