Summer 2004 Season

FALL 2005 Series Recap

11/28 Fall Closer - TRANSAMERICA

TRANSAMERICA tells the story of Bree (Felicity Huffman), a conservative transsexual woman who takes an unexpected journey when she learns that when she was a he, she fathered a son (Kevin Zegers), now a teenage runaway hustling on the streets of New York.

Cast:
Felicity Huffman
Kevin Zegers
Fionnula Flanagan
Elizabeth Peña
Graham Greene
Burt Young
Carrie Preston
Venita Evans
Jon Budinoff
Raynor Scheine

Written and Directed by Duncan Tucker
Produced by: Linda Moran; Rene Bastian; Sebastian Dungan
Executive Producer: William H. Macy
Associate Producer: Lucy Cooper
Director of Photography: Stephen Kazmierski

HOST: PETER TRAVERS

GUEST:

Fionnula Flanagan

Official Site: Link Link
queerday.com

10-21- Mrs. Palfrey at The Claremont

Dan Ireland's latest film is the comedy drama, "Mrs Palfrey at The Claremont", based on the best selling novel of the same name, by the late, celebrated English author, Elizabeth Taylor, for Cineville and Picture Entertainment. The story centers around an elegant elderly lady (Mrs Palfrey) who, after being recently widowed, moves from Scotland to London to be near to her 26 year old grandson, Desmond. When Desmond fails to return any of her several phone calls, or visit her at the resident hotel she is staying (The Claremont), fate brings her together with a young writer, Ludovic Meyer, after she has an accident outside his basement flat.

Cast:
Joan Plowright
Rupert Friend
Anna Massey
Robert Lang
Carl Colpaert
Zoe Tapper
Claire Higgins
Michael Culkin
Timothy Bateson
Marcia Warren

Dan Ireland - Director
Zachary Matz - Producer
Lee Caplin - Executive Producer
Carl Colpaert - Executive Producer

GUEST – Director: DAN IRELAND
HOST – CHARLEY TAYLOR

Official Site: Link

HAROLD RAMIS stops by to discuss his new film ICE HARVEST starring John
Cusack, Billy Bob Thorton, Connie Nielsen, and Oliver Platt

HAROLD RAMIS (Writer/Director)

As a key contributor to the American comedy scene for over three decades,
Harold Ramis has made people laugh through his writing, acting, and
directing - and often a combination hereof - on some of the most successful
screen comedies of all time.

Analyze That (2002)
Bedazzled (2000)
Analyze This (1999)
Groundhog Day (1993)
Rover Dangerfield (1991)
Ghostbusters II (1989)
Caddyshack II (1988)
Meatballs III: Summer Job
Ghostbusters (1986)
Armed and Dangerous (1986)
Club Paradise (1986)
Back to School (1986)
Ghost Busters (1984)
Stripes (1981)
Caddyshack (1980)
Meatballs (1979)
Animal House (1978

11/14 – ICE HARVEST

"t's Christmas Eve in rainy, icebound Wichita, Kansas, and this year Charlie Arglist (John Cusack) just might have something to celebrate. Charlie, an attorney for the sleazy businesses of Wichita, and his unsavory associate, the steely Vic Cavenaugh (Billy Bob Thornton), have just successfully embezzled $2,147,000 from Kansas City boss Bill Guerrard (Randy Quaid).

Even so, the real prize for Charlie would be the stunning Renata (Connie Nielsen), who runs the Sweet Cage strip club. Charlie's fondest Christmas wish is to slip out of town with Renata. But, as daylight fades and a storm whirls, everyone from Charlie's drinking buddy Pete Van Heuten (Oliver Platt) to the local police begin to wonder just what exactly is in Charlie's Christmas stocking. For Charlie, the 12 hours of Christmas Eve are filled with nonstop twists and turns, both on the ice and off." Movie Web

Cast:
John Cusack
Billy Bob Thornton
Connie Nielsen
Randy Quaid
Oliver Platt
Ned Bellamy

Director: Harold Ramis
Screenwriters: Richard Russo & Robert Benton
Based on the novel by: Scott Phillips

Producers: Albert Berger, Ron Yerxa
Executive producers: Richard Russo, Glenn Williamson
Director of photography: Alar Kivilo
Music: David Kitay

GUEST: HAROLD RAMIS; Actor, Producer, Director, Executive Producer, Screenwriter, Ghostbuster

Harold Ramis

HOSTS: DAVID EDELSTEIN & CHARLEY TAYLOR

Offical Site(s): Link Link

BOUNS DOUBLE FEATURE:

The SYRIAN BRIDE

11/7 - Good Morning, Night

The kidnapping and killing of Aldo Moro, Italy's former prime minister and head of the Christian Democrat party, was a cataclysmic event no Italian can forget. Moro was taken hostage by Red Brigade members in March 1978; almost two months elapsed while negotiations were pursued in vain. His bullet-riddled body was found on the ninth of May after a phone call alerted the authorities. A shocking crime had been committed and Italy teetered on the edge of political chaos. Marco Bellocchio turns to this troubled period of Italian history in GOOD MORNING, NIGHT, producing a film of immense complexity and devastating emotional power.

