theSCOPE DECEMBER 2011

www.belcourt.org

TICKET PRICESFilm Tickets are available in advance online at www.belcourt.org or at the Belcourt box office

the day of the movie, unless otherwise noted.Concerts and other events are general admission unless otherwise noted.

MATINEE PRICING (before 6pm)Adult: $7.25 • Student/Military (w / ID): $6.75 • Child: $7.25 • Senior (65+): $6.25

EVENING PRICING (after 6pm)Adult: $8.75 • Student/Military (w / ID): $7.25 • Child: $7.25 • Senior (65+): $6.25

BELCOURT MEMBERS: as always $5.75(excludes some special events, though always discounted)

SEE ALL THE PERKS OF MEMBERSHIP AT WWW.BELCOURT.ORGThe Movieline: 615-383-9140 Administrative Office: 615-846-3150

SPECIAL THANKS

2011 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL ART HOUSE SHORTS PROGRAMWED, DEC 14 AT 7:30PM

Since 2006, the Belcourt has been one of a handful of venues nationwide selected to screen a special package of shorts put together by Sundance programmers under the guise of the Sundance Institute Art House Project. As the lead up to January’s 2012 Sundance Film Festival begins with the announcement of the lineup, we take a moment to revisit the standout shorts of the 2011 festival. THE EAGLEMAN STAG (UK, 9min) If you repeat the word “fly” long enough, it sounds like “life.” This does not help Peter.THE STRANGE ONES (USA, 15min) A man and a boy, traveling to an unknown destination, find respite in a motel swimming pool. On the surface all seems normal, but nothing is quite what it seems to be.INCIDENT BY A BANK (Sweden, 12min) A detailed and humorous account of a failed bank robbery.WORST ENEMY (USA, 13min) A comedy about a female misanthrope who gets herself stuck in a full body girdle.THE HIGH LEVEL BRIDGE (Canada, 5min) Trevor drops his camera from Edmonton’s High Level Bridge in memory of those who have jumped.WE’RE LEAVING (USA, 13min) Rusty has to find a new place to live with his wife and teenage American alligator, Chopper.DEEPER THAN YESTERDAY (Australia, 20min) After three months underwater in a submarine, crew members have become savages. Oleg fears that losing his perspective may mean losing himself.

IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE10 days! In 35mm! Fri-Sun, Dec 16-25 Showtimes will be posted Mon, Dec 12Dir. Frank Capra / 1946 / USA / NR / 130min / 35mmA yearly tradition here at the Belcourt. An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing him what life would have been like if he never existed. Starring Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.

HOLIDAY INN In 35mm! Sat-Tue, Dec 18-20 Showtimes will be posted Mon, Dec 12Dir. Mark Sandrich / 1942 / USA / NR / 100min / 35mmBing Crosby croons to the tune of “White Christmas” in Irving Berlin’s love triangle romantic comedy. Tired of the bright lights of showbiz, a man (Crosby) retires to the countryside and converts a farm into the Holiday Inn, open only on holidays, then competes against his pal (Fred Astaire) for a singer-dancer’s (Marjorie Reynolds) affection.

SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS (+ rare retro shorts)Thu, Dec 22 Showtime TBA - 120min / DigitalA delightful “retro” Christmas event that begins with holiday film clips from the 1940s through the 1960s—including vintage ads, Technicolor Max Fleischer cartoons, odd-ball stuff like Howdy Doody’s Christmas and more. All this culminates with the hilarious 1964 cult-favorite SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS. In Space Blazing Color!

The Dark Crystal Dir. Frank Oz / 1982 / USA / PG / 93min / Digital Sat, Dec 3 at 10amMaster Muppeteers Jim Henson and Frank Oz co-direct this classic fantasy film that tells the mythical tale of Jen, the last of the Gelfling race, who must find a missing shard in the observatory of an ancient astronomer to save the world. The Age Factor: PG for some dark material. Ages 8+

A Christmas Story Dir. Bob Clark / 1983 / USA / PG / 94min / Digital Sat, Dec 10 at 10am(Part of Holiday Movies) This humorous, nostalgic look at Christmas in 1940s Indiana is a holiday classic concerning nine-year-old Ralphie's (Peter Billingsley) desperate wish for a "Red Ryder carbine-action, 200-shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and a thingwhich tells time." The Age Factor: PG for some swearing and adult humor. Ages 8+

