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Monday, May 13, 2013

News: Utah Film Center Summer Slate


NHMU Science Movie Night
Tuesday, May 14 @ 7:00 PM
City Library

TWISTER
Directed by Jan De Bont
Rated PG-13 | 113 min | 1996 | USA
In this dizzying, effects-driven drama, two scientists (Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton) chase tornadoes in their quest to record and study them. Taking a backseat to the wild and visually mesmerizing storms are subplots concerning a failing marriage, childhood trauma and corporate ethics. The film received multiple Academy Awards for its spectacular sound and visual effects (including the famous flying cow).

DTH! Year-round
May 16 @ 7:00 PM
Brewvies

THE OUT LIST
Directed by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
60 min | 2013 | USA
A diverse cross-section of Americans share personal and professional stories, both heart-wrenching and triumphant, of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer experience. From actor Neil Patrick Harris to athlete Wade Davis and politician Christine Quinn to the Scissor Sisters’ Jake Shears, the subjects speak to the unique struggles and triumphs they have faced.
Other subjects include Wanda Sykes, Larry Kramer, Suze Orman, Dustin Lance Black, Cynthia Nixon, Lady Bunny, and Ellen Degeneres, among others.
Films Without Borders
Tuesday, May 21 @ 7:00 PM
City Library

LA CAMIONETA
Directed by Mark Kendall
Not Rated | 71 min | 2012 | USA/Guatemala
Presented in English and Spanish with English subtitles
Daily, dozens of retired school buses travel from the United States to Guatemala, where they are resurrected as brightly-colored "camionetas" that transport people to work each day. Since 2006, almost 1,000 “camioneta” drivers have been murdered for not paying extortion money to the local gangs. LA CAMIONETA follows the journey of one bus and the five men whose lives become intertwined with its resurrection.

Official Selection – 2012 SXSW Film Festival; 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival

Films Without Borders
Tuesday, May 28 @ 7:00 PM
City Library

GOD LOVES UGANDA
Directed by Roger Ross Williams
Not Rated | 90 min | 2013 | USA
**Director Roger Ross Williams in attendance for a post-film Q+A.
A powerful exploration of the evangelical campaign to infuse African culture with values imported from America's Christian Right. The film follows American and Ugandan religious leaders fighting sexual immorality and missionaries trying to convince Ugandans to follow biblical law.

Official Selection – 2013 Sundance Film Festival, 2013 Hot Docs Film Festival, 2013 San Francisco International Film Festival, 2013 Full Frame Documentary Film Festival

Films Without Borders
Tuesday, June 4 @ 7:00 PM
City Library

TRASHED: No Place For Waste
Directed by Candida Brady
Not Rated | 97 min | 2012 | USA
Narrated by and starring Academy Award-winning actor Jeremy Irons, this environmental documentary looks at the risks to the food chain and the environment through pollution of our air, land and sea by waste. The film reveals surprising truths about very immediate and potent dangers to our health. Visually and emotionally the film is both horrific and beautiful: an interplay of human interest and political wake-up call. But it ends on a message of hope: showing how the risks to our survival can easily be averted through sustainable approaches that provide far more employment than the current 'waste industry.'

Official Selection – 2012 Festival de Cannes; Winner: Audience Award – 2012 Maui Film Festival; Winner: Special Jury Prize – 2012 Tokyo Film Festival; Official Selection at 7 other Film Festivals

Through The Lens
Wednesday, June 5 @ 7:00 PM
Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center

THE SHORT GAME
Directed by Josh Greenbaum
Not Rated | 95 min | 2013 | USA
Screens in English, Mandarin and French with English subtitles
**Director Josh Greenbaum will be in attendance for a post-film Q+A moderated but Doug Fabrizio, host of RadioWest.
THE SHORT GAME follows the lives of eight of the best 7-year old golfers in the world as they train for and compete in the World Championships of Junior Golf. The annual tournament hosts 1500 young golfers from 54 different countries. THE SHORT GAME presents a fascinating and often funny portrait of a group of very young athletes, their families, and the narrow-focused, peculiar and highly competitive junior golf subculture.

