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Author Archive | Alex Kamody

Sustainability Series: CAFETERIA MAN

Watch Trailer Director: Richard Chisolm
Cast: Tony Geraci

Cafeteria Man takes a candid look at Tony Geraci’s sweeping, tenacious efforts to kick start school lunch reform in Baltimore’s schools, a large urban district that serves 83,000 students. As the newly hired Food and Nutrition Director of the city’s public school district, Geraci hatches an ambitious, multi-faceted plan to feed students healthy, locally-sourced meals, teach them nutritional awareness, and offer them training and vocational opportunities in the world of food. His bold vision includes a 33-acre teaching farm, school vegetable gardens, student-designed meals, and meatless Monday’s.

Cafeteria Man follows Geraci for two years as he partners with a dedicated group of parents and students to overhaul a long-established, dysfunctional lunch program and battle the entrenched bureaucracy behind it. The film profiles Baltimore’s experience as it becomes recognized as part a burgeoning national movement, and includes appearances by food author Michael Pollan, First Lady Michelle Obama, and Assistant White House Chef Sam Kass.

Sponsored by Arts and Sciences Sustainability Theme, The Alden Library, and Environmental Studies.

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Running Time: 65 minutes65 MIN
This Film is Wheelchair Accessible

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Sustainability Series: THIN ICE

Watch Trailer Director: Simon Lamb and David Sington

In recent years climate science has come under increasing attack, so concerned geologist Simon Lamb grabbed his camera and set out to explore the inside story of climate research. For over three years he followed scientists from a wide range of disciplines at work in the Arctic, Antarctic, Southern Ocean, New Zealand, Europe and the United States.

They talk about their work, their hopes and fears with a rare candor and directness, resulting in an intimate portrait of the global community of researchers racing to understand our planet’s changing climate and provide a compelling case for rising CO2 as the main cause.

Thin Ice is a joint initiative between the University of Oxford, Victoria University of Wellington and DOX Productions, London. Both Universities have active programs with world-wide networks of collaborators in climate change and related research.

Sponsored by Arts and Sciences Sustainability Theme, The Alden Library, and Environmental Studies.

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Running Time: 74 minutes74 MIN
This Film is Wheelchair Accessible

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Sustainability Series: WATERMARK

Watch Trailer Director: Jennifer Baichwal and Edward Burtynsky

Watermark is a feature documentary film that brings together diverse stories from around the globe about our relationship with water: how we are drawn to it, what we learn from it, how we use it and the consequences of that use. We see massive floating abalone farms off China’s Fujian coast and the construction site of the biggest arch dam in the world – the Xiluodu, six times the size of the Hoover. We visit the barren desert delta where the mighty Colorado River no longer reaches the ocean, and the water-intensive leather tanneries of Dhaka. We witness how humans are drawn to water, from the U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach to the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, where thirty million people gather for a sacred bath in the Ganges at the same time. We speak with scientists who drill ice cores two kilometers deep into the Greenland Ice Sheet, and roam the sublime pristine watersheds of Northern British Columbia. Shot in stunning 5K ultra high-definition video and full of soaring aerial perspectives, this film shows water as a terraforming element and the scale of its reach, as well as the magnitude of our need and use. This is balanced by forays into the particular: a haunting memory of a stolen river, a mysterious figure roaming ancient rice terraces, the crucial data hidden in a million.

“It’s the majesty and beauty of water at its most pure that stays with us longest.” – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

“These exceptionally gifted filmmakers are simply best at the long view of the human species and its impact.” – Ty Burr, Boston Globe

Sponsored by Arts and Sciences Sustainability Theme, The Alden Library, and Environmental Studies.

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Running Time: 92 minutes92 MIN
PG Rated
This Film is Wheelchair Accessible

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Sustainability Series: MORE THAN HONEY

Watch Trailer Director: Markus Imhoof
Writer(s): Markus Imhoof and Kerstin Hoppenhaus
Cast: Fred Jaggi, Randolf Menzel and John Miller

Oscar-nominated director Markus Imhoof (The Boat is Full) tackles the vexing issue of why bees, worldwide, are facing extinction. With the tenacity of a man out to solve a world-class mystery, he investigates this global phenomenon, from California to Switzerland, China and Australia. Exquisite macro-photography of the bees (reminiscent of Microcosmos) in flight and in their hives reveals a fascinating, complex world in crisis.

