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Note for the new year – these classes fill fast.

Woodworking Level 1 Jan 24-Feb 21

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DEC 8 & 9 (7:10 & 9:00)

CATFISHDirectors: Ariel Schulman & Henry Joost (USA, 2010, 88 minutes; PG)

“ABSOLUTELY RIVETING!” –The Onion AV Club

“AFFFECTING, SURPRISING, HEARTBREAKING.” –Arizona Republic

“A DOCUMENTARY FOR THE INTERNET AGE. The filmmakers prove to be charismatic, at time hilarious, investigators of the unfolding mystery.” –St. Louis Post-Dispatch

There’s more suspense and shocking intimacy in this one-of-a-kind documentary than you’ll find in a dozen thrillers. You’ll laugh hard and cry too. Don’t let anyone, especially critics, spoil this story of Nev Schulman, 24, a New York photographer who strikes up a Facebook relationship with an eight-year-old Michigan girl and her family, including a hottie step-sister. When Nev decides to visit, accompanied by his brother Ariel, Henry Joost and their DV cameras, the film unravels its secrets. You’ll be talking about this one for weeks. –Rolling Stone

DEC 7 (7:10 & 9:10

PERSEPOLIS Directed by Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud

(France, 2007, 96 minutes; French/Persian with sub-titles; DVD; PG) Voiced by Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve and Danielle Darrieux

A wonderful spirit—defiant, funny, tender, self-mock-ing—suffuses this entrancing animated film from Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical graphic novels. Persepolis isn’t like any animated film you’ve ever seen. Hand-drawn in bold black-and-white images (with a splash of colour), it takes us on a very person-al journey through the political upheavals of modern Iran. Marjane’s story takes her into exile in Vienna, where she discovers first love (hilariously), betrayed love (even funnier) and the loneliness of exile. She returns to Tehran in the 1980s, where holding hands in public is penalized with a fine or a whipping…Persepolis is not to be missed.” –Newsweek “As modern as tomorrow’s headlines and as classic as an ancient myth.” –The Globe and Mail

SPOTLIGHT ON IRAN sponsored by the Middle East/Islamic Consortium of B.C.

DEC 14 (7:15 only) The director, Soren Johnstone, and producer, Michael Babiarz, will be here to answer your questions after the film!

PLAY WITH FIREDirector: Soren Johnstone (Canada, 2009, 84 minutes; DVD)

The hum from the smelter…The shift change…This is the heartbeat of a town. Play with Fire follows the unsettling life of 28-year old Christian. Having never left his small town, he wastes his days selling drugs to get by. His girlfriend, Melody, encourages him to come to the city with her in order to start over. Just as she leaves, his longtime friend Joel comes back to town bringing with him a risky plan that will help him fatten his wallet. All Joel needs is Christian’s help. This is where a story of twisted loyalty, love and loss begins. The beauty and grit of Trail, B.C inspired filmmaker Soren Johnstone to tell this tale.

DEC 19 (7:00 only)

LOVE ACTUALLYDirector: Richard Curtis (UK/USA, 2003, 135 min; DVD; 14A)

The ultimate British romantic comedy featuring a sterling all-star cast including Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Bill Nighy, Keira Knightley, and Rowan Atkinson. A movie as sweetly munchable as a Christmas cookie, it’s a toasty ensemble comedy in which a handful of lonelyhearts attempt to come out of their shells, and it’s going to make a lot of romantics feel very, very good; watching it, I felt cozy and charmed myself.” --Entertainment Weekly From the mak-ers of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Bridget Jones’ Diary, and Notting Hill.

