Beasts of the Southern Wild

Starts Friday, January 25 at the Loft Theater, 3233 E. Speedway. Show times are 11:45 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. in their new stadium theater #3.

2013 Academy Award Nominee! Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay

See one of the year’s best films again on the big screen before this year’s Oscar telecast on February 24th!

“Sometime miraculous films come into being, made by people you’ve never heard of, starring unknown faces, blindsiding you with creative genius. Beasts of the Southern Wild is one of the year’s best films.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

In a forgotten but defiant bayou community cut off from the rest of the world by a sprawling levee, a six-year-old girl named Hushpuppy (the extraordinary Quvenzhané Wallis, making her film debut) exists on the brink of orphanhood. Buoyed by her childish optimism and extraordinary imagination, she believes that the natural world is in balance with the universe until a fierce storm changes her reality. Desperate to repair the structure of her world in order to save her ailing father and sinking home, this tiny hero must learn to survive unstoppable catastrophes of epic proportions. This imaginative, fantastical and visually striking drama, the debut feature film from director/co-writer Benh Zeitlin, has been nominated for 4 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Actress, Director and Adapted Screenplay. (Dir. by Benh Zeitlin, 2012, 93 mins., Rated PG-13, Fox Searchlight) Digital

I’m happy that this movie is returning to the Loft, as I saw the preview several times, but somehow missed its showing. And it’s hard to believe that the main actress young Quvenzhane is making her debut in this movie (and she’s already being nominated for Best Actress).

The Presidential Inauguration on the Big Screen!

Monday, January 21st at 8:00 a.m.

Free Admission!

TV on the big screen is made possible by Cox Communications.

Tasty and refreshing “Obama-mosas” will be available for sale at the snack bar! Raise a glass as President Obama officially takes office!

This year, celebrate MLK Day by joining together with others in the Tucson community to watch the live simulcast of President Barack Obama’s inauguration, projected on The Loft’s big screen! The official theme for the 2013 inauguration is “Faith in America’s Future,” commemorating the United States’ perseverance and unity, marking the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation! What could be a better reason to get up this early in the morning?

Commemorate this momentous moment AND celebrate the lasting legacy of the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with your fellow Tucsonans as we gather together to usher in the beginning of a new chapter in American history!

January 21, 2013 also happens to be the Martin Luther King Day holiday, so a celebration will be happening over at Old Main on the UA Mall from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. that day. This is a fitting coincidence of America’s first Half African American President’s 2nd inauguration on Martin Luther King Day. From Blog for AZ calendar:

March and Festival, University of Arizona Mall. March will begin at 9:00 a.m. in front of the MLK Center on the corner of 2nd Street and Mountain Avenue. The March will end in front of Old Main (East side). Speeches and entertainment begin at 10:00 a.m. For more information please contact Donna Liggins at (520) 237-7806 or Diedra Jones at (520) 370-6528.

Also at the Loft, a free movie “La Source” at 5 p.m. for MLK Day:

Narrated by Oscar-nominated actor Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda), the new documentary La Source tells the uplifting story of Josue Lajuenesse, who grew up in the rural town of La Source, Haiti, where the residents live without plumbing or electricity and must embark on a treacherous hike up a mountain every day in order to obtain clean water. Now working as a janitor at Princeton University by day and a cab driver by night, Lajeunesse is convinced that there must be a better way for his hometown friends and family to live. Together with his carpenter brother Chrismedonne, who still lives in Haiti, Lajeunesse decides to return to his country after the devastating 2010 earthquake and organize an effort to finally bring what is most fundamental to his village’s survival; clean water. This award-winning documentary from director Patrick Shen (Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality, The Philosopher Kings) is not just a movie about clean water and community transformation; it is a story of one unlikely hero, empowered by a vision, who did whatever it took to ignite the passion of people thousands of miles away to change the lives of those in La Source forever.
In 2011, Josue Lajuenesse was awarded Princeton University’s MLK Day Journey Award, which recognizes efforts to continue the journey to achieve Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of social change. (Dir. by Patrick Shen, 2012, 71 mins., Transcendental Media) Digital

Good luck Mr. President for another 4 years.

UPDATE: THIS FILM SERIES WILL NOT BE SHOWING AT THE LOFT, BUT AT UA CAMPUS. CONTACT THE PROFESSOR FOR FURTHER INFO (Cecile McKee, Professor of Linguistics, University of Arizona, Mckee@u.arizona.edu). Further update: film series will be the Integrated Learning Center (ILC underground on the mall), room 130 at 3:30 p.m., with parking at the 2nd street garage (for a fee). Apparently the films are now free to the public. See map below of ILC building on UA campus.