“Imhoof’s film is remarkable in its close-up photography. The bees loom large, like creatures from some mutant planet; dangle together in a delicate chain; and fill the air, floating like unusually vivid dust specks.” -Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times

“Without any preachiness, this magically beautiful film urges us to take better care of the bees, and honor the irreplaceable things that they do for us.” – Farran Smith Nehme, New York Post

Sponsored by Arts and Sciences Sustainability Theme, The Alden Library, and Environmental Studies.

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Running Time: 91 minutes91 MIN
Not Rated
This Film is Wheelchair Accessible

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Calvary

Watch Trailer Director: John Michael McDonagh
Writer(s): John Michael McDonagh
Cast: Brendan Gleeson, Chris O'Dowd, Kelly Reilly and Aidan Gillen

Father James (Brendan Gleeson) is a good priest who is faced with sinister and troubling circumstances brought about by a mysterious member of his parish. Although he continues to comfort his own fragile daughter (Kelly Reilly) and reach out to help members of his church with their various scurrilous moral – and often comic – problems, he feels sinister and troubling forces closing in, and begins to wonder if he will have the courage to face his own personal Calvary.

“Brendan Gleeson gives a performance of monumental soul in John Michael McDonagh’s masterful follow-up to ‘The Guard.'” – Justin Chang, Variety

“Calvary offers a fascinating look at contemporary attitudes toward the priesthood and Catholicism, as well as an impeccable lead performance by Brendan Gleeson and darkly sharp wit.” – Claudia Pulg ,USA Today

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Running Time: 100 minutes100 MIN
R Rated

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Love Is Strange: Last Day Thursday, October 16th

Watch Trailer Director: Ira Sachs
Writer(s): Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias
Cast: John Lithgow, Alfred Molina, Marisa Tomei

After nearly four decades together, Ben (John Lithgow) and George (Alfred Molina) finally tie the knot in an idyllic wedding ceremony in lower Manhattan. But when George loses his job soon after, the couple must sell their apartment and – victims of the relentless New York City real estate market – temporarily live apart until they can find an affordable new home. While George moves in with two cops (Cheyenne Jackson and Manny Perez) who live down stairs, Ben lands in Brooklyn with his nephew(Darren Burrows), his wife (Marisa Tomei), and their temperamental teenage son (Charlie Tahan), with whom Ben shares a bedroom. While struggling with the pain of separation, Ben and George are further challenged by the intergenerational tensions and capricious family dynamics of their new living arrangements.

“Acting doesn’t get better than this. Want to know what love is? Watch Lithgow and Molina and learn.” – Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

“Scripted by Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias, the movie is warm, unforced and believable. Much of that can be credited to Lithgow and Molina, who fully inhabit the roles of Ben and George.” – Mark Jenkins, NPR

 

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Running Time: 94 minutes94 MIN
R Rated

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Let’s Do Lynch: The Films of David Lynch

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The Athena Cinema announces a special fall film series featuring films directed by David Lynch.  This mini-retrospective is a rare opportunity to see these cult favorites on a big screen, with big sound—a wholly cinematic experience that small screens simply cannot equal.

A cinematic auteur of the first rank, Lynch has garnered international praise and multiple awards for films such as ELEPHANT MAN, BLUE VELVET, and MULHOLLAND DRIVE. Lynch’s television series TWIN PEAKS enjoys status as both a critically acclaimed series, and a die-hard fan cult favorite since it first aired in 1990.  Lynch’s film are filled with surreal, often absurd circumstances with some of the most memorable characters in the history of film:  Merrick, from ERASERHEAD, the psychopath Frank Booth in BLUE VELVET, or Agent Dale Cooper in TWIN PEAKS.   As Lynch himself puts it, “This whole world is wild at heart and weird on top.”