DEC 20 (7:00 only)A CHRISTMAS TALE Un Conte de NoelDirected by Arnaud Desplechin (France, 2008, 153 min; DVD; French with subtitles; PG) Cast: Catherine Deneuve, Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Devo, Chiara Mastroianni

“EMOTIONALLY RICH AND CINEMATICALLY THRILLING!” –Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Nothing could be more energizing, more capti-vating, more pure pleasure on screen. Three gen-erations of a family are gathering under one roof to celebrate the holiday and endure each other. What results is a captivating portrait of the most gorgeously fractious dysfunctional family. All the love and hostility, warmth and mistrust is on display, as is the complexity of the human nature we all share. In achieving all this the director

is helped might-ily by his superb cast, includ-ing such well-known names as Catherine Deneuve, Mathieu Amalric and E m m a n u e l l e Devos. . –Los Angeles Times

DEC 21 (7:00 only) ALL SEATS: $4.75

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFEDirector: Frank Capra (USA, 1946, 129 min; DVD; rated G)

One of the most treasured films in Hollywood history. Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore star in Frank Capra’s sentimental tale about a small-town everyman who, one Christmas Eve, comes to think of his life as a failure. As he ponders suicide, an angel inter-venes to show him the terrifying world that would exist in his absence. This film has become synonymous with the spirit of the season. Happy Holidays, Movie lovers!

CINECENTA CLOSEDDEC. 22 – JAN. 3

DEC 15 (7:15 & 9:00)

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP Director: Banksy (UK/USA, 2010, 87 minutes; PG) Narrated by Rhys Ifans

“FIVE STARS! “Subversive, provocative and unexpected! This is a doc you don’t want to miss!” –LA Times

Banksy is a graffiti artist with a global reputation whose work can be seen on walls from New Orleans to the Palestinian West Bank. Fiercely guarding his anonymity to avoid prosecution, Banksy has so far resisted all attempts to be captured on film. Exit tells the incredible true story of how an eccentric French documentary maker attempted to locate Banksy, only to have the artist turn the camera back on its owner – with spectacular results. The film contains exclusive footage of Banksy, Shepard Fairey (famous for his Obama poster), Invader and many of the world’s most infamous graffiti artists at work. --Paranoid Pictures “Leaves viewers with a better sense of the gifted versus the phony.” –Time Out New York

DEC 16 (7:00 & 9:00)

GET LOW A true tall taleDirector: Aaron Schneider (USA, 2010, 104 min; PG) Cast: Robert Duvall, Bill Murray, Sissy Spacek, Bill Cobbs, Lucas Black

“CAPTIVATING! ROBERT DUVALL BLOWS YOU AWAY!” –Elle Robert Duvall is an indisputably great actor. As Felix Bush, a Depression-era hermit out of the Tennessee backwoods, Duvall finds the soul of a character who has shrouded himself in mystery for four dec ades. The plot goes from sim-mer to sizzle when Felix decides to throw a funeral party – his own. Better yet, he wants to be present at the service, which sounds more like a public stoning. Local funeral director Frank Quinn (Bill Murray) is eager to help Felix get low. All you need to know is that Get Low puts Duvall and Murray in the same movie. Only a fool would want to miss that. –Rolling Stone

DEC 17 & 18 (7:00 & 9:00)

SCORE: A HOCKEY MUSICALDirector: Michael McGowan (Canada, 2010, 94 min; PG) Cast: Olivia Newton-John, Thomas Mitchell, Allie MacDonald, Noah Reid, Nelly Furtado

Michael McGowan’s latest film mixes musical num-bers with Canada’s national sport in a zany cocktail featuring Glee alumna Olivia Newton-John and singer-songwriter Marc Jordan. In fact the film contains a galaxy of CanCon celebrity: musicians Nelly Furtado, Hawksley Workman and John McDermott, journal-ists George Stroumboulopoulos and Evan Solomon, sports anchor Stephen Kouleas, hockey star Theo Fleury. And, naturally, hockey dad Walter Gretzky. The film tells the story of Farley, a home-schooled teenage hockey natural (Noah Reid) who has never played an organized game. Much to the dismay of his intellectual parents (Newton-John and Jordan) and best friend (Allie MacDonald), Farley goes from obscurity to overnight fame. But Farley finds that hockey stardom comes with a price. The lyrics drive the plot, with 20 original songs, including one by the Barenaked Ladies. Choreographed sequences range from b-boy moves in the dressing room to swirling patterns on the ice. Like McGowan’s road movie One Week, this film could truly have been made only in Canada. --Vancouver International Film Festival

