Mifune: The Last Samurai at Real Art Ways

Toshiro Mifune (1920-97) was the most prominent actor of Japan’s Golden Age of Cinema in the 1950s and 60s. He appeared in nearly 170 films, but his most compelling work was with director Akira Kurosawa with whom he made 16 films.  Together they created enduring works of art — RASHOMON, SEVEN SAMURAI, THRONE OF BLOOD, YOJIMBO, THE BAD SLEEP WELL, RED BEARD — that thrilled audiences and influenced filmmaking around the world. Without them, there would be no MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, Clint Eastwood wouldn’t have A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, and Darth Vader wouldn’t be a samurai.

Just as John Ford and John Wayne elevated the American Western, exploring the human side of America’s violent expansion, Kurosawa and Mifune transformed the chanbara film, the period sword fighting movie, into bold, provocative narratives that pushed beyond the boundaries of the genre and examined the role of the individual in society. Mifune – wry, charismatic and deadly — was the first non-white action star to attract international attention.

MIFUNE: THE LAST SAMURAI explores the evolution of Chanbara movies; Mifune’s World War II experience; his accidental entry into moviemaking; and fortuitous collaboration with Kurosawa. The film is narrated by Keanu Reeves; directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Okazaki; and produced by Toshiaki Nakazawa (13 ASSASSINS and the Academy Award-winning DEPARTURES) and Toichiro Shiraishi.  It focuses on six of Mifune’s greatest films and features interviews with Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Teruyo Nogami (Kurosawa’s longtime script supervisor), Kyoko Kagawa (RED BEARD), Yoshio Tsuchiya (SEVEN SAMURAI), Takeshi Kato (THRONE OF BLOOD), Yoko Tsukasa (YOJIMBO), and many others.

October, 2008. Young nun Colleen (Addison Timlin) is avoiding all contact from her family, until an email from her mother announces, “Your brother is home.”

On returning to her childhood home in Asheville, NC, she finds her old room exactly how she left it: painted black and covered in goth/metal posters.

Her parents (Ally Sheedy & Peter Hedges) are happy enough to see her, but unease and awkwardness abounds. Her brother (Keith Poulson) is living as a recluse in the guesthouse since returning home from the Iraq war.

During Colleen’s visit, tensions rise and fall with a little help from Halloween, pot cupcakes, and GWAR.

Little Sister is a dark comedy about family – a schmaltz-free, pathos-drenched, feel good movie for the little goth girl inside us all.

In this vibrant portrayal of Australian adolescence, Greta Driscoll’s bubble of obscure loserdom is burst when her parents throw her a surprise 15th birthday party and invite the whole school!

Perfectly content being a wallflower, suddenly Greta’s flung far from her comfort zone into a distant, parallel place – a strange world that’s a little frightening and a lot weird, but only there can she find herself.

Equal measures Wes Anderson and Lewis Carroll, GIRL ASLEEP is an enchanting journey into the absurd – and sometimes scary – depths of the teenage mind.

Based on the critically acclaimed production by Windmill Theatre (Adelaide, Australia), Girl Asleep is a journey into the absurd, scary and beautiful heart of the teenage mind.

Also on the bill is the short film, “Pickle.”
Amy Nicholson’s award-winning short “Pickle” has no business being as funny as it is. The award-winning 15-minute short is an energetic and amusing overview of what sounds like an entirely traumatizing experience, as it chronicles 25 years of Tom and Debbie Nicholson’s unbelievably bad luck with a bevy of rescue animals, from the eponymous Pickle the fish to an entire flock of ill-fated fowl.

The film’s official synopsis strikes the appropriate balance between off-kilter humor and almost overwhelming heartache: “Let us reflect on the brief existence of Pickle the fish. Although he could not swim, he was lovingly cared for by a couple that kept him propped up in a sponge. Along with an obese chicken, a cat with a heart condition, and a paraplegic possum, his life is a celebration of man’s eternal capacity to care for all creatures. He will be dearly missed.”

The audacious and grandly entertaining new film from multi-award winning director Pablo Larraín, Neruda is a lavishly-mounted reimagining of the Nobel Prize-winning poet’s pursuit into political exile, and notably marks his reunion with No star Gael García Bernal.

It’s 1948, and the Cold War has reached Chile. In Congress, Neruda (Luis Gnecco) accuses the left-wing government of betraying the Communist Party and is swiftly impeached. The bumbling Police prefect Oscar Peluchonneau (Bernal) is appointed to arrest him.

