CineMatinee at the Fountain
A unique blend of movies, past and present, often with an emphasis on life in the west - which could mean the new west,
the old west, or anything in between- and ‘movies that missed us’- films that are notable but never had a lot of publicity- the
CineMatinee series is designed to show area residents that film is a form of art as well as entertainment! At least one film a
month for this series has a ‘New Mexico Connection’, drawing from the vast pool of movies made in the state or perhaps featuring
a star/story from New Mexico talent.
Unless otherwise noted, screening time is 1.30 PM, and admission is $4 for everyone except film society members who are admitted for
$1. The theatre is located one half block of the Mesilla Plaza. For more information, please call (575) 524-8287.
The Fountain Theatre is located at 2469 Calle de Guadalupe, one block south
of the plaza.
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July 4- Nothing But the Truth (2008, 107 minutes, rated R)
With few strong roles for women in Hollywood movies this drama offers two of them.
Rachel Armstrong (Kate Beckinsale) is a political reporter for a Washington newspaper the Capitol Sun-Times whose editor has great confidence
in her skills. After an assassination attempt on the President fails, the US government launches a military attack on Venezuela. In putting
a story together about this event, Rachel reveals that Erica Van Doren (Vera Farmiga) is a covert CIA operative who was sent to this South
American country to find out more about the terrorists. Instead she reported back to her superiors that she could find no evidence that
anyone in Venezuela was responsible for the attack on the President.
Benjamin, convinced that her reporter has enough collaboration for the story, gets the paper's chief counsel to agree to its publication.
The news causes a sensation when it hits the streets. The administration is boiling mad and sends Patton Dubois (Matt Dillon), a patriotic
special prosecutor, to convince Rachel to reveal her source. When she refuses, the government takes her to court. Albert Burnside (Alan Alda)
takes her case and is confident that he can win some time for her. But when she still refuses to give a name, she is sent to jail to think
over her stand. The government argues that whoever revealed the identity of a CIA operative has committed treason and the leak about
Van Doren's report is putting national security in jeopardy.
The film tackles some heavy duty themes and the hardball tactics used by the prosecutor and the CIA to get what they want. Beckinsale
does an outstanding job portraying a courageous spiritual warrior who suffers mightily to protect her source.
Nothing But the Truth, is an alternate take on the Valerie Plame (the ‘outed’ CIA Agent who is now retired and a Santa Fe resident)
For those who don’t remember, the leak of Plame’s position as a CIA operative came after her husband, a U.S. Ambassador, publicly refuted
the Bush Administration’s assertion that Saddam Hussein was attempting to purchase “yellow-cake” uranium from Niger to use for nuclear
materials. It was major embarrassment for that administration, who was trying to pad a weak case for war.
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July 11- Amexicano (2007, 84 minutes, rated PG-13, partially shot in NM)
Bruno, a resident of New York’s Italian community is an unemployed average Joe, is offered an off-the-books construction job by his landlord
and friend Alex . He’s told to pick out a helper at a corner of Northern Boulevard, where Hispanic men (often undocumented workers) hang out
looking for work.
Bruno reluctantly agrees, only half-joking about his ethnic prejudices, but the first guy he picks up, Diego lives up to all his
worst fears.
His second attempt, however, yields Ignacio (a pitch-perfect Raul Castillo), an open, thoroughly likeable, competent and hard-working
young man, who speaks little English. Soon the two are teaching each other their respective tongues, sharing lunches and becoming best friends.
Ignacio’s lovely, rather impish wife Gabriela (Jennifer Pena) invites Bruno to their home, and Bruno, unemployed again, is soon awaiting
gigs on Northern Boulevard with the Mexican guys and attending Mexican birthday parties and soccer matches.
He is accepted by all except Diego, who has citizenship papers and speaks English and bullies anyone who dares to stand up to him, threatening
to turn them in to the immigration authorities.
An unprovoked attack lands Ignacio first in the hospital and then back in Mexico, and strands Bruno with Gabriela, to whom he is
increasingly drawn.
Director Matthew Bonifacio continually and successfully shifts the familiar onto unfamiliar grounds, such as having a non-Hispanic waiting
for day work with a group of hardworking Mexican men.
The filmmakers adeptly introduce changing emotional elements into the mix without disturbing the bedrock composition of their characters.