NOV 28 (3:00 matinee & 7:00 & 9:15)NOV 29 (7:00 & 9:15)

LET ME INDirector: Matt Reeves (USA, 2010, 116 min; 14A)

“ONE OF THE YEAR’S MOST POWERFUL THRILLERS!” –Hollywood Reporter

“THE SCARIEST, CREEPIEST AND MOST ELEGANTLY FILMED HORROR MOVIE I’VE SEEN IN YEARS!” –New York Post

“BY FAR, ONE OF THE BEST-LOOKING FILMS OF THE YEAR!” –Austin Chronicle

Fans of Let the Right One In can relax. Cloverfield director Matt Reeves hasn’t ruined the elegant Swedish vampire story by remaking it. If anything, he’s made some improvements, including the addi-tion of a tense action-horror sequence in the middle of the film. While all that is artful about Let Me In comes straight from the original, the Hollywood version commands respect for not dumbing things down. Relocated from an icy burb outside Stockholm to equally chilly Los Alamos, New Mexico, Let Me In offers teenage misfit Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee, The Road) a chance to avoid growing up – which doesn’t involve being bitten or becoming a vampire himself. Instead, John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel suggests an arrange-ment in which a young girl, (Chloe Grace Moretz, Kick-Ass) suspended forever at age 12, seeks devoted caretakers who accompany her as she moves from city to city, feeding on human blood. --Variety

NOV 21 (3:00 & 7:00) NOV 22 (7:00 only)

2012: SCIENCE OR SUPERSTITIONDirector: Nimrod Erez (USA, 2009, 78 minutes; DVD)

December 21, 2012: the end date of the sophisticated Long Count Calendar created by the ancient Maya in Central America. Countless books and websites, magazine articles and newspaper headlines debate its meaning, with enthusiasts in two camps: those forecasting apocalypse–the end of time–and those who see a coming renewal, a rebirth of conscious-ness. Adding fuel to the debate, some scientists see the increasing number of natural disasters in recent years as evidence of a catastrophic climax of events in 2012. How much of what we’re hearing is science and how much is superstition? In this film the lead-ing researchers, writers and scientists in the field tell us exactly what this date means to them, why it’s important, and what we should expect. Featured in the film are Graham Hancock, John Major Jenkins, Daniel Pinchbeck, Alberto Villoldo, Anthony Aveni, Robert Bauval, Jim Marrs, Walter Cruttenden, Lawrence E. Joseph, Alonso Mendez, Douglas Rushkoff, John Anthony West and Benito Vegas Duran. The producers attempted to interview experts who address the issues from varying and some-times conflicting perspectives. The goal was to present the viewer with a balanced look at the 2012 phenomenon. –Disinformation Company

NOV 24 & 25 (7:10 & 9:00)NOV 26 & 27 (3:00 matinee & 7:10 & 9:00)

WINDS OF HEAVENDirector: Michael Ostroff (Canada, 2010, 87 min; DVD)

This is a must-see - possibly one of the best films ever made about our province, these forests, and our history as newcomers. Few of us were as sensitive as Emily Carr, and no one has interpreted this place more profoundly in their art. Hats off to direc-tor Michael Ostroff, cinematographer John Walker, and everyone involved in this project; it is, for us, a very important story well-told, and surely for everyone, a sight to behold. Subtitled Emily Carr, Carvers, and the Spirits of the Forest, the project was to make “a filmic journey into the deep brooding mystery and inner beauty of Emily Carr’s paintings - a lyri-cal, luminescent and entertaining impression of the life of Carr and her connection to the First Nations people of the Northwest Coast.” Shot in Super 16mm film in Haida Gwai, Victoria and Vancouver, details of Carr’s paintings are folded into haunting images of our coastal landscapes, and fresh archival material. On a cinema screen, there is a spiritual intensity in the bright fau-vist extravagance emerging from the deep, dark and often wet shadows. This is indeed British Columbia, but as reflected in critical - not promotional - eyes. As Carr wrote in 1940, “Perhaps I shall never do anything beyond my Indian stuff because it stuck in my vitals when I was freshly maturing into young womanhood and my senses were keenly alert. The ever-growing universe called to the fast-developing me. The wild places and primitive people claimed me.” Incisive commentary by art historians Gerta Moray and Susan Crean, art critic Marcia Crosby and museum curator Laurel Smith Wilson, represents in person the interweaving of aboriginal and Western sensibilities that the film dramatizes. –Vancouver International Film Festival