Official Selection – 2013 SXSW Film Festival

Tumbleweeds
Saturday, June 1 @ 7:00 PM
City Library

WILL
Directed by Ellen Perry
Recommended for ages 9+ | 105 min | 2011 | UK/Turkey

In this crowd pleaser from the 2013 Tumbleweeds Film Festival, eleven-year-old Will Brennan is Liverpool FC’s biggest fan school. His life it turned upside down when his long-absent father reappears with tickets to the 2005 Champions League Final. Will’s dream of seeing his beloved team in one of their biggest matches is about to come true. Or is it?

NHMU Science Movie Night
Tuesday, June 11 @ 7:00 PM
City Library

JAPAN’S KILLER QUAKE
Not Rated | 53 min. | 2011 | USA
Filmed shortly after the devastating Tohoku earthquake of March 2011, this NOVA documentary examines the powerful geologic forces that unleashed the quake and how they brought Japan to the brink of a nuclear meltdown. Using exclusive footage and illuminating animations, the film follows the progress of the earthquake as it was generated under the Pacific Ocean, travelled throughout the Japanese mainland, and produced a destructive tsunami. After the film, join University of Utah Research Associate Professor of Geology and Geophysics James Pechmann for a discussion of new understandings of the Tohoku earthquake and his research on earthquake hazards in Utah.

Tuesday, June 18 @ 7:00 PM
City Library

WHEN I WALK
Directed by Jason DaSilva
Not Rated | 85 min | 2012 | USA/Canada
**Director Jason DaSilva will participate in a post-film Q+A via Skype.
In 2006, the 25-year-old filmmaker Jason DaSilva was on a beach with his family when, suddenly, he fell down and couldn’t get back up. Doctors told him he had multiple sclerosis. Being a filmmaker, Jason picked up the camera, turned it on himself, and began filming the slow, difficult decline of his body and the miracles he encountered along the way. An emotional and inspirational documentary, When I Walk is an energizing film experience whose creative engine is its young filmmaker’s determination to live .

Official Selection – 2013 Sundance Film Festival; 2013 Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival


DTH! Year-round
Thursday, June 20 @ 7:00 PM

STRUCK BY LIGHTNING
Directed by Brian Dannelly
Not Rated | 90 min | 2012 | USA
This coming-of-age comedy-drama film written by and starring Chris Colfer, is also based on his novel. After senior Carson Phillips is struck by lightning and killed in his high-school parking lot. He recounts the way he blackmailed his classmates into contributing to his literary magazine. Featuring knock-out performances form Rebel Wilson and Allison Janey, Dermot Mulroney and Christina Hendricks.

Films Without Borders
Tuesday, June 25 @ 7:00 PM
City Library

HIGH TECH, LOW LIFE
Directed by Stephen Maing
Not Rated | 86 min. | 2012 | U.S.A.
Screens in Mandarin with English subtitles.
**Director Stephen Maing in attendance.
HIGH TECH, LOW LIFE follows the journey of two of China’s first citizen reporters as they travel the country - chronicling underreported news and social issues stories. Armed with laptops, cell phones, and digital cameras these formerly average citizens develop skills as independent one-man news stations while learning to navigate China’s new social media landscape and evolving censorship regulations - all while avoiding the risk of political persecution.

Official Selection – 2012 Tribeca Film Festival, 2012 Hot Docs Film Festival; Winner – Best Documentary – 2012 Little Rock film Festival; Winner – Documentary Special Jury Prize – 2012 Independent Film Festival Boston; Winner – Best Cinematography – 2012 Woods Hole Film Festival

Special Screening
Tuesday July 2 @ 7:00 PM
City Library

SIGN PAINTERS
Directed by Faythe Levine and Sam Macon
Not Rated | 90 min | 2013 | USA
There was a time, as recently as the 1980s, when storefronts, murals, banners, barn signs, billboards and even street signs were all hand-lettered with brush and paint. Today, the proliferation of computer-designed, die-cut vinyl lettering and inkjet printers has ushered a creeping sameness into our landscape. Fortunately, there is a growing trend to seek out traditional sign painters and a renaissance in the trade. SIGN PAINTERS is a history of the craft and features the stories of more than two dozen sign painters working in cities throughout the United States.

