The Big Screen--October 2009

Five talented young basketball players from Akron, Ohio, star in this remarkable true-life, coming-of-age story about uncommon friendship in the face of unprecedented fame. Their coach is a hard-driving, charismatic, but inexperienced, player's father. Their leader: future NBA superstar Lebron James. This is the "Fab Five"'s story: an improbable nine-year journey that takes them from a decrepit inner-city gym to the doorstep of a national high school championship. Along the way, the close-knit team is repeatedly tested-both on and off the court-as James' unparalleled talent explodes into worldwide celebrity, threatening to destroy everything they've set out to achieve together. More Than a Game combines a series of unforgettable one-on-one interviews with rare news footage, never-before-seen home videos and personal family photographs to bring this heartwarming and wholly American story to life.

Opening: October 7
Venue: Film Forum/New York City
Film: The Yes Men Fix the World
Dirs./Prods.: Andy Bichibaum, Mike Bonanno
Co-Dir.: Kurt Engfehr
Distributor: Shadow Distribution
http://theyesmenfixtheworld.com/

The Yes Men Fix the World is a screwball true story about two gonzo political activists who, posing as top executives of giant corporations, lie their way into big business conferences and pull off the world's most outrageous pranks.

From New Orleans to India to New York City, armed with little more than cheap thrift-store suits, the Yes Men squeeze raucous comedy out of all the ways that corporate greed is destroying the planet.

Brüno meets Michael Moore in this gut-busting wake-up call that proves a little imagination can go a long way towards vanquishing the Cult of Greed.

Who knew fixing the world could be so much fun?

Opening: October 9
Film: Good Hair
Dir.: Jeff Stilson
Prods.: Chris Rock, Kevin O'Donnell, Nelson George
Distributors: Liddell Entertainment, Roadside Attractions, HBO Films
http://www.goodhairmovie.net/site/

An exposé of comic proportions that only Chris Rock could pull off, Good Hair visits beauty salons and hairstyling battles, scientific laboratories and Indian temples to explore the way hairstyles impact the activities, pocketbooks, sexual relationships and self-esteem of the black community.

Director Jeff Stilson follows Chris Rock on this raucous adventure prompted by Rock's daughter approaching him and asking, "Daddy, how come I don't have good hair?" Haircare professionals, beautyshop and barbershop patrons, as well as celebrities including Ice-T, Nia Long, Paul Mooney, Raven Symoné, Dr. Maya Angelou, Salt n Pepa, Eve and Reverend Al Sharpton all candidly offer their stories and observations to Rock while he struggles with the task of figuring out how to respond to his daughter's question.

Good Hair marks a reunion of the team behind Rock's acclaimed and Emmy Award-winning HBO series The Chris Rock Show, including producer Nelson George, writer-director Jeff Stilson, writers Lance Crouther and Chuck Sklar.

Opening: October 9
Venue: Cinema Village/New York City
Film: Visual Acoustics
Dir.: Eric Bricker
Distributor: Arthouse Films
http://www.juliusshulmanfilm.com/

Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, Visual Acoustics celebrates the life and career of Julius Shulman, the world's greatest architectural photographer, whose images brought modern architecture to the American mainstream. Shulman, who passed away this year, captured the work of nearly every modern and progressive architect since the 1930s including Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, John Lautner and Frank Gehry. His images epitomized the singular beauty of Southern California's modernist movement and brought its iconic structures to the attention of the general public. This unique film is both a testament to the evolution of modern architecture and a joyful portrait of the magnetic, whip-smart gentleman who chronicled it with his unforgettable images.

Opening: October 16
Venue: Quad Cinema/New York City
Film: Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
Dir.: Jean-Paul Jaud
Distributor: First Run Features
http://firstrunfeatures.co /foodbeware_press.html

For the first time ever, our children are growing up less healthy than their parents. As the rate of cancer and childhood obesity climbs ever upward each year, we must ask ourselves, why is this happening? What can we do to save our children's health--and our own?

Food Beware takes a look at a small village in the mountains of France, where, in opposition to powerful economic interests, the town's mayor has declared that the school lunchroom will serve mostly local food, grown by organic methods.