Presented in partnership with the Maltwood Art Museum and Gallery. Limited edition prints of Emily Carr’s 1939 painting Happiness ($60, tax included) will be on sale in the lobby.

Sponsored by OPEN CINEMA www.opencinema.ca

NOV 30 (7:00 & 9:15)

THE WIND WILL CARRY USDirector: Abbas Kiarostami (Iran, 1999, 118 min; Persian with subtitles; DVD)

PALME D’OR WINNER! Cannes Film Festival It concerns an engineer who travels to Kurdistan from Tehran to work on a project which is never specified. He is a silent, mysterious character who befriends a young schoolboy and wanders about the countryside in his jeep. In lesser hands than Abbas Kiarostami’s, The Wind Will Carry Us would be thin, yet the director’s imaginative camera work and fluent editing manage to sustain his defiantly anti-narrative offering, in which he also captures the rich, yellow beauty of the cornfields and the intense blueness of the skies. Behzad Dourani is successful at capturing the engineer’s ambivalence: one moment aloof, the next warm. A powerful, mesmerising film where the surface details are redolent with meaning. –BBCi

SPOTLIGHT ON IRAN sponsored by the Middle East/Islamic Consortium of B.C.

NOV 23 (7:10 & 9:00)

CHILDREN OF HEAVENDirector: Majid Majidi (Iran, 1997, 88 min; Persian with subtitles; DVD; PG)

Iranian writer/director Majid Majidi’s splendid, won-derfully shot film is from a child’s point of view. When Ali loses his sister Zahara’s just-mended sneakers, the two siblings must share one ratty pair of canvas running shoes without alerting their poor parents to their plight. The premise is deceptively simple, as this film about children navigating through an adult world gradually begins to take on a more socioeconomic meaning. Majidi uses the quest for shoes to reveal the wide class gap in contemporary Tehran and masterfully balances the serious subtext with enter-taining vignettes. While it is as bright and well-paced as the best Disney films—a poetic shot of a boy’s blistered feet soaking in a glistening goldfish pond is particularly magical—Majidi avoids easy sentimen-tality. –The Onion AV Club “It glows with a kind of good-hearted purity.” –Roger Ebert

SPOTLIGHT ON IRAN sponsored by the Middle East/Islamic Consortium of B.C.

DEC 1 & 2 (7:00 & 9:10)

WAITING FOR SUPERMANDirector: Davis Guggenheim (USA, 2010, 112 min; rated G)

Exhilarating, heartbreaking and righteous, Waiting for Superman is also a kind of high-minded thriller: Can the American edu-cation system be cured? Can it be made globally competitive? Can it, at least, be made educational? Davis Guggenheim’s epic assessment of the rise and fall of the U.S. school is a bucket of ice water in the face of politically motivated complacency. What Guggenheim brings to his documentaries (An Inconvenient Truth, It Might Get Loud) are an agile, cinematic eye, a sense of rhythm and fluidity, and an awareness that unpalatable information has to be delivered with a side order of humor. The information presented here is sobering. The monetary waste caused by poor schools is just one item; the unfulfilled potential, social disintegration and genera-tional failure are mourned throughout. And it’s the arrogance of so-called educators that comes under Guggenheim’s withering moral/intellectual assault. And yet, the film is never less than buoyant, thanks largely to the dedicated and effective teachers on whom Guggenheim focuses. The title comes from edu-cational reformer Geoffrey Canada, of the Harlem Children’s Zone: Canada recalls thinking as a boy that, somehow, Superman would arrive in the South Bronx and save him. WFS has a pacing, rhythm, mix of media and sense of human connection that keep it engaging and, at times, very, very moving….The film also addresses very possible solutions and the kinds of people who can apply them; as such, it’s a movie full of spirit and hope. --Variety

