About Flagpole. (Athens, Ga.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (July 6, 2011)
Vs . i 'V • > ✓ NEWS OF ATHENS’ CINEMA SCENE Too Real?: Unavoidable renovations to the Film Notebook residence of late—due to immi nent spatial demands—have necessitated the purchase of a very fancy new television. Its screen is bigger than any TV I've ever had. though not by too much (and it fits in a much smaller space, because it's flat), and it's got much higher resolution. Things really look different on it—even from the way they dies on my old HDTV, which wasn't all that old. You can see the ever-so-slight mushiness of images shot on HD v’deo. like the nonetheless beautiful and compelling ones in Last Train Home. Lixin Fan's 2009 documentary about the annual migration of millions of Chinese migrant workers who return home for the New Year, which I started watching the other night but haven't finished. And in films shot in 35mm and viewed on Blu-Ray, like Mike Leigh's wonderful Another Year, which I did. at last, watch in Us entirety last week, the definition is so clear it's almost distracting: it's like the images are hyper-real, their crys talline sharpness combining with the inherent distortions and limitations of motion pictures to produce an effect I can best describe as "unnaturally realistic." It's even more pronounced in a film like Horry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 1 (yes, I watched that, too), where the analog- based images—all meticulously designed and art-directed before any camera ever saw them—have been so thoroughly processed and refined with digital effects that they've become largely artificial, then mastered for the slickest and hardest look possible. It's very strange—almost unwatchable, oddly— when all those layers of stylization are viewed through a medium so exact in its representa tions that the so-familiar characters in the film's "magical" world start to look like actual teenagers in American Apparel walking around on movie sets. I'll get used to it, of course, and I don't really want to sound like I'm complaining: technical advances are good, right? But this sudden jolt to my senses has me thinking about what, exactly, my expectations are with regard to the most basic aesthetic ele ments of a film. Do I demand a fundamental unreality? Or a specific version of unreality ("reality"?) to which I've grown accustomed? People have been accustomed to all sorts of things in the brief but phenomenally eventful history of motion pictures: analog projection, effects and cameras; theatrical presentation; lack of color; lack of speech. All those norms have been corrupted, compromised or oblit erated and each time, purists howled, the masses wowed or shrugged, and pretty soon the innovation became the standard. I'm not gome all Rudolf Arnheim on my sweet 1080p digital TV—far from it—and this isn't exactly the dawn of the talk ies. I just don't think I've ever had such a clear view of the ongoing revolution, however minor the chapter. ■< Your Ma, She's Good Lookin': The weather's gotten pretty raunchy, and Cine's Summer Classic Movie Series is cranking up to give us all an extra two-hour b'eak from tne swelter during each of the next six weeks. First up is Lasse Halstrom's romantic 2000 hit Chocolat. starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, opening Friday. July 8 with a personal introduction by man-about-town Tony Eubanks. Tony was a key organizer of Cine's first classics series last summer, and he's leadoff off this * year with a real ringer. The following week's <• try s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. starring Humphrey Bogart and Walter Huston, arej introduced July 15 by Drive-By Trucker ind serious film afficionado Patterson Hood. Patterson's been itching to bring John Huston's dark but ma r terfully entertaining fable of greed to an Athens screen for years now, so his presentation should be a lot of fun. Look at www.athenscine.com for full details. The Library Is Cool, Too: The ACC Library's iFilms series got the short shrift in this col umn last time out because of space limita tions (not the same ones referenced above); that's regrettable, because the folks there have been bringing in some really well-chosen movies of late. The next is They Came to Play on July 7, a 2008 doc about the International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs, which brings together 75 of the world's best—you guessed it—amateur pianists, for a musical week in Fort Worth, TX. June 14 is Silent Light, which I described thusly in my "Best Films of 2009" list (at position # 2): "Watching Carlos Reygadas' strange, lovely fable of faithfulness and infidelity in a secluded Mennonite community in Mexico is like adopting the perspective of an alien, but one endowed with a profound empathy for humanity. It's a truly majestic film." I'll stick with that. Screenings are Thursdays at 7 p.m. in the auditorium of the ACC library at 2025 Baxter St. Dave Mart lilm@tlagpole com Jchmy Depp and Juliette Bmcche in Lasse Halstrom s Chocolat. opening this weekend at Cine as part of the Summer Classic Movie Series SUMMER CLASSIC MOVIE SERIES July 8-14 Chocolat July 15-21 . The Treasure of the Sierra Madre July 22-28 Cluny Brown JuIy 29 - Aug 4 The Blue Angel August 5-11 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg August 12-18 Grease > ADMISSION: $6 - MATINEES | $7 - EVENING GUEST SPEAKERS L FREE PARKING ON FRIDAYS SHOWTIMES & MORE INFO « ATHENSCINE.COM m WSi w • 'z -§J0 A y ^ 1C n Ggjffl WM, ftjvuKfir*ja v* ’ farm \VL'r,\ is AimvJ iim - FILMS AFAI AFAI ^ —* WWW.ATHENSCINE.COM 706 353.3343 234 W. HANCOCK AVE DOWNTOWN ATHENS IT T1 wwwwwwwwww •innrn i i mi/ •viuCu u111n • 706-543-2288 • (Call to Reserve Movies) 1 mile south of 5 Points on Milledge NEW COOL STUFF HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (RUTGER HAUR) MIRAGE (GREGORY PECK) MY BLOOD RUNS COLD (JOEY HEATHERTON) ^©cHd Safe,, 706-353-0500 feMM* K3 a. jKftMca fL Athene, ga JULY6.20ll-FLAGPOLE.COM 11
