September 8 The Grand Seduction
Director: Don McKellar
Cast:: Brendan Gleeson, Taylor Kitsch, Gordon Pinsent, Liane Balaban
Year: 2013
Runtime: 109
Country: Canada
Language: English
A favourite among Film Circuit audiences, Jean-François Pouliot’s 2003 film La grande séduction was a box-office smash hit in Quebec and wowed critics at that year’s Cannes Film Festival. Now, a decade later, the classic Canadian tale returns to the screen as an English-language remake directed by the brilliant Don McKellar (Childstar, Last Night) and adapted by Michael Dowse (It’s All Gone Pete Tong, Fubar) and Ken Scott (Starbuck) who wrote the original.
Substituting the quaint charm of a fishing village in rural Quebec with the rugged beauty of a tiny coastal community in Newfoundland, The Grand Seduction charts the lengths to which the community will go to enchant a visitor from the city. Like many affected by the collapse of the fishing industry, residents of this once-thriving village are driven to seek employment in the city or, worse, queue for government assistance. The future looks brighter, briefly, when a plastics company proposes building a factory in the village—until the villagers learn that they need to secure a full-time doctor to serve the community’s needs, which is easier said than done. Enter Dr. Christopher Lewis (Taylor Kitsch; television’s Friday Night Lights, The Bang Bang Club), a young, cosmopolitan plastic surgeon banished to the physician-starved seaside due to a previous misdeed. In a hilarious attempt to charm him—without revealing their plan—the villagers take up the doctor’s beloved cricket and fall over themselves trying to persuade him that he has come to the most fascinating, desirable place in the world.
Gentle, whimsical and poignantly funny, The Grand Seduction is brought to life through tremendous performances from Ireland’s Brendan Gleeson (Albert Nobbs, Gangs of New York) and Newfoundland-born Canadian icon Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her, Saint Ralph). Shot on location in Trinity Bay, the film marvelously captures the colour and vibrancy of Newfoundland’s coastal landscape, and is certain to delight even the saltiest cynic.
Director: Don McKellar
Cast:: Brendan Gleeson, Taylor Kitsch, Gordon Pinsent, Liane Balaban
Year: 2013
Runtime: 109
Country: Canada
Language: English
A favourite among Film Circuit audiences, Jean-François Pouliot’s 2003 film La grande séduction was a box-office smash hit in Quebec and wowed critics at that year’s Cannes Film Festival. Now, a decade later, the classic Canadian tale returns to the screen as an English-language remake directed by the brilliant Don McKellar (Childstar, Last Night) and adapted by Michael Dowse (It’s All Gone Pete Tong, Fubar) and Ken Scott (Starbuck) who wrote the original.
Substituting the quaint charm of a fishing village in rural Quebec with the rugged beauty of a tiny coastal community in Newfoundland, The Grand Seduction charts the lengths to which the community will go to enchant a visitor from the city. Like many affected by the collapse of the fishing industry, residents of this once-thriving village are driven to seek employment in the city or, worse, queue for government assistance. The future looks brighter, briefly, when a plastics company proposes building a factory in the village—until the villagers learn that they need to secure a full-time doctor to serve the community’s needs, which is easier said than done. Enter Dr. Christopher Lewis (Taylor Kitsch; television’s Friday Night Lights, The Bang Bang Club), a young, cosmopolitan plastic surgeon banished to the physician-starved seaside due to a previous misdeed. In a hilarious attempt to charm him—without revealing their plan—the villagers take up the doctor’s beloved cricket and fall over themselves trying to persuade him that he has come to the most fascinating, desirable place in the world.
Gentle, whimsical and poignantly funny, The Grand Seduction is brought to life through tremendous performances from Ireland’s Brendan Gleeson (Albert Nobbs, Gangs of New York) and Newfoundland-born Canadian icon Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her, Saint Ralph). Shot on location in Trinity Bay, the film marvelously captures the colour and vibrancy of Newfoundland’s coastal landscape, and is certain to delight even the saltiest cynic.
