[ThisWeek] Bluegrass Music, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and About Baghdad at the Kenworthy

[thisweek at kenworthy.org]

This week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre-

An evening of Bluegrass with
the Spokane-based band, South Hill Ramblers, and local favorites, Blackberry
Jam and Steptoe
Friday, April 15
7:00 PM
The concert is a fund-raiser for future bluegrass concerts at the Kenworthy.

Tickets $10/adult, $7/child 12 or younger
Available at BookPeople of Moscow.
Tickets may also be purchased with Visa or MasterCard by calling the
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre at 208-882-4127.
* * *

A Series of Unfortunate Events (PG)
Saturday, April 16
1:00/3:45/7:00 PM
Sunday, April 17
1:00/3:45
$5 adults, $2 children 12 or younger
This is not a KFS sponsored movie, so KFS passes are not valid.
(See Review below)
* * *

UI Borah Symposium presents
About Baghdad
Sunday, April 17
7:00 PM
Free screening of About Baghdad <http://www.aboutbaghdad.com>
a 2004 independent documentary from InCounter Productions.
Co-Director, Adam Shapiro, will introduce the film and hold a discussion
following the screening.

You can view the full Borah schedule at the symposium website at
<http://www.martin.uidaho.edu/borah/2005_symposium.html>

Borah Symposium presents ³About Baghdad²

The Borah Symposium this year, "Voices of Peace," is planned for April
17-April 20, 2005. The community kick-off event is a screening of the
documentary "About Baghdad" and meeting with the co-producer, Adam Shapiro.
The film is free and open to the public, 7:00 pm, April 17.  The
documentary, 'About Baghdad' is an hour and 30 minute documentary, shot in
totality in Baghdad in July 2003 (3 months into the occupation), and thus it
reveals a quite interesting place in time.

"About Baghdad" received numerous accolades and prestigious recognition; The
New York Times stated that it "manages to present a true diversity of
opinion. . . emotionally and intellectually challenging." It won Best
Documentary at the Big Apple Film Festival 2004 (NY), the Official Selection
of  IDFA 2004 (Amsterdam),  Montreal World Film Festival --Official
selection, Festival do Rio 2004 (Rio de Janeiro), International Film
Festival of Human Rights of Spain (Barcelona, Madrid, Bilbao, Girona &
Viranoz) and now it will be showing in Moscow, Idaho.

About Baghdad is an independent film of eyewitness testimony about and from
Iraqi people.  The documentary portrays a yearning for peace, reflections on
the complexity of the conditions for peace, and in essence portrays a drama
that is still unfolding.  In July 2003, Sinan Antoon, an exiled Iraqi writer
and poet, returned to Baghdad to see what has become of his city after wars,
sanctions, decades of oppression and violence, and now presence of foreign
power.  

The documentary will be introduced by one of its producers;  Adam Shapiro
(Please note the change form Dr. Rania Masri who regrettably is unable to
attend) Comments and conversation with Co-Producer Adam Shapiro, currently a
Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at American University in
Washington, DC.  He holds an MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown University
and an MA in Politics from New York University.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Adam is a founding member of InCounter
Productions, which produced the film "About Baghdad" (www.aboutbaghdad.com),
a documentary filmed in Baghdad, Iraq in July 2003.  Adam co-produced and
co-directed the film, and was in Iraq as part of the on-location film crew.
His current film project is focusing on Darfur (www.darfurfilm.org), where
he filmed in October/November 2004.  The documentary film is due to be
completed in March 2005.

Previously Adam served in numerous capacities for Seeds of Peace, notably as
the first Director of the Center for Coexistence in Jerusalem, where he
oversaw all youth programs in the region.  He also worked as a consultant
for Civic Forum - a Jerusalem-based Palestinian NGO working on developing
civil society and democracy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.  Adam
has traveled the region extensively and in addition to the West Bank has
lived and worked in Yemen, Egypt, Jordan, Cyprus and Iraq.  Additionally, he
has organized youth conferences in Villars, Switzerland and Prague, Czech
Republic.

Adam has spoken widely about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and about the
post-war occupation of Iraq, appearing at universities and other public
forums throughout the United States and the Middle East, and has been a
guest on many television and radio programs and interviewed for newspaper
articles, including CNN, MSNBC, BBC, NPR, Pacifica Radio and the New York
Times.  He has also published articles in The Nation.

For more information about the film and to view the film trailer please
visit the website at <http://www.aboutbaghdad.com/>
* * *
Next week at the Kenworthy-

A Very Long Engagement (R)
April 22, 7:00 PM
April 23 - 24, 4:15/7:00 PM
* * *

Also in April at the Kenworthy-

Born into Brothels (NR)
April 29, 7:00 PM
April 30 - May 1, 4:45/7:00 PM

Coming in May:  The Sea Inside, Hard Goodbyes My Father, Lost Embrace.

Regular Movie prices:  $5 adults, $2 children 12 and younger.
KFS passes accepted for Sunday movies

Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre
508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho
For more information, call 208-882-4127 or visit http://www.kenworthy.org
* * *
This week¹s review-

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

Directed by Brad Silberling; written by Robert Gordon, based on the books by
Lemony Snicket
Running time: 108 minutes.
This film is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). Some scenes may be too
intense for nervous children, suggestible adults and small animals. This
film contains scary moments and children in danger.

