Newsletter – 21 March 2017

Additional screening on April 6: MOONLIGHT

Well, we thought there would no reason to produce another newsletter until May. And then we heard that we could screen MOONLIGHT, the film that despite the PwC accountants’ best efforts won three Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. It seemed to us that a fair number of members would like the opportunity to see it, so we went ahead and booked it for showing on Thursday April 6th at our usual start time of 7.45 at the Health & Wellbeing Centre. We set our fees for 2016-7 on the basis of a season of 22 film nights, so we are asking existing members to pay £5 admission, whilst others will be charged £6 (but just £3 for full-time school and college students). Admission for members’ guests will be £5, as usual.

Three things that critics have said about Moonlight:

“… a prism of repression and desire, awash in poetry … The most admirable thing about Barry Jenkins’s adaptation of playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney’s In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue is its commitment to intimacy; this strength is manifested in the skilful proximity of James Laxton’s cinematography and the small-scale parameters of the storyline, which follows a single character as he ages from a child to a young adult”. (Sight & Sound)

“In his masterfully handled second film writer/director Barry Jenkins aligns us with a lonely soul, slowly teasing out the true sexuality of a repressed young African-American named Chiron. Combining style and subtlety, Moonlight illustrates a liberating journey of self-acceptance that derives tension from the contrast between the tough Miami backdrop and the secret this shy boy keeps inside”. (Radio Times)

“The film begins with Chiron at age 10, picks up later in high school, and then skips forward to reveal the man he has become, thick-skinned and tough on the outside but still searching on the interior. “Moonlight” would have been ghettoized as a LGBTQ film had it been released a decade earlier, considering that dimension of his self-discovery. Today, no real category applies, and with any luck, this resonant film will connect with audiences in a more universal way”. (Variety)

Moonlight, dir. Barry Jenkins, 111 mins, USA, 2016 (Cert 15)

Do bring guests and tell your contacts about this screening. We can email you a poster to help you do this and paper copies will also be available soon.

Reminder

Please forgive us for repeating ourselves but here’s a reminder of the timings for our March 30th event: Gemma Bovery

Doors open at 7.00 pm
Cheese and wine (byo) begins at 7.15 pm
Film starts at 7.45 pm (or soon afterwards)
and ends soon after 9.30 pm, with tea and coffee available.

Harold Lloyd silent with piano accompaniment on March 9th

As Martin reported on March 16, this very well attended screening attracted very favourable ratings and comments from audience members. Much of the praise was for Andrew Youdell, of course. You might like to know that, although playing the piano solidly for almost 90 minutes is very hard work, he commented that he really enjoyed the show, because he could sense the audience’s enjoyment.