Trailer
September 22 Tracks
Director: John Curran
Cast:: Mia Wasikowska, Adam Driver, Emma Booth
Year: 2013
Runtime: 110
Country: UK/Australia
Language: English
Director: John Curran
Cast:: Mia Wasikowska, Adam Driver, Emma Booth
Year: 2013
Runtime: 110
Country: UK/Australia
Language: English
In 1977, a twenty-seven-year-old Australian woman named Robyn Davidson set out from Alice Springs to walk 2,700 kilometres of harsh desert to the Indian Ocean. Accompanied only by her dog and four camels, Davidson yearned for a solitary journey of self-discovery, and had no ambition other than to reach the ocean. She ultimately wrote about her desert adventure in her 1980 book Tracks, which became a cult favourite around the world and has now been beautifully adapted for the big screen by director John Curran (The Painted Veil, We Don’t Live Here Anymore).
Robyn (Mia Wasikowska, Alice in Wonderland, The Kids Are All Right) spends two hardscrabble years in the Alice Springs area learning how to train and care for camels (feral herds of which number in the thousands in Western Australia) in order to prepare for the epic trek. Finally ready to embark on her journey, she realizes she is woefully underfunded and, despite her desire for self-sufficiency, accepts a fee from National Geographic in exchange for a written feature on her travels. The magazine adds a condition: she must allow photographer Rick Smolan (Adam Driver, The F Word, television’s Girls) to photograph her at selected stops along the way.
As adapted by Marion Nelson, Tracks captures two arduous journeys: Robyn making her way slowly through the outback, and her (arguably more perilous) inner search. The motivation behind her decision to test her limits, and the reasons for her preference for animals over people, are subtly revealed during the chronicle of the arduous crossing. Curran casts the harsh, red-baked land as much more than just Robyn’s antagonist—at different points it woos her, threatens her, comforts her, steals from her, and submits to her, and we feel privileged to share the journey.
October 6 Calvary
Director: John Michael McDonagh
Cast:: Brendan Gleeson, Chris O'Dowd, Kelly Reilly
Year: 2014
Runtime: 100
Country: Ireland | UK
Language: English
Rating: 14A
Calvary's Father James (Brendan Gleeson) is a good priest who is faced with sinister and troubling circumstances brought about by a mysterious member of his parish. Although he continues to comfort his own fragile daughter (Kelly Reilly) and reach out to help members of his church with their various scurrilous moral - and often comic - problems, he feels sinister and troubling forces closing in, and begins to wonder if he will have the courage to face his own personal Calvary.
Trailer
Director: John Michael McDonagh
Cast:: Brendan Gleeson, Chris O'Dowd, Kelly Reilly
Year: 2014
Runtime: 100
Country: Ireland | UK
Language: English
Rating: 14A
Calvary's Father James (Brendan Gleeson) is a good priest who is faced with sinister and troubling circumstances brought about by a mysterious member of his parish. Although he continues to comfort his own fragile daughter (Kelly Reilly) and reach out to help members of his church with their various scurrilous moral - and often comic - problems, he feels sinister and troubling forces closing in, and begins to wonder if he will have the courage to face his own personal Calvary.
Trailer
October 20 The Trip to Italy
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Cast:: Rob Brydon, Marta Barrio, Steve Coogan
Year: 2014
Runtime: 108
Country: UK
Language: English
Michael Winterbottom's largely improvised 2010 film, The Trip, took comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon-or semifictionalized versions thereof-on a restaurant tour around northern England.
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Cast:: Rob Brydon, Marta Barrio, Steve Coogan
Year: 2014
Runtime: 108
Country: UK
Language: English
Michael Winterbottom's largely improvised 2010 film, The Trip, took comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon-or semifictionalized versions thereof-on a restaurant tour around northern England.