DEC 3 & 4 (3:00 matinee & 7:15 & 9:20)

IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORYDirectors: Ryan Fleck & Anna Boden (USA, 2010, 102 min; PG)

“A PERFECT COMING-OF-AGE COMEDY! An unpredictable grab-bag of funny, tender, ironic, insightful, poignant hopeful moments that keep surprising you!” –Los Angeles Times

Zach Galifianakis is not the lead in the latest film from co-directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden (Half Nelson, Sugar), but he’s the most affecting figure as Bob, a mental-ward patient who takes a teenage new arrival under his wing. High-achieving, stressed-out, 16-year-old Craig (Keir Gilchrist) finds himself committed for a mandatory five-day stay after confessing to suicidal thoughts, setting off a young-adult variation on One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Craig quickly comes to real-ize he’s not nearly as messed up as many of his cohabitants, who include the cute girl with wrist scars (Emma Roberts, who’s quite good). Fleck and Boden point out the absurd humor inherent in mental illness without trivializing its causes or consequences. It’s largely thanks to Galifianakis’ amalgam of wackiness and awkward sorrow that it works. --Portland Oregonian

DEC 5 (3:00 matinee & 7:00)DEC 6 (7:00 only)

FORCE OF NATURE: THE DAVID SUZUKI MOVIEDirector: Sturla Gunnarsson (Canada, 2010, 93 min, rated G)

David Suzuki holds twenty-four honorary degrees from insti-tutions around the world and has written forty-eight books. A household name synonymous with nature and science, he was voted one of the top ten greatest Canadians of all time in 2004. He is best known as the host of the long-running CBC TV show The Nature of Things and as a pioneering and passionate environmentalist. At the age of seventy-five, he shows no signs of slowing down. But what drove him to become the phenomenon he is? This engrossing documen-tary guides us through his life and reveals the key events and people that shaped him. The occasion for the film is Suzuki’s return to the University of British Columbia to deliver his legacy lecture. Director Sturla Gunnarsson inter-weaves Suzuki’s stirring and insightful address with candid interviews to create a captivating portrait. It is in these interviews that Suzuki shares his deeply personal reflections and stories, revealing a side of him previously unseen…Suzuki is by turns touching and funny and, above all, endlessly engaging. His power-ful words and inspiring life epitomize his commitment to making science vital and accessible to everyone. Gunnarsson’s film is certain to make you reconsider how we live. –Toronto International Film Festival

DEC 10 & 11 (7:00 & 9:20)

THE TOWNDirector: Ben Affleck (USA, 2010, 125 min; 14A) Cast: Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall, Jeremy Renner

“SMART, STYLISH, ENTERTAINING AND GROWN UP.” –Premiere

Ben Affleck showed what he could do as a direc-tor in Gone Baby Gone. Now Affleck kicks it up a notch with a gripping human drama disguised as a blazing heist film that comes on like gangbusters. Ben takes the star spot as Doug, a Boston bank robber whose daddy (Chris Cooper) is now in prison for doing the same thing. Doug and Gloansy (MC Slaine), Desmond (Owen Burke) and the hotheaded Jem (Jeremy Renner) prowl the streets that have bred more bank robbers than anywhere in the U.S. On jobs, organized by Fergie (the ever-superb Pete Postlethwaite), the gang members wear masks. Affleck shoots on location and gives the movie a lived-in feel. The emotional heat hits sizzle when Doug falls for Claire (Rebecca Hall), a bank manager his crew took hostage and then released. Affleck and Hall make this unlikely love story palpably mov-ing. And Renner (The Hurt Locker) is dynamite — he radiates ferocity and feeling. It’s fair to say that Affleck knocks it out of the park. --Rolling Stone