ELEPHANT MAN kicks off the series on Sunday September 7, 7:00 pm, with a repeat screening Monday September 8, 7:00 pm.  Further screenings follow every Sunday and Monday evening, through October 26 & 27. The complete series includes:  ELEPHANT MAN, DUNE, BLUE VELVET, WILD AT HEART, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, LOST HIGHWAY, MULHOLLAND DRIVE, and ERASERHEAD. For a full schedule, please visit

The late author David Foster Wallace best sums up the genius of David Lynch:  “If you think about the outrageous kinds of moral manipulation we suffer at the hands of most contemporary directors….. it will be easier to convince you that something in Lynch’s own clinically detached filmmaking is not only refreshing but redemptive.”

Admission for the shows will be available one week in advance of each film. Tickets are $6.50 with the exception of Friends of the Athena Members, who may purchase tickets for $4.00.

 

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Wild at Heart: Let’s Do Lynch

Watch Trailer Director: David Lynch
Writer(s): Barry Gifford, David Lynch
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Willem Dafoe

David Lynch explores old theme: the story of two people (Cage and Dern) who thoroughly love each other, of two people whose love seems so strong that nothing can corrupt it. Yet, the evil forces of murder, corruption and perversion, which lurk beneath the seemingly clean surface of modern day America transform their journey into a ghost train ride and challenge their love to the extremes.

The Athena Cinema presents “Let’s Do Lynch”, eight weeks of feature films by David Lynch. All shows start at 7:00 p.m. Admission is $6.50.

9/7 &8: Elephant Man
9/14 & 15: Dune
9/21 & 22: Blue Velvet
9/28 & 29: Wild At Heart
10/5&6: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
10/12 & 13: Lost Highway
10/19 & 20: Mulholland Drive
10/26 & 27: Eraserhead

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Running Time: 125 min125 MIN
NC-17 Rated

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Blue Velvet: Let’s Do Lynch

Watch Trailer Director: David Lynch
Writer(s): David Lynch
Cast: Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper

Director David Lynch crafted this hallucinogenic mystery-thriller that probes beneath the cheerful surface of suburban America to discover sadomasochistic violence, corruption, drug abuse, crime and perversion. Kyle Maclachlan stars as Jeffrey Beaumont, a square-jawed young man who returns to his picture-perfect small town when his father suffers a stroke. Walking through a field near his home, Jeff discovers a severed human ear, which he immediately brings to the police. Their disinterestsparks Jeff’s curiosity, and he is soon drawn into a dangerous drama that’s being played out by a lounge singer, Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) and the ether-addicted Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).

The Athena Cinema presents “Let’s Do Lynch”, eight weeks of feature films by David Lynch. All shows start at 7:00 p.m. Admission is $6.50.

9/7 &8: Elephant Man
9/14 & 15: Dune
9/21 & 22: Blue Velvet
9/28 & 29: Wild At Heart
10/5&6: Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
10/12 & 13: Lost Highway
10/19 & 20: Mulholland Drive
10/26 & 27: Eraserhead

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Running Time: 120 min120 MIN
R Rated

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Fed Up: Special Three Night Screening Event

Watch Trailer Director: Stephanie Soechtig
Writer(s): Mark Monroe, Stephanie Soechtig
Cast: Michele Simon
Awards: Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance

Everything we’ve been told about food and exercise for the past 30 years is dead wrong. FED UP is the film the food industry doesn’t want you to see. From Katie Couric, Laurie David (Oscar winning producer of AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH) and director Stephanie Soechtig, FED UP will change the way you eat forever.

The screenings are a result of a partnership between the Division of Food and Nutrition Science, the College of Arts and Sciences Food Studies Curricular Theme Initiative, Ohio University Libraries, and the Athena Cinema. The screenings will precede an student-led critique and discussion on November 10th at Baker Center that will focus on the food science highlighted in the film.

 

“”Fed Up” isn’t so much a warning to the ignorant shopper or a tip for the unimaginative chef as it is a rallying cry. It succeeds in firing up the choir. Whether it will convert the complacent is an open question.” – Michael O’Sullivan, Washington Post

“It pulls no punches in its informed outrage against the food industry, zeroing in on the rampant use of sugar and its many multisyllabic variations.” – Sheri Linden, Los Angeles Times

“As a screed, it builds a credible, engaging argument, presenting evidence, statistics, talking-head testimony, whimsical charts, poignant personal stories, and animated illustrations of digestive processes to make its case.” – Peter Keough, Boston Globe

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Running Time: 92 min92 MIN
PG Rated

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