Featuring interviews with children, parents, teachers, health care workers, journalists, farmers, elected officials, scientists and researchers, we learn about challenges and rewards of their stand--the abuses of industry as well as the practical solutions at hand. What will it take to save our food supply? This moving testament to one community's answer is food for thought, and a case study of a growing revolution.

Opening: October 16
Venue: Facets Cinematheque/Chicago
Film: In Search of Memory
Dir.: Petra Seeger
Distributor: Icarus Films
http://icarusfilms.com/new200 /mem.html

"Memory is everything. Without it we are nothing," says neuroscientist Eric Kandel, winner of the Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking research on the physiology of the brain's storage of memories. As he explains, memory is the glue that binds our mental life together and provides a sense of continuity in our lives.

In Search of Memory is a compelling blend of autobiography and history that recounts the life of one of the most important neuroscientists of the 20th century and illuminates scientific developments in our understanding of the brain's role in recording and preserving memory. In addition to archival footage and dramatic re-creations of Kandel's childhood experiences in Nazi-occupied Vienna and his formative years as an emigrant in New York, the film features discussions with Kandel, friends and family, as well as his public lectures in Vienna and New York, which explore both his professional and personal life, especially his emotional ties to Judaism.

Both through its personal journey into the memory of this amazingly spry and witty 79-year old, especially his traumatic experiences during the Holocaust, and a visit to his Columbia University laboratory, where Kandel and his colleagues demonstrate their experimental research, In Search of Memory examines how the brain stores memories, the difference between short-term and long-term memory, Alzheimer's and age-related memory loss, and structural modifications to the brain that enhance memory.

In revisiting the people, places and objects of Kandel's lifetime experiences, In Search of Memory reveals how everything we undergo changes the brain, even our genetic make-up, and can determine the focus of a life's work.

Opening: October 21
Venue: Film Forum/New York City
Film: Rembrandt's J'Accuse
Dir.: Peter Greenaway
Prods.: Femke Wolting, Bruno Felix
http://www.petergreenaway.info/content/view/136/64/; http://rembrandt.submarine.nl/

Rembrandt's J'Accuse is an essayistic documentary in which Peter Greenaway's fierce criticism of today's visual illiteracy is argued by means of a forensic search of Rembrandt's Nightwatch. Greenaway explains the background, the context, the conspiracy, the murder and the motives of all its 34 painted characters who have conspired to kill for their combined self-advantage. Greenaway leads us through Rembrandt's paintings into 17th century Amsterdam. He paints a world that is democratic in principle, but is almost entirely ruled by twelve families. The notion exists of these regents as charitable and compassionate beings. But reality was different.

Greenaway points out to the viewer all sorts of "evidence" that can be found in the Nightwatch, but which no one ever noticed before. Just as in the acclaimed American show CSI, Greenaway knows how to make the evidence for the murder credible by basing his line of questioning on the facts: historical sources, comparisons with other works of art that contain a secret message and mainly by highlighting numerous details in the painting that were never noticed before or that were simply not correctly interpreted.

The documentary explains how and why The Nightwatch, Rembrandt's J'Accuse, is a criticism of Amsterdam's oligarchy and plutocracy of the Golden Age, a demonstration of the manipulative power of the visual image, and an indictment, which puts all the characters involved in a complex and devious conspiracy to murder. Greenaway himself plays the part of the public prosecutor, but is at the same time himself. In his 21st Century clothes, he will interrogate characters from the movie Nightwatching, dressed in historical costumes on their part in the murder conspiracy.

Opening: October 22--One Night Only
Venue: Cineplex Theaters in Canada
Film: Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer's Cut)
Dir.: Alan Parker
Distributor: Cineplex Entertainment, Eage Rock Entertainment
www.cineplex.com/events; http://www.ifc.com/blogs/ifc-now/2009/04/monty-python-almost-the-truth.php

The Monty Python troupe includes (as if you don't know) John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Graham Chapman. The film will feature interviews with surviving Python members, along with archive representation for the late, great Chapman. The Pythons will tell their life story and reveal deeper truths alongside the more tried and tested Python history lessons. The film will also study the Pythons up close and in some cases against their contemporaries: rock stars, comedians, actors, politicians, writers, broadcasters, religious groups and Python-haters. Every opinion on Monty Python will be brought to life on-screen for the first time with never-before-seen material. Dozens of featured guest interviews will include Jimmy Fallon, Lorne Michaels, Hugh Hefner, Eddie Izzard, Olivia Harrison, Steven Merchant, Dan Akroyd, Tim Roth and Seth Green among many others.