Cast:
Maya Sansa,
Luigi Lo Cascio,
Pier Giorgio Bellocchio,
Giovanni Calcagno,
Roberto Herlitzka

Director:
Marco Bellocchio

PRODUCER(S):
Marco Bellocchio, Sergio Pelone

WRITER(S):
Marco Bellocchio

STUDIO:
Wellspring Media

HOST: CHARLEY TAYLOR

GUEST: GAETANA MARRONE-PUGLIA

GAETANA MARRONE-PUGLIA (Ph.D., Northwestern U.) specializes in modern Italian literature and Post World War II Italian cinema. Her principal publications include articles in the 19th- and 20th-century literature, stylistics, politics, film, and cultural studies. She is the author of La drammatica di Ugo Betti: Tematiche e archetipi (Novecento Editrice, 1988), which won the American Association of Italian Studies Triennial Best Book award in 1990, of The Gaze and the Labyrinth: The Cinema of Liliana Cavani (Princeton University Press, 2000), and the editor of New Landscapes in Contemporary Italian Cinema ("Annali d'italianistica," 1999). She is presently completing a study of Rosso di San Secondo's novels and working on a book on filmmaker Francesco Rosi. Marrone-Puglia has also produced two award-winning films: a cinematic adaptation of a Betti play, Woman in the Wind (1990), starring Colleen Dewhurst (Gold Award, Houston International Film Festival, 1990) and a feature length documentary on Princeton's intellectual and social history, Princeton: Images of a University (1996), which qualified her for the Academy Awards. An Associate Professor of Italian, Marrone-Puglia teaches interdisciplinary courses on cinema in conjunction with the Program in the Study of Women and Gender and the Program of Freshman Seminars. She is co-editor of Italian Culture and serves on several editorial boards. She has served as Departmental Representative for juniors and seniors from 1991-1995 and as Director of the Program in Italian Studies from 1991-97. She is currently Departmental Representative for 2000-01.

Offical Site: Link

10/17-PARADISE NOW

Two young Palestinian men, Khaled and Said, are both recruited to carry out a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv. The two men are allowed to spend what is presumably their last night alive with their families. However, since absolute secrecy must be maintained and they can tell nobody of their mission, theirs can be no proper farewell. The next morning, the men are brought to the border. The bombs have been attached to their bodies in such a way as to make them completely hidden from view. However, the operation does not go according to plan and the two friends lose sight of each other. Separated from each other and left to their own devices, it's up to them to face their destiny and stand up for their convictions...

Cast:
Hiam Abbass,
Lubna Azabal,
Kais Nashef,
Ali Suliman,
Amer Hlehel

Directed by: Hany Abu-Assad

HOST: GODFREY CHESHIRE

GUEST: Dr. Illana Feldman

Ilana Feldman
Ilana Feldman joins the Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies as an Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow and Director of Graduate Studies for the center's M.A. program. She received her B.A. from Wesleyan University (1991), M.A. in Near Eastern Studies from NYU (1994), and Ph.D. in Anthropology and History from the University of Michigan (2002). Her dissertation, on the civil service in Gaza during the British Mandate (1917-1948) and Egyptian Administration (1948-1967), received both the Malcom H. Kerr Award (social sciences) from the Middle East Studies Association and a Distinguished Dissertation Award from Michigan. Currently writing a book developed from her dissertation, she is also researching the development of the categories "refugee" and "citizen" in Gaza through the delivery of humanitarian relief in the early 1950s. Previously, Dr. Feldman was a Mellon Fellow at the Society of Fellows in the Humanities and Lecturer in Anthropology at Columbia University.

Official Site Link
Warnerbros

10/17 THE MATADOR

Pierce Brosnan stars as Julian Noble, a devil-may-care hitman who suddenly hits a mid-life crisis when he realizes he has no friends. After a chance meeting in a hotel bar in Mexico City with affable, down-on-his-luck businessman Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear), Julian reaches out in desperation to make a human connection, and comedy ensues when Danny is simultaneously fascinated and appalled by what Julian does for a living.

