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CULTURE MOVIES

FLASHCUTS PREDICTS FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: 2012 Academy Awards Rundown

The 84th Annual Academy Awards return Sunday, February 26.  Here are the Hipfish major award predictions.

BEST PICTURE   Unlike the past couple of years where there was a clear frontrunner, this year’s field is more open, with several contenders for the big prize out of nine nominees.  Top contenders:
The Artist  The French black-and-white silent film is a salute to the early days of Hollywood.  Jean Dujardin stars as the arrogant matinee idol George Valentin, dashing leading man of the silent era, at the peak of his fame.  Berenice Bejo plays Peppy Miller, struggling actress.  After meeting on one of Valentin’s films, the two fall in love, but the rise of sound pictures destroys Valentin’s career while Peppy becomes an overnight sensation.  Now a has-been, reduced to selling off his belongings, Valentin becomes morose, while Peppy tries behind the scenes to save Valentin and somehow revive his career.
The Descendants  After a seven year absence director Alexander Payne (Sideways) returns with his dramedy about a family faced with a life-changing crisis. George Clooney stars as Mathew King, a middle-aged Hawaiian lawyer whose world has suddenly collapsed.  His wife lies in a coma from a boating accident. Suddenly cast into the unfamiliar role of primary parent, King realizes he has two out-of-control daughters and a wife he didn’t really know.
Movies with the most number of nominations have gone on to win 15 out of the last 21 Best Picture Oscars.  Hugo leads this year’s list with 11 followed by The Artist with 10, but the many nominations seem more about the parts of the movie than the whole.  The Help is the highest-grossing nominated pic, and three of the cast have been nominated but the pic itself doesn’t seem as well regarded as the actors.  Safest bet – The Artist, although some have pointed out that no film about Hollywood has won Best Picture.
Pick:  The Artist
Other nominees:   Hugo / Moneyball / Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close / The Help / Midnight in Paris / War Horse / The Tree of Life

BEST DIRECTOR  Film is thought of as a directors’ medium so generally this Oscar goes to the helmer of the Best Picture unless a superstar director is in the field as in 1998 when Shakespeare In Love won Best Picture but Steven Spielberg picked up the directing prize for Saving Private Ryan.  The past two years the Best Picture/Best Director pairing as held up so if The Artist triumphs then expect director Michel Hazanavicius to pick up the directing statuette, likewise Alexander Payne if Best Picture contender The Descendants wins.  Superstar director Martin Scorsese is in the field for Hugo, but he’s already won an Oscar for The Departed and Hugo doesn’t seem to be a contender.
Pick:  Michel Hazanavicius
Other nominees:  Alexander Payne (The Descendants) / Martin Scorsese (Hugo) / Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris) / Terence Malick (The Tree of Life)

BEST ACTOR  It’s a two-horse race between George Clooney (The Descendants) and Jean Dujardin (The Artist).  Clooney as Mathew King dominates every minute of his movie – the story is told from his character’s point of view.  Clooney, who usually plays affable, smooth nice guys with a touch of wiseguy self-awareness displays more vulnerability than he probably ever has in a role as his character struggles to deal with the reality of his wife’s probable death and children that have spun out of control.  Dujardin dominates The Artist with his performance as silent star George Valentin, whose career comes crashing down with the onset of sound film.  Dujardin perfectly captures the brilliant charm of the movie star at his peak and the quiet desperation of the reduced Valentin after his star has faded.
Clooney had the early lead but Dujardin has the momentum after winning Best Actor at the Screen Actors Guild awards.  The simpler, but consistent charm of The Artist might also play better with voters than the mixed drama/comedy of The Descendants.
Pick:  Jean DuJardin
Other nominees:  George Clooney (The Descendants) / Demián Bechir (A Better Life) / Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) / Brad Pitt (Moneyball)

