Coming Attractions*
La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet - starts Feb. 12
Directed by Frederick Wiseman
Not rated. 158 min. In English and French with English subtitles.
 In La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet, his 36th documentary in 40 years, Frederick Wiseman takes his camera into the stately and elegant Palais Garnier in Paris, observing rehearsals, staff meetings and, finally, performances of seven dances, including classics like "The Nutcracker" and spiky new work by younger choreographers. It's greatest virtue, and the substance of Mr. Wiseman's particular genius, is the way it transfixes you with the inner workings of an institution you may not otherwise care about.
In La Danse you watch closely as dancers and choreographers break complex movements down into their constituent gestures, a process that is at once tedious and entirely engrossing. All this makes the film sound remote, even abstract, but it is really the opposite. If you did not already know the names of the stars of the Paris Opera Ballet, you will nonetheless have acquired an almost tactile sense of who they are.
"How can we know the dancer from the dance?" wondered William Butler Yeats in his poem "Among School Children." It's a simple and also endlessly mysterious question, one that Mr. Wiseman, in his patient, meticulous, magical way, both restates and answers. (Excerpted from A.O. Scott's New York Times review)
"One of the finest dance films ever made. A feast for ballet lovers. Sumptuous in its length and graceful in its rhythm. Transfixes you with the inner workings of an institution." -A.O. Scott, The New York Times
"Heavenly" -New York Post
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The Messenger - starts Feb. 19
Directed by Oren Moverman
Cast: Woody Harrelson, Ben Foster, Samantha Morton, Jena Malone, Steve Buscemi
Rated R for sex, nudity, strong language. 105 min.
View the Trailer: www.themessengermovie.com
 In The Messenger, Will Montgomery, a tight-lipped young sergeant who served heroically in Iraq, is given a new duty, that in some ways, causes him more pain than being on the front lines did. Assigned to the Army's Casualty Notification service, he must now show up at the homes of fallen soldiers and deliver the bad news to their relatives. His partner, Capt. Tony Stone, is a hard-living, tough-nut verteran who goes at his task with a devotion that's respectful and also slightly fanatical.
Oren Moverman, who directed and co-wrote The Messenger, doesn't guard his characters; their distress comes ripping off the screen. It becomes a wake-up call to those of us for whom the Iraq war has, too often, seemed a numbing series of television images, with death relegated to a background statistic. The Messenger honors those who fought and died in Iraq by acting out, with an anguished handheld immediacy, how large each of those sacrifices really is.
Foster, arrestingly implosive, plays Will as quietly undone by his war memories; he can't see what he did -- only what he failed to do. And Harrelson gives Tony an electric dark-hearted vitality and rage. Yet there's nothing drab about the tormented place these men take each other. You'll want to go along. (Excerpted from Owen Gleiberman's Entertainment Weekly review)
"Absolutely see this film!" -A.O. Scott, At The Movies
"A fully felt, morally alert, marvelously acted piece of work with moments of explosive humor." -The New Yorker
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*schedule subject to change |