They steer their story from near-comedy to tragedy with no sense of artificiality, reliance on forced coincidence or intrusion of
overweening fate. This is helped in no small measure by the ease with which writer-star and noted standup comic Carmine Famiglietti
essays his role.
Indeed all of the acting is excellent, while William M. Miller’s camera quietly naturalizes the unobtrusive New York City neighborhood.
A very different, less forgiving landscape, however, frames the film’s finale on the New Mexican border, measuring an insurmountable
distance to the American dream.
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July 18- The Village Barbershop (2008, 99 minutes, rated R)
The Village Barbershop is the debut feature from the mind of a man who owns
up to owning 67 pairs of sneakers and is, otherwise, an advertising creative-type San Francisco. Deftly transitioning to long-form
storytelling, writer/director Chris Ford’s decade-long gestation on a script set in Reno has paid dividends, birthing a character-driven
comedy with a solid sensitivity appropriate for a film whose main character is an old-school barber with an old-school name (Art).
Art’s creator is the gifted and underrated John Ratzenberger, known to many as Cliff Clavin from Cheers. Ratzenberger’s Art is a no-frills
barber who still charges eight bucks for a cut, and who, since the passing of his one true love, spends his routine lunch hours throwing
the business’ money away on beer and bad betting tips.
The film begins when Art’s barber-shop partner, Enzo, dies at a Chinese-restaurant-aka-brothel. Simultaneously, any control that Art
had over his business affairs hits the skids. With this challenge to Art’s livelihood and identity, he’s forced to look outside his
world to save himself, and finds an unlikely heroine in a pregnant, trailer-park-dwelling, unapologetic go-getter named Gloria.
Shelly Cole’s character whips both the shop and its owner into shape with a charm and confidence that, to say the least, had been
missing from both their personal lives.
Cindy Pickett, as Art’s topless cocktail waitress love-interest, and Laurellee Westaway, as the hilarious, still-smoking, septuagenarian
neighbor with an oxygen tank, provide perfect support to their leads, and Westaway’s audience appeal is through the roof.
With realistic and outstanding outings from Ratzenberger and Cole, The Village Barbershop lathers up a poignant piece of first-time
filmmaking that focuses firmly on the integrity in people, providing proof that no matter how alone someone might seem to be, companionship,
camaraderie (and comedy) might just be a short clip away.
In conjunction with the New Mexico premiere of the fun comedy/drama, The Village Barbershop, at 1.30 on July 18th, there
will be drawings for gift certificates, compliments of Maribel Salinas, co-owner of Salon Allure.
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July 25- Geronimo: An American Legend (1993, 115 minutes, rated PG-13)
Walter Hill's revisionist take on the American cavalry's campaign to capture Chiricahua Apache warrior the New Mexico born, Goyathlay
(known as Geronimo in Mexico) (played by Wes Studi, a resident of Santa Fe) is, like Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, a tale that both
celebrates and critiques myths of the American West.
Hill's film about the famous Apache moves with a stately self-assurance, a confidence that seems eerie, unfamiliar. The movie's serenity
feels strange only because it has been so long since anyone has dared to make a Western in the ample, leisurely, classical style of John
Ford. The screenplay, by John Milius and Larry Gross, is unambiguously sympathetic to the suffering of the Indians, but it doesn't oversell
the case by presenting the Apaches as an idyllic community of spiritually superior innocents and the Army as an aggregation of bloodthirsty
racists.
The carefully developed narrative, detailing the intricate dance of suspicion and misunderstanding between the Army and Geronimo's band
of warriors, is studded with breathtakingly edited action sequences; the cinematography, by Lloyd Ahern, is ravishing; and Studi gives
a terrific performance in the title role. Hill uses the conventions of the Western genre lovingly; like his hero, he's a defiant traditionalist.
Despite its title, Geronimo is really about the American cavalry officers who undertake the responsibility of recapturing the warrior,
in particular the young narrator Lt. Charles Gatewood (Jason Patric), who respects the great Geronimo and brokers a treaty with the
Chiricahua, only to see it collapse when the army kills the tribal medicine man. New Mexico resident Gene Hackman plays Gen. George
Crook, the proud but sympathetic officer charged with bringing in the renegades who take to hills after the killing. Matt Damon co-stars
as a young lieutenant, who finds himself battling his assumptions of the Apache people.
