(Chris Smith, US 2007, 95 min, English/Hindi/subtitles)
The director of American Movie has returned with a genuinely heartwarming, humanistic, and remarkably unsentimental work of neorealist fiction. In Goa, India, 18-year-old Venkatesh just barely earns a living cleaning out hotel rooms and selling plastic bags. When he meets the upper-class family who own the glimmering swimming pool he longs to dive into, Venkatesh sees the possibility to escape from his tough existence.
(Tia Lessin & Carl Deal, US 2008, 96 min.)
Winner of the Grand Jury Documentary Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, this astonishingly powerful documentary takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen. Trouble the Water utilizes amazing footage shot by Kimberly Rivers Roberts, an aspiring rap artist, and her husband, Scott, as the hurricane begins to rage and the floodwaters fill their world and the screen. Later Kim and Scott’s camera captures their harrowing retreat to higher ground and the dramatic rescues of friends and neighbors. Finally, filmmakers Lessin and Deal document the couple’s return to New Orleans, the devastation of their neighborhood, and the appalling repeated failures of government.
(Chris Smith, US 2007, 95 min, English/Hindi/subtitles)
The director of American Movie has returned with a genuinely heartwarming, humanistic, and remarkably unsentimental work of neorealist fiction. In Goa, India, 18-year-old Venkatesh just barely earns a living cleaning out hotel rooms and selling plastic bags. When he meets the upper-class family who own the glimmering swimming pool he longs to dive into, Venkatesh sees the possibility to escape from his tough existence.
(Tia Lessin & Carl Deal, US 2008, 96 min.)
Winner of the Grand Jury Documentary Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, this astonishingly powerful documentary takes you inside Hurricane Katrina in a way never before seen on screen. Trouble the Water utilizes amazing footage shot by Kimberly Rivers Roberts, an aspiring rap artist, and her husband, Scott, as the hurricane begins to rage and the floodwaters fill their world and the screen. Later Kim and Scott’s camera captures their harrowing retreat to higher ground and the dramatic rescues of friends and neighbors. Finally, filmmakers Lessin and Deal document the couple’s return to New Orleans, the devastation of their neighborhood, and the appalling repeated failures of government.
(Jean Negulesco, US 1948, 95 min.)
then at 8:45 p.m.
(Ida Lupino, US 1953, 71 min.)
This fun double feature of vintage noirs pays tribute to the enormous talents of Ida Lupino, one of the ’40s great leading ladies who also became a pioneering independent director. In Road House, Lupino stars as the singer who comes between two old enemies (a wonderfully unhinged Richard Widmark and the hunky Cornel Wilde) at a café on the American/Canadian border. Then, in The Hitch-Hiker, Lupino brings her talented directing skills to the story of two hunting pals (Frank Lovejoy and Edmond O’Brien) taken hostage by the psychopathic title character (William Talman). Two films for one admission price.