Tumbleweeds!
Saturday, July 6 @ 11:00 PM
City Library

CHICKEN RUN
Directed by Nick Park and Peter Lord
Rated G | 84 min | 2000 | USA
From the Academy Award-winning team behind the popular "Wallace and Gromit" shorts comes a feature-length animated adventure set at Tweedy's chicken farm, where any chicken who doesn't make her egg quota can meet a "fowl" fate. The action turns on the characters of Rocky (an American rooster) and Ginger (a British chicken) who, along with their fellow flock, are determined to break out from the sinister farm before they can be fried, filleted or fricasseed.

Science Movie Night
Tuesday, July 9 @ 7:00 PM
City Library

FIGHTING FIRE WITH FIRE
Directed by Michelle Metivier
Not rated | 44 min | 2005 | Canada
Monster forest fires, big enough to be seen from space and hot enough to create their own weather, used to be a once-in-a-decade nightmare. But now, they're an everyday summer reality across vast stretches of North America. Authorities in Canada and the United States are bracing for increasing infernos each fire season. This provocative film raises questions about conventional methods of fighting fire, and whether decades of suppressing fire have simply made matters worse.


Special Screening - Presented by Sean Means, Salt Lake Tribune Film Critic
Thursday, July 11 @ 7:00 pm
Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center
Salt Lake Tribune Film Critic Sean Means has been reviewing films for Utah audiences since July 1993. To celebrate his 20th Anniversary, we’ve asked him to curate a film that he loved and then lead a discussion about it after the screening. Join us to celebrate his contribution to local film culture.

127 HOURS
Directed by Danny Boyle
Rated R | 93 min | 2010 | USA
Easily the best movie made in Utah in my 20 years as movie critic at The Salt Lake Tribune. More than that, though, it's a fascinating and absorbing survival drama, depicting Aron Ralston's survival and dissecting how his go-for-broke life got him into that predicament in the first place. Credit director Danny Boyle for making a movie that's surprisingly dynamic considering it's about a guy literally stuck in the same spot.

- Sean Means

Films Without Borders
Tuesday, July 16 @ 6:00 PM
City Library

DR. ATOMIC
Directed by Peter Sellars
Not Rated | 190 min | 2008 | USA
Representing the culmination of nearly two decades of collaboration between composer John Adams and director Peter Sellars, this modern opera focuses on the J. Robert Oppenheimer experiments that led to the creation of the atomic bomb. Baritone Gerald Finley plays the physicist and soprano Jessica Rivera sings the role of his wife in this 2007 production that features the Netherlands Opera Chorus and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presented in partnership with Utah Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and the Utah Symphony/Utah Opera.

Through The Lens
Wednesday, July 17 @ 7:00 PM
Rose Wagner Performing Arts

THE INSTITUTE
Directed by Spencer McCall
Not Rated | 91 min | 2012 | USA
**Director Spencer McCall will participate in a post-film discussion moderated by Doug Fabrizio, host of KUER’s RadioWest
THE INSITUTE follows the experiences of participants in a San Francisco-based phenomenon, where cryptic narratives and real worlds collide to produce unforeseen and often unsettling consequences. This fascinating takes the viewer on a journey into a secret underground organization teeming just beneath the surface of every day life.

Official Selection – 2012 Mill Valley Film Festival; 2013 Slamdance Film Festival; 2013 True/False Film Festival

DTH! Year-round
Thursday, July 18 @ 7:00 PM
Best of Fest

Films Without Borders
Tuesday, July 30 @ 7:00 PM
City Library

Films Without Borders
THE MOO MAN
Directed by Andy Heathcote, Codirected by Heike Bachelier
Not Rated | 98 min. | 2012 | United Kingdom
The remarkable story of a maverick farmer and his unruly cows, filmed over four years on the marshes of the Pevensey Levels. In an attempt to save his family farm, Stephen Hook decides to turn his back on the cost cutting dairies and supermarkets, and instead stay small and keep his close relationship with the herd. However farmer Hook's plans to save the farm do not always go down well with his 55 spirited cows. The result is a laugh-out-loud, emotional rollercoaster of a journey.