Neruda tries to flee the country with his wife Delia, but they are forced into hiding. Yet the poet is somehow inspired by the dramatic events of his new life as a fugitive, and uses this struggle as an opportunity to reinvent his work and life, leaving clues for his nemesis designed to make their game of catand- mouse more dangerous, more intimate. Indeed in this ingeniously-crafted tale of the persecuted poet and his implacable adversary, Neruda discovers his own heroic possibilities: a chance to become both a symbol for liberty, and a literary legend.

Gripping, funny and ingeniously conceived, Neruda is undoubtedly Larrain’s finest accomplishment to date, and not to be missed.

HELD OVER!

In Deconstructing The Beatles’ White Album,  composer/producer Scott Freiman takes Beatles fans young and old into the studio with The Beatles as they create their bestselling album, The Beatles (commonly referred to as the White Album).

Released in 1968, the White Album’s thirty songs span almost every style of music—from hard rock to country to chamber music to avant garde. Its recording took place during a remarkable year in Beatles history that included the death of Brian Epstein, the creation of Apple Corps, and a trip to India to study meditation.

In this multimedia presentation, Mr. Freiman transports his audience into Abbey Road Studio for a look at the revolutionary techniques used during the production of “Revolution,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” “Blackbird,” and other songs from the White Album.

It will be an educational journey into the creative process of The Beatles performances and recording sessions, allowing the audience to see and hear the evolution of these groundbreaking songs and their lasting influence on popular music.

THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT begins with one simple conceit: God exists, and He’s a jerk. He lives in a high-rise apartment in Brussels and never gets out of His pajamas. He takes sadistic delight in dreaming up new “laws” to torment humanity, and He’s a petty tyrant to his wife and ten year-old daughter, Ea.

Like her brother before her, Ea has had enough of her Father’s abuse and when she spies the right opportunity, she hacks into His computer and leaks to the entire world—by text message—the only thing He has over them: their inevitable death date.

Ea, after escaping and with her Father in pursuit, gathers apostles and writes her own New Testament to try to fix the mess her Father has made of humanity.

Her six apostles —a one-armed woman, a sex maniac, a killer, a woman who has been left by her husband, an office worker, and a gender dysphoric child—learn to celebrate life and love, and provide us with Jaco Van Dormael’s dark, witty and eccentric answer to the loaded question: what would you do if you knew exactly how much time you had left to live?

FINAL WEEKEND!

THE EAGLE HUNTRESS follows Aisholpan, a 13-year-old girl, as she trains to become the first female in twelve generations of her Kazakh family to become an eagle hunter, and rises to the pinnacle of a tradition that has been handed down from father to son for centuries.

Set against the breath-taking expanse of the Mongolian steppe, THE EAGLE HUNTRESS features some of the most awe-inspiring cinematography ever captured in a documentary, giving this intimate tale of a young girl’s quest the dramatic force of an epic narrative film.

While there are many old Kazakh eagle hunters who vehemently reject the idea of any female taking part in their ancient tradition, Aisholpan’s father Nurgaiv believes that a girl can do anything a boy can, as long as she’s determined.

The story begins after Aisholpan has been training with her father’s eagle for many months. As every eagle can only have one master, the time has come for Aisholpan to capture an eagle of her own. Clambering down a sheer rock cliff with a rope, Aisholpan retrieves a fledgling eagle from its nest as its mother circles overhead. Her eagle will live, train, and hunt with her, until she releases it into the wild years later, so the cycle of life can continue.

After months of training her eagle with her father, Aisholpan is ready to test her abilities. She enters a renowned competition, the Golden Eagle Festival, and faces off against 70 of the greatest Kazakh eagle hunters in Mongolia.

The most arduous challenge is yet to come, as the rite-of-passage for every young eagle hunter is to take part in a hunt. Aisholpan must ride with her father deep into the frigid mountains and endure 40 below zero temperatures and perilous landscapes to prove she is a true eagle huntress.

THE EAGLE HUNTRESS is executive produced and narrated by STAR WARS’s Daisy Ridley. Like Ridley’s character “Rey,” Aisholpan never doubts her ability to be as strong or brave as any boy. She recognizes no obstacles and refuses to have her ambition denied.

While she practices an ancient art, Aisholpan’s story is a modern and inspiring one because she represents a world where a young girl’s dreams-no matter how challenging-can come true.

