Thursday, September 29, 2022

Manhattan Short returns to the Strand!!!

 


One screening only: Saturday, October 1 at 7 PM
 
It's time again for you to be the judge...
 
MANHATTAN SHORT today announced the Final Ten selections for its 25th Annual Short Film Festival, a worldwide event taking place in over 400 venues across six continents between September 22 and October 2, 2022. MANHATTAN SHORT is the only event of its kind. The Final Ten screen simultaneously across the world during a one-week period, with the Best Film and Best Actor awards determined by ballots cast by the audiences in each participating venue. By virtue of their selection by MANHATTAN SHORT, each short film is automatically Oscar-qualified.
 
The Final Ten MANHATTAN SHORT finalists hail from eight countries with films from Scotland, Czech & Slovakia, Spain, Australia, Finland and Lebanon, alongside two films each from France and USA. These Final Ten Films represent the best short films from among 870 submissions from 70 countries received by MANHATTAN SHORT for 2022, testimony to the enduring vibrancy and creativity of short films worldwide.
 
If the 10 short films presented by MANHATTAN SHORT have one common theme, it's how people deal with adversity in its various forms. Short films like The Blanket, Freedom Swimmer and Freefall explore how individuals react when caught up in large-scale, traumatic events. Adversity on a more personal level is the focus of short films like Warsha, Fetish, The Big Green and Love, Dad. Sometimes, the response is laughable, as in Save the Bees and The Treatment, especially when even the universe seems to be against you, as in Don vs Lightning. How these stories are told is varied as the directors that tell them. In short, there is plenty of drama and comedy interwoven with surprisingly effective newer ways of storytelling like animated documentaries. MANHATTAN SHORT also is a showcase for rising-star actors and recognizable favorites like Disney stalwart Peton List and Scotsman Peter Mullan, himself a prize-winning director, appearing in unexpected, talent-stretching roles.
 
The MANHATTAN SHORT Final Ten are:
Don vs Lightning (Scotland), Love, Dad (Czech & Slovakia),Save the Bees (USA),The Treatment (Spain), Freefall (France), Fetish (USA), Freedom Swimmer(Australia), The Blanket (Finland) Warsha (Lebanon) The Big Green (France).
 
All Final Ten short films become Oscar-qualified, meaning they will be automatically eligible for an Academy Award nomination by screening for a week at the Arena CineLounge in Hollywood in the county of Los Angeles from Sep 23 to Sept 29.
 
You Be the Judge!

Which of these Final Ten short films is the best? That's up to a worldwide audience to decide. Cinema-goers across the United States and around the globe will become instant film critics as they are handed a ballot upon entry that allows them to vote for the Best Film and Actor. MANHATTAN SHORT is the ultimate audience award that salutes the creative talents of both directors behind the camera and actors in front of it. Votes will be sent through to MANHATTAN SHORT HQ with the winner announced at ManhattanShort.com on Monday Oct 3, at 10AM EST. 
 
Tickets are $10 and available at Highway 61 Coffeehouse and at the door...

Friday, September 16, 2022

Movies events Saturday and Monday...My Cousin Vinny / Man with a Movie Camera

 My Cousin Vinny

Saturday, September 17 at 7 PM


My Cousin Vinny is coming to the Strand...
Marisa Tomei won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar and Joe Pesci proved how funny he could be in this story of clashing cultures...
"What's a Yute?"
"You're in Ala-f**k*n'-bama..."
"How do you cook your grits? You like 'em regular, creamy, or al dente?"
"Are we to believe that boiling water soaks into a grit faster in your kitchen than on any place on the face of the earth?!"
'It's got protein! We need protein!'
'Now I ask ya: Would you give a f--- what kind of pants the son of a b---- who shot you was wearing?'
'So, it's either wear the leather jacket, which I know you hate, or this. So, I wore this ridiculous thing for you.'
'However, in 1964, the correct ignition timing would be four degrees before top-dead-center.'
'My biological clock is ticking like this!/Lisa, I don't need this...'
'No, the defense is wrong!'
Come hear it and see it all again at the Strand...
Tickets are $10 and available at Highway 61 Coffeehouse or at the door.

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Man with a Movie Camera 
accompanied by live music
Monday, September 19 at 7 PM


A special event classic movie: Man with a Movie Camera accompanied by Live music.
Silent movies were never truly silent: they depended on musicians to play live music to complement the films. As part of their national tour. Montopolis, a chamber combo, under the direction of Justiin Sherburn, will give us a rare opportunity to experience this in the 21st Century. They have created a new score which they will be performing live along with the film.
Revered as a visual masterpiece and one of the greatest documentary films ever made, Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera (1929) was shot in Ukraine, and gives historical context to the current Russian invasion and lays bare the costs of the ongoing humanitarian crisis. The joyful original score by Montopolis celebrates the beauty and resilience of Ukraine’s people and aims to inspire American audiences to support the country in its time of need.
Vertov's feature film, produced by the film studio VUFKU, presents urban life in Moscow and the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Odesa during the late-1920s. It has no actors. From dawn to dusk Soviet citizens are shown at work and at play, and interacting with the machinery of modern life. To the extent that it can be said to have "characters", they are the cameramen of the title, the film editor, and the modern Soviet Union they discover and present in the film.
Man with a Movie Camera is famous for the range of cinematic techniques Vertov invented, employed or developed, such as multiple exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, match cuts, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, reversed footage, stop motion animations and self-reflexive visuals (at one point it features a split-screen tracking shot; the sides have opposite Dutch angles).
In the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound poll, film critics voted it the 8th greatest film ever made, and it was later named the best documentary of all time in the same magazine.
100% of the revenue from poster sales at these events are donated to UNICEF to support the refugee crisis in Ukraine.
Here's a link to a page with a trailer showing excerpts of the film and the band accompanying it:
https://www.montopolismusic.com/man-with-a-movie-camera
Okay , it's a Monday night, but this is special. Come see this once in a lifetime event...
Tickets are $15 and available at the Highway 61 Coffeehouse as well as at the door.
And free popcorn.