Official Selection – 2013 Sundance Film Festival; True/False Film Festival; 2013 Berlin International Film Festival

Tumbleweeds!
Saturday, August 3 @ 11:00 AM
City Library

FLUSHED AWAY
Directed by David Bowers and Sam Fell
Rated PG | 84 min. | 2006 | USA
FLUSHED AWAY tells the story of an uptown rat that gets flushed down the toilet from his penthouse apartment, ending in the sewers of London, where he has to learn a whole new and different way of life....and a madcap adventure deep in the bowels of Ratropolis!

Films Without Borders – Hiroshima/Nagasaki Remembrance Day
Tuesday, August 6 @ 7:00 PM
City Library

THE MAN WHO SAVED THE WORLD
Directed by Peter Anthony
Not Rated | 95 min | 2012 | Denmark
Presented in English and Russian with English subtitles.
THE MAN WHO SAVED THE WORLD tells the amazing story of Lt. Colonel Stanislav E. Petrov – a man who held the fate of the world in his hands for a few crucial minutes in history on the night of September 26, 1983. When an alarm went off saying that five American nuclear missiles had been launched against the Soviet Union, he followed his gut feeling and went against orders and protocol, in the process saving the world from nuclear holocaust.

Presented in partnership with Utah Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Through The Lens
Wednesday, August 7 @ 7:00 PM
Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center

ROOM 237
Directed by Rodney Ascher
Not Rated | 104 min | 2013 | USA
**Director Rodney Ascher will be in attendance for a post-film Q&A moderated by Doug Fabrizio, host of RadioWest.
A documentary that explores the numerous theories about the hidden meanings within Stanley Kubrick's The Shining which continues to inspire debate, speculation, and mystery more than thirty years after its release. Using voice over, film clips, animation and dramatic reenactments, ROOM 237 investigates five very different points of view drawing the audience into a new maze, one with many ways in, but no way out.

Official Selection – 2012 Sundance Film Festival; 2012 Cannes Film Festival; 2012 New York Film Festival

Science Movie Night
Tuesday, August 13 @ 7:00 PM
City Library

KEY LARGO
Directed by John Huston
Not Rated | 101 min | 1948 | USA
As a destructive hurricane wreaks havoc outside, Army veteran Frank McCloud (Humphrey Bogart), war-widow Nora Temple (Lauren Bacall) and her invalid father-in-law face a worse storm inside the Temples' tumbledown Florida hotel in Key Largo. Frank merely stopped by to pay his respects to Nora, only to find the hotel commandeered by exiled gangster Johnny Rocco (Edward G. Robinson). Will the war-weary Frank step up to fight again?

Winner, Best Supporting Actress – 1949 Academy Awards

DTH! Year-round
Thursday, August 15 @ 7:00 PM

MY SUMMER OF LOVE
Directed by Pawel Pawlikowski
Rated R | 86 min | 2004 | UK
A tale of obsession and deception, and the struggle for love and faith in a world where both seem impossible. The film charts the emotional and physical hothouse effects that bloom one summer for two young women: Mona, behind a spiky exterior, hides an untapped intelligence and a yearning for something beyond the emptiness of her daily life; Tamsin is well-educated, spoiled and cynical. Complete opposites, each is wary of the other's differences when they first meet, but this coolness soon melts into mutual fascination, amusement and attraction. Adding volatility is Mona's older brother Phil, who has renounced his criminal past for religious fervor - which he tries to impose upon his sister. Mona, however, is experiencing her own rapture. "We must never be parted," Tamsin intones to Mona but can Mona completely trust her? 