Directed by Otto Bell, THE EAGLE HUNTRESS is narrated by Daisy Ridley, executive produced by Ridley, Morgan Spurlock and Jeremy Chilnick, and produced by Stacy Reiss, Sharon Chang and Otto Bell. The director of photography is Simon Niblett, the editor is Pierre Takal and the film features a stirring end credits song, “Angel by the Wings,” by Sia.

“DELIRIOUSLY, OBSCENELY PLEASURABLE!” – New York Magazine

Juzo Itami’s rapturous “ramen western” returns to U.S. screens for the first time in decades, in a new 4K restoration.

The tale of an enigmatic band of ramen ronin who guide the widow of a noodle shop owner on her quest for the perfect recipe, Tampopo serves up a savory broth of culinary adventure seasoned with offbeat comedy sketches and the erotic exploits of a gastronome gangster.

Sweet, sexy, surreal, and mouthwatering, Tampopo remains one of the most delectable examples of food on film.

August 1st 1966 was the day our innocence was shattered. A sniper rode the elevator to the top floor of the iconic University of Texas Tower and opened fire, holding the campus hostage for 96 minutes in what was a previously unimaginable event.

When the gunshots were finally silenced, the toll included 16 dead, three dozen wounded, and a shaken nation left trying to understand.

Combining archival footage with rotoscopic animation in a dynamic, never-before-seen way, TOWER reveals the action-packed untold stories of the witnesses, heroes and survivors of America’s first mass school shooting, when the worst in one man brought out the best in so many others.

Rebecca Hall stars in director Antonio Campos’ third feature film, a behind-the-scenes look at the news crew at a 1970’s television station. Aspiring newswoman Christine Chubbuck (Rebecca Hall) finds herself butting heads with her boss, who pushes for sensationalized stories to drive up ratings.

Based on true events, this intimate and sensitive portrait of a woman on the brink is grounded by Hall’s impeccable and transformative performance. Also starring are Michael C. Hall (“Dexter”), Maria Dizzia (“Orange Is The New Black”), and Timothy Simons (“Veep”).

Plagued by self-doubt and a tumultuous home life, Christine’s diminishing hope begins to rise when an on-air co-worker (Michael C. Hall) initiates a friendship which ultimately becomes yet another unrequited love. Disillusioned as her world continues to close in on her, Christine takes a dark and surprising turn.

Based on true events, Campos’ intimate and sensitive portrait of a woman on the brink is grounded by Hall’s impeccable and transformative performance as Christine. Rounding out the supporting cast are superlative performances by Michael C. Hall (“Dexter”), Tracy Letts (“Homeland,” Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright), Maria Dizzia (“Orange Is The New Black”), Timothy Simons (“Veep”) and J. Smith-Cameron (“Margaret”).

Clara (Sonia Braga, “Kiss of the Spider Woman”), a 65-year-old widow and retired music critic, is the last resident of the Aquarius, one of the few buildings of its age and character that remains in a rapidly changing seaside Recife neighborhood.

Now that the other apartments have been swept up by a company with ambitious plans for redevelopment, pressures to move on surround Clara from all sides. But she has pledged to leave only upon death, and will engage in a cold war with the developers to keep a home that has been a silent witness to her entire life.

The resulting confrontation is mysterious, frightening and nerve-wracking, tingeing even Clara’s most familiar routines with the tension of a thriller. But it is her passion for those close to her, for music, for her memories of past loves, and hunger for future ones, that makes the film a tremendous kaleidoscope of life’s pleasures and our reasons for defending them, from Brazil’s great chronicler of its present moment, Kleber Mendonça Filho.

HELD OVER!

Winner – Audience Award, Best Actor (Rolf Lassgård) – Guldbagge Awards 2016
Best Actor – Seattle International Film Festival Golden Space Needle Award 2016
Opening Night Selection – Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival 2016
Closing Night Selection – Stony Brook Film Festival 2016

Stepping from the pages of Fredrik Backman’s international best-selling novel, Ove is the quintessential angry old man next door. An isolated retiree with strict principles and a short fuse, who spends his days enforcing block association rules that only he cares about, and visiting his wife’s grave, Ove has given up on life.

Enter a boisterous young family next door who accidentally flattens Ove’s mailbox while moving in and earning his special brand of ire. Yet from this inauspicious beginning an unlikely friendship forms and we come to understand Ove’s past happiness and heartbreaks.

What emerges is a heartwarming tale of unreliable first impressions and the gentle reminder that life is sweeter when it’s shared.

