by Edward Baillargeon
Film Appreciation Society is a club at Williamsville East that meets one Thursday a month to watch a movie and briefly discuss it when it is over. Popcorn is usually served at meetings, but it doesn’t hurt to bring your own snacks. Right now, I am going to give you a guide for each movie that the club will be showing for the second semester of the year. The trailer for each movie is provided after each description.
Starting on February 1, is the 1982 experimental film Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Bounds. Directed by documentary filmmaker Godfrey Reggio and executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola, the Oscar winning director of The Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now, Koyaanisqatsi looks at the world and more specifically the effect man has had on the landscape and the environment. Without narration, the film shows the world in a pristine condition and untouched: blue skies, beautiful landscapes and endless vistas. The man-made world is much less appealing. Essentially a montage using a variety of film techniques to provide a visually stunning montage of images. If you are a fan of experimental and art-house films, then check out Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Bounds on February 1st. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jM2WA2WbDc
This March, we will be watching the 1990 Academy Award nominee for Best Picture, Awakenings. Directed by Penny Marshall, the director of Big and A League of Their Own, and based on the memoir of the same name by Oliver Sacks, Awakenings follows the victims of an encephalitis epidemic many years ago have been catatonic ever since, but now a new drug offers the prospect of reviving them. Featuring a cast including Academy Award winners Robert De Niro (Taxi Driver, The Godfather) and Robin Williams (Good Will Hunting, Aladdin), as well as Julie Kavner (the voice of Marge in The Simpsons), Awakenings is a great drama to check out. Awakenings will awaken (terrible “pun”) this March. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gnXnskAni0
This April, get ready for the cult phenomenon widely known as “the Citizen Kane of bad movies” with the 2003 disasterpiece The Room. This drama turned unintentional comedy was written, produced, executive produced, directed by, and starring the enigmous Tommy Wiseau. Wiseau stars as Johnny, a successful banker who lives happily in a San Francisco townhouse with his fiancée, Lisa. One day, inexplicably, she gets bored with him and decides to seduce his best friend, Mark. From there, nothing will be the same again. So get ready for the global phenomenon that sparked midnight screenings across the nation, a book by one of the stars, Greg Sestero, detailing his friendship with Tommy Wiseau and the production of The Room with The Disaster Artist, which the later also adapted into a feature film directed by and starring James Franco as Tommy Wiseau. And speaking of the midnight screenings, this showing of The Room will feature the numerous antics that ensue at screenings like throwing plastic spoons, throwing footballs around, and shouting back many of the films’ quotable lines like “You’re tearing me apart Lisa!” and “I did not hit her. It’s not true. It’s BS. I did not hit her. I did naaaght! Oh Hi Mark.” If you are a fan of bad movies or you just want a good laugh, then don’t miss The Room this April. Also, be sure to pick up a signed permission slip in the English office since the movie is rated R for language, brief violence, and overlong love scenes, which the later will be censored. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OApQGRkJzkE
In May, we will be screening the 2007 comedy drama The Darjeeling Limited. Following our success last year with the showing of Rushmore, the Film Appreciation Society decided to show another film from Wes Anderson, the Oscar nominated director of The Grand Budapest Hotel, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and Moonrise Kingdom, and we are showing it in May because Anderson’s birthday is in May. The movie starts Owen Wilson (Shanghai Noon), Adrien Brody (The Grand Budapest Hotel), and Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore) as three brothers suffering from depression who meet for a train trip across India a year after the accidental death of their father. Amid foreign surroundings, can the brothers sort out their differences? With the quirky Anderson style enjoyed by film buffs and co-starring Wes Anderson regular Bill Murray (Ghostbusters, Groundhog Day), The Darjeeling Limited will be showing this May. And like The Room, pick up a signed permission slip since it’s rated R for language. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO1bYukdvLI
And finally in June, following the success of last year’s showing of Spirited Away, the club will be showing another Studio Ghibli film, this time a lesser known one with the 1991 drama Only Yesterday. Directed by Isao Takahata, the Oscar nominated director of Grave of the Fireflies and The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, and executive produced by Hayao Miyazaki, the Oscar winning director of Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro, Only Yesterday follows a 27 year old office worker named Taeko Okajima who decides to take a trip to the countryside while flashbacks of her life in 5th grade keep coming back to her. If you are a fan of Studio Ghibli’s other masterpieces or of animation, then you will love Only Yesterday. And as a special bonus, attendees for the screening will get the option on voting if we watch the movie in English, featuring the voices of Daisy Ridley (Star Wars: The Force Awakens/The Last Jedi, Murder on the Orient Express) and Oscar nominee Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire, Lion), or its original Japanese. Only Yesterday will be showing this June. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0ZrjocXVJ4
