Our year-end wrap-up of deserving films that never made it to our screens.

12:08 East of Bucharest Nov. 30, Dec. 1
My Brother’s Wedding Nov. 30, Dec. 2
Broken English Dec. 1, 3
Interview Dec. 2, 5
This is England Dec. 7, 9
Pierrot le Fou Dec. 7, *10
  *at 7:10, Reel Talk w/Chris Funderburg
10 Questions for the Dalai Lama Dec. 8, *11
  *NEW: at 7:05, w/Jonathan Demme & Tashi Dolma
Control Dec. 8, *12
  *at 7:15, Reel Talk w/Vicente Rodriguez Ortega
Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox Dec. 9
Delirious Dec. 13, 19
Inland Empire Dec. 14
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten Dec. 14, 15, *17
  *at 7:15, Reel Talk w/Chris Funderburg
Forever Dec. 15, 18
The Violin Dec. 16, 19
Live-In Maid Dec. 16, 20

SHOWTIMES/TICKETS	12:08 EAST OF BUCHAREST Nov. 30, Dec. 1 Award Winner, Cannes Film Festival Corneliu Porumboiu. 2006. 89 min. NR. Romania, in Romanian with subtitles. Tartan Films. "Acutely funny! Characterized by a precise and sneaky formal wit." (New York Times) Part of the current wave of Romanian movies - starting last year with The Death of Mr. Lazarescu and continuing with this year’s Cannes winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (to be released in 2008) - this is a deadpan lark about the tricks of memory as demonstrated when TV game show contestants recall where they were when dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was ousted.
SHOWTIMES/TICKETS	MY BROTHER’S WEDDING Nov. 30, Dec. 2 Charles Burnett. 1982. 81 min. NR. US. Milestone Films. "Astonishing! Marvelous and rare....So firmly and organically rooted in a specific time and place that it seems to contain worlds." (New York Times) Burnett’s follow-up to his acclaimed Killer of Sheep is a vibrant, funny-sad portrait of daily life in South Central L.A. that focuses on a man forced to choose between friends and family. Virtually unseen for the last two decades, it’s a treasure presented here in a beautifully restored director’s cut. Shown with Burnett’s short film Quiet Is Kept.
SHOWTIMES/TICKETS	BROKEN ENGLISH Dec. 1, 3 Zoe Cassavetes. 2007. 97 min. PG-13. US. Magnolia Pictures. "Well-acted, smartly directed." (New York Times) Parker Posey plays a still-single 30-something Manhattanite who’s been out on too many disastrous dates. Squeezed between her best friend with a "perfect" marriage on the one hand and her pushy mother on the other, she finally meets Prince Charming. Can he really be too good to be true? Writer/director Zoe Cassavetes’ surprising debut feature was a selection at the Sundance Film Festival.
SHOWTIMES/TICKETS	INTERVIEW Dec. 2, 5 Steve Buscemi. 2007. 83 min. R. US. Sony Pictures Classics. "Electric as theater and cinema.....Buscemi is a brilliant writer, director, and actor." (New York Magazine) When a contemptuous war reporter Pierre (Steve Buscemi, who also writes and directs) is assigned a puff piece on superficial pop diva Katya (Sienna Miller), their worlds collide - and the confrontation evolves into an exhilarating night of drinking and sparring, a passionate verbal chess game spiked with wit, deception, and sexual tension.
SHOWTIMES/TICKETS	THIS IS ENGLAND Dec. 7, 9 Shane Meadows. 2007. 100 min. NR. UK. IFC Films. "One of the year’s best movies...one of the simplest and best re-creations of downscale urban England ever put on screen, and it’s both upsetting and very funny." (Salon) This gritty drama, set in Thatcher’s bleak Yorkshire, focuses on 12-year-old Shaun, a loner looking for male role models and finding them among the local skinheads. As the gang harasses members of local ethnic minorities, the stage is set for a rite of passage that will force Shaun to face up to his uncertain future.
SHOWTIMES/TICKETS	PIERROT LE FOU Dec. 7, *10 Jean-Luc Godard. 1965. 110 min. NR. France/Italy, in French/English with subtitles. Janus Films. "Dazzling...Pierrot’s plot instigates much action, considerable humor, eventual pathos, and a torrent of thought." (LA Times)  NEW PRINT! Godard’s final film with the two actors that defined his early career, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina, Pierrot le Fou follows the story of a middle-aged man who runs away with the family babysitter. With a playfully anarchic spirit, it mixes politics, musical comedy, and striking cinematography. It’s vintage Godard - a stylish and charming film by one of cinema’s greats. *Mon. Dec. 10 at 7:20: Reel Talk with JBFC programmer Chris Funderburg.
SHOWTIMES/TICKETS	10 QUESTIONS FOR THE DALAI LAMA Dec. 8, *11 Rick Ray. 2007. 85 min. NR. US. Monterey Media. "Expertly merging the mystical and the mundane, Mr. Ray presents a warm and well-rounded portrait" (New York Times) What do you ask the most revered figure in modern Tibetan Buddhism? This provocative documentary chronicles not only filmmaker Rick Ray’s actual conversation with the Dalai Lama but his efforts to think of 10 questions worthy of his consideration. An exploration of the struggles of the Tibetan people, of peace, wealth, truth - and so much more. NEW *Dec. 11 at 7:05 Speakers Added: Academy-award winning filmmaker Jonathan Demme and Tibetan Healer Tashi Dolma, who was raised in eastern Tibet but fled due to political persecution. She met the Dalai Lama in Darmsahla, India and was a physician in the clinic at Tibetan Children's Village. In the U.S. she has been the founding visionary for the Jienza Home of Hope, an orphanage for children in Tibet.