BEST ACTRESS  Veteran actress Viola Davis has been turning great performances for years now in supporting roles but rarely carrying a movie.  In 2008 she earned an Academy Award nomination for a one scene performance in Doubt – arguably upstaging star Meryl Streep.    After earning her Best Actress nomination, her main competition is none other than Meryl Streep for playing Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.  It’s Streep’s 17th Oscar nomination.  Still, it looks to be Davis’s year.  In The Help, Davis plays Aibileen Clark, a black maid in a small Mississippi town in the early ‘60s who raises the children of white families at the expense of her own.  Clark is the emotional center of the film, the family maid that young aspiring writer Skeeter Phelan (Emma Stone) turns to when she delves into the lives of maids who bring up other people’s children against the backdrop of the pre-Civil Rights deep South.  In a way, Davis’s Oscar nom mirrors her role in The Help – a career/life in the background finally getting its due.
Pick:  Viola Davis
Other nominees:  Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady) / Rooney Mara (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo) / Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs) / Michelle Williams (My Week With Marilyn)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR  Christopher Plummer is 82 years old.  When he made his film debut in 1957 Dwight Eisenhower was President.  For 55 years the Canadian-born stage and screen vet has made dozens of movies but was mostly known for his appearance in a movie that he detested – The Sound of Music.  All that is about to change.  With his peformance as Hal, an elderly man who comes out as gay after his wife dies, Plummer has stamped himself as the Oscar favorite.  In director Mike Mills Beginners Oliver (Ewan McGregor), confused about his mother’s death and Hal’s late-life makeover, starts a relationship with a French woman he meets (Melanie Laurent) who also has parental issues.   Although not the leading character, Plummer’s character dominates the film.  Straight in real life, Plummer believably plays a gay man who had repressed that side of himself for nearly his entire life – without resorting to “working” the part like Sean Penn in Milk.
Pick:  Christopher Plummer
Other nominees:  Kenneth Branagh (My Week With Marilyn) / Jonah Hill (Moneyball) / Nick Nolte (Warrior) / Max von Sydow (Incredibly Loud & Unbearably Close)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS  The surprise hit of the summer, The Help was powered by the strength of its cast, with three members nominated.  At the Screen Actors Guild awards the film received a “best cast” award as well as individual awards for Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer.  While not the favorite for Best Picture, this could benefit the cast awards with Viola Davis leading the Best Actress race and Octavia Spencer, who played Minnie Jackson, the smart-mouthed maid who has a way with pies, expected to join her cast mate by picking up the Best Supporting Actress prize.  A possible contender is Bérénice Bejo, who plays up-and-coming starlet Peppy Miller in The Artist.
Pick:  Octavia Spencer
Other nominees:  Bérénice Bejo (The Artist) / Jessica Chastain (The Help) / Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids) / Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs)

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY  With writing awards often handed out as second place awards, look for The Descendants writing team of Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash adaptation of Kaui Hart Hemmings’ novel to win the prize.  The Moneyball script was written by heavyweight writers Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, but Sorkin won last year for The Social Network and Moneyball isn’t a contender – sports movies, even interesting, offbeat ones don’t usually win awards.
Pick:  Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
Other nominees:  John Logan (Hugo) / George Clooney & Grant Heslove and Beau Willimon (The Ides of March) / Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin (Moneyball) / Bridget O’Connor & Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY  The screenplay awards are often paired with Best Picture as in the past the past two years but leading contender The Artist is a silent movie with no dialogue.  The screenplay clocks in at only 44 pages. (Most screenplays are at least twice that length.)  Midnight in Paris was Woody Allen’s highest-grossing movie ever. With comedies not usually awarded the top prized look for the Academy to award Woody the screenplay award.  But don’t look forward to a funny acceptance speech – Allen never does award shows.  Possibly the first Iranian filmmaker to be nominated for this award is writer/director Asghar Farhadi for his script for his mesmerizing domestic drama A Separation, also up for Best Foreign Language Picture.
Pick:  Woody Allen
Other nominees:  Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist) / Annie Mumolo and Kristen Wiig (Bridesmaids) / J.C. Chandor (Margin Call) / Asghar Farhadi (A Separation)

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KALA MUSIC WORD

In The Spirit: Word and Song

KALA proudly presents two independent Northwest women artists on Friday, January 27. Author Tricia Gates Brown and Singer-Songwriter Deb Montgomery.