This special film series is presented by The Loft Cinema in conjunction with the University of Arizona College of Social and Behavioral Sciences’ Spring, 2013 class “Meaning in Language and Society,” taught by Linguistics Professor Cecile McKee. The films in this series were chosen to illustrate the linguistic, psychological and social aspects of meaning.
Introductions and post-film discussions by Cecile McKee, Professor of Linguistics, University of Arizona.

All screenings are open to the general public.
Admission: $5.00 all tickets; $50.00 all-series pass (10 films). Update from above: films are now free to the public.

–Children of a Lesser God / Meaning in Language and Society
One showing only! Thursday, Jan 17th 2013

Based on the hit Broadway play, Children of a Lesser God tells the uplifting and complex love story of John Leeds (William Hurt), an idealistic special education teacher at a small New England school for the deaf, and a beautiful, headstrong deaf girl named Sarah (Marlee Matlin).

1987 Academy Award Winner! Best Actress / Marlee Matlin

–The King’s Speech / Meaning in Language and Society

The King’s Speech

One showing only! Thursday, Jan 24th 2013

After the death of his father King George V (Michael Gambon) and the scandalous abdication of King Edward VIII (Guy Pearce), Bertie (Colin Firth) who has suffered from a debilitating speech impediment all his life, is suddenly crowned King George VI of England.

2010 Academy Award Winner! Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay!

–The Color of Paradise / Meaning in Language and Society
One showing only! Thursday, Jan 31st 2013

Director Majid Majidi, whose Children Of Heaven was the first Iranian film to be nominated for an American Academy Award, returned to the screen with another moving, compassionate story of children in need.

–Do the Right Thing / Meaning in Language and Society
One showing only! Thursday, Feb 7th 2013

Spike Lee’s incendiary, ground-breaking look at race relations in America, circa 1989, is a colorful, exuberant and finally devastating modern masterpiece – quite possibly the best film ever made about race in America, revealing racial prejudices and stereotypes in all their guises and demonstrating how a deadly riot can erupt out of a series of small misunderstandings.

–Snatch / Meaning in Language and Society
One showing only! Thursday, Feb 14th 2013

Featuring a stellar cast of highly watchable character actors, including Jason Statham, Dennis Farina, Benicio Del Toro and perhaps most memorably of all, Brad Pitt as a virtually incomprehensible Irish gypsy/boxer, Snatch is a turbo-charged comic caper that doesn’t slow down until the final frame.

–L’Auberge Espanol (The Spanish Apartment) / Meaning in Language and Society
One showing only! Thursday, Feb 21st 2013

The charming French comedy starring Audrey Tautou and Romain Duris!

–Grand Illusion / Meaning in Language and Society
One showing only! Thursday, Feb 28th 2013

Long acknowledged as one of the great classics of world cinema, Grand Illusion received Best Foreign Film awards from the New York Film Critics Circle and National Board of Review, Best Overall Artistic Contribution from the Venice Film Festival (under Mussolini), and an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture – the first ever for a foreign language film.

–Chinese Take-Away / Meaning in Language and Society
One showing only! Thursday, Mar 7th 2013

An imaginative blend of black humor, reluctant romance, fish-out-of-water comedy and odd-couple buddy movie, Chinese Take-Away provides another opportunity for Ricardo Darin (The Secret in their Eyes) to show why he is considered one of the best actors in the world today.

–Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country / Meaning in Language and Society
One showing only! Thursday, Mar 21st 2013

Borrowing its subtitle (and several lines of dialogue) from Shakespeare, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country finds Admiral Kirk (William Shatner) and his fellow Enterprise crew members on a diplomatic mission to negotiate peace with the revered Klingon Chancellor Gorkon (David Warner).

–A Serious Man / Meaning in Language and Society
One showing only! Thursday, Mar 28th 2013

From Oscar-winning writers/directors Joel and Ethan Coen comes this darkly humorous story of an ordinary man’s search for clarity in a universe where Jefferson Airplane is on the radio and F-Troop is on TV.

What an interesting assortment of films concentrating on speech and language. Having lived in England (Oxford & Cambridge) where the British English is a tad different than our American English, I know only too well how different language can be, for the art of communication in any society. I’ve seen at least six of these films and hope to view some of the others in this film series.