Great cinema... twice monthly!

  Winter - Spring   1 9 9 8


Wednesday, January 7, 7 pm
The Sweet Hereafter (PG)

The Sweet Hereafter THE MOST HONORED FILM of the 50th CANNES FILM FESTIVAL: LE GRAND PRIX, International Film Critics prize for BEST FILM and Ecumenical Jury Prize for BEST FILM

"DEEPLY AFFECTING... INFUSED WITH THE HONESTY OF HUMAN FRAILTY... EXTRAORDINARY... BRILLIANT"

***** Richard Parsons-Judge, View Magazine




Wednesday, January 21, 7 pm
Career Girls (R)

Career Girls From Mike Leigh, the Academy Award-nominated director of SECRETS AND LIES, comes this funny and poignant story of friendship, youth, love and memories

"DAZZLING! KATRIN CARTLIDGE IS SPELLBINDING!" -- Movieline

"MOVING... GENUINELY ABSORBING AND ALWAYS SURPRISING" -- Movie Magazine

"CAPTURES THE SHOCK AND SPONTANEITY OF LIFE ITSELF!"

***½ Chicago Tribune




Wednesday, February 4, 7 pm
Designated Mourner (R)

Designated Mourner A totalitarian regime has swept away those who thought too much, finding such people dangerous. A discussion of human motivation, poetry, morality, the ambiguity of identity, government corruption, sexuality, and other issues takes place among three characters around a table.

Told entirely in direct address, this new screenplay from Wallace Shawn is an astonishing tour-de-force, as ground-breaking as his previous cult film My Dinner With André.

"THE WRITING IS INSIDIOUSLY SUPERB AND THE SPEAKERS ARE ALWAYS COMPELLING." -- Stanley Kauffmann, The New Republic

"LACED WITH SUBTLE HUMOUR ... A TERRIFIC PERFORMANCE FROM MIKE NICHOLS" -- *** James Berardinelli




Wednesday, February 18, 7 pm
Chef in Love (PG)

Chef in Love - Photo by Ron Phillips OSCAR NOMINEE
The scenery of Georgia provides a stunning and varied backdrop... Night trains, day trips, theaters and mountains are all stunningly photographed... an almost antique look reflecting the time period.

"Truly a labor d'amour" - Austin Chronicle
*** Rogert Ebert




Wednesday, March 4, 7 pm
Wings of the Dove (AA)

Wings of the Dove A story of intensity, sensuality and romantic intrigue based on Henry James' tale of passion, betrayal and the transformation of three people.

NOMINATED FOR 4 OSCARS! (Best Actress, Cinematography, Costume Design, Adapted Screenplay)

"VIVID AND UNFORGETTABLE... BEAUTIFUL CINEMATOGRAPHY, IMPRESSIVE SET DESIGN AND ACCOMPLISHED ACTING"
***½ - James Bernadelli




Wednesday, March 25, 7 pm
A Box of Moonlight (R)


"A BEAUTIFULLY NUANCED PERFORMANCE" - Marshall Fine (8/10)
Meet Al Fountain (JOHN TURTURRO), electrical engineer. Too punctual. Too precise. Too routine. But propelled by peculiar hallucinations and the discovery of his first gray hair, Al realizes that something's not quite right...


A Box of Moonlight

"MAGIC... BRILLIANT... DICILLO CREATES A LAND OF UNIVERSAL TRUTHS" 5 STARS! - Betsy Pickle

American Cinematographer (July 1997) (click on "Page 1" for a look-behind-the-scenes at the filming of A BOX OF MOONLIGHT...)




Wednesday, April 8, 7 pm
Eve's Bayou (AA)

Eve's Bayou
"MESMERIZING... ULTIMATELY STRENGTHENING" - Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple
An attractive, adulterous man; a woman trying to preserve her family; a child who sees and remembers too much. The same elements presented so coarsely in Soul Food come piercingly alive in Eve's Bayou. From the opening voice-over - The summer I killed my father, I was 10 years old- the film weaves a spell of magnolia and menace.

Eve's Bayou
In rural Louisiana in the '60s, and in the humid swamps of the Southern Gothic imagination, tenderness and terror are first cousins destined to marry. With scary assurance, novice writer-director Kasi Lemmons invades Faulkner-McCullers territory and makes it her own.





Wednesday, April 22, 7 pm
Irma Vep (AA)

Irma Vep ONE OF THE TEN BEST FILMS OF 1997!

- J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE
- Michael Atkinson, VILLAGE VOICE
- John Anderson, NEWSDAY
- Graham Fuller, INTERVIEW

"FRESH AND HILARIOUS... A DELICIOUS COMEDY OF BOISTEROUS FRENCH MANNERS" - Ella Taylor, Atlantic Monthly

"PURE JOY" - Georgia Brown, Village Voice

"Hong Kong action diva Maggie Cheung stars as a latex-suited reincarnation of Irma Vep, the super-criminaline of Feuillade's silent serial Les Vampires in this delirious, erotic and very funny satire on contemporary French cinema




Wednesday, May 6, 7 pm
The Ice Storm (AA)

The Ice Storm It was 1973, and the climate was changing...

WINNER CANNES FILM FESTIVAL
Best Screenplay - James Seamus

GOLDEN GLOBE NOMINEE
Best Supporting Actress Sigourney Weaver

"The Ice Storm takes place during Thanksgiving week, 1973, in New Canaan, Connecticut. On the political front, the nation was still bathed in the aftermath of Vietnam and President Nixon's regime was beginning to crumble as the Watergate situation escalated. With trust in the government giving way to cynicism and disillusionment, it was the end of an era.

"It was also the beginning of a time when... sexually and socially, everyone... is groping for answers, whether their age is fourteen or forty.

"FUNNY, POIGNANT, MOVING AND SENSITIVE" - 4 STARS! (out of 4) James Bernadelli

"VERY FUNNY... QUIETLY OBSERVANT"- 4 STARS! (out of 4) Roger Ebert




Vanessa Redgrave Wednesday, May 20, 7 pm
Mrs. Dalloway (PG)


"SUPERB, ONE OF THE YEAR'S BEST!" - 4 STARS! (out of 4) Jay Carr, Boston Globe

FREE OUTDOOR SCREENING! MARKET SQUARE, BELLEVILLE
Wednesday, May 27 at dusk


QFA MEMBERS' PARTY & SCREENING