Both women have recently produced new works, respectively, “Jesus Loves Women: A Memoir of Body and Spirit and a CD release “The Little Hymn Project.” Both women were raised in traditional fundamentalist Christian families, and both women have experienced and welcomed into their lives, the challenge of coming to grips with a spiritual identity, identity as woman, and personal transcendence through artistic medium, amidst the constricts of all that traditional western patriarchal Christianity has dictated to American women.   Neither artists have met (as of yet) but the North Coast has had the opportunity to know both of these women in recent times. Gates Brown a columnist for the coastal weeklies and  Hipfish, several illustrated children’s’ books, as a landscape gardener and doing recent rounds with her new book. Seattle-based Montgomery, has performed on the coast on several occasion, predominantly at LUSH Wine Bar in Cannon Beach.

It is a pleasure to bring a “woman focus” show together at KALA. (Men welcome, of course.) When I first returned to the region in the mid-nineties, I had the opportunity to host a “Women’s Nite” at the former Café Uniontown. What inspired me to do so was the awareness of such a strong woman presence on the coast; whether married, single, lesbian, bi, trans, straight, native or transplant. The coast of Oregon and Washington beckons fearless, creative women to its shore. The nights included a myriad of women musicians, poets, comedians and a drink menu with such titles as “Feminist Twist,” “Union Town Bitch,” and the like. And lets face it – whether you were/are a feminist, the Feminist Movement of late 60’s laid the groundwork, for what we now as women find in our everyday lives,  the means to face the challenges, the inalienable right to our intelligence, our natural trait to balance, and to choose who we want to be. A task neither easy, nor simple, but the path of self-empowerment lies ever stronger under our feet.  When women testify through art, the stories are strong and inspirational, such as Deb Montgomery and Tricia Gates Brown  . . . and I sing “Hallelujah Sisters!”

“Jesus Loves Women,” is a compelling title. TRICIA GATES BROWN, holds a PHD in Theology and in her 20’s found such a fascination with the bible, that it led her to investigate the nature of the scriptures and to eventually get to the source of “what” religion had bestowed upon her culturally as a woman. In her preface she states, “What I am drawn to . . . is the complex interplay of body and spirit, of the sensual and the spiritual, the sexual and the spiritual . . . . I choose to tell my story not only because I believe it is the truest accounting I can offer of my life, but because I believe it’s important we hear such stories. In my experience, they are hard to come by.”

Gates Brown commits a good portion of her memoir to the tribulations of puberty, to young womanhood, revealing those parts of self, the tender heart, the coming into sexuality, memories we are glad to leave behind but yet are so much a part of our whole. A back cover blurb from Susan Mark Landis, Minister of Peace and Justice says it well; “Like a late night talk with my best friend, Tricia’s book gave me intimate insights into her life, my life . . . by openly sharing secrets we typically hide.”

From the constricts of fundamentalism, to losing her self in a first marriage, an awakening to the grace of nature, a mystical friendship with a Trappist monk, a failed second marriage, a new communion with Mexican culture, and coming to a yearned place of wholeness, Gates Brown beautifully articulates in intimate detail her story; as an accomplished writer, story teller and human theorist. Her ultimate message, that the shame-bound morality on sexuality be set free, for humanity to progress to a more humane state. Whether raised in a Christian milieu or not, this book is for every woman and man, as the basic core of our culture resides within the bounds this morality.

DEB MONTGOMERY refers to herself as a vagabond, in the poetic sense of the word, not settling in any one thing or place comfortably. This she stated in email correspondence when inquiring on the “Little Hymn Project” and any personal religious background.  She then furthered, in very songwriterly response,  to grappling with a fundamental upbringing,  “At the same time, I’ve been captivated by my understanding of Jesus’ message to love one another, to love another as ourselves… the idea that love is costly, that it will perhaps ask you to go places you never imagined, that it will both break you and heal you at the same time.”

The basis for the Little Hymn Project was created in a time when Montgomery was dealing with a period of deep grief. In that process she had turned to several hymns that she had in her repertoire, “The only thing I did for a few weeks besides weep, call a friend or two, was visit some of these hymns, letting their mysteries penetrate and attempting to sing them back to the universe to sooth myself,” says Montgomery. In this space of grieving, a natural progression led to several original tunes, a series of hymns, (Psalm23, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, It is well with my Soul, Amazing Grace . . .) and cover tunes by Bruce Coburn and Coldplay. Originally recorded in her living room in Seattle, she eventually recorded the 11-track collection in Chicago, with Producer John Abbey at Kingsize Studio. But her desire was to keep the intimacy and a sense of presence that were so much a part of the process of coming to make the Little Hymn Project. The final product is Montgomery on piano and guitar, with added bass and drums. Her recording succeeds in a triumphant presence of voice, a powerful, and moving intimacy.

