[ThisWeek] Being Julia and Shark Tale at the Kenworthy

[thisweek at kenworthy.org]

Two shows this week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre!

Being Julia (R)
Friday, February 4
7:00PM
Saturday & Sunday, February 5 & 6
4:30 and 7:00PM
$5 adults  
KFS passes accepted for the Sunday showings
(See Review below)


Last chance to see Shark Tale on the big screen!

Shark Tale (PG)
Saturday & Sunday, February 5 & 6
1:00 PM
Tickets: $5 Adults / $2 Children under 12
Playing time: 90 minutes
(No KFS passes accepted for this movie)
* * *

February 2005 at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre . . .

Yes Men (NR)
Feb 11 at 7PM
Feb 12 ­ 13 at 5:00 and 7:00 PM

House of Flying Daggers (R)
Feb 18 at 7PM
Feb 19 ­ 20 at 4:15 and 7:00 PM

UI Architecture Dept presents
Will Bruder lecture
February 25 at 5:00 PM
FREE

Dig (NR)
Feb 26 at 7:00 PM
Feb 27 at 4:15 and 7:00 PM

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

508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho
For more information, call 208-882-4127 or visit www.kenworthy.org
* * *
This week¹s review-

Being Julia 

As reviewed by Michael Wilmington writing for the Chicago Tribune

Annette Bening plays Julia Lambert, an aging grand diva of the '30s London
stage, in Istvan Szabo's "Being Julia." And though you may be surprised at
the casting, the American actress has a lot of elegant, witchy fun with the
part. So do the moviemakers, who often make "Julia" seem a bit of a holiday.

Holidays, though, can be welcome, especially if they have a story, cast and
star as glamorously amusing as this one. There's an eternal carnal sparkle
in Bening's eyes that ideally suits a character such as 1938 "stage legend"
Julia, queen of an empire of applause and bravura, who finds herself briefly
outflanked by youthful suitors and rivals but then bests them on the stage.

At its best, "Julia" dispenses high-level sexiness and wit, plus a mordant
amusement and moralism that recall the tale's original author, W. Somerset
Maugham. Cursed with a faithless, deceitful young American suitor, Tom
Fennel (Shaun Evans), and by his other, younger lover, actress/climber Avice
Crichton (Lucy Punch)--as well as the temporary inattentions of her own
urbane manager-husband, Michael Gosselyn (Jeremy Irons)--Julia has to battle
it out on the stage, to defend her theatrical turf from her sluttish young
rival Avice and erase the smug smile from ex-lover Tom's face.

Maugham wrote the novel "Theatre" on which "Julia" is based--and since he
took almost all his stories straight from life, the original is probably a
deadly accurate portrait of the backstage world behind his own plays. On
screen, it unreels with mingled realism and artifice, its tone a change from
the usual serious work of Szabo ("Lovefilm," "Mephisto" ) and screenwriter
Ronald Harwood ("The Pianist," "The Dresser"). Szabo said his model for the
direction was that master of Hollywood-European romantic comedy, Ernst
Lubitsch ("Trouble in Paradise," "Heaven Can Wait"), and the one-time
experimental, leftist Hungarian filmmaker lays on the stylishness here, with
luscious designs by Luciana Arrighi of the Merchant-Ivory films and glowing
cinematography by his constant "eye," Lajos Koltai.

As reviewed by Tom Long writing for the Detroit News

Fragile, weary, vulnerable and ultimately unsure where she begins and her
act ends, Julia is an actress of a certain age looking for something new,
something to hold onto, some reassurance, some reason to keep walking
onstage.

And in ³Being Julia² Annette Bening brings her to marvelous, scattered life.
It¹s an Oscar-worthy turn by Bening, so much so that it¹s hard to imagine
anyone else in the role; and she helps a film that¹s otherwise a bit too
mannered and theatrical to connect with texture, tenderness and, most
importantly, humor.