Films Without Borders
Tuesday, August 20 @ 7:00 PM
City Library

BEYOND RIGHT AND WRONG: Stories of Justice and Forgiveness
Directed by Lekha Singh and Roger Spottiswoode
Not Rated | 90 min | 2012 | USA
This feature documentary tells the stories of people who both endured and perpetrated cruelty and aggression in the genocide in Rwanda, the violence in Israel/Palestine, and the "troubles" in Northern Ireland. This film focuses on extreme situations but is actually the human story of everyday possibilities in life. After the blood has dried, treaties are negotiated and screams have turned to silence, victims and perpetrators face an uneasy and painful peace. All wounds have not healed. The eighty-minute film portrays the resilience of humanity when facing the chasm between rage and acceptance.

UTAH FILM CIRCUIT MOAB
(Template)

Thursday, May 23 @ 7:00 PM
Moab - Star Hall

WAR WITCH
Directed by Kim Nguyen
Not Rated | 90 min | 2012 | Canada
Presented in French and Lingala with English subtitles.
Komona is only 12 years old when she is kidnapped by rebel soldiers and enslaved to a life of guerrilla warfare in the African jungle. Forced to commit unspeakable acts of brutality, she finds hope for survival in protective, ghost-like visions, and in a tender relationship with a fellow soldier named Magicien. Together, they manage to escape the rebels' clutches, and a normal life finally seems within reach. But after their freedom proves short-lived, Komona realizes she must find a way to bury the ghosts of her past.

Nominee - Best Foreign Language Film, 2013 Academy Awards; Nominee – Best International Film, 2013 Independent Spirit Award. Winner: Best Actress – 2012 Berlin International Film Festival; Winner; Best Narrative Feature and Best Actress – 2012 Tribeca Film Festival

Thursday, June 20 @ 7:00 pm
Moab - Star Hall

MOONRISE KINGDOM
Directed by Wes Anderson
PG-13 | 94 min | 2012 | USA
MOONRISE KINGDOM is the latest movie directed by two-time Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Wes Anderson (The Royal TenenbaumsFantastic Mr. FoxRushmore).
Set on an island off the coast of New England in the summer of 1965, Moonrise Kingdom tells the story of two 12-year-olds who fall in love, make a secret pact, and run away together into the wilderness. As various authorities try to hunt them down, a violent storm is brewing offshore – and the peaceful island community is turned upside down in every which way. 

Nominated – Best Writing-Original Screenplay, 2013 Academy Awards; Winner of 23 Awards

Thursday, July 25 @ 7:00 PM
Star Hall

BROOKLYN CASTLE
Directed by Katie Dellamaggiore
Not Rated | 102 min | 2012 | USA
**Post-film Q+A via Skype with the director.
At Intermediate School 318 in Brooklyn, New York, the team students want to belong to – is the chess team. IS 318 has won a record 26 national chess championships, a remarkable achievement for any school, let alone one where the majority of the students are living near the poverty line. Follow the students of the IS 318 chess club as they try to earn another national title. Along the way they show us that success comes from dedication, hard work and supporting each other and that playing chess is about much more than winning or losing – it is what helps them overcome the challenges in their lives.

Thursday, August 15 @ 7:00 PM
Star Hall

THE INVISIBLE WAR
Directed by Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering
Not Rated | 97 min | 2012 | USA
**Director Kirby Dick will participate in post-film Q+A via Skype.
THE INVISIBLE WAR is a groundbreaking investigation about one of America’s most shameful and best kept secrets: the epidemic of rape within the U.S. military. The film paints a startling picture of the extent of the problem—today, a female soldier in combat zones is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire. Focusing on the powerfully emotional stories of rape victims, this is a moving indictment of the systemic cover-up of military sex crimes, chronicling the women’s struggles to rebuild their lives and fight for justice.

Nominee, Best Documentary Feature – 2013 Academy Awards; Winner, Documentary Audience Award – 2012 Sundance Film Festival


VIRIDIAN
Second Thursdays @ 7:00 PM
Viridian Library + Event Center – 8030 S. 1825 W.

