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Jul 30th
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Film

Film - Reviews and Times

Bad Faith

Bad Faith

Searing tragedy of intolerance reduced to melodrama in 'Agora' |

There's a fascinating, heartbreaking, infuriating true story at the center of Agora, a sumptuous drama of ancient Alexandria from Spanish filmmaker Alejandro Amenábar. But even as the female scholar protagonist lectures her students that every system in the universe must revolve around a center or it will collapse, Amenábar clutters up his narrative with so much bombast and portent, it's own center finally cannot hold.

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Film - Reviews and Times

Movies & Film Events: week of: July 29

Movies & Film Events: week of:  July 29

Films This Week
Check out the movies playing around town.
With reviews and trailers.

 


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Film - Reviews and Times

Mothers Superior

Mothers Superior

Stars shine in fresh, perceptive family comedy ‘Kids Are All Right'
Nic and Jules are a devoted, long-married couple raising their two kids in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Their family has its quirks and issues, but the kids respect their parents, each other, and themselves. That the movie in which they all appear, The Kids Are All Right, is not about the fact that Nic and Jules are a lesbian couple, is just one of the things that make Lisa Cholodenko's family comedy so fresh, fun, and appealing. These kids may have two moms, but this perceptive tale of family dynamics should resonate with anyone who's ever been a parent, a spouse or a child.

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Film - Reviews and Times

Coco & Igor

Coco & Igor

The possibility of an affair between fashion designer Coco Chanel and Russian composer Igor Stravinsky,1920, inspires this hothouse rhapsody from director Jan Kounen, based on the novel by Chris Greenhalgh. The era is irresistible, a period of astonishing artistic, political and cultural ferment. The personalities are fascinating (the designer who freed women from corsets; the composer who invented a new musical language). The project is redolent with possibilities, but few are realized in this artfully posed but static and disappointing film. It begins well at the 1913 Paris premiere of Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring," recreated in lavish detail (the corps de ballet in animal skins and tribal costumes; Nijinsky's ecstatic choreography to Stravinsky's relentless rhythms), followed by the famous rioting of the scandalized audience. Jump to 1920: with Paris full of Russian expats after the Revolution, Chanel (Anna Mouglalis), head of her own elegant Paris fashion house, moves Stravinsky (Mads Mikkelsen) and his enormous family to her severely chic black-and-white country house in the South of France so he can work.

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Film - Reviews and Times

Movies & Film Events: Week of July 22

Movies & Film Events: Week of July 22

Films This Week
Check out the movies playing around town.
With reviews and trailers.

 

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Film - Reviews and Times

Hot Stuff

Hot Stuff

Larsson's 'Girl Who Played With Fire' makes an incendiary thriller
There's good news for fans of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. The two protagonists in that film (played by the same terrific actors) return in the sequel, The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second Swedish film adapted from the international bestselling crime suspense trilogy by the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson. But those expecting the kind of conventional buddy-buddy sleuthing arrangement found in most mystery franchises will be surprised. While both characters are drawn into the same investigation this time, they never dare to team up—the stakes are too high.

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Film - Reviews and Times

I Am Love

I Am Love

In her long, illustrious career in independent film, Tilda Swinton's roles have ranged from the sublime (Orlando) to the ridiculous (Female Perversions). There are elements of both in her new film, I Am Love, a langorous Italian family drama she also co-produced; gorgeous location shooting in Milan and the San Remo countryside, and rapturous depictions of food, border on sublimity, but the overheated melodrama of the storytelling finally skews the film in the other direction. Co-scripted and directed by Luca Guadagnino, the film stars Swinton as Emma Recchi, a Russian-born wife in a wealthy Milanese family, whose businessman husband, Tancredi (Pippo Delbono) is about to inherit the family textile manufacturing business from his own elderly father.

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Film - Reviews and Times

Movies & Film Events: Week of July 15

Movies & Film Events: Week of July 15

Films This Week
Check out the movies playing around town.
With reviews and trailers.

 

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Film - Reviews and Times

A Rivers Runs Through It, Plus Joan Q&A

A Rivers Runs Through It, Plus Joan Q&A

Comic confronts showbiz highs and lows in candid 'Joan Rivers' doc
It's like watching them build the Pyramids, or Stonehenge. The construction of Joan Rivers' face is a little flash-documentary unto itself, a fascinating vignette that leads off the candid backstage documentary feature, Joan Rivers: A Piece Of Work. An army of staffpersons wielding an army of tools—brushes, tubes, paint, pencils, eyelash applicators—daub, pat, draw and shape the familiar mask that is Rivers' surgically tautened face into being. It's all done in extreme close-up—an eyebrow, a lip, an eyelash—until the whole is complete. And of course, there is no “before” image. Not surprising for a woman whose very first stop out of bed every morning is the make-up chair, before she can catch an unwary glimpse of what lies beneath the mask.

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Film - Reviews and Times

Movies & Film Events: Week of July 8

Movies & Film Events: Week of July 8

Films This Week
Check out the movies playing around town.
With reviews and trailers.

