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Friday, Oct. 12, 6 p.m.
Friday Night Lights Directed by Peter Berg
While it eventually found success as a beloved television series, the original film was based on Buzz Bissinger’s book by the same title. In the economically depressed town of Odessa, Texas, there’s little to look forward to except Friday night high school football games. When the star suffers a debilitating injury, hope seems lost until Coach Gary Gaines (played by Billie Bob Thornton) rallies the team to overcome their setbacks and depend on each other in order to make it to the state championships.
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Friday, Oct. 12, 9 p.m.
Mystic River Directed by Clint Eastwood
Nominated for numerous awards, both Sean Penn and Tim Robbins won Oscars for their performances as the father of a murdered teenage girl and her suspected killer. Although the production company wanted the movie to be shot in Canada, director Clint Eastwood insisted on making the film in Boston, the original setting of Dennis Lehane’s gripping thriller about three childhood friends whose lives once again intersect through tragedy. Rolling Stone praised Eastwood’s film as unforgettable: “You can't shake it. It's that haunting, that hypnotic.
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Saturday, Oct. 13, 1 p.m.
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events Directed by Brad Silberling
Jude Law as Lemony Snicket narrates this black comedy enjoyed by all ages, based on the best-selling books by Lemony Snicket (aka Daniel Handler). The happy childhood of Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire swiftly comes to an end when their parents die in a fire, leaving them orphaned-and with a huge fortune, but only when the oldest child comes of age. Sent to live with their greedy and strange distant relative, the out-of-work-actor Count Olaf (Jim Carrey), the siblings soon realize that he wants their fortune for himself. With the help of their paranoid Aunt Josephine (Meryl Streep) and snake-adoring Uncle Monty (Billy Connolly), the Baudelaire children manage to avoid his murderous plans.;
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Saturday, Oct. 13, 6 p.m.
The House of Sand and Fog Directed by Vadim Perelman
A quarrel over real estate escalates into unexpectedly tragic consequences. Based on the novel of the same name by Andre Dubus III, this quiet psychological drama slowly gets under your skin; when recovering addict Kathy (played by Jennifer Connelly) is mistakenly evicted from her house, she finds herself driven to extremes to reclaim her property despite the fact that it has been auctioned off to an Iranian family. Ben Kinsgley plays Colonel Massoud Behrani, a former Iranian military officer, who desperately tries to maintain the appearance of financial success for his family and refuses to negotiate with Kathy. The film deftly explores the motivations of each character without casting any of them as the villain. Both Connelly and Kingsley are deeply moving, but the standout performance is Shohreh Aghdashloo who plays Nedereh, Behrani's wife, a sheltered, gracious woman who reaches out to Kathy only to pay the ultimate price.
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Saturday, Oct. 13, 9 p.m.
Gone, Baby, Gone Directed by Ben Affleck
Ben Affleck's strikingly assured directorial debut feature based on Dennis Lehane's unsettling novel is set in his hometown of Boston. Two young private detectives (Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan) are hired to investigate the kidnapping of four-year-old Amanda McCready. As they are pulled deeper into the world of dealers, gangs, and child molesters, they eventually unearth the answer to Amanda's disappearance, presenting them with an untenable moral dilemma. A film of enormous power and gritty realism, with an Oscar-nominated performance by Amy Ryan as Amanda's derelict mother.
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Sunday, Oct. 14, 1 p.m.
Election Directed by Alexander Payne
Student body elections in a suburb of Omaha, Nebraska, wreak mayhem in the lives of teacher and student alike. Popular high school history and civics teacher Jim McAllister (Matthew Broderick) resents overachiever Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon)-the obsessive and manipulative student who got Jim's best friend fired after having an affair with him, and the only candidate for student body president. Under the guise of hoping to establish a more democratic election, Jim convinces varsity football player Paul Metzler (Chris Klein) to run against Tracy. As events spiral out of control, Jim will stop at nothing to prevent Tracy from winning the title.
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Friday, Oct. 19, 6 p.m.
Sunday, Oct. 21, 1 p.m.
Watchmen Directed by Zach Snyder
Based on one of the most seminal graphic novels ever written, Alan Moore's Watchmen is more of an investigation of the nature of power than a mere comic book (originally released in 1986 as a series of twelve issues). Directed by Zack Snyder, the film is set in an alternate history during the 1980s where the U.S. has won the Vietnam War and Richard Nixon is President as the Cold War threatens to escalate. As anti-vigilante sentiment grows, the Watchmen must rally to prevent nuclear catastrophe.
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Friday, Oct. 19, 9 p.m.
Persepolis Directed by Vincent Paronnaud
Based on Marjane Satrapi's bestselling autobiographical graphic novel, this animated film follows Satrapi as an outspoken Iranian girl living through the 1979 revolution. Initially delighted with the end of the Shah's regime, as Marji grows up under the rule of Islamic fundamentalists she becomes more vocal about the injustice of the new forms of repression. Worried that her opinions will cause her problems, Marji's family sends her to Vienna to study. Coming of age in a foreign culture and plagued by troubling disappointments, Marji returns to Iran only to discover that both she and her homeland have changed, and she must decide where she belongs.
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Saturday, Oct. 20, 1 p.m.
Howl's Moving Castle Directed by Hiyao Miyazaki
Award-winning Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away) delivers another visually breathtaking story with Howl's Moving Castle. 18-year-old Sophie strikes up an expected friendship with Howl, a peculiar wizard whose home has the power to travel. But their friendship angers a witch, who in retaliation turns the pretty Sophie into a decrepit old woman. With help of the fire demon Calcifer and Howl's other magical companions, Sophie sets off to find a way to reverse the witch's spell and return to her former self-visiting other worlds and dimensions along the way. Christian Bale, Emily Mortimer, Jean Simmons, Lauren Bacall, and Billy Crystal comprise the English-speaking voiceover cast.
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Saturday, Oct. 20, 6 p.m.
V for Vendetta Directed by James McTeigue
A near-future dystopian thriller adapted from the graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, V for Vendetta takes place in a London where a corrupt, abusive dictatorial government has come into power. The ordinary Evey (Natalie Portman) finds herself thrown into the fight against the totalitarian state when she becomes the unlikely ally of freedom fighter V (Hugo Weaving) after he rescues her from a run-in with the secret police. Caped and masked (with the face of Guy Fawkes), V rebels against the fascist regime by using his own terrorist tactics.
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Saturday, Oct. 20, 9 p.m.
Ghost World Directed by Terry Zwigoff
In one of the smartest adaptations of a comic book ever brought to screen, best friends Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) search for what to do with themselves the summer after high school graduation. As Enid and Rebecca search for their grown-up identities, they begin to drift apart and into other, more complicated, relationships. Directed by Terry Zwigoff with a screenplay by Daniel Clowes based on his comic book of the same name, the film reveals the agonies of adolescent uncertainty and the changing nature of friendship without ever patronizing its young subjects.
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