In this witty and incisive follow-up, Winterbottom reunites the pair for a new culinary road trip, retracing the steps of the Romantic poets' grand tour of Italy and indulging in some sparkling banter and impersonation-offs. Rewhetting our palates from the earlier film, the characters enjoy mouthwateringmeals in gorgeous settings from Liguria to Capri while riffing on subjects as varied as Batman's vocal register, the artistic merits of "Jagged Little Pill," and, of course, the virtue of sequels.
Winterbottom trains his camera to capture the idyllic Italian landscape and the gastronomic treasures being prepared and consumed while keeping the film centered on the crackling chemistry between the two leads.
The Trip to Italy effortlessly melds the brilliant comic interplay between Coogan and Brydon into quieter moments of self-reflection, letting audiences into their insightful ruminations on the nuances of friendship and the juggling of family and career. The result is a biting portrait of modern-day masculinity.
November 3 Ida
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
Cast:: Agata Kulesza, Agata Trzebuchowska
Year: 2013
Runtime: 80
Country: Poland
Language: Polish (with English subtitles)
No Rating
In Poland, few subjects are as controversial and emotionally charged as the relations between Catholics and Jews during the Nazi occupation. Following his success in England with films like Last Resort and My Summer of Love, director Pawel Pawlikowski has returned to his native country for the first time in his career to address one of his homeland’s most sensitive and painful topics. The result is one of the year’s most powerful and affecting films, which was awarded the FIPRESCI Special Presentations prize at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, and Best Film at the 2013 BFI London Film Festival.
In 1960s Poland, Anna is a novitiate nun about to take her vows. Instructed by her Mother Superior to visit her aunt prior to withdrawing into the religious life, the prim Anna meets her mother’s sister Wanda, a raven-haired sensualist and former state prosecutor, who reveals some heretofore unknown information about Anna’s past— including her real name, Ida. This launches a remarkable journey into the countryside, where secrets both familial and national are darkly, inextricably intertwined.
Shooting in black and white and using the 1.37:1 Academy frame (the almost-square frame of classic cinema), Pawlikowski craftsa masterful drama which balances the intimate and personal with the worldhistorical. As the two women unearth ever more details about their family’s painful past, their search illuminates some of the darkest corners of Poland’s history under both fascist occupation and communist autocracy. Brilliantly structured, elegantly shot and impeccably executed, Ida will have all who see it reaching for superlatives. Trailer
Trailer 2
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski
Cast:: Agata Kulesza, Agata Trzebuchowska
Year: 2013
Runtime: 80
Country: Poland
Language: Polish (with English subtitles)
No Rating
In Poland, few subjects are as controversial and emotionally charged as the relations between Catholics and Jews during the Nazi occupation. Following his success in England with films like Last Resort and My Summer of Love, director Pawel Pawlikowski has returned to his native country for the first time in his career to address one of his homeland’s most sensitive and painful topics. The result is one of the year’s most powerful and affecting films, which was awarded the FIPRESCI Special Presentations prize at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, and Best Film at the 2013 BFI London Film Festival.
In 1960s Poland, Anna is a novitiate nun about to take her vows. Instructed by her Mother Superior to visit her aunt prior to withdrawing into the religious life, the prim Anna meets her mother’s sister Wanda, a raven-haired sensualist and former state prosecutor, who reveals some heretofore unknown information about Anna’s past— including her real name, Ida. This launches a remarkable journey into the countryside, where secrets both familial and national are darkly, inextricably intertwined.
Shooting in black and white and using the 1.37:1 Academy frame (the almost-square frame of classic cinema), Pawlikowski craftsa masterful drama which balances the intimate and personal with the worldhistorical. As the two women unearth ever more details about their family’s painful past, their search illuminates some of the darkest corners of Poland’s history under both fascist occupation and communist autocracy. Brilliantly structured, elegantly shot and impeccably executed, Ida will have all who see it reaching for superlatives. Trailer
Trailer 2
November 10 Land Ho!