 

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Movie Times

Movies 7/23–7/29

DEL MAR THEATRE     469–3220
The Kids all Right  1:15, 2, 3:40, 4:30, 6:15, 7, 8:30, 9:20 + Fri-Sun  11am, 11:40am
The Last Airbender 2D 1:30, 3:50, 6:30, 8:40 + Fri-Sun 11:20am

NICKELODEON     426–7500
The Girl Who Played With Fire  1:30, 4:10, 6:50, 9:30 + Sat, Sun  11am
I Am Love  1:20, 4, 6:40, 9:20  + Sat, Sun 10:50am
Joan Rivers A Piece of Work  1:10, 3
The Killer Inside Me  4:50, 7:10, 9:30 + Sat, Sun 11am
CoCo Chanel & Igor Stravinsky  2, 4:30, 7, 9:40 + Sat, Sun 11:30am
Special Screening:  Sita Sings the Blues 7/21 Weds 7

APTOS CINEMA    426–7500
Winter’s Bone  2:10, 6:30
Ondine  4:20, 8:40
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice  1:50, 4:10, 6:40, 9 + Sat, Sun  11:30am
Saturday + Sunday Weekend Matinee:  Lolita 11am

GREEN VALLEY CINEMA 8    761–8200
Despicable Me 3D  1:05, 3:05, 5:05, 7:05, 9:05 + Sat, Sun 11:05am
Predators  7, 9:25
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice  1:30, 4:30, 7, 9:20 + Sat, Sun 11:05
Inception  1:40, 4:20, 7, 9:40  + Sat, Sun 11am
Twilight Saga: Eclipse  1:30, 4:30, 7, 9:30 + Sat, Sun 11am
Grown Ups  1:30, 4:30, 7:10, 9:25 + Sat, Sun 11am
The Last Airbender  1:30, 4, + Sat, Sun 11am
Salt  1:10, 3:15, 5:20, 7:30,  9:40 + Sat, Sun 11am
Romana & Beezus  1:30, 4:25, 7, 9:25 + Sat, Sun  11:15am

CINELUX SCOTTS VALLEY #6    438–3260
Inception  12:30, 3:45, 7, 10
Toy Story 3  11:10am, 1:30, 4, 6:30, 9:10
Despicable Me  11:30, 2, 4:20, 6:45, 9
Salt  Thurs 7/22 11:59 + Fri-Thurs 7/29  11:15am, 1:45, 4:30, 7:15, 9:45
Romana & Beezus  11:55am, 2:30, 4:55, 7:10, 9:30
$1 Family Films:  Tales of Despereaux  Weds 7/28  & Thurs 7/29  10am
Dinner with the Schmucks  Thurs 7/29  11:59

CINELUX 41ST AVE CINEMA    479–3504
Despicable Me 3D  11:45, 2, 4:20, 6:45, 9
Inception  12:30, 3:45, 7, 10:10
Salt  Thurs  7/22 11:59 + Fri-Thus 11:55am, 2:15, 4:45, 7:15, 9:45 
$1 Family Films:  Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Thurs 7/15 10am
Curious George  7/21 Weds  10am

SC CINEMA 9    1–800–326–3264 #1700

Inception  Fri – Mon 12:15, 1:15, 3:45, 4:40, 7, 8, 9:55, 10:20,
+ Tues & Thurs no 7, Weds 7/28 no 3:45, 7
Despicable Me 3D  noon, 2:25, 5, 7:20, 9:40
Despicable Me 2D  11:20, 1:45, 4:15, 6:50
Salt  11:30am, 12:10, 2, 2:35, 4:25, 5:10, 7:15, 7:45, 9:45, 10:15
The Sorcerer's Apprentice  11:45am, 2:15, 4:50, 7:30, 10 + Thurs 7/29 no 7:30
Toy Story 3  11:15am, 1:40, 4:05, 6:45, 9:15 + Thurs 7/29 no 9:15
Flash Back Feature:
Eric Clapton: Crossroads 2010  Tues 7/27  7:30
Carmen  Weds  7/28  6:30
Elvis on Tour: 75th Anniversary  7/29  7 
O Brother, Where Art Thou  Thurs 7/29  8

RIVERFRONT     1–800–326–3264 #1701
Knight & Day  1, 7
Predators  4:15, 9:50
Twilight Saga: Eclipse  1:15, 4, 6:45, 9:35
Dinner for Schmucks  Thurs 7/29  Midnight

Movie schedule runs Friday through Thursday.
All times are PM unless otherwise stated.

Movie Theatres in Santa Cruz area >

More Good Times

 

Santa Cruz Area Events

BLUE Ocean Film Festival      

 

Music Calendar

GT Weekly Club Grid PDF >

 

Memory Matters

Twenty years after the fact, a geologist and a historian say we must not forget “Loma Prieta was a humbling experience for most of us. a reminder of our diminutive stature in the grand scheme of things. I think that remembering events like that is a perfect antidote for our collective hubris; it keeps us honest.” —Sandy Lydon, ‘History Dude’  

 

Ocean Advocacy Goes Federal

You don’t need to tell a Santa Cruzan how important the ocean is. From our economy to our natural beauty to our hard-fought-formoniker as “Surf City,” Santa Cruz is defined by its relationship to the ocean as much as Colorado is to its Rockies. So when President Barack Obama signed an Executive Order on July 19 creating a national ocean policy for the first time in history, it was like hearing about a big break for an old friend who’s been going through a tough time lately.