Montgomrey is a Canadian who lived in New York City many years, and now lives in Seattle, where she is completing a graduate degree.  Solo is not her main thing as she has mostly been a bandleader, playing with drummer Andy Stochansky (who was Ani Defranco’s tour drummer for 8 years), and drummer Sim Cain, shared band mate with Henry Rollins (the Rollins Band). Them’s good rock bones. She also played with a New York cellist and fellow Canadian artist Julia Kent for 8 years. As Montgomery’s credits reference comparison to PJ Harvey, Jeff Buckley, the core connection she has in her voice resembles to this writer, the spirit of Patti Smith. An era before emo, somewhere between punk rock and Janis! There’s a strong conviction to rock music in Montgomery. While she isn’t well known in these parts, she is certainly a cool find.

Friday, Jan 27, doors open 7pm. $10, includes complimentary wine and snacks. KALA, 1017 Marine Drive in Astoria.

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CULTURE FEATURES MUSIC

Concert for a Winter’s Night: Music for Chanukkah, Solstice and Christmas – December 22

Shelley and Jennifer
Shelley Loring & Jennifer Goodenberger

Flutist Shelley Loring and pianist Jennifer Goodenberger perform on Thursday, December 22 at 7pm at Grace Episcopal Church.  The concert will include Jewish, Celtic, Carols, holiday music, and original compositions to celebrate the Season. These long-term friends, who have until now been pursing separate musical careers, are thrilled to create music together for this concert.

Loring’s early years were spent performing with her father, a Jewish cantor. She has toured the Western States with the Community Concerts Association in addition to playing with many regional and local music organizations. Most recently she returned to performing her life-time passion – jazz and improvisation.

Goodenberger, was the producer for the legendary “Winter Solstice Concerts” of the late 1990’s. She is currently active as a recording artist and solo pianist, performing her original compositions and arrangements of folk and Celtic music. Her recordings are often used in the healing arts, and as film soundtracks. Go to jennifergoodenberger.com for a complete audio and art listing of her works.

Thursday, December 22, 7pm, at Grace Episcopal Church.  1545 Franklin Avenue, Astoria. There is a $10 suggested donation at the door. For more information, call 503-325-5310.

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CULTURE MUSIC

Holiday Friends – New Year’s Eve at Fort George in Astoria

Holiday FriendsIt only makes sense to spend the last and first holiday of the year with Idaho supplants and indie pop players Holiday Friends. Opened for Blind Pilot: The Free Show (BTY a beautiful experience) and as Astoria is their new home ground and keeping a musical profile, will continue to perform in Astoria.  And how ‘bout that – New Year’s Eve falls on a Saturday – there’s something really wrong with that. But, with raw pop guile cum 60s’ . . . Holiday Friends are well – equipped to tele-music-port you to a higher ground.

Saturday, Dec 31, 9pm, Fort George in Astoria, NO Cover.

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CULTURE FEATURES KALA MUSIC

Kathryn Clair & Hanz Araki

One of a Kind Celtic Concert Series Comes to Pacific Northwest
Acclaimed Irish Musicians Join Together for a Unique and Memorable Show
Kathryn Clair & Hanz Araki with a host of Celtic friends comes to the Coaster Theater and an Intimate Solstice eve at KALA.

Kathryn Clair & Hanz Araki
Hanz Araki and Kathryn Claire, The Seven Joys of Mary, from their new release A WINTER SOLSTICE CELEBRATION

Musicians Hanz Araki and Kathryn Claire are proud to present a series of unprecedented concerts. These two diverse musicians lend their individual expertise and lyrical knowledge to four theme- based concerts that present some of the strongest and most beautiful elements of the Celtic tradition. This December, they are celebrating the release of the second of four accompanying albums, A Winter Solstice Celebration.
Ancient carols and foot-stomping jigs and reels share the spotlight with poetry, dance, and even a short Mummer’s play from songwriter Matthew Hayward-Macdonald.