One of Sweden’s biggest locally-produced box office hits ever, director Hannes Holm finds the beating heart of his source material and Swedish star Rolf Lassgård, whose performance won him the Best Actor award at the 2016 Seattle Int’l Film Festival, affectingly embodies the lovable curmudgeon Ove.

From director Keiichi Hara (Colorful) and Japanese powerhouse Production I.G (creators of Ghost in the Shell) comes a remarkable story of the daughter behind one of history’s most famous artists, Hokusai.

As all of Edo (present day Tokyo) flocks to see the work of the revered painter Hokusai, his daughter O-Ei toils diligently inside his studio. Her masterful portraits, dragons and erotic sketches – sold under the name of her father – are coveted by upper crust Lords and journeyman print makers alike.

Shy and reserved in public, in the studio O-Ei is as brash and uninhibited as her father, smoking a pipe while sketching drawings that would make contemporary Japanese ladies blush. But despite this fiercely independent spirit, O-Ei struggles under the domineering influence of her father and is ridiculed for lacking the life experience that she is attempting to portray in her art.

Miss Hokusai‘s bustling Edo is filled with yokai spirits, dragons, and conniving tradesmen, while O-Ei’s relationships with her demanding father and blind younger sister provide a powerful emotional underpinning to this sumptuously-animated coming-of-age tale.

*Stay after the film for a talk about Hokusai, his daughter and the evolution of woodblock printing in Japan with Ann H. Sievers, Director and Curator, Art Museum, University of Saint Joseph.

Also, visit the exhibition, HANGA NOW, Contemporary Japanese Print Makers at the University of St. Joseph, on view through December 18, 2016.

HELD OVER!

Robert Redford narrates the life stories of two Harvard psychology professors renowned for their experiments with mind-expanding psychedelics: Timothy Leary, who ignited a global counterculture movement, and Richard Alpert, who journeyed to the East and became the spiritual teacher Ram Dass.

“Dying to Know” is an intimate portrait celebrating two very complex, controversial characters in an epic friendship that shaped a generation.  In the early 1960s Harvard psychology professors Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert began probing the edges of consciousness through their experiments with psychedelics. Leary became the LSD guru, challenging convention, questioning authority and as a result spawned a global counter culture movement landing in prison after Nixon called him “the most dangerous man in America.”

Alpert journeyed to the East becoming Ram Dass, a spiritual teacher for an entire generation who continues in his 80’s teaching service through compassion.  With interviews spanning 50 years the film invites us into the future encouraging us to ponder questions about life, drugs & the biggest mystery of all: death.

In 1995 after years of estrangement Leary found out that he was dying of cancer. The first person he called was Ram Dass.  In the 60s they had collaborated on a book entitled, ‘The Psychedelic Experience‘ which was based on The Tibetan Book of The Dead and explored the similarities of the psychedelic experience and the dying process. Each holding a remarkably different point of view about death they share their thoughts/perspectives and rekindle the love they have always felt for one another.

In this provocative film the viewer is a fly on the wall, observing an intimate conversation between Leary and Ram Dass just a few months before Leary’s death.  It is a genuine exploration and an emotional respectful goodbye between two life long companions. We include subsequent interviews with Leary as he shares his dying process with us. Ram Dass, who suffered a stroke himself not long after Tim’s passing, shares his own perspective on death and dying.

This story is much larger than a simple conversation between two old friends. It embraces the arcs of their entire lives helping us understand how two Harvard professors became counter – culture icons. We will explore their upbringing, early life and their fateful meeting at Harvard where together they ran fully sanctioned experiments into the nature and use of psilocybin and LSD before being fired in 1963.

We follow them from Harvard to Millbrook where their experimentation continued and ultimately their friendship was tested and fractured. They both went their own way becoming legends in their own right. These chapters are highlighted using archival footage and stills. This tale of taboos: sex, drugs and death includes interviews in 2012 with Dr. Andrew Weil, Huston Smith, Roshi Joan Halifax, Ralph Metzner, Joanna Harcourt-Smith, Lama Tsultrim Allione, John Perry Barlow, Peggy Hitchcock and Zach Leary.

Robert Redford’s iconic voice as narrator gives a classic American feel and tone. Dillingham, the Producer/Director has contributed on & off 17 years of her life to this labor of love.  She uncovers the wisdom these two men have as they continue to guide us on the next revolution – a right to access our own consciousnesses and our own death.