This season has been dominated by new cinema, due in no small part to the combination of a bigger screen, better projector, and HD players (Blu-ray and HD-DVD). Next week, we should be finished upgrading the sound system as well, so the temptation to show modern works will be even greater.

As an antidote to this trend, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie provided an opportunity for us to step back in time, not only as a period movie (1932), but to a period of film-making that can seem heavy-handed when at its worst. With a wonderful performance by Maggie Smith, a taught dialogue, and an underlying subtext of fascism on the rise in Europe,  The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie remains an engaging watch, with a good helping of laughter. Too bad there were only ten of us here to enjoy it.

People often ask, “How do you choose the movies you show?” Well, in this case, a conversation at the dog run brought Moon to our attention. The description was intriguing, and my fellow dog walker was someone whose opinion I felt compelled to trust. How random is that? Still… what if we hadn’t had that conversation? Not many of our friends had even heard of Moon. It was the latest in a string of “moderns” to grace our screen, and a superb bit of film making, all the more impressive for being a debut. Sure… there will be those who belittle Duncan Jones’ success with Moon since he could surely take no wrong step under daddy David’s supervision (and people assume that that supervision existed, somehow), but they’d be missing the point: a good movie is a good movie is a good movie.

Hell, we’re even happy to cut the unbearably confident Canadian James Cameron some slack… whatever we thought of him before, Avatar is undeniably two-and-a-half hours of wonderful entertainment… even if we’ve seen the story lines played out before. I can’t remember feeling so exhilarated at the close-up of an opening eye. Oops. Did I spoil something for you?

Next time, something old. After that we’re going 7.1 surround sound, so I guess we’ll choose something to show that off. Is that OK?

Andrea Arnold’s debut feature length film Red Road was a MovieNight hit in May 2007, and we had been waiting to see this one since it won the Jury Prize at Cannes last May. Fish Tank won critical acclaim, but a lot of viewers reviews (these days, anyone can express their opinion online… even me!) were scathing. The featured review on IMDb was entitled, “Fish Tank… it stank.” I can only assume that it’s a cultural thing. We watched it the week before screening, and concluded that this (not quite perfect) flick was excellent MovieNight fare. We’re not afraid of a little grit around here, are we? Apparently you agreed. I had to give up my very own personal bar stool at one point!

You may have heard that the hitherto unknown young lead, Katie Jarvis, was discovered by Arnold having a heated argument with her boyfriend on the platform of a train station. One can only imagine the sort of language… Arnold found the courage to introduce herself, and the rest is history, as they say.

Two action films already this year!  What’s up with that?

Some weeks, I’m so indecisive about which direction to take MovieNight that, come Tuesday (invitation day, normally) I’m driving myself and everyone around me absolutely nutso.  I had a couple of films in mind but it was too late to Netflix them, so I headed to my local Blockbuster (yes, there is one still!) hoping that I might find either of them there. Nope. However, I noticed that they had The Hurt Locker as a “Hot New Release!”, and they had one copy on Blu-ray! The Hurt Locker was languishing at the top of my Netflix queue, with the notation Very long wait. Since I had been hearing a lot of good things about this somewhat under-hyped movie, I decided to break my golden rule of not screening anything at MovieNight that I hadn’t previously watched . We got lucky this time.

And, as for action films… the two we’ve shown this year are definitely mold-breakers… and great MovieNights.

When the Walt Disney logo lit up our screen, the question, “Is this a first, Richard?” rang out from one of the audience (that would be Chris, to be precise). Personally, I never imagined I would see the day, but an open mind prevailed. This movie was suggested a few years back by either Zach or Simon. Could someone refresh my memory? I’d love to give credit where due, on the Successful Suggesters page.

On the face of it, The (somewhat ironically named) Straight Story presents a heartwarming tale steeped in Americana; it might easily have been just another, well, Disney movie-but thanks to Mr. Lynch’s affection for the absurd, and the spacious (and often hilarious) camera work of Freddie Francis, we were delighted to spend almost 2 hours watching an old man drive a riding mower 350 miles. Unfortunately Flea got a bit bored, and had to be put out of the room… I guess you can’t please everybody!