This year’s concert features — in addition to Claire and Araki — Cary Novotny on guitar, All-Ireland harp champion Anna Lee Foster, Welsh-born bodhran (Irish frame-drum) player Matty Einion Sears, and vocalist Jody Katopothis.

“Each of us bring to the table a varied collection of songs and stories that reflect the same themes of longing, love, loss, beauty, and celebration. These concerts give us the freedom to explore some of these experiences thoroughly through the music that has arisen from the last several hundred years of human existence.”

Sunday, December 18th at the Coaster Theatre in Cannon Beach, OR. Show starts at 7:30pm. Tickets are $14 for adults and $8 for students.

Tuesday, December 20 at KALA in Astoria. Claire and Araki perform an intimate candlelit eve performance. Doors Open at 7pm. Performance at 7:30pm. Come early, for a seat and enjoy a beverage. Tickets are $8 at the door. The new cd release WINTER SOLSTICE CELEBRATION will be available. For a preview track go to www.hipfishmonthly.com.

In the late winter, “As I Roved Out” welcomes better weather and represents the traditional Maying celebrations of the British Isles and beyond, while the plight of the emigrant and laborer is presented in a collection of songs and tunes in the late summer entitled “The Emigrant Song.” Some of the darker and more macabre themes found in Celtic love songs are explored in “Songs of Love and Murder,” and completing the series is the Winter Solstice Celebration; celebrate the darkest night of the year with the light of music, storytelling and wonder.

Billed as “The next generation of trad’ music,” Irish flute player and singer Hanz Araki is the quintessential world music musician. He has toured internationally with Juno award-winning The Paperboys and The Casey Neill Trio; also The Bridies, Portland’s all-star Pogues cover band KMRIA among others, and is featured on over a dozen recordings and soundtracks, along with his own acclaimed CD’s. www.hanzaraki.com.

Kathryn Claire has asserted herself in a new generation of traditionally-inspired musicians. Her violin-playing exhibits a technical grace which is matched only by her truly captivating voice and she possesses the rare ability to move seamlessly across genres. Her deep love and respect for traditional music has long been a driving influence and those roots can be heard in her own original music.

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CULTURE MOVIES

Flash Cuts – December 2011

2011 goes out with a bang with the release schedule crammed with Academy Awards hopefuls. Not one, but two new Steven Spielberg films including his first animated film, David Fincher’s latest billed as the “feel-bad film of Christmas,” Cameron Crowe’s first movie in six years and the latest installments of the Sherlock Holmes and Mission: Impossible franchises.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy (Dec. 9) The Cold War spy movie makes a comeback with Swedish director Tomas Alfreson’s version of the John Le Carre’s espionage thriller. Set in the early ‘70s, story deals with a Russian spy deep within British Intellignece. After a botched mission in Prague where an agent is captured by the Russians, the head of Mi6, Control (John Hurt), and his deputy George Smiley (Gary Oldman) are forced into retirement. On assignment in Istanbul Mi6 agent Ricky Tarr (Tom Hardy) learns that Russian spymaster Karla has an a mole deep within Mi6. After the Istanbul station head is killed, Tarr goes on the run and Smiley is brought back to track down the mole. Plot is a labyrinth with double and triple-crossings and constant suspense of not knowing who is a friend or foe. Strong cast includes Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Ciarán Hinds and Toby Jones.

Young Adult (Dec. 16) Diablo Cody burst onto the scene in 2007 with her Academy Award-winning script for Juno. Now she returns with a more mature, darker pic about a teen literature writer who can’t let go of the past. Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron) is a mid-30s, divorced writer of young adult books living in Minneapolis. A former queen of the scene in high school, Mavis hates her life. When former high school flame Buddy Slade (Patrick Wilson) accidentally sends her an email of his new baby, Mavis goes into an emotional tailspin and returns to her hometown to try to win Buddy back. After humiliating setbacks where Buddy makes it clear he is not interested, Mavis bumps into overweight nerd Matt and they strike up an unlikely friendship. Theron has her work cut out for her – one reviewer called Mavis the “most likeable unlikeable protagonist since Lester Burnham in American Beauty.”