Director: Aaron Katz, Martha Stephens
Cast:: Paul Eenhoorn, Earl Lynn Nelson, Karrie Crouse
Year: 2014
Runtime: 95
Country: Iceland | USA
Language: English
Rating: 14A
Back when they were brothers-in-law, married to two sisters, MITCH (Earl Lynn Nelson) and COLIN (Paul Eenhorn) were close friends, but they drifted apart as Mitch and his wife divorced and Colin’s wife died. Now Mitch, a retired surgeon who can’t quite admit to being retired, recruits a reluctant Colin on a holiday to Iceland—just the ticket to perk up a pair who have endured their share of disappointments but still have a spirit of adventure in them.
Brassy, relentlessly cheery, and prone to colorfully profane language (“…this is so delicious it’s like angels pissin’ on your tongue!”) Southerner Mitch is the live wire of the duo. Colin, a more reserved Australian, is picking up the pieces after a second marriage gone sour. For both men, aging, loneliness, and disenchantment are silent adversaries to be countered with gumption.
Women are much on the radar during their travels: in upscale Reykjavik, they hit the nightclubs with Mitch’s much younger first-cousin-once-removed ELLEN (Karrie Crouse) and her friend JANET (Elizabeth McKee), who happen to be traveling through at the same time. Even though Mitch, who is something of a Dapper Dan, disapproves of the unrevealing outfits worn by the ladies (Ph.D candidates both), a good time, of sorts, is had by all.
As their rented SUV pilots them deeper into the Icelandic hinterlands, Colin and Mitch encounter fellow adventurers, get on each others’ nerves, play movie trivia games, get lost on the moonless moors, grouse about their sons, smoke pot, speak of regrets, and marvel at Iceland’s otherworldly beauty. The vast, haunting landscapes—moss-coated cliffs, fog-shrouded mountains, geothermal pools—form a primordial Eden, the perfect backdrop for the friends’ escapades.
And as Mitch exclaims when Colin’s spirits flag, “Don’t get that Sunday afternoon attitude—good times are still a-comin’!”—a testament to the fact that joie de vivre can replenish us at any age.
Trailer
Director: Aaron Katz, Martha Stephens
Cast:: Paul Eenhoorn, Earl Lynn Nelson, Karrie Crouse
Year: 2014
Runtime: 95
Country: Iceland | USA
Language: English
Rating: 14A
Back when they were brothers-in-law, married to two sisters, MITCH (Earl Lynn Nelson) and COLIN (Paul Eenhorn) were close friends, but they drifted apart as Mitch and his wife divorced and Colin’s wife died. Now Mitch, a retired surgeon who can’t quite admit to being retired, recruits a reluctant Colin on a holiday to Iceland—just the ticket to perk up a pair who have endured their share of disappointments but still have a spirit of adventure in them.
Brassy, relentlessly cheery, and prone to colorfully profane language (“…this is so delicious it’s like angels pissin’ on your tongue!”) Southerner Mitch is the live wire of the duo. Colin, a more reserved Australian, is picking up the pieces after a second marriage gone sour. For both men, aging, loneliness, and disenchantment are silent adversaries to be countered with gumption.
Women are much on the radar during their travels: in upscale Reykjavik, they hit the nightclubs with Mitch’s much younger first-cousin-once-removed ELLEN (Karrie Crouse) and her friend JANET (Elizabeth McKee), who happen to be traveling through at the same time. Even though Mitch, who is something of a Dapper Dan, disapproves of the unrevealing outfits worn by the ladies (Ph.D candidates both), a good time, of sorts, is had by all.
As their rented SUV pilots them deeper into the Icelandic hinterlands, Colin and Mitch encounter fellow adventurers, get on each others’ nerves, play movie trivia games, get lost on the moonless moors, grouse about their sons, smoke pot, speak of regrets, and marvel at Iceland’s otherworldly beauty. The vast, haunting landscapes—moss-coated cliffs, fog-shrouded mountains, geothermal pools—form a primordial Eden, the perfect backdrop for the friends’ escapades.
And as Mitch exclaims when Colin’s spirits flag, “Don’t get that Sunday afternoon attitude—good times are still a-comin’!”—a testament to the fact that joie de vivre can replenish us at any age.
Trailer