 

Rearranging Rape

“As of next school year, Rape Prevention Education as you know it will no longer exist.” This is what UC Santa Cruz administrators told Rape Prevention educator Gillian Greensite last month, explaining a decision to “reorganize” the program. Greensite was told that, starting in the 2010/2011 school year, Rape Prevention Education would no longer be a separate effort, but would be absorbed into the Student Health Outreach and Promotion program (SHOP), and that she would no longer be a rape educator, but a sexual health educator through SHOP. She promptly retired.

 

Overall, how would you rank the local club scene? What could be improved?

I'd say it's average. I like a lot of dub step and electronic music. Most of the hip-hop and K-DON and stuff—I really get over those kind of songs. More DJ's and what not would be nice. Nesta LoniSanta Cruz | Prep Chef

 

Perfect Palm

The Glaum family is adored for their locally fresh cage-free eggs. For the past year, these eggs have been served in breakfast burritos and sandwiches at the Glaums’ new deli where Piggie Market has nurtured Redwood Village neighbors for 25 years. The central, thatched-roof, hexagonal open kitchen mimics the unusual shape of the extensively renovated building. Textured stone flooring winds around the kitchen, leading to an extensive wine selection. From the wall of refrigerators you can still pick up your milk and eggs, as well as beer, numerous brands of beverages, and locally made Massimo gelato.

 

From the Editor

Club much? Sometimes, it’s a good thing, and if you’ve moseyed to any of the local nightclubs in Santa Cruz County over the years, you more than likely have been greeted by a powerful presence—a bouncer. This week, writer J.D. Ramey takes readers behind the scenes and uncovers, well, let’s say the more embraceable side of some of our area’s favorite greeters and, at times, protectors. These guys are an enigmatic bunch.

 

Nordic Forge

“Man is wolf to man.” Not only is this a quote from the Roman playwright Plautus, one of the earliest known Latin authors, but it is also the title of the earliest known demo recording from local metal slayers Nordic Forge. “[The title track] is a song Jimi wrote almost all at once,” explains the vocalist, Rueben. “Then, I wrote the lyrics after listening to the hymn ‘O Rubor Sanguinis’ by Saint Hildegard Von Bingen.” Determined not to be just another scrawled name in the metal world, the guys in Nordic Forge draw their creativity from classics such as Shakespeare (“Throne of Blood”) and saintly hymns, to an array of bands from the early days of thrash metal and the extremes in Scandinavia. Mario, the act’s guitarist, cites atmospheric and melodic groups like Dissection, At the Gates, and Darkthrone as influences. “Always Darkthrone,” he emphasizes. Only known by their first names, the band of intellectual malcontents consists of Reuben on flesh-curling vocals, brothers Mario and Jimi decimating the guitar scales, Ben on thunderous bass, and Andrew manning the rapid-firing drums.

 

Place Your Vote

Author, musician, sometime-politician and all-around American raconteur, Kinky Friedman doesn’t mince words when it comes to pontificating on just about any subject near and dear to his heart. His takes on life are often delivered in a humorous, satirical manner, but the 65-year-old tackles a lot of serious issues and themes, much like the manner in which Mark Twain presented his opinions and views to readers. Still, Friedman is clearly on a level all his own today.

 

Storrs Winery Chardonnay 2008

One of the most popular wines round these parts is Storrs Chardonnay. It’s probably one of the most-requested wines at any given restaurant. And the reason is simple – it’s an excellent wine. It turns out that many judges at this year’s California State Fair think so, too. They named the Storrs 2008 Santa Cruz Mountains Chardonnay as the Best Wine of the Region. As the top wine of the greater Bay Area, this wine also garnered a Best Chardonnay of Region distinction, and a gold medal. When you think of all the wines submitted in this competition, this is truly an impressive achievement.

 

Meet the Bouncers

Wherever there’s a crowd of people drinking, there’s bound to be a jackass or two. Much as we might wish we could just hit the “Eject” button and send the rabble-rousers flying, it takes a living, breathing human to get rid of that unwanted guest who’s had one too many. Which, of course, is where bouncers come in. The doorman is a figure who appears throughout history and throughout nature: The Old Testament makes mention of “gatekeepers” whose duty was to keep things copasetic at the Levitical Temple, and even certain species of ants have their own peacekeepers whose duty is to chuck out unwelcome parties. Clearly, this is an essential service, but few people have the stones for it, let alone the physical power.

 

Bad Faith

Searing tragedy of intolerance reduced to melodrama in 'Agora' | There's a fascinating, heartbreaking, infuriating true story at the center of Agora, a sumptuous drama of ancient Alexandria from Spanish filmmaker Alejandro Amenábar. But even as the female scholar protagonist lectures her students that every system in the universe must revolve around a center or it will collapse, Amenábar clutters up his narrative with so much bombast and portent, it's own center finally cannot hold.
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