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (Dec. 16) Everyone’s favorite 19th century sleuth returns as Robert Downey, Jr. stars as the quick-witted master of deduction. In Game of Shadows, the criminal mastermind Professor Moriarty, who was hinted at in the first movie finally is revealed as Holmes’ nemesis and perhaps superior as he is equally brilliant and more ruthless by far. After rumors floated of Brad Pitt playing the part, character actor Jared Harris ended up as the evil mastermind. After the Crown Prince of Austria is murdered, Homes and Watson (Jude Law) quip their way through Europe, aided by the gypsy fortune teller Sim (Noomi Rapace) while Moriarty sews a path of destruction toward some nefarious world-changing end. Rachel McAdams makes a brief cameo.

The Adventures of Tin Tin (Dec. 21) Steven Spielberg directs his first animated movie with this film based on the comic book series by Belgian artist Hergé. Although little known in the States, the series, enormously popular in Europe, follows the adventures of young Tintin, a reporter, and his dog Snowy in a globe-spanning nonstop action/adventure which has been described as Pirates of the Caribbean meets Indiana Jones. Spielberg filmed live actors, whereupon the footage was transformed into 3D animation by Peter Jackson’s effects company. The result is photorealistic animation that is also true to the style of the original comic books. With Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis and Daniel Craig.

Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Dec. 21) Maybe the most anticipated movie this season is David Fincher’s remake of the 2009 Swedish film based on the first book of Stieg Larsson’s bestselling Millenium series. Story centers around the relationship between Swedish journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) and goth computer hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara). Blomkvist is summoned by corporate head Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer) to investigate the disappearance of his niece Harriet 40 years earlier who Vanger believes was murdered by a member of his own family. To that end, Blomkvist enlists the help of the bisexual Salander, whose dark personal life includes rape and sexual torture by her legal guardian. Blomkvist discovers a list of names kept by Harriet. Salander finds that the names are Jewish women, nearly all murdered. When they discover that Vanger’s brothers were members of the Swedish Nazi Party, they believe they’re on the trail of a Nazi serial killer. Movie has been advertised as the “feel bad” movie of Christmas, with the typical Fincher dark, stylish atmosphere.

We Bought A Zoo (Dec. 23) After a six year absence, director Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire) returns with the true life story of Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon), a single father who uses his life savings to resurrect a rundown zoo. After losing his wife to cancer, emotionally devastated Benjamin struggles to rebuild his life with his two children, teenage Dylan and six-year-old Rosie. Against the advice of his practical brother Duncan (Thomas Haden Church), he buys a decrepit zoo on a whim. With no zookeeping experience whatsoever, he must win over the skeptical staff, led by head zookeeper Kelly (Scarlett Johansson), stave off imminent bankruptcy which would mean the destruction of 200 animals and avoid being shut down by a hostile USDA inspector. Along the way to healing himself and the zoo, Benjamin must face a zookeeper’s worst nightmare. Although Crowe’s films are known for their humorous, sunny outlook no matter how dark the situation, he and Damon went to lengths to avoid making a hokey “Disney-fied” movie. Cast includes Patrick Fugit, Elle Fanning and Peter Riegert.

War Horse (Dec. 25) Although he’s made six films set in World War II, Steven Spielberg was “never interested” in World War I until he read Michael Morpurgo’s 1982 children’s novel about Joey, one of millions of horses used by the military for cavalry and draught horses – pulling weapons, vehicles and dead/wounded. Along with the slaughter of men, millions of horses perished in the war. After seeing the British play in 2010, Spielberg decided to make War Horse his next project. In the rural village of Devon, young Albert’s family buys a magnificent horse. Albert names it Joey and bonds with the horse. But as World War I dawns, the family is forced to sell Joey to the British Army. Story follows Joey as he first serves as an officer’s mount. After a horrific battle, Joey ends up on the German side, serving as a work horse. As the war goes on, Joey passes through many hands, all the while trying to get back to his owner, Albert. An old-fashioned Hollywood film, both anti-war and a love story between a man and his horse.

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CULTURE MUSIC

Long Beach Acoustic Series features Casey Neill – Saturday, November 19

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