The Producers

Watch Trailer Director: Mel Brooks
Writer(s): Mel Brooks
Cast: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder and Dick Shawn
Awards: 1969 Oscar for Best Writing, Story & Screenplay; 1969 WGA Award for Best Written American Original Screenplay

Theatrical producer Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel) was once the toast of Broadway. Now he lives in his seedy office, cadging cash contributions from wealthy old ladies in exchange for sexual favors. Even worse, he’s reduced to wearing a cardboard belt. Max’s new accountant, Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder), the soul of honesty, suggests that Max produce a hit to try to recoup his losses, but Max knows that it’s too late for that. Offhandedly, Leo muses that, if Max found investors for a flop, he could legally keep all the extra money. Suddenly, Max’s eyes light up — and in that moment, Leo Bloom is gloriously corruptible. Together, Max and Leo conspire to select the worst play, the worst playwright, the worst director, and the worst actor to collaborate on their guaranteed flop. That play is Springtime for Hitler, “a delightful romp…with Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun.” At the end of several weeks, Max has sold 25,000 percent of the show; and, as a finishing touch, Max bribes the opening-night critics for a favorable review, knowing full well that such a gesture is the kiss of death. The curtains part, and Springtime for Hitler opens with perhaps the most tasteless production number in the history of films.

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Running Time: 88 minutes88 MIN
PG Rated

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This Is Spinal Tap

Watch Trailer Director: Rob Reiner
Writer(s): Christopher Guest and Michael McKean
Cast: Rob Reiner, Michael McKean and Christopher Guest

Largely improvised by director Rob Reiner and his cast, This Is Spinal Tap looks and sounds like a “real” documentary, with Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and Christopher Guest as David St. Hubbins, Derek Smalls, and Nigel Tufnel, the key members of a going-nowhere British heavy metal band called Spinal Tap. The “group” started as an informal skiffle band, eventually maturing into an R&B act called the Thamesmen (their hit was “Gimme Some Money”).

After going through a psychedelic period with “Listen to the Flower People,” the band mutated into Spinal Tap, a hard rock outfit responsible for such albums as “Intravenous DeMilo,” “The Sun Never Sweats,” and “Bent for the Rent.” This Is Spinal Tap finds them in the midst of their first American tour in years as they support their new LP Smell the Glove, with filmmaker Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner), who specializes in TV commercials, on hand to document the occasion.

Just about anything that can go wrong does: shows get canceled, stage props go wrong, wireless guitar pickups start broadcasting air-traffic reports, no one shows up for in-store appearances, David’s girlfriend tries to take over the band, they wind up billed second to a puppet show at an amusement park, and the group teeters on the verge of breakup. After the film’s initial release, McKean, Guest, and Shearer did a short club tour as Spinal Tap; the “band” reunited in 1992 for a new album, Break Like the Wind, followed by a full-fledged tour and TV special, The Return of Spinal Tap.

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Running Time: 82 minutes82 MIN
R Rated

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The Sessions

Watch Trailer Director: Ben Lewin
Writer(s): Ben Lewin
Cast: John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, and William. H. Macy
Awards: Sundance (2012): Audience Award for Dramatic, Special Jury Prize for Dramatic Ensemble Acting, and Nominated for Grand Jury Prize


The Sessions tells the story of 38-year old California native journalist and poet, Mark O’Brien, a man confined to an iron lung since the age of six. Though his condition is tragic, his witty sense of humor and plan to lose his virginity allow the audience to embark on a truly unconventional adventure. Seeking guidance from his priest, O’Brien goes on an emotional and physical journey thanks to his newly-hired sex surrogate. Full of hilarity, The Sessions is certainly one to look out for.

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Running Time: 95 minutes95 MIN

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Smashed

Watch Trailer Director: James Ponsoldt
Writer(s): James Ponsoldt, Susan Burke
Cast: Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Aaron Paul, Octavia Spencer, Nick Offerman, Megan Mullaly
Awards: Winner of Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize

A married couple whose bond is built on a mutual love of alcohol gets their relationship put to the test when the wife decides to get sober.

Kate (Mary Elizabeth Winstead)  and Charlie (Aaron Paul) like to have a good time. Their marriage thrives on a shared fondness for music, laughter . . . and getting smashed. When Kate’s partying spirals into hard-core asocial behavior, compromising her job as an elementary schoolteacher, something’s got to give. But change isn’t exactly a cakewalk. Sobriety means she will have to confront the lies she’s been spinning at work, her troubling relationship with her mother, and the nature of her bond with Charlie.