May 9             WAR WITCH
June13          MOONRISE KINGDOM
July 11           BROOKLYN CASTLE
Aug 8             THE INVISIBILE WAR


May                 WAR WITCH
June               MOONRISE KINGDOM
July                 BROOKLYN CASTLE
Aug                 THE INVISIBILE WAR


TRAVELING TUMBLEWEEDS

KAMAS – Third Wednesdays @ 4:00 PM
Kamas Theater – 30 N. Main St.
May 15           AZUR AND ASMAR
June 19         WILL (pg. #)
July 17           CHICKEN RUN (pg. #)
Aug. 21          FLUSHED AWAY (pg. #)

MOAB – Second Mondays @ 2:00 PM
Grand County Library – 257 E. Center St.
May 13           AZUR AND ASMAR
June 10         WILL (pg. #)
July 8             CHICKEN RUN (pg. #)
Aug. 12          FLUSHED AWAY (pg. #)

OREM – Second Saturdays @ 2:00 PM
Orem Public Library – 58 N. State St.
May 11           AZUR AND ASMAR
June 8                        WILL (pg. #)
July 13           CHICKEN RUN (pg. #)
Aug. 10          FLUSHED AWAY (pg. #)

PARK CITY – Third Sundays @ 3:00 PM
Jim Santy Auditorium – 1255 Park Ave.
May 19           AZUR AND ASMAR
June 16         WILL (pg. #)
July/Aug.       No Screenings to accommodate library renovations.



NOIR AT NIGHT

DARKNESS FALLS (AN OVERVIEW OF AND APPRECIATION FOR NOIR CINEMA)
By Jeff Michael Vice

Sometimes the best things come from the humblest beginnings. Take “noir,” a cinematic genre that takes its name from the French term for “dark.” 

For those unfamiliar with the term and the genre, noir films are categorized as such because of the darkness in in their style, composition, characters and subject matter. Rarely, if ever, do noir films have (Spoiler alert!) happy endings.

If Hollywood and its associated film lore can be believed, the creation of noir was at least in part, an accident. Allegedly, most of the filmmakers who invented and/or perfected the style were forced to work with limited budgets, because of the dire economic conditions at the time. That extended not only to the use of lighting and sets, but to which actors and writers could be employed.

If that’s the case, you can correctly say that noir was a “happy accident,” since some of our greatest filmmakers really found their voices working in that genre. Alfred Hitchcock’s career flourished when he made Strangers on a Train (1951), I Confess (1953), The Wrong Man (1956) and culminated that period with the more colorful, 1958 thriller Vertigo (more on that film later). Orson Welles later followed his acclaimed Citizen Kane (1941) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) with The Stranger (1946) and, even later, the gripping and grimy, 1958 thriller Touch of Evil, which forever cemented his reputation (more on him and that film later).

Hitchcock and Welles were far from the only directors associated with noir. Their European counterparts (among them, Fritz Lang, of Metropolis fame) dabbled in the style, and later the “New Wave” directors. While noir briefly died out in the United States during the 1980s, it has seen a revival of sorts, through the more colorful, “neo-noir” and “hipster noir” interpretations -- such as the 2005 Sundance Film Festival hit Brick and the tongue-in-cheek 2005 mystery-thriller Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

And lest we forget, noir was largely responsible for giving us femme fatales. From The Big Sleep’s Lauren Bacall to Vertigo’s Kim Novak to Chinatown’s Faye Dunaway to L.A. Confidential’s Academy Award-winning Kim Basinger, noir has made the female the deadliest of the species.

To help cast a spotlight on this darkest-of-the-dark movie genre, the Utah Film Center presents “Noir at Night,” a series of monthly screenings throughout the month of July at the Gallivan Center that boasts five noir-film classics.

These films not only include works by recognizable, veteran directors like Hitchcock and Welles, it also includes one of the most recognized of all noir films and an unexpected, family friendly choice that spoofs the noir genre. Speaking of family friendly, the films are all rated either PG or PG-13, or would receive one of those ratings by today’s standards. Films selected for the series include:

Monday, July 1 @ Dusk
Gallivan Center Plaza - 220 S State St
THE MALTESE FALCON
Directed by John Houston
Not Rated | 100 min | 1941 | USA
One of the best known of all noir films, John Huston’s adaptation of the Dashiell Hammett mystery novel features most of the genre’s trademark characters. Cynical private eye (Humphrey Bogart’s Sam Spade), conniving mystery woman (Sam’s latest client, played by Mary Astor), Weaselly stooge (Peter Lorre), and corpulent, sweaty bad guy, Sydney Greenstreet. They’re all there.