SHOWTIMES/TICKETS	CONTROL Dec. 8, *12 Award Winner, Cannes Film Festival Anton Corbijn. 2007. 121 min. R. UK/US. The Weinstein Company. "A riveting, visually arresting portrait of a tormented soul." (Variety) While the late-’70s British band Joy Division was one of the most influential groups of its time - inspiring U2, Kurt Cobain, The Cure, and countless others - its run was over after only one album, when lead singer Ian Curtis committed suicide. The feature debut of acclaimed rock photographer/music video director Anton Corbijn features Sam Riley’s unforgettable performance as the troubled young musician. *Wed. Dec. 12 at 7:15: Reel Talk with JBFC faculty member Vicente Rodriguez Ortega.
BUY TICKETS	DR. BRONNER’S MAGIC SOAPBOX Dec. 9 Sara Lamm. 2006. 88 min. NR. US. Balcony Releasing. "It’s like Capturing the Friedmans scrubbed to a happy ending." (Entertainment Weekly) Emanuel Bronner, an eccentric German-Jewish chemist, first escaped the Nazis and later an American mental institution and put family aside in his drive to spread his gospel: "To unite all mankind free." A breezy documentary about obsession, compassion, and that all-natural, peppermint-infused all-purpose soap that comes in a bottle plastered with utopian rants in tiny print.
SHOWTIMES/TICKETS	DELIRIOUS Dec. 13, 19 Tom DiCillo. 2007. 107 min. NR. US. Abramorama. "A strong, bitter movie about a milieu that the director intimately understands." (New Yorker) Tom DiCillo’s (Living in Oblivion) latest angry comedy takes on his central theme - the elusiveness of fame and the path of destruction it leaves in its wake. A pointed snapshot of the life of a second-rate paparazzo (Steve Buscemi), the street kid he takes under his wing (Michael Pitt), and the consequences of breaking through to the world of real celebrity.
BUY TICKETS	INLAND EMPIRE Dec. 14 David Lynch. 2006. 180 min. R. France/Poland/US, in English/Polish with subtitles. "One of the few films I’ve seen this year that deserves to be called art." (New York Times) In the latest uncompromising vision from the iconoclastic director of Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive, Laura Dern is dazzling as an actress who lands a dream role that devolves into nightmare. How best to approach this movie? Rolling Stone says: "My advice, in the face of such hallucinatory brilliance, is that you hang on."
SHOWTIMES/TICKETS	JOE STRUMMER: THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN Dec. 14, 15, *17 Julien Temple. 2007. 124 min. NR. Ireland/UK. IFC Films. "A rock documentary that’s as good as it gets." (Hollywood Reporter) As the frontman of the Clash, the charismatic, fired-up Joe Strummer was a punk icon. Four years after his death, he is remembered by filmmaker Julien Temple (who has three Sex Pistols films under his belt) in this inspiring and cautionary celebration. Featuring mountains of Clash footage and interviews. *Mon. Dec. 17 at 7:15: Reel Talk with JBFC programmer Chris Funderburg.
SHOWTIMES/TICKETS	FOREVER Dec. 15, 18 Heddy Honigmann. 2006. 97 min. Netherlands, in English/French with subtitles. First Run/Icarus Films. "An exquisite paean to the enduring nature of art." (Toronto Globe and Mail) Honigmann lets the cameras roll as pilgrims, local and foreign alike, pay their respects at the resting places of artists from Chopin to Proust, Oscar Wilde to Jim Morrison, at Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. "Why are you here?" she asks, capturing moments of intimacy and beauty in a deep meditation on art and our abiding bond with those who make it.
SHOWTIMES/TICKETS	THE VIOLIN Dec. 16, 19 Francisco Vargas. 2006. 98 min. Mexico, in Spanish with subtitles. Film Movement. "One of the most amazing Mexican films in many a year." (Guillermo Del Toro, director of Pan’s Labyrinth) Set during the Mexican peasant revolts of the 1970s, when a ragtag indigenous army fought to hold onto the local people’s ancestral farmlands, this drama follows the patriarch of a musical family who fiddles his way into the front lines. A deceptively modest movie shot in poetic black and white, with a soulful folk music soundtrack.
SHOWTIMES/TICKETS	LIVE-IN MAID Dec. 16, 20 Jorge Gaggero. 2005. 83 min. NR. Argentina/Spain, in Spanish with subtitles. Film Sales Company. Award Winner, Sundance Film Festival "Exquisite, diamond-tipped filmmaking." (Salon) Maybe the best - though least seen - foreign-language film of the year. A pitch-perfect drama starring Argentina’s greatest living actress, Norma Aleandro, as an upperclass divorcée who’s completely broke but can’t quite readjust her expectations, and Norma Argentina, a longtime housekeeper making her screen debut as the maid.
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