[ThisWeek] Batman Begins at the Kenworthy

[thisweek at kenworthy.org]

This week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre-

Batman Begins (PG13)
Friday, September 2
7:00 & 10:00 PM
Saturday & Sunday, September 3 & 4
4:00 & 7:00 PM
$5/adults, $2/children under 13
(see REVIEW below)
* * *

Next week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre . . .

Kenworthy Film Society presents
My Summer of Love (R)
Sunday, September 11
4:45 & 7:00 pm
$5/adults
* * *
and
OPENING on Thursday night, September 8.

Sirius Idaho Theatre presents
The Beauty Queen of Leenane
By Martin McDonagh

Thursday, Friday & Saturday, September 8, 9 & 10
7:30 pm
Matinee Saturday, September 10
2:00 pm

Also showing-
Thursday, Friday & Saturday, September 15, 16 & 17
7:30 PM
Matinee Saturday, September 17
2:00 PM

Tickets $15/adult, $10/senior, $5/student
Advance tickets at BookPeople of Moscow and the Moscow Farmers¹ Market (look
for the Sirius Idaho Theatre ironing board)

The Beauty Queen of Leenane contains strong themes that may offend some
people.
(See below for more information)
* * *

Purchase your KFS (Kenworthy Film Society) pass this weekend.

Purchase a new KFS punch card at the Moscow Farmers¹ Market this Saturday.
Available at the Sirius Idaho Theatre ironing board, where you can also
purchase tickets for the first play of SIT¹s 2005-06 season.

KFS passes also available at BookPeople of Moscow or the Kenworthy
Performing Arts Centre box office.
10 films for $30 or 30 films for $75. Passes accepted for all Sunday night
films.
* * *

Sirius Idaho Theatre presents
The Beauty Queen of Leenane
by Martin McDonagh

Directed by Forrest Sears

September 8-10 & 15-17 at 7:30 pm
September 10 & 17 at 2:00 pm

Performances at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre
508 S. Main St. Moscow, Idaho

³McDonagh is a natural storyteller who knows how to express a theme through
action, and he knows how to create a gallery of fascinating rogues. The
energy of his plays is prodigious... McDonagh has managed to celebrate what
remains enduring and alive in human nature even in the most appalling
circumstances.²  -- The New Republic

"The most wickedly, brilliantly abrasive young dramatist on either side of
the Irish Sea..." -- The New York Times

Tickets available at BookPeople of Moscow and at Moscow Farmers¹ Market
(Saturday 8 am ­ Noon)
$15 adults, $10 seniors, $5 students

Written by Martin McDonagh in eight days and winner of four Tony awards, The
Beauty Queen of Leenane premiered in 1996 in Galway, Ireland. Set in
Leenane, a small town in the mountains of Connemara, County Galway, The
Beauty Queen of Leenane tells the darkly comic tale of Maureen Folan, a
plain and lonely woman in her early forties, and Mag her manipulative ageing
mother whose interference in Maureen's first and potentially last loving
relationship sets in motion a train of events that is as extraordinarily
funny as it is horrific. (The Beauty Queen of Leenane received four Tony
Awards in 1998.)

Cast
Maureen Folan ­ Pam Palmer
Mag Folan ­ Valerie McIlroy
Pato Dooley ­ Peter Aylward
Ray Dooley ­ Michael Carpenter

For more information about the play, group ticket sales or to volunteer with
Sirius Idaho Theatre,
contact John Dickinson at 208-301-4361 or <johnd at moscow.com>
or visit the web site of Sirius Idaho Theatre
http://www.siriusidahotheatre.com/
* * *

Fall 2005 at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

American Values:  American Wilderness (not rated)
A documentary film with Christopher Reeve
Sept 18 at 5:00 & 7:00 PM
Tickets $5/adult, $2/child under 13

Rock School (R)
A documentary film
Sept. 23 at 7:00 & 9:15 PM
Sept. 24 & 25 at 4:45 & 7:00 PM
Tickets $5/adult, $2/child under 13

m-pact in concert
Sept 30 at 7:30 PM
Tickets $12/adult, $6/student with ID

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Oct 7 - 9
Tickets $5/adult, $2/child under 13

Darol Anger Republic of Strings in concert
October 27 at 7:30 PM
Tickets $16/adult, $12/senior or student

Moscow Community Theatre presents
Noodlehead
November 3 - 5, 10 - 12 at 7:30 PM
November 6 & 12 at 2:00 PM
$11/adult, $9/student or senior

Regular Movie prices:  $5 adult, $2 child under 13
KFS passes accepted year-round for Sunday movies!

Coming in October: Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, Enron: The Smartest Guys
in the Room, Mad Hot Ballroom, Darol Anger in concert
Check web site for dates & times. http://www.kenworthy.org
* * *

Become a Friend of the Kenworthy;
make a direct financial contribution to the Kenworthy¹s Reel in the Money
Campaign.