The Ornaments in concert Sat, Dec 17 at 10amLocal combo led by pianist Jen Gunderman, accompanied by bassist James Haggerty and drummer Martin Lynds, and featuring guest soloists on various instruments, The Ornaments evoke the childhood feeling of sitting in front of the TV with loved ones on a cold December night, watching Snoopy and the gang. The Age Factor: ALL AGES

Saturdays at 10amDue to the holidays, there will be no

Saturday Kid Shows on Dec 24 or 31

It’s aWonderful

LifeDecember 16 - 25

CINEMATIC CONVERSATIONS Join us after the Mon, Dec 19 screening of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE for the Belcourt’s version of a book/film club. A great way to meet other movie fans and expand your knowledge of films, directors, actors and cinema history. We’ll meet at Fido immediately following the film.

HOLIDAY MOVIESHOLIDAY MOVIES

WINE, FOOD & FILMMark your calendar for Monday evening, January 9 for the Belcourt’s second Wine, Food & Film. Delicious food and wine, followed by a movie (TBD). $20 Becourt members/$25 non-members

($5 upcharge for day of tickets).

FIRST RUN FILMS

A moving masterpiece, marked by an astonishing profundity of vision. – Lisa Scwarzbaum, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

Sponsored byFROM THE DIRECTOR’S CHAIR

DEAR BELCOURT FRIENDS, I guess this is the time for a little year-end wrap up. The good news? It’s been a great one. On The New Yorker blog last September, Richard Brody described the Belcourt Theatre as Nashville’s “admirably ambitious local art house….” We loved that description and hope to live up to it day in and day out. The quick snapshot of 2011 memorable moments for me includes the VISIONS OF THE SOUTH series; our partnership with the Sundance Film Festival and Institute, its Film Forward programs, and with Sundance Film Festival USA; the sold-out Oscar Night® America and nD Festival fundraising events; hiring our first staff member to head our education and engagement initiatives; Skype Q&As with film directors including Miranda July (THE FUTURE), Azazel Jacobs (TERRI), James Gunn (SUPER), J.C. Chandor (MARGIN CALL) and Sean Durkin (MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE); a multitude of post-screening panel or faculty-led discussions; record ticket sales and membership sales—and much, much more.

In an article about the changing art house that ran in indieWIRE last spring, writer Anthony Kaufman wrote this about the Belcourt:

2011 should be a rotten year for arthouses. With movie attendance plunging by as much as 20%, ticket sales are the worst theatre owners have seen in six years. So why is Toby Leonard, programmer of Nashville’s arthouse Belcourt Theatre, smiling?

‘There’s all this talk about theatrical dying, but I don’t see it,’ says Leonard, who claims the Belcourt has posted 20-30% revenue increases over the last several years….The Belcourt’s success, and those of other arthouse theatres across the country, are based on much more than the ability to ferret out rare movies (although that’s part of it, too). It’s a combination of factors that includes everything from email campaigns to wine selections—and an attention to detail that borders on the obsessive.

Here’s to an even better 2012!STEPHANIE SILVERMAN

Managing Director

MELANCHOLIADir. Lars von Trier / Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany / 2011 / R / 135min / 35mmJustine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) are celebrating their marriage at a sumptuous party in the home of her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and brother-in-law John (Kiefer Sutherland). Despite Claire’s best efforts, the wedding is a fiasco, with family tensions mounting and relationships fraying. Meanwhile, a planet called Melancholia is heading directly towards Earth. MELANCHOLIA is a psychological disaster film from director Lars von Trier.

A fascinating, idea-packed new documentary….It is worth venturing out of your room, climbing on your bike or boarding a low-emissions bus and fighting your way through a crowd to see it. – A.O. Scott, The New York Times

URBANIZEDDir. Gary Hustwit / 2011 / USA / NR / 85min / HDDocumentary filmmaker Gary Hustwit completes his “design film trilogy” (including HELVETICA, OBJECTIFIED) with this upbeat, visually inventive look at the way cities around the world are designed, and the efforts being made to make urban living more functional. As urban populations explode on every continent, the quest to ensure everyone has a high quality of living becomes increasingly difficult. There are many contributors to the design of a city—and from the architect to the average citizen, everyone’s contributions play a part in shaping the metropolitan landscape. By traveling the globe and speaking with a wide variety of subjects ranging from city planners to politicians to artists and architects, Hustwit explores the innovations being made in such crucial areas as public transportation, safety, and even food supply.