Still, as familiar as the story might seem on paper – Astor’s character gets Sam involved in murder and intrigue – there are more than enough twists and turns to keep this tale interesting. It doesn’t hurt that the cast all seems to be having fun with this material. There’s a reason why this one is considered one of the classics of the form.

Monday, July 8 @ Dusk
Gallivan Center Plaza - 220 S State St
THE THIRD MAN
Directed by Carol Reed
Not Rated | 93 min | 1949 | UK
Acclaimed novelist Graham Greene collaborated with director Carol Reed and actor Orson Welles on this suspenseful, post-World War II mystery-thriller (Greene is credited with writing the adaptation of his novel, though Reed and Welles both provided uncredited re-writes and contributions). The film follows a pulp writer (hmmm … ) who tries to investigate the mysterious death of an old friend.

 “The Third Man” also re-united “Citizen Kane” co-stars Joseph Cotton, who plays the seemingly clueless novelist Holly Martins, and Welles, who plays the enigmatic title character, opportunistic black marketer Harry Lime. A subtle but effective score (courtesy of Anton Karas) just makes the tension build.

Monday, July 15 @ Dusk
Gallivan Center Plaza - 220 S State St
VERTIGO
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Rated PG | 1958 | 128 min | USA
The debate rages as to the true “noir-ness” of Alfred Hitchcock’s psychological thriller, especially since it was shot and shown in color. But certainly in terms of its characters and subject matter, it qualifies as noir. A retired San Francisco detective, “Scottie” Ferguson (Jimmy Stewart), becomes obsessed with the woman he’s been hired to investigate (Kim Novak).

Vertigo is not only Hitchcock’s most colorful film; arguably, it’s his most creative one as well. From its use as set pieces, costuming, camera work and, as always, a terrific Bernard Herrman score, the film is an inarguable masterpiece. Along with Psycho and North by Northwest, it’s one of Hitchcock’s most fondly remembered features.

Monday, July 22 @ Dusk
Gallivan Center Plaza - 220 S State St
TOUCH OF EVIL
Directed by Orson Welles
Rated PG-13 | 95 min | 1958 | USA
Orson Welles’ initially-ignored, but-now-beloved noir-thriller follows Mike and Susan Vargas (Charlton Heston and Janet Leigh), honeymooners who run afoul of a drug cartel. Mike, a Mexican narcotics detective, also butts heads with a corrupt American lawman, Hank Quinlan (Welles).
Alternatingly tense, grimy and disturbing, the film’s reputation has grown over the years, due in no small part to Welles’ superb performance. Ironically, Welles was fired as director during the post-production process, and the original cut of the film was taken out of his hands. Luckily, Touch of Evil was restored and re-edited, after Welles’ death, from a print copy that was owned by Heston.

Monday, July 29 @ Dusk
Gallivan Center Plaza - 220 S State St
WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Rated PG | 104 min | 1988 | USA
Live-action and animation collide in the hilarious and thrilling Disney comedy-thriller, which stars Bob Hoskins as Eddie Valiant, a broken-down private detective forced to hide and protect a popular “toon” accused of murder.

In addition to its smart use of noir trappings, the film also brings together various Disney, Warner Bros. and other cartoon characters. Plus, it features one of the most eye-popping “femme fatale” characters in human “toon” Jessica Rabbit (modeled by Betsy Brantley and voiced by Kathleen Turner), quite literally. If you’ve seen the movie, you know what we mean.

Utah-based writer and film critic Jeff Michael Vice is an aficionado of noir film, literature, music and comic books (especially Ed Brubaker’s superb Criminal series). He would also like people to listen to his movie reviews on X96’s Radio From Hell morning show, and watch them on Xfinity Utah’s Big Movie Mouth-Off.

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