As reviewed by Jon Niccum writing for the Lawrence Journal-World (KS)

Animated birds chirp, and a happy elf prances about a fertile countryside. A
choir sings a tune called "Loverly Spring." This cheerful intro plays like a
lost Rankin-Bass stop-motion piece from yesteryear.

Then the viewer is abruptly told, "I'm sorry to say, this is NOT the movie
you'll be seeing." Instead, a darkly funny tale about "a terrible fire, dim
lighting, high tragedy, a giant snake, low comedy, man-eating leeches and
Jim Carrey" begins to unfold.

Although past authors from the Brothers Grimm to Roald Dahl have managed to
fuse children's literature and black humor, few films have been able to
juggle such an approach. "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events"
is the rare modern production to master this tricky tradition. It's a
triumph of cranky style, sharp writing and eccentric acting courtesy of
Carrey.

Think "Willy Wonka" meets Charles Dickens.

The theatrical version of Daniel Handler's popular series of books
introduces us to the three Baudelaire children. Violet (Emily Browning) is
the greatest 14-year-old inventor in the world; middle child Klaus (Liam
Aiken) is a book lover who retains the knowledge of everything he's ever
read; and toddler Sunny (Kara and Shelby Hoffman), well, she's good at
biting things. 

The Baudelaire's world is shattered when their parents are killed in a
mysterious fire at the family mansion. The wealthy orphans are taken in by
greedy relative Count Olaf (Carrey), an aspiring thespian who hopes to
snatch their inheritance.

"I will raise these orphans as if they were actually wanted," he boasts.

When the kids wise up to his scheme, they escape to other distant relatives,
from a jovial herpetologist (Billy Connolly) to a panophobic aunt (Meryl
Streep). But Count Olaf is always one step behind, disguising himself in a
variety of ways to try and reclaim the resourceful Baudelaire trio.

Carrey has already enjoyed a remarkable year. He gave his finest dramatic
performance in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," and now he supplies
one of his most purely enjoyable comedic turns. The glory of the role is
that Olaf himself is a hammy actor, so even when Carrey occasionally slips
into his inevitable mugging, it's perfectly in character.

With its exaggerated, slightly disturbing visuals, "Snicket's" looks like
one of the best Tim Burton movies that Burton never made. The sets
themselves are some of the most memorable of this year, from Aunt
Josephine's house perilously poised on stilts overhanging a cliff to a
reptile room that is alive with slithering creatures.

The movie often combines contemporary and Victorian influences into
hilarious hybrids. For instance, cars are equipped with modern conveniences,
but the dashes feature 1950s-syle handset phones and reel-to-reel players
instead of cellulars and DVDs. This allows screenwriter Robert Gordon (who
wrote the outstanding sci-fi parody "Galaxy Quest") and director Brad
Silberling (a previously undistinguished filmmaker responsible for
"Moonlight Mile" and "Casper") to revel in old-school imagery without having
to give up pop culture punch lines.

Also quite amusing is Jude Law, who provides the voice of Lemony Snicket and
delivers some of the wittiest narration this side of "Arrested Development."
Right before one particularly nasty juncture, Law breaks in to say, "This is
an excellent opportunity to walk out of the theater, living room or airplane
where the film is being shown."

As the tagline states, we can always use "a holiday movie without all that
pesky hope and joy."

As reviewed by Carla Meyer writing for the San Francisco Chronicle

"Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events'' has reached the screen
with author Snicket's (a.k.a. San Franciscan Daniel Handler) humor and gloom
intact. Much credit for this delightfully morose children's film must go to
director Brad Silberling's careful orchestration. Please note, in the
vocabulary-building spirit of the Snicket books, that the word
"orchestration'' here means "coaxing good performances out of child actors
and keeping Jim Carrey in check.''

Carrey finds his perfect role in Count Olaf, the scheming guardian trying to
remove the orphaned Baudelaire children from a fortune bequeathed by parents
who perished in a mysterious fire. Carrey's got the bod for the looming
Olaf, with long, dirty fingernails extending a long, dirty frame. He
ad-libs, but never to distraction, and generally seems to be having a ball.
The wily count's alter egos ("My name is Stefano and I am ... an Italian
man'') allow Carrey to stretch without muting his personality, as he tends
to do in dramatic parts.

If Olaf is funnier and less threatening than he is in the Snicket books,
that's just the price of attaching a big star to a project. In every other
way, the film, based on the first three books and written for the screen by
Robert Gordon, brings Handler's words to life -- or more precisely, to a
hyper-real, cinematic life enhanced by a buffet of digital effects.

The fat, gray clouds that follow young inventor Violet (Emily Browning),
avid reader Klaus (Liam Aiken) and champion biter Sunny (Kara and Shelby
Hoffman) look stagey, as do a house teetering on the edge of a cliff and a
giant, menacing cobra. The word "stagey" here means "in the pleasing manner
of a storybook." 

Movie versions of children's books can disappoint youngsters in making
concrete what had been left to their imaginations. This film stays
relatively faithful to the books.


Film reviews researched and edited by Peter Haggart
* * *

Did you see Random Acts of Love?

We¹d love to receive your comments about the play. Mailto:ppalmer at moscow.com

Sirius Idaho Theatre
P.O. Box 8762
Moscow, Idaho 83843

http://www.siriusidahotheatre.com/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAMELA PALMER, Volunteer
Mailto:ppalmer at moscow.com
Film and Events Committee
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

http://www.kenworthy.org

To speak with a KPAC staff member,
call (208) 882-4127
Mailto:kpac at moscow.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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