REPERTORY FILMS

GALLERY AT theBELCOURT

BEN SMYTHE - FALSE LANDSCAPES

December 3 - January 7ARTIST RECEPTION Thursday, January 5, 2012

MIDNIGHT MOVIESTHEY LIVEDir. John Carpenter / 1988 / USA / R / 93min / 35mm Fri-Sat, Dec 9-10 at MidnightIn this late-80s consumer culture parody, professional wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper plays an unemployed working stiff who inadvertently finds a pair of sunglasses that allow him to see the world as it truly is. Billboards carry subliminal messages such as “Submit to Authority,” and yuppies are actually aliens who are bent on subduing the human race. Before you can say, “Die, yuppie scum!,” Piper grabs a gun and starts blasting.

GREMLINSDir. Joe Dante / 1984 / PG / 106min / 35mm Fri-Sat, Dec 23-24NOTE: Dec 24 showtime will be well before midnight.It starts with an adorable Christmas gift and ends in anarchic destruction as an army of mischievious, scaly beasts lay waste to small town America. Famous for its incredible special effects and infamous for its staggering violence and gore, this is one of the films that led to the creation of the PG-13 rating. The adorable mogwai Gizmo remains as iconic as ever, and the gremlins themselves, those bipedal ids, are simulta-neously goofy and terrifying as always. With Zach Galligan (Surviving) and Phoebe Cates (Fast Times at Ridgemont High). Just don’t ask her about Santa Claus...

S M T W T F S321Martha Marcy May

MarleneThe Skin I Live InAn Evening of Story and Song, presented by Center for Contemplative Justice

SKS: The Dark CrystalNRC: Party Girl

NRC: Party Girl NRC: We Can’tGo Home Again /Don’t Expect Too Much

MM: They Live SKS:A ChristmasStoryMM: They Live

Concert: The Applebutter Express,presented by In Tune Music

2011 SundanceFilm Festival Art House Shorts Program

It’s a WonderfulLife

SKS:The Ornaments in concertIt’s aWonderful Life

It’s aWonderful LifeHoliday Inn

It’s aWonderful LifeCinematic Conversations following at FIDOHoliday Inn

It’s aWonderful LifeHoliday Inn

It’s aWonderful LifeSanta Claus Conquers the Martians

It’s aWonderful LifeThe Mill and the Cross

MM: Gremlins

It’s aWonderful LifeThe Mill and the Cross

The Mill andthe Cross

The Mill andthe Cross

The Mill andthe Cross

The Mill andthe Cross

It’s aWonderful LifeThe Mill and the Cross

MM: Gremlins (No Dec 24 Midnight screening, earlier showtime TBD)

It’s aWonderful Life

CALENDAR - DECEMBER 2011

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PARTY GIRL1958 / NR / 99min / 35mm | Sat, Dec 3 at Noon | Sun, Dec 4 at 7:30Ray’s Technicolor noir set in Prohibition-era Chicago features a limping Robert Taylor, a crooked lawyer who falls for self-loathing “party girl” Cyd Charisse. Critic and one-time Belcourt guest Jonathan Rosenbaum really puts it best when he calls PARTY GIRL “one of (Ray’s) most affecting love stories. A flamboyant poem in delirious color and 'Scope that is treated with a mixture of violence and lyricism unique to Ray. Taylor and Charisse have never been better, and rarely has Ray's theme of two flawed individuals trying to strike a symmetrical balance achieved a more beautiful and convulsive expression.”Ray's handling of color and Scope is as masterful as ever… ideas and emotions are transformed into stunning visuals. – TIME OUT (LONDON)

WE CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN 1976 / 90 min / New 35mm Restoration | One Screening Only! Tue, Dec 6 at 7:30In this experiment in collaborative filmmaking, Nicholas Ray and a group of students create a collage of images and fictionalized conversations culled from time spent in a communal home discussing the nature of cinema, politics and life. The result is an infuriating pastiche of the ideas and beliefs of a lost generation presided over by the great maverick of cinema, as he descends deeper into the grasp of drug and alcohol addiction. With multiple film formats, early video synthesizer effects and a multi-screen layout, the end result of the film is a dizzying discussion of disillusion-ment and the desperate search for meaning and expression in a world that is always changing. On the occasion of Ray’s centenary, we are proud to present the most complete version of this one-of-a-kind film in a stunning digital restoration undertaken by Ray’s widow, Susan Ray, President of The Nicholas Ray Foundation, in close collaboration with the EYE Film Institute Netherlands and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Academy Film Archive.