DEC 12 & 13 (7:10 only)

YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGERDirector: Woody Allen (USA/Spain, 2010, 99 min; PG) Cast: Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Gemma Jones, Lucy Punch, Naomi Watts, Pauline Collins

“FRESH, FUNNY AND VINTAGE WOODY.” –Boxoffice

Woody Allen has been directing films for 41 of his 75 years, and if his best work is behind him, there’s something heartening in the recent run he’s enjoyed with such films as Match Point, Vicky Cristina Barcelona and Whatever Works marking a mellow late-life renaissance. His new film finds him once again in London, even if the tale of love, infidelity, death and creativity recalls many of his familiar New York films. Stranger is a roundelay centered on the marriages of a blocked novelist (Josh Brolin), and his unfulfilled wife (Naomi Watts), and her divorced parents, Helena (Gemma Jones), who has fallen under the spell of a for-tune teller, and Alfie (Anthony Hopkins), who has fallen under the spell of a floozy (a very funny Lucy Punch). There are yearnings, both romantic and artistic, and gross errors (of both sorts) and gentle laughs and familiar life lessons. –Portland Oregonian

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www.thesanctum.ca

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NOV-DEC 2010

DAILY SHOW INFO: 250-721-8365 www.cinecenta.com

Cinecenta’s program is subject to change without notice. To avoid disappointment, please check our 24-hour phone line or website for the most up-to-date information.

$6.50

The university charges a �at fee of $2.00 for parkingon campus after 6pm and all day on Saturdays. Thereis no charge for parking on Sundays and holidays.

Cinecenta O�ce: 250-721-8364

Admission Prices(HST included)

24-hour Info Line: 250-721-8365

Manager: Lisa SheppardProgrammer: Michael HoppeGra�x Production: Juniper EnglishDesign: Juniper English & gnomes

Student Union Building, UVicUniversity of Victoria Students’ Society, conceived as an inexpensive alternative for students, the University community and the public. The theatre is in the Student Union Building at UVic. The following buses come to UVic: 4, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 26, 29, 33, 39, 51, 80.

on Sundays and holidays. Tickets and memberships go on sale 40 minutes before showtime. Please arrive early to avoid disappointment.

where noted. Films are 35mm prints unless other-wise indicated.

UVSS Students

Seniors, Children (12 & under)

Other Students

Cinemagic Members

and guests (1 only) of aboveNon-members

$5.60

$5.60

$6.50

$6.50

$6.50$7.75

Matinees all seats $4.75

TEN FILM DISCOUNT PASS

UVSS Students, Seniors

(Unavailable to non-members.)

$50.00$57.50

Special for UVSS students 9pm shows (or later) $2.75

$17.50 (HST included)

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NOV 9 (7:00 & 9:10)

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHTDirector: Lisa Cholodenko (USA, 2010, 107 min; 14A)

Cast: Annette Bening , Julianne Moore , Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson, and Mark Ruffalo

“IT CHARMS AUDIENCES INTO A STATE OF ENLIGHTENMENT!” –Entertainment Weekly

Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, and Mark Ruffalo are at the top of their games in this irresistible story of lesbian marriage, sperm-donor fatherhood, sex, red wine, and teen angst. This warm, funny, sexy, smart movie erases the boundaries between special-ized ‘gay content’ and universal ‘family content’. Give high fives to director Lisa Cholodenko (High Art, Laurel Canyon). Guided by an outstanding script, everyone is able to go deep into her or his character. Particular huzzahs are due Bening for the precision she brings to the brusque yet emotionally expressive Nic. --Entertainment Weekly “EXCELLENT!” –San Francisco Chronicle

NOV 10 & 11 (7:00 & 9:00)

LEBANONDirector: Samuel Maoz (Israel/France/Lebanon, 2009, 94 min; Hebrew & Arabic with subtitles; 14A)

