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Cinematinee March schedule announced

CineMatinee March 2010

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 (nearly 500) or perhaps featuring a star/story from New Mexico talent…film festival quality movies in an old adobe theatre!

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 south of the Mesilla Plaza.  For more information, please call 524-8287, and leave a message.

March 6- Humble Pie   (2007, 85 minutes, rated PG-13) Humble Pie tells the fun and inspiring story of a terminally optimistic working class dreamer who attempts to shed a few extra pounds, inspire others, and finally get his driver’s license so he can fuel up and set out on the road to success. Tracy (Hubbel Palmer) is a 300 pound grocery clerk who’s convinced he’s destined for greatness. While he’s not taking acting lessons from arrogant washed-up has-been Truman Hope (William Baldwin), Tracy can frequently be found mentoring stolid bag boy Kendis Cooley (Vincent Caso) and his friends despite the disapproval of the gang’s bullying boy-leader Shawn (Nick Lashaway).

Back at home, Tracy is forced to contend with the religious ramblings of his bible-thumping, self-loathing mother Agnes (Kathleen Quinlan) while simultaneously trying to lift the spirits of his lonely sister Peggy (Mary Lynn Rajskub). Later, as things begin to look up for the love-struck Peggy, Tracy finally begins to sense that true fame is just over the horizon…

March 13- Amargosa (2000, 90 minutes, not rated) Amargosa leaves no doubt that then 76-year- old dancer and artist Marta Becket is a remarkable person. When she was 43, she abandoned a rich New York art scene to forge an entirely new creative life in a tiny Death Valley ghost town.

Thin, graceful, wizened and disarmingly down to earth, Marta Becket is an inspiration. “Amargosa” treats her as such, catching her at work in the ornate Amargosa Opera House she pretty much restored single-handedly.

Director Todd Robinson’s portrait is an affectionate look at a woman who faced her own destiny one day and refused to blink. She’s out there, in the spiritual sense. But the film shows her as warmly human, not a desert kook.

Becket was a successful Broadway dancer traveling cross country with her husband when their car broke down. They were near Death Valley Junction, on the site of an abandoned adobe hotel complex. The place, Amargosa, was once operated by Pacific Coast Borax Co. and had a small, crumbling theater.

Becket decided on the spot that it was to be the home for her boundless creative energies.

The forthright artist went on with what essentially was her own private show. She choreographed and performed her own dances, at first to an audience of tumbleweeds. But over the course of six years, she painstakingly developed another audience — the Renaissance-looking crowd she painted in elaborate murals to fill her Amargosa Opera House with gawking spectators.

Eventually Becket was discovered by living audiences, mostly appreciators of art, who have gone to great lengths to see her work. Among the trickle of admirers was writer Ray Bradbury, who’s a fan.

The film is an engaging testament to the pursuit of dreams. Becket overcame much and worked hard to get where she is today, a relatively unknown artist in the middle of nowhere. But she loves her unique place in the world.

March 20- Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009, 96 minutes, rated R) With a stellar cast including Robin Wright Penn and Santa Fe resident, Alan Arkin, and with the assured hand of Rebecca Miller in directorial command (Miller also wrote the novel upon which the film is based) this film should draw in the literate crowd—and they won’t feel short-changed.

This drama, which is interspersed with fresh, mild comedy, gives Robin Wright Penn a gift of a role as Pippa Lee, a woman in her prime who is happily married with two grown-up children. Over the years she has honed her skills as a generous hostess and an excellent cook. Her marriage to legendary publisher Herb Lee (Arkin), who is 30 years her senior, is a relationship based on partnership. Naturally she wants the best for them on the threshold of their later years.

When Herb turns 80 the couple moves out of their luxury home in New York and into a formidable retirement village in Connecticut. This is an idyllic world that promises to allow the pair to spend their remaining time in quiet comfort. But instead of tranquility the move proves the catalyst for Lee to confront the demons from her past she had previously managed to ignore. The sea change is partly instigated through her relationship with a younger drifter (played by Keanu Reeves).

Miller thereafter cues plenty of flashbacks and flash-forward’s as she attempts to fill in the background of childhood and adolescence, which has plunged this woman to the verge of a nervous breakdown.

It’s all beautifully written and observed as you might expect from someone of Miller’s pedigree (daughter of the legendary Arthur Miller). Strong performances match the production value: particularly those contributed by Penn, Reeves and Arkin.

It is well carried  by the fine cast (there are striking turns from Winona Ryder as Pippa’s absent-minded friend and Monica Bellucci as Herb’s first wife) and Miller’s acutely sensitive and often very funny script make it a welcome respite from all the empty blockbusters going the rounds.

March 27- Major Dundee (1965, 136 minutes, rated PG-13—with special guest, Dwight Pitcaithley, former chief historian of the National Park Service) The restoration of Sam Peckinpah’s 1965 western Major Dundee is nothing short of magnificent, a noble attempt at restoring a famously wrecked masterpiece.   In 2005, surviving footage was patched back in, and a new musical soundtrack commissioned to replace the score Peckinpah hated. This raises some legitimate questions about interpreting a director’s intentions and about messing with film history, but Major Dundee–The Extended Version is such a rousing, mysterious experience, one feels grateful.

Major Dundee (Charlton Heston) is a vainglorious officer busted to the decidedly inglorious job of overseeing Confederate prisoners in a fort in 1864 New Mexico. A raid on an isolated hacienda gives him the excuse to mount an expedition into Mexico, chasing the perpetrators and perhaps a shot at greatness. His ragtag posse includes Confederate POWs, notably one Captain Ben Tyreen (Richard Harris), whose intense former friendship with Dundee is tainted with a sense of betrayal on both sides. (Heston and Harris, two actors not known for subtlety, are splendid.) Part Ahab, part Alexander the Great, Dundee leads the expedition away from its purpose and into a near-mythic kind of wandering.

Peckinpah gets everything right–the landscapes, the sneaky humor, the code of men. He also takes time to distinguish the supporting characters, such as Jim Hutton’s awkward young officer and Senta Berger’s stranded widow. The Peckinpah stock company of amazing character actors is in place, too, including James Coburn, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, L.Q. Jones, and Slim Pickens. It will never be exactly what Peckinpah envisioned, but now Major Dundee rides suspiciously close to greatness.

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