Have you ever wondered why popcorn, candy, and drinks cost up to $4.50 each
at commercial movie theaters on the Palouse?  Because they make most of
their money from concessions and very little from the films.  Theaters pay
up to 90% of their net income to movie distributors like Warner Brothers.

As a service to the community and in fulfillment of its mission as a
non-profit organization, the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre charges less
for admission and snacks than the commercial theaters.

Since September 2002, the Kenworthy Film Society has been enormously
successful in showing foreign, independent, and documentary films. While
almost 4,000 non-KFS members paid $5.00 per person to see KFS films (quite a
bargain when compared with the $7.50 charged by many Palouse-area theaters)
KPAC charged its 967 KFS members an average of $3.00 per person.

Because KPAC shows many independent or foreign-made films that are excellent
but not popularly known, one-half of them make less than $100 after
expenses.   Although KPAC is a non-profit organization, profits are needed
to pay for renovation, upkeep, and management of the historic facility.

Maintaining expensive and sensitive equipment, such at the 35mm film
projector, costs the organization thousands of dollars each year.
Restoration projects for the nearly 100-year-old building include electrical
and projection booth upgrades, handicapped accessible restrooms, and
backstage dressing rooms.  In addition, the bank loan that enabled KPAC to
enlarge the stage, paint, and install wall fabric and carpeting costs the
organization over $10,000 per year and must be paid off by 2010.

The Kenworthy needs your help.  As a movie fan and a supporter of the arts
you can make a difference in our bottom line.  You already support KPAC with
your purchase of KFS passes and regular attendance at KPAC events.  Take the
next step and become a Friend of the Kenworthy by making a direct financial
contribution to the Kenworthy¹s Reel in the Money Campaign.  Your donations
are tax deductible, and you will have the personal satisfaction of knowing
that you are helping to promote and sustain one of Moscow¹s landmark
buildings and the keystone of Moscow¹s historic downtown.

If you wish to discuss your contribution or have questions about the
Kenworthy Film Society, Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre, or the Reel in the
Money Campaign, please contact Julie Ketchum, Executive Director, at
208-882-4127. Donations may be mailed to KPAC at P.O. Box 8126, Moscow, ID
83843.
* * *

This week¹s review-

Batman Begins

Directed by Christopher Nolan; written by Mr. Nolan and David S. Goyer,
based on a story by Mr. Goyer and ''Batman'' characters created by Bob Kane
and published by DC Comics

Rated PG-13: The film includes intense if bloodless action, notably the gun
death of Bruce Wayne's parents. People with bat phobias should take care.
This film also contains intense physical combat.
Running time: 2 hours, 17 minutes


As reviewed by Manohla Dargis writing for the New York Times

''Batman Begins'' is the seventh live-action film to take on the comic-book
legend and the first to usher it into the kingdom of movie myth. Conceived
in the shadow of American pop rather than in its bright light, this tense,
effective iteration of Bob Kane's original comic book owes its power and
pleasures to a director who takes his material seriously and to a star who
shoulders that seriousness with ease.

As sleek as a panther, with cheekbones that look sharp enough to give even
an ardent lover pause, Mr. Bale makes a superbly menacing avenger. His
Batman is leagues away from Adam West's cartoony persona, which lumbered
across American television screens in the mid- and late-60's. Mr. Bale even
improves on Michael Keaton, who donned Batman's cape both in Tim Burton's
1989 ''Batman'' and its funhouse sequel three years later, and gave the
character a jolt of menace. What Mr. Keaton couldn't bring to the role, and
what Mr. Bale conveys effortlessly, is Bruce Wayne's air of casual
entitlement, the aristocratic hauteur that is the necessary complement of
Batman's obsessive megalomania.

What Mr. Nolan gets, and gets better than any other previous director, is
that without Bruce Wayne, Batman is just a rich wacko with illusions of
grandeur and a terrific pair of support hose. Without his suave alter ego,
this weird bat man is a superhero without humanity, an avenger without a
conscious, an id without a superego. Which is why, working from his and
David S. Goyer's very fine screenplay, Mr. Nolan more or less begins at the
beginning, taking Batman back to his original trauma and the death of his
parents. With narrative economy and tangible feeling, he stages that
terrible, defining moment when young Master Wayne watched a criminal shoot
his parents to death in a Gotham City alley, thereby setting into motion his
long, strange journey into the self.

What makes ''Batman Begins'' the most successful comic-book adaptation
alongside Terry Zwigoff's ''Ghost World'' isn't the noisy set pieces, the
nods to ''Blade Runner'' or the way a child's keepsake, an Indian arrowhead,
echoes the shape of a bat. It's the way Mr. Nolan invites us to watch Bruce
Wayne quietly piecing together his Batman identity, to become a secret
sharer to a legend, just as we did once upon a time when we read our first
comic. 