This theatrical version is drawn from a six-hour series that airs on IFC October 18-22.

Opening: October 23
Venue: Cinema Village/New York City
Film: Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt with Nazis
Dir./Prod.: Gaylen Ross
Prod.: Andrew Cohen
http://www.killingkasztner.com/

How much should you negotiate with the enemy? In Israel, the debate over that question evoked fury to the point of assassination. Such was the case of Reszo Kasztner, a Hungarian Jew who tried to rescue the last million Jews of Europe by negotiating face-to-face with Nazi leader Adolph Eichmann. Some people considered Kasztner a hero for his heart-stopping rescue of nearly 1,700 Jews on a train to safety in Switzerland, in what became known as "Kasztner's train." Yet later this extraordinary act was cast as one of betrayal.

After Kasztner moved to Israel, many of his new countrymen accused him of collaborating with the enemy. He fought a vicious libel battle in a trial that portrayed him as "The Man Who Sold his Soul to the Devil," and was ultimately assassinated in Tel Aviv in 1957. His only daughter, Zsuzsi, grew up after her father's murder, a child isolated and despised for his alleged crimes. In the world's disavowal of the man, his daughter cries, "They murder him over and over again."

The film follows Kasztner's family and survivors, plagued by a legacy they are determined to change. And after 50 years, the assassin Ze'ev Eckstein breaks his silence, revealing step by step the events and passions that transformed a young man into an agent of politics and revenge.

Part real-time investigation, part historical journey, Killing Kasztner unearths the Kasztner story and its ramifications for the survivors, his family and his country, exploring the very nature of history itself: who writes it, how it is remembered, and what is at stake for the present, and future.

Opening: October 28
Film: Act of God
Dir./Prod.: Jennifer Baichwal
Prods.: Nick de Pencier, Daniel Iron
Distributor: Zeitgeist Films
http://www.zeitgeistfilms.com/actofgod/

Is being hit by lightning a random natural occurrence or a predestined event? Accidents, chance, fate and the elusive quest to make sense out of tragedy underpin director Jennifer Baichwal's (Manufactured Landscapes) captivating new work, an elegant cinematic meditation on the metaphysical effects of being struck by lightning. To explore these profound questions, Baichwal sought out riveting personal stories from around the world--from a former CIA assassin and a French storm-chaser, to writer Paul Auster and improvisational musician Fred Frith. The philosophical anchor of the film, Auster was caught in a terrifying and deadly storm as a teenager, and it has deeply affected both his life and art: "It opened up a whole realm of speculation that I've continued to live with ever since." In his doctor brother's laboratory, Frith experiments with his guitar to demonstrate the ubiquity of electricity in our bodies and the universe. Visually dazzling and aurally seductive, Act of God singularly captures the harsh beauty of the skies and the lives of those who have been forever touched by their fury.

Opening: October 28
Film: Michael Jackson's This Is It
Dir./Prod.: Kenny Ortega
Prods.: Randy Phillips, Paul Gongaware
Distributor: Sony Pictures
http://www.thisisit-movie.com/

Michael Jackson's This Is It will offer Jackson fans and music lovers worldwide a rare, behind-the-scenes look at the performer as he developed, created and rehearsed for his sold-out concerts that would have taken place this past summer in London's O2 Arena. Chronicling the months from April through June 2009, the film is produced with the full support of the Estate of Michael Jackson and drawn from more than 100 hours of behind-the-scenes footage, featuring Jackson rehearsing a number of songs for the show. Audiences will be given a privileged and private look at Jackson as he has never been seen before. In raw and candid detail, Michael Jackson's This Is It captures the singer, dancer, filmmaker, architect, creative genius and great artist at work as he creates and perfects his final show.