WINNER! GOLDEN LION –Venice Film Festival

“Walk in the park,” says the scowling Israeli army command-ing officer to four young, scared members of a tank crew in the first hours of the 1982 Lebanon war. Their mission is simple: to “clean up” a Lebanese town recently bombed by the Israeli Air Force, and grind on to the next stage of the invasion. The combat and aftermath we witness in the superb film Lebanon is experienced almost wholly from the perspective of the soldiers inside the tank. Our primary reference point, the gunner played by Yoav Donat, spends much of his time peering at the chaos outside through a peri-scopic gun sight. He is in the thick of the horror, yet oddly detached. Writer-director Samuel Maoz, who was 20 when he served as a tank gunner in the Lebanon war, offers little in the way of comforting valor or conventional heroism. This conflict defied such things, Maoz’s stern, gripping picture implies. The 94 minutes of Lebanon are about as intense as an autobiographical war drama can be. The gunner, Shmuel, fails his first test under fire, and that failure haunts the rest of the picture. The commander (Itay Tiran), the loader (Oshri Cohen) and the driver (Michael Moshonov) are visited peri-odically by the officer (Zohar Strauss, brilliantly ambiguous). It’s an uncompromising drama, not easy to watch. And it is one of the year’s highlights. –Chicago Tribune

NOV 12 & 13 (3:00 matinee & 7:00 & 9:35)

EAT PRAY LOVEDirector: Ryan Murphy (USA, 2010, 139 min; PG) Cast: Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem, Billy Crudup, James Franco, Richard Jenkins

No one is going into the breezy movie version of Elizabeth Gilbert’s globe-trotting empowerment memoir expecting it to be Siddhartha—and if they are, they’re being unfair. This is expertly wrought pop-psychology; perfect plates of pasta will be consumed in Rome (to nourish a wounded heart), then the soul will be tended in an Indian ashram, and finally romance will flourish in sultry Bali. Julia Roberts flatters Gilbert’s divor-cée with a gloriously complex performance—to these eyes, her best. Roberts has a movie star’s size, which she constantly underplays, curling into balls of insecurity and lifting her wine glass in tear-rimmed ruefulness. All of the performances are knockouts, especially Richard Jenkins as a damaged spiritualist who steeps the movie in intimacy. Oh, to have Julia’s choices: crushed ex-husband Billy Crudup, cute yogi James Franco, the Bali-dwelling Javier Bardem. The movie is completely aware of its own riches; it fills up your plate and dares you not to eat. --Time Out New York

NOV 17 & 18 (7:00 & 9:15)

ANIMAL KINGDOMDirector: David Michôd (Australia, 2010, 113 min; 14A)

“A REMARKABLE FILM: A GRITTY, GUT-CHURING CRIME THRILLER BASED ON A TRUE STORY.” –San Francisco Chronicle

Melbourne, Australia, is a temperate city of sunshine and palm trees. But the denizens of writer-director David Michôd’s crime drama are the people who live in its shad-ows. As the title suggests, Michôd depicts a realm of ruth-less predation and survival. But it’s a distinctive, ominous and hypnotic work of cinema. Animal Kingdom opens with someone overdosing on heroin in a crappy apartment. 17-year-old Josh (James Frecheville) is a big, handsome kid who seems gentle but has already learned not to give too much away. Events thrust him abruptly into the care -- if that’s the right word -- of his mom’s notorious mother, Janine Cody (Jacki Weaver), matriarch of a Melbourne crime family who specialize in bank robbery. There’s already buzz around Weaver as a potential supporting-actress nominee: In the pantheon of Really Bad Movie Moms, Janine holds a place of honor. A petite, 60-ish blonde with a strange glitter in her eyes, she kisses her boys, blackmails cops and orders ruthless hits on whoever she thinks is in her way, all while taking a casserole out of the oven or watching a variety show with a neighbor. Of all the predators Josh must outwit on his journey, she’s the most dangerous. --Salon.com

NOV 16 (one show only at 7:15)

??? MYSTERY MOVIE ???An annual Cinecenta event, this is a special advance sneak preview of a brand new feature film. So new, it hasn’t yet been released in Victoria, but will be opening soon. Be among the first exclusive few to see a new film specially selected for Cinecenta’s savvy audience! It could be a comedy or a drama or a documentary; it could be in English or have subtitles…. Leap into the unknown! And then tell your friends that you saw it here first!

