City Guide
October Films
October Films
Note: Educational documentaries are listed with the daily Events.
Michigan Theater Foundation. Unless there is a live show in the main theater, 2 or 3 different films are shown, usually more than once each, almost every night. For complete, updated schedules, see michtheater.org or call 668–TIME. Tickets (unless otherwise noted): $9 (children, students, seniors, & veterans, $7; MTF members, $6.50). Michigan Theater, times TBA unless otherwise noted.
Oct. 1 & 2: “Brick Lane” (Sarah Gavron, 2007). Drama about a young Bangladeshi woman stuck in an unsatisfying arranged marriage in London while her sister lives a carefree life in Bangladesh.
Oct. 3–9: “Religulous” (Larry Charles, 2008). Documentary of comic Bill Maher’s take on the state of world religion.
Oct. 3–6 & 8 & 9: “Frozen River” (Courtney Hunt, 2008). Drama about 2 single mothers who smuggle goods across the Mohawk reservation at the border of New York and Quebec. English, French; subtitles.
Oct. 5: “The Freshman” (Fred Newmeyer, 1925). Silent film starring Harold Lloyd as a goofy freshman who becomes the campus laughingstock when he tries to play it cool. With live organ accompaniment. 3 p.m.
Oct. 6: “The Purple Rose of Cairo” (Woody Allen, 1983). Comedy-fantasy about a lonely housewife who is startled when the matinee idol of her dreams literally walks off the screen and into her life. Mia Farrow, Jeff Daniels. 7 p.m.
Oct. 11–13 & 15 & 16 (tentative): “Battle in Seattle” (Stuart Townsend, 2007). Drama based on the huge 1999 protest-turned-riot against the World Trade Organization. Woody Harrelson, Charlize Theron.
Oct. 12: Toyota Family-Friendly Film Series. “Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit” (Nick Park and Steve Box, 2005). A claymation film about an absentminded inventor and his hyperintelligent dog who set out to discover the mystery of their village’s garden problems. Kids 12 & under, free.
Oct. 13: “Radio Days” (Woody Allen, 1987). Nostalgic, poignant portrait of a boy growing up in the Depression mesmerized by the stories on the radio. Seth Green, Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest, Danny Aiello. 7 p.m.
Oct. 16: “The Order of Myths” (Margaret Brown, 2008). Documentary about segregation of Mardi Gras celebrations in Mobile, Alabama. Followed by a Q&A with director Brown. 7 p.m.
Oct. 19 & 21 (tentative): “Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story” (Stefan Forbes, 2008). Documentary about the late blues-playing chairman of the Republican National Committee who mentored George W. Bush and Karl Rove and, according to some, played a crucial role in America’s political shift to the right.
Oct. 20: “Zelig” (Woody Allen, 1983). Clever mockumentary, using vintage newsreel footage, of a changeable man who became a celebrity in the 1920s. Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Garrett Brown. 7 p.m.
Oct. 22 & 23: “Encounters at the End of the World” (Werner Herzog, 2007). Documentary about Antarctic researchers and their extreme subjects, from elusive, spiritlike neutrinos to suicidal penguins.
Oct. 24–30: “A Girl Cut in Two” (Claude Chabrol, 2007). Dark comedy about a TV meteorologist and the 2 very different men she pursues. French, subtitles.
Oct. 27: “The Producers” (Mel Brooks, 1968). Busby Berkeley meets the Third Reich in this outrageous comedy classic about 2 con men trying to fleece their investors by producing a surefire flop, the musical Springtime for Hitler. Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn. 7 p.m.
Oct. 28: “Forgiveness” (Ian Gabriel, 2004). Drama set in South Africa about a disgraced ex-cop and his relationship with the family of the activist he killed. Followed by a Q&A with U-M screen arts & cultures professor Lucia Saks. FREE. 764–5513. 7 p.m.
Oct. 31: “Happy-Go-Lucky” (Mike Leigh, 2008). Drama about an optimistic North London schoolteacher whose circumstances challenge her sunny disposition.
Oct. 31: “Phantom of the Opera” (Rupert Julian, 1925). Classic silent melodrama starring Lon Chaney as the vengeful composer who lives in the catacombs under the Paris Opera House. Live organ accompaniment.
Docu Fest. Screening of a different documentary film every Tuesday. FREE. 761–6000. Amer’s Delicatessen, 312 S. State, 7 p.m.
Oct. 7: “Patent for a Pig” (2006). Documentary about controversy surrounding the efforts of Monsanto to patent naturally occurring gene sequences in pigs.
Oct. 14: “Orwell Rolls in His Grave” (Robert Kane Pappas, 2003). Documentary about the sad state of the mass media and how it got that way.
Oct. 21: “Control Room” (Jehane Noujaim, 2004). Engaging documentary portrait of the Arabic news service Al-Jazeera.
Oct. 28: “9/11: Press for Truth” (Ray Nowosielski, 2006). Documentary about the 9/11 attacks.
Jewel Heart Buddhist Center. Oct. 24: Feature film TBA, followed by discussion. FREE. 994–3387. Jewel Heart (1129 Oak Valley Dr. just south of Ann Arbor–Saline Rd.), 7 p.m.