Robert Duvall, the tough, racist army scout and Indian fighter Al Sieber, practically steals the picture with his cagey, underplayed
performance. More complex and complicated than most Westerns, this film is lean, ironic, and beautiful to look at (it was shot on location
against the astounding landscape of southeastern Utah), and driven by a wonderful Ry Cooder soundtrack.
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August 1- The Visitor (2007, 100 minutes, PG-13)
Sixty-two-year-old Walter Vale (Oscar nominated Richard Jenkins) is a professor of economics
at a Connecticut college. He's lost his zest for teaching and doesn't seem to care about anything anymore. A widower, he spends his days on
campus in lonely isolation.
Sent by his department to read a paper he co-wrote at a conference, Walter heads off to New York City, where he still has an apartment. He
is startled to find a couple living there. Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a Syrian, and Zainab (Dania Gurira), his Senegalese girlfriend, have been
duped into renting the place by a real estate scammer. They hurriedly pack to leave. But in the first of a series of risks, Walter opens his
closed-off heart and says they can stay for a few nights.
Walter attends the conference in the day, Zainab sells jewelry she has created on the streets, and Tarek pursues his passion for drumming at
various jazz clubs. It is their mutual interest in music that draws Walter and Tarek together in a slowly unfolding friendship. He begins to
teach the aging academic how to play the African drum. It is another key that unlocks Walter's heart.
This is the first film written and directed by Tom McCarthy since his stunning debut The Station Agent, another character-driven drama.
Here we see how the alchemy of music and friendship transform a burnt-out man. It is fascinating to watch as Walter, long used to withholding
himself from others, enters the alien world of Tarek and Zainab, who are so different from him in every way. He listens to this exuberant
Syrian musician perform in a local jazz club and then joins him in a Central Park drum circle.
Returning from that adventure, Tarek is stopped by the police in the subway, wrongly accused of jumping a turnstile, and taken away. From
Zainab Walter learns that they are both illegals, in the country without documentation, and this means Tarek will be held for possible
deportation and we sense Walter's shock to discover that these people he has grown to know and like could not "belong" in America.
So many movies present the barriers that keep people and especially strangers apart from each other. This one dares to celebrate the
deep human connections which can be forged out of racial, cultural, and religious differences. Best of all, music is the glue that lifts
the spirit and brings people together in new and interesting ways.
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August 8- Charlie Varrick (1973, 111 minutes, rated PG, Nevada stars as New Mexico)
Charley Varrick stars Walter Matthau as a former stunt
pilot reduced to robbing banks with his wife and a hot-headed young criminal. Matthau and his cohorts successfully rob a small-town bank for
more than $750,000 in a heist that claims Matthau's spouse/getaway driver, but his partner’s elation is tempered by Matthau's grim realization
that the money belongs to the mob, which isn't about to accept such a substantial loss lying down.
Joe Don Baker costars as an icy hit man dispatched to recover the mob's ill-gotten loot and kill anyone who stands between him and the money.
From there, the noose gradually tightens around Matthau’s neck as the feds close in and the long tentacles of organized crime make their
presence felt as far as sunny New Mexico.
Matthau delivers his usual sterling performance as a savvy operator working doggedly to finagle his way out of a seemingly impossible
situation, but the film's real revelation comes from Baker, whose racist, sexist, ass-kicking brute of a henchman oozes malevolent magnetism.
A low-key, tough little thriller punctuated by casual bursts of deadpan humor, these characters take on a surprising poignancy and emotional
resonance.
In another movie, Matthau's minimalist grieving might seem callous or wildly inadequate, but in this tough little film noirish crime caper
where the overwhelming instinct for self-preservation trumps less practical concerns, it becomes nothing short of a grand romantic gesture.
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August 15-Tender Mercies (1983, 96 minutes, rated PG)
Tender Mercies is a riveting, compassionate,
touching, and thoroughly remarkable film. The screenplay by Horton Foote (winner of the Academy Award for To Kill A Mockingbird) and the
cinematography by Russell Boyd (Gallipoli) are exemplary models of taste and simple beauty.
Mac Sledge (Robert Duvall) is a burnt-out country-and-western singer/songwriter whose life has become a series of disappointments. He has
lost track of the reasons to keep on keeping on. One morning Mac awakes from a drunken stupor in a room at the Mariposa Motel in the middle
of a dry Texas prairie. The rundown place is managed by Rosa Lee, a widow whose husband was killed in Vietnam. Mac volunteers to stay on as
a handyman and work off his bill.