CAST:
Pierce Brosnan
Greg Kinnear
Hope Davis
Philip Baker Hall
Adam Scott
Dylan Baker

Director: Richard Shepard

Writer: Richard Shepard

Producers :
Pierce Brosnan,
Beau St. Clair,
Sean Furst,
Bryan Furst

GUEST:
DIRECTOR RICHARD SHEPARD

HOST PETER TRAVERS

Official Site: Link

10/10 - THE SQUID AND THE WHALE

Bernard Berkman, the patriarch of an eccentric Brooklyn family, claims to have been a famous novelist but is now reduced to teaching. His wife Joan discovers a literary talent of her own, and it breaks up the family, leaving the two teenage sons, Walt, 16, and Frank, 12, divided between their parents. The wife starts an affair with her younger son's tennis coach, while the husband starts sleeping with a student whom his elder son is courting.

CAST:
Jeff Daniels
Laura Linney
Jesse Eisenberg
Owen Kline
Halley Feiffer

Director:
Noah Baumbach
Writer:
Noah Baumbach

Producer:
Peter Newman
Wes Anderson
Charles Corwin
Clara Markowicz

GUEST: Producer Peter Newman

In a 25-year career, Peter Newman has produced over thirty films. They include Horton Foote’s 1918, Spalding Gray’s SWIMMING TO CAMBODIA, John Sayles’ THE SECRET OF ROAN INISH, and Wayne Wang’s SMOKE.. He is also preparing films based on the lives of Janis Joplin, Bill Veeck, and Strom Thurmond. Newman was born in New York, and is a graduate of Northwestern University.

Host: David Edelstein
Offical Site: link

BOUNS DOUBLE FEATURE:
Ushpizin

Jerusalem. Moshe and Mali, a poor childless Orthodox couple, find themselves penniless on the eve of the Jewish holy day of Succoth. As they both pray desperately to the Lord to help them, the impossible happens. Their prayers are heard and they receive an unexpected charitable donation. However, a miracle doesn’t come without a test, as two escaped convicts appear uninvited on the couple's doorstep, friends from Moshe’s shady secular past. Moshe and Mali believe it is another sign and that God will bless them with children if they follow the religious custom of receiving guests for the holy day (Ushpizin).

Cast:
Shuli Rand,
Michal Bat-Sheva Rand,
Shaul Mizrahi,
Ilan Gannai,
Avraham Abutbul

Directed by: Gidi Dar
Produced by: Rafi Bukai, Gidi Dar

Runtime: Israel:90 min
Country: Israel
Language: Hebrew

OPENING NIGHT OF THE FALL 2005 SEASON

10/5 - WED - Good Night, And Good Luck

Good Night, And Good Luck takes place during the early days of broadcast journalism in 1950's America. It chronicles the real-life conflict between television newsman Edward R. Murrow and Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. With a desire to report the facts and enlighten the public, Murrow, and his dedicated staff - headed by his producer Fred Friendly and Joe Wershba in the CBS newsroom - defy corporate and sponsorship pressures to examine the lies and scaremongering tactics perpetrated by McCarthy during his communist 'witch-hunts'. A very public feud develops when the Senator responds by accusing the anchor of being a communist. In this climate of fear and reprisal, the CBS crew carries on and their tenacity will prove historic and monumental.

Cast:
George Clooney
David Strathairn
Robert Downey Jr.
Patricia Clarkson
Jeff Daniels
Tate Donovan
Ray Wise
Frank Langella
Alex Borstein
Robert John Burke
Reed Diamond
Tom McCarthy
Glenn Morshower
Katherine Phillips Moser
Grant Heslov
Matt Ross

Director:
George Clooney
Producer: George Clooney
Steven Soderbergh
Grant Heslov

Screenwriter:
George Clooney
Grant Heslov

HOST - PETER TRAVERS

GUEST - Ron Simon

Ron Simon has been curator of television at the New York Museum of Television & Radio since the early 1980s. He is also an adjunct associate professor at Columbia University, New York University and Hunter College, where he teaches courses on the history of the media. Simon has written many publications, including The Encyclopedia of Television, and served as host and creative consultant for the CD-Rom Total Television. A member of the editorial board of Television Quarterly, Simon has lectured at museums and educational institutions throughout the country.

Official Site: Link Link

THE MUSEUM OF TELEVISION & RADIO