As reviewed by Mick LaSalle writing for the San Francisco Chronicle

To make another "Batman" movie might seem cynical, but not to anyone who
sees "Batman Begins." To see "Batman Begins" is to think maybe this is the
way to go: Take an artistically spent franchise, and instead of adding to
the series and compromising with the mistakes of lesser filmmakers, pretend
as if those other movies never existed. Start at the beginning of the saga,
and tell the story again. This time do it right.

"Batman Begins" goes in another direction, telling the story as neither a
comic book in motion nor as a wild fable, but as the true story of a man who
has a series of odd, transformative experiences.

We find out that as a boy, Bruce was terrified of bats. In fact, his
inability to sit still for a performance of "Die Fledermaus" causes his
parents to leave the opera early -- which puts them on the street at exactly
the wrong time. They're murdered in a holdup, an event that sets up young
Bruce (Gus Lewis) for years of anguish, rage, guilt and soul-searching.

Bale is the first Batman since Michael Keaton to bring a skewed and somewhat
vulnerable sensibility into the psychological equation. Bruce's ultimate
decision to become the caped crusader is presented here as a neurotic
person's way of channeling his neurosis toward a positive end. Since he
knows he'll never stop obsessing about crime -- even his stint in the Asian
prison was by way of researching the criminal mind -- he might as well do
something positive with his obsession.

The special effects are easy to take for granted, but they're first rate.
Batman does a lot of cape gliding in this one. He relies on pulleys to shoot
up the side of buildings and, in one notable case, to scoop someone off the
ground for a private interview, 10 stories up. There's no doubting any of
this. It's all obviously real. The action sequences are genuinely gripping.
Even the chases are amusing. But best of all, there's just the pleasure of
seeing something that's both fantastic to the eye and emotionally
dimensional. This is how to make action movies.


As reviewed by Marc Savlov writing for the Austin Chronicle

This is as close to the Depression-era Bat Man as films have yet ventured,
and although Nolan¹s Gotham isn¹t sporting flivvers and tommy guns ­ to
judge by the art direction, the film takes place in the sort of
retro-futuristic metropolis reserved especially for Good, Evil, and assorted
Minions ­ Batman Begins has the denuded color palette of a chiaro-sclerotic
nightmare. 

This Gotham is diseased, afflicted with pathogens ranging from the minor
corruption of officialdom to a major influx of villainy in the form of
Cillian Murphy¹s horrific Scarecrow, who by day is Arkham Asylum¹s twitchy
and entirely unreliable director, Dr. Jonathan Crane.

Nolan¹s film is the first to delve deeply into privileged young Bruce
Wayne¹s radical, deeply Freudian transformation into Batman. As an origin
story it succeeds admirably, showing us not only the murder of adolescent
Wayne¹s parents at the hands of a jittery street thug (as they exit a
performance of Die Fledermaus, no less), but the reason for his fear and
eventual mastery of those flying mice, and then a tidy, violent, extended
sequence that reveals how he got to be such a badass in the first place.

Bale has always been something of a cipher, and whether lopping off body
parts in American Psycho or going without sleep in The Machinist, the actor
carries with him a quality of unreality that serves him well as Batman.
Surrounded by a phalanx of some of the finest actors working today ­ Caine
as trusty Wayne Manor manservant Alfred is particularly fine, as is
Freeman¹s Lucius Fox, the source for all of Batman¹s splendidly utilitarian
weaponry ­ Bale submerges himself in the role and comes up with something
between The Shadow and Patrick Bateman on Prozac. It works.

Batman Begins is thick with plot, but Nolan¹s crisp, economical direction
keeps things from getting bogged down in explanatory set-ups (there¹s no
mistaking, however, that this is the opening salvo in a brand-new Hollywood
franchise). It¹s great fun, and a terrific relief, to see this iconic crime
fighter back on solid thematic ground, and David Goyer¹s watertight script
is a marvel of the screenwriting craft. It moves with surprising speed (the
film is more than two hours long) on slick tracks of economic dialogue
punctuated by sudden outbursts of violence.

Half the time Batman stalks his criminal quarry unseen, or as a barely
glimpsed, utterly ominous shadow; there are echoes of Fritz Lang¹s Dr.
Mabuse series, not to mention Metropolis, and the cinematography by Nolan
regular Wally Pfister is noir and then some. There¹s so much going on, and
so much to take in, that it leaves you winded. But that¹s origin stories for
you. No one ever said setting up a savior would be simple.


Film reviews researched and edited by Peter A. Haggart
* * *

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

Sign up for this weekly email on events and movies at the Kenworthy by
logging onto our website
http://www.kenworthy.org

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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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