Melange Subterranean Bistro. “Sunday Night Movie & Dinner” with dinner (salad, entree, & dessert) followed by screening of a classic or contemporary movie. Menu items range from $5 to $30. Space limited; reservations recommended. 222–0202. Melange (314 S. Main), 6:30 p.m.
Oct. 5: “Any Given Sunday” (Oliver Stone, 1999). A fictitious pro football powerhouse franchise fallen on hard times struggles to regain its former glory. Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx, Dennis Quaid.
Oct. 12: “Field of Dreams” (Phil Alden Robinson, 1989). Heartwarming baseball fantasy about an Iowa corn farmer who hears a voice telling him to build a baseball diamond in his fields. When he does, ghosts of the 1919 Chicago White Sox show up to play. Kevin Costner, Ray Liotta, James Earl Jones.
Oct. 19: “What
Happens in Vegas” (Tom Vaughan,
2008). Romantic comedy
about a man and a woman, both down on their luck, who get married
after they meet in Las Vegas. Cameron Diaz, Ashton Kutcher, Queen
Latifah.
Oct. 26: “21: The Movie” (Robert Luketic, 2008). An MIT grad joins a blackjack team in an effort to earn the money to pay for medical school. Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth, Laurence Fishburne.
St. Thomas Lutheran Church. “Big Screen Film.” Free. 663–7511. St. Thomas, 10001 Ellsworth (west of Parker). 7 p.m.
Oct. 24: “The Hammer of God” (2007). Drama based on Swedish Lutheran pastor Bo Giertz’s novel about 3 Swedish pastors who learn about spirituality by failing in their duties. Swedish, subtitles.
U-M Campus Chapel. Free. 668–7421. Campus Chapel Center for Faith and Scholarship (1236 Washtenaw Ct.), 8 p.m.
Oct. 18: “Into the Wild” (Sean Penn, 2007). Drama about an idealistic young man who leaves his past for the purity of the Alaskan wilderness.
U-M Center for Chinese Studies. Chinese Documentary Film Series. Free. 764–6308. Angell Hall Auditorium A (entrance at the Fishbowl on the east side of the bldg.). 7 p.m.
Oct. 4: “Care and Love” (Ai Xiaoming, 2007). Documentary about the emerging consciousness of their own rights in people in the Chinese countryside as they become aware of the problem of AIDS in their midst. Mandarin, subtitles.
Oct. 11: “China Blue” (Micha Peled, 2005). Documentary, filmed clandestinely, about Chinese sweatshop workers that follows a pair of denim jeans from manufacture to sale. Chinese & English, subtitles.
Oct. 25: “Red Capitalism: China’s Economic Revolution” (CBC, 1995). Documentary about the Shenzhen province, a former farming village that has grown into the Mecca of Chinese capitalism, with more than 3 million people and some 58,000 transnational joint ventures. Chinese & English, subtitles.
U-M Center for Japanese Studies. Free. 763–4301. Lorch Hall Askwith Auditorium (611 Tappan), 7 p.m.
Oct. 3: “Akira” (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988). Anime classic about a bike gang leader who saves a friend involved in a secret government project. Dubbed in English.
Oct. 10: “My Neighbors the Yamadas” (Isao Takahata, 1999). Comedy about the everyday life of a contemporary Tokyo family. Dubbed in English.
Oct. 17: “Princess Mononoke” (Hayao Miyazaki, 1997). Complex fantasy adventure by this celebrated Japanese anime artist. In the Iron Age, a lone samurai in search of a cure for a curse finds himself in the middle of a war between animalistic forest gods and a mining colony. Dubbed in English.
Oct. 24: “Metropolis” (Rintaro, 2001). Hallucinatory, intricate, thoughtful animated tale of an evil duke’s scheme to use humanoids to take over a dazzling futuristic city. Japanese, subtitles.
Oct. 31: “Book of the Dead” (Kihachiro Kawamoto, 2005). Beautiful and haunting stop-motion animation about an aristocratic woman in feudal Japan who sees a vision of a Buddha while copying sutras. Later, the woman is visited by the ghost of a prince buried in the monastery. Japanese, subtitles.
U-M Max Kade House. Free. 764–5018. Max Kade house (Baits II, 1440 Hubbard, North Campus), 7–10 p.m.
Oct. 8: “The Lives of Others” (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006). An East German Stasi interrogator assigned to spy on a suspect playwright and his girlfriend becomes dangerously interested in their lives. German, subtitles.
Oct. 22: “Bandits” (Katja von Garnier, 1997). Four female cons who have formed a band get a chance to escape when they are hired to play a police ball. Katja Riemann. German, subtitles.
WCBN-FM. 763–3500.
Oct. 14: “Leningrad Cowboys Go America” (Aki Kaurismaki, 1989). Marx Brothers–style road movie about an inept Russian polka-turned-rock band—with foot-long pompadours—that leaves Siberia to seek its fortune in America but finds success and happiness via an improbable gig as a wedding band in Mexico. FREE admission. 763–3500. Live at PJ’s (102 S. First), 9 p.m.