Nicholas Ray CentenaryNicholas Ray Centenary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

For all the director’s talk about what it means to be human, [this film] may just be his most humane. – Stephen Saito, PREMIERE MAGAZINE

INTO THE ABYSSDir. Werner Herzog / 2011 / USA / NR / 106min / 35mmIn his fascinating examination of a triple homicide case in Conroe, Texas, Werner Herzog probes the human psyche to explore why people kill—and why a state kills. In intimate conversations with those involved, including 28-year-old death row inmate Michael Perry (who was scheduled to die eight days after his interview with Herzog), the filmmaker achieves what he describes as “a gaze into the abyss of the human soul.” As he’s so often done before, Herzog’s investigation unveils layers of humanity, making an enlightening trip out of ominous territory.

Buster Keaton isn't dead, he’s alive and well in Finland…If the name Aki Kaurismäki doesn’t mean anything to you, it should, and Le Havre may be the film to make it happen. – Kenneth Turan, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

LE HAVREDir. Aki Kaurismäki / 2011 / France/Finland / NR / 93min / 35mmIn this warmhearted portrait of the French harbor city that gives the film its name, fate throws young African refugee Idrissa (Blondin Miguel) into the path of Marcel Marx (André Wilms), a well-spoken bohemian who works as a shoeshiner. With innate optimism and the unwavering support of his community, Marcel stands up to officials doggedly pursuing the boy for deportation. A political fairy tale that exists somewhere between the reality of contemporary France and the classic cinema of Jean-Pierre Melville and Marcel Carné, LE HAVRE is a charming, deadpan delight.

Breathless, brutal and thrilling, it’s a gut punch of an action movie. – EMPIRE

ELITE SQUAD: THE ENEMY WITHINDir. Jose Padilha / 2011 / Brazil / NR / 124min / 35mm / In Portuguese with English subtitlesNow the most popular film of all time in all of South America, this intense action drama brings together the best of THE DEPARTED, CITY OF GOD and THE WIRE. When Rio de Janeiro’s Special Police Operations Battalion (BOPE) mission to stop a jail riot ends in the violent death of a gang leader, a police captain finds himself accused of a massacre—but the citizens of Rio, tired of the crime and drugs that plague their city, embrace him as a national hero. Instead of being fired, he is promoted to a position that will allow him to bring the gangs in the world’s most dangerous slum to their knees. However, he quickly discovers that he’s only made things even easier for the dirty cops and corrupt politicians who are truly running the game.

An extraordinary imaginative leap...a unique, immersive museum-meets-cinema experience. – Dennis Harvey, VARIETY

THE MILL AND THE CROSSDir. Lech Majewski / 2011 / Poland / NR / in English / 97min / 35mm / In English From Lech Majewski, one of Poland’s most acclaimed filmmakers, a visually inspired re-staging of Pieter Bruegel’s epic 1564 painting “Way to Calvary,” presented alongside the story of its creation—with Rutger Hauer as Bruegel, Michael York as his friend and art collector, and Charlotte Rampling as the inspiration for his Virgin Mary.

At this newsletter’s press time, opening dates for the following films are still TBD(though fully expected to open sequentially in December.)

Check www.belcourt.org for most current schedules.

Fri-Thu, Dec 23-29Followed by DON’T EXPECT TOO MUCHDir. Susan Ray / 2011 / appr. 60 min / Digital VideoUsing film, video and stills from Nicholas Ray’s archive, along with interviews with original crew members and directors Jim Jarmusch and Victor Erice, Susan Ray reconstructs the making of Nick’s last, long-unseen work WE CAN’T GO HOME AGAIN.

Save the Date

©AMPAS®

The place to be in Nashville for Hollywood’s biggest night. (And the Belcourt is the only venue in town with an Oscar party that’s officially sanctioned by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.) Last year was a sell-out, so get your tickets early.

Oscar NightAMERICA

®

FEBRUARY 26, 2012

WWW.BELCOURT.ORGMore Info Available at:

SKS: Saturday Kid ShowsMM: Midnight MoviesNRC: Nicholas Ray Centenary

As of this newsletter’s press time, opening dates for the following films are still TBD :

MELANCHOLIA, INTO THE ABYSS, LE HAVRE, URBANIZED, ELITE SQUAD: THE ENEMY WITHIN. Check www.belcourt.org

for most current schedules.