Bening is so natural in the way she moves from confidence to collapse,
radiance to wreckage, that she make the somewhat unreal Julia very real
indeed. She¹s surrounded by good performers ‹ Juliet Stevenson plays your
standard cynical dresser, but she¹s so funny you don¹t care; and Irons truly
oozes sophistication. But the film breathes with Bening, so much so that
even an ongoing dialogue with a ghost (Michael Gambon) isn¹t bothersome.

As reviewed by Carla Meyer writing for the San Francisco Chronicle

"Being Julia'' is a one-woman show. There are several notable actors in it,
most of them quite good, but it's the glorious Annette Bening who hoists
this flawed production on her mink-wrapped shoulders and makes it work.

Playing a famous 1930s London stage actress in this adaptation of the
Somerset Maugham novel "Theatre,'' Bening is funny, proud, neurotic and
sexually invigorated. Her stage background at American Conservatory Theater
shows in her multilayered tour de force: She is an actress playing an
actress who keeps acting in her personal life. Her Julia triumphs and
falters onstage and is, by turns, convincing and transparent in her offstage
manipulations. Her motivation is another matter, one the picture never
resolves. Director Istvan Szabo ("Sunshine'') and screenwriter Ronald
Harwood ("The Pianist'') portray a gilded, glamorous and witty backstage
world but muddle their main character.

When the film starts, Julia, claiming exhaustion, has asked her producer
husband (Jeremy Irons) to stop the play in which she currently stars. She
seems reasonable enough, but the reactions of those around her hint at a
more capricious temperament. Irons' husband character, indulgent but also
business- minded, agrees to end the show but not just yet, because he
believes she will change her mind. Julia's faithful maid and dresser, played
with eye-rolling good humor by Juliet Stevenson, mouths along as Julia
complains about middle age, "The curtain has come down on Act 1, and I have
no idea what happens in Act 2.'' It's a refrain as familiar as the
waterworks Julia turns on to get what she wants.

A refreshing aspect of the character, or at least in the way Bening plays
her, is that she's not a stereotypical diva. She can be warm and witty,
joking with intimates from the theater and expressing concern for her
teenage son. She's just far less developed as a person than as a performer,
relying on the advice of her first acting teacher (Michael Gambon) in
conducting her life. That he happens to be dead doesn't stop either of them.
Gambon makes a naughty angel-devil on Julia's shoulder, encouraging offstage
antics if they help her as a performer.

But he's not particularly receptive to the young American named Tom with
whom Julia, freed by an open marriage, cavorts. You can see his point.
Played by the blond, boyish Shaun Evans, Tom worships Julia to a degree that
is either creepy or false. He tells her she could be in pictures, to which
Julia responds, "Real actresses don't make pictures,'' an in-joke Bening
sells with her eyes.

This callow fellow seems an unlikely choice for a woman of the world, and
when he says, "I want you,'' it is with the fervor of a wet sock. But trysts
in Tom's dingy walkup allow Bening to exhibit a well-seasoned lustiness. She
sparkles when those around Julia comment on her newfound glow. That glow
took some effort.

Bening's performance hints that Tom might be an accessory, like the 1930s
hats she wears so beautifully (assisted by love-struck lighting and camera
angles). Startled rather than aroused by Tom's initial kiss, Julia seems to
have willed herself to be attracted to him, as if he's an escape hatch from
ennui. Yet the movie never commits to this idea. Her subsequent moony
behavior might be part of a larger performance, or it may just be a case of
an older, desperate woman clinging to a younger man.

Bening has more sparks with Irons, who shows just enough reserve to indicate
that the husband started the open-marriage thing. This might be a marriage
spent of romance, but it still produces delightful exchanges. "I'm a bitch,
awful through and through!'' Julia wails to her husband. "Nevertheless .
..'' he begins in response. He's also the only one who can tell her when
she's bad onstage. Now that's love.

* * *

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