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Running Time: 85 Minutes85 MIN
R Rated

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The Loneliest Planet

Watch Trailer Director: Julia Loktev
Writer(s): Julia Loktev, Tom Bissell
Cast: Gael Garcia Bernal, Hani Furstenberg
Language: English, Spanish, Georgian

Alex and Nica are young, in love and engaged to be married. The summer before their wedding, they are backpacking in the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia. The couple hire a local guide to lead them on a camping trek, and the three set off into a stunning wilderness, a landscape that is both overwhelmingly open and frighteningly closed. Walking for hours, they trade anecdotes, play games to pass the time of moving through space. And then, a momentary misstep, a gesture that takes only two or three seconds, a gesture that’s over almost as soon as it begins. But once it is done, it can’t be undone. Once it is done, it threatens to undo everything the couple believed about each other and about themselves. All the while, they are not alone. They are always with the guide, who witnesses their every move. The film plays off the relationship between young travelers and the places they travel to, between guide and guided. But at heart, it is a love story — a tale about betrayal, both accidental and deliberate, about masculinity, failure and the ambiguities of forgiveness.

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Running Time: 113 Minutes113 MIN
Not Rated

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Holiday Film Series: E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL

Watch Trailer Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer(s): Melissa Mathison
Cast: Hentry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, and Peter Coyote

One screening only on Saturday, November 24th at 3:00pm! Donate a non-perishable food item as admission.

A meek and alienated little boy finds a stranded extraterrestrial. He has to find the courage to defy the authorities to help the alien return to its home planet Part of the Athena’s holiday film series. Admission cost is a non-perishable food donation. Tickets are limited and are available a week before the event.

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Running Time: 115 minutes115 MIN
PG Rated
This Film is Wheelchair Accessible

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Holiday Film Series: HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS

Watch Trailer Director: Ron Howard
Writer(s): Dr. Seuss, Jeffrey Price, Peter S. Seaman
Cast: Jim Carrey, Taylor Momsen, Jeffrey Tambor

The 2000 remake of Dr. Seuss’ classic Christmas story. Part of the Athena’s holiday film series. Admission cost is a non-perishable food donation. Tickets are limited and are available a week before the event.

*Tickets available one week prior to each Holiday movie.

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Running Time: 104 minutes104 MIN
PG Rated

It's the rare holiday movie that manages to entertain the kid in all of us, without forgetting that grownups love the Grinch, too.

Steve Murray
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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A Late Quartet

Watch Trailer Director: Yaron Zilberman
Writer(s): Seth Grossman and Yaron Zilberman
Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Christopher Walken, and Catherine Keener

Following the lives of four longtime colleagues who play in a celebrated string quartet together. As the group begin their 25th season together, the eldest member (Walken) is diagnosed with early stages of Parkinson’s disease. Because he cannot perform to the best of his abilities, he would like to bow out of the quartet without disbanding it. However, a married couple in the group (Hoffman and Keener) are on the brink of breaking up and their rocky period isn’t helped by the fact that the fourth member has begun an affair with their college-age daughter.

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Running Time: 105 minutes105 MIN

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First Ever Open Projector Night at the Athena

Director: You!
Writer(s): You!

On Wednesday, November 28th at 7:00pm members of Ohio University’s Improv Troupe will host the first ever “OPEN PROJECTOR” night! This will be the coolest short film contest ever! Just bring in your film on the day of the event, between 6:00 and 6:30pm to see it projected on the big screen! An audience APPLAUSE-O-METER will decide the winner. Grand prize is a $50 Amazon Gift Card! Admission to the event is FREE thanks to Arts for Ohio.

Here are the rules:
We’ll play anything you’ve made that’s under 8 minutes long and is brought to us on a DVDor BLU-ray (one film per person, and DVDs must be playable on a regular DVD player). Submissions are only taken on the day of the event, and all entries MUST BE RECEIVED PRIOR TO THE START OF THE ACTUAL SHOW (we cannot accept films after the show has begun, or during intermission). All films are played in the order they’re received.  Remember, the audience decides the winner, so keep them happy!

PLEASE NOTE: We only take the first 15 films that are brought in and the spots will probably fill up very fast.

PLEASE BE ADVISED: Since we don’t pre-screen Open Projector entries, we don’t know what each month’s “film content” rating will be. Be advised that some material may not be suitable for all audiences

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Running Time: 120 Min.120 MIN
Not Rated

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Wuthering Heights

Watch Trailer Director: Andrea Arnold
Writer(s): Andrea Arnold, Emily Bronte
Cast: Kaya Scodelario, James Howson


From Oscar winning director, Andrea Arnold comes a new take on the classic novel by Emily Bronte. An epic love story that spans childhood well into the young adult years, the film follows Heathcliff, a boy taken in by a benevolent Yorkshire farmer, Earnshaw. Living in Earnshaw’s home, Heathcliff develops a passionate relationship with the farmer’s teenage daughter, Catherine, inspiring the envy and mistrust of his son, Hindley. When Earnshaw passes away, the now-grown characters must finally confront the intense feelings and rivalries that have built up throughout their years together.

“Wuthering Heights is a model of how to bring a classic novel kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century.”-The Playlist, Oliver Lyttelton

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Running Time: 129 Minutes129 MIN
Not Rated

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