Sonny, Rosa Lee's ten-year-old boy, is curious about this wanderer with a guitar and a face that reveals he has seen much of what there
is to see in the world. Although Sonny wants to accept Mac, the outsider, he first must deal with the father he never knew.
Mac stops drinking and finds satisfaction in the slow, isolated existence at the combination gas station and motel. Without much fanfare,
Mac and Rosa Lee fall in love and marry.
Mac still writes songs but, afraid that his career is over, he keeps them in a trunk. He is not sure that he can turn his life around; he
hesitates when a country rock band tries to pull him into the spotlight again.
Director Bruce Beresford has stated: "This film is about changing relationships. The man is finding a new life, the woman a new husband,
and the boy a new father. It is a story of growing together and of hope." Tender Mercies is a very poignant movie about the healing powers
of love. The country-and-western songs, delivered very nicely by Robert Duvall, lend their own special light to the many themes of the drama.
Mac, Rosa Lee, and Sonny drive away the shadows of the past in order to become strong in the broken places of their lives. In the tradition
of all memorable storytelling, Tender Mercies entertains, illuminates, and inspires.
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August 22-Back to God’s Country (1919, 73 minutes, not rated- silent)
Nell Shipman stars in this handsomely mounted but rarely seen silent
film, as Dolores LeBeau, a child of nature on a voyage to the Arctic Circle with her new husband, Peter Burke. En route, she discovers to
her horror that the Captain, Rydal is none other than the escaped prisoner who killed her father. Rydal threatens the girl to silence
and then causes an "accident" that seriously injures Peter. Arriving at their destination, Dolores learns from trader Blake Rydal’s accomplice,
that the nearest doctor is at Fort Confidence, miles away across the inhospitable barrens. Dolores, however, demands a team of dogs and the
villains give in, secretly concocting a scheme to separate husband and wife along the route. "So that only the woman will return -- for you!"
as Blake puts it in an inter-title. But Dolores manages to get a minor head start by shooting the trader, racing into the white wilderness
with Rydal in hot pursuit. The killer is soon closing in on the fugitive…will she make it, and just who or what is Wapi? Find out when we
have our annual celebration of silent film. (Added attraction, two very short silent films)
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August 29 –Around the Bend (2004, 85 minutes, rated PG-13, made in New Mexico)
Director Jordan Roberts’ feature debut pulls off the dizzying
high-wire act of being both a misty-eyed glimpse into four generations of the men in the Lair family and a steely meditation on manhood,
parenting, and the pitfalls thereof.
Michael Caine plays the elder Lair, Henry, who as the film begins is in the process of dying with all the crusty wit he can muster (which
is plenty). He shares the family home with his grandson Jason ( Josh Lucas) and his great-grandson Zach and all his memories and mementos
until a grimacing, wire-haired wraith appears at the front door one evening and turns everything around.
That wraith is Jason’s long-estranged father Turner ( Christopher Walken), who walked out on his son and his father some 30 years before,
following the death of his wife (and the maiming of his son) in an automobile accident. Jason is less than thrilled at this possibly malignant
returner, a former heroin addict and professional sneak thief, but Henry is exultant, and he takes the lot of them to the local KFC for a final
meal and then pens a last will and testament that takes the surviving trio on a road trip across the country,.
The men head cross-country, stopping here and there at various KFCs to read another Post-It note instruction and a revelation or two. This
sort of thing rarely works these days – it’s just too difficult to steer the modern audience through the treacherous twin perils of brimstone
and treacle without capsizing your craft amid gales of laughter – but somehow Roberts manages to make it work, against all odds.
Caine, of course, owns the screen every second he’s on it, but after his character exits the scene, it’s up to Lucas and Walken to battle
it out, and battle they do. There’s an exquisite ‘fine-tunedness’ to the screenplay (thank you Mr. Redford) that belies the occasional
gush of sentimentality, and a final grace note that will, yes, mist the eyes of all but the most cynical in the audience. A fine, familial
elixir to remedy despair and soften hardened hearts, Around the Bend is likely just the first of many feathers in Roberts’s shiny, new directorial cap.
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