NOV 19 & 20 (3:00 matinee & 7:00 & 9:45)

INCEPTIONDirector: Christopher Nolan (USA, 2010, 148 minutes; PG) Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, TomHardy, Ken Watanabe, Dileep Rao, Cillian Murphy, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine, Lukas Haas

“WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU HAD YOUR MIND BLOWN BY A MOVIE?” –New York Daily News

Dreaming is life’s great solitary adventure. We experience them alone or not at all. But what if other people could literally invade our dreams, what if a technology existed that enabled interlopers to create and manipulate sleeping life with the goal of stealing our secret thoughts, or more unsettling still, implanting ideas in the deepest of sub-conscious states and making us believe they’re our own? Welcome to the world of Inception, written and directed by the masterful Christopher Nolan, a tremendously excit-ing science-fiction thriller that’s as disturbing as it sounds. This is a popular entertainment with a knockout punch so intense and unnerving it’ll have you worrying if it’s safe to close your eyes at night. Having come up with the idea when he was 16, Nolan wrote the first draft of Inception eight years ago and in the interim his great success with The Dark Knight, not to mention the earlier Memento, put him in a position to cast Leonardo DiCaprio and six other Oscar-nominated actors and spend a reported $160 million in a most daring way. –Los Angeles Times

NOV 7 (3:00 matinee & 7:00 & 9:15)NOV 8 (7:00 & 9:15)

SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLDDirector: Edgar White (USA, 2010, 112 min; PG)

Cast: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Anna Kendrick, Chris Evans and Jason Schwartzman

Michael Cera elevates deadpan to an art, starring as a slacker turned action hero in this wildly inventive comedy that’s one of the most vivid and spirited adaptations of a comic book—and one of the hippest since Ghost World. When he’s not playing bass with his Toronto garage band or video games with a smitten high schooler (Ellen Wong), he sponges off his gay roommate (Kieran Culkin). But then his little life is upend-ed as he falls for a rollerblading American (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and incurs the wrath of her superpowered seven evil exes. Director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) amplifies the cinema-ready devices of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s graphic novels by using split screens as mobile panels and CGI to animate words (love floats like smoke across the screen) and demonize one of the exes (a very funny Brandon Routh, of Superman Returns). –Chicago Reader

KIDS MATINEE SUN 1PM

CATS & DOGS: THE REVENGE OF KITTY GALORE

KIDS MATINEE SAT 1PM

FLIPPED

KIDS MATINEE SAT 1PM

THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD

NOV 6 & 7 CATS & DOGS: THE REVENGE OF KITTY GALORE82 minutes; rated GCanines and Felines unite to stop a crazed cat named Kitty Galore (voiced by a hissing Bette Midler) in this semi-animated action comedy.

NOV 13 & 14 THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD102 minutesErrol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland star in this classic 1938 Hollywood swashbuckler in glorious Technicolor!

NOV 20 & 21 FLIPPED89 minutes; rated GA charming Rob Reiner film about two eighth grad-ers (Callan McAuliffe, Madeline Carroll) who fall in love despite being total opposites.

NOV 27 & 28 CHARLOTTE’S WEB97 minutes; rated GJulia Roberts heads a great cast of voices in this delightful version of E.B. White’s classic. With Dakota Fanning.

DEC. 4 & 5 ELF97 minutes; rated GHilariously goofy Will Ferrell stars as a human who was raised as an elf with Santa at the North Pole.

NOV 14 (3:00 matinee & 7:00)NOV 15 (7:00 only)

EAT PRAY LOVEPlease see Nov. 12-13 for info

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KIDS MATINEE SUN 1PM

THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD