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<FONT FACE="Verdana"><B>This week at the Kenworthy-<BR>
</B><BR>
<FONT COLOR="#800000"><H2>I Heart Huckabees (R)<BR>
</H2></FONT><B>Friday, December 17<BR>
7:00 PM<BR>
Saturday & Sunday, December 18 & 19<BR>
4:30 & 7:00 PM<BR>
</B>$5/adults<BR>
KFS passes accepted for Sunday movies<BR>
<B>(See Review below)<BR>
<BR>
</B><I>KPAC will be closed December 20 - January 2.<BR>
</I><B>* * *<BR>
Next month at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre . . .<BR>
</B><BR>
<B>Ray (PG13)<BR>
</B>Jan 7 at 7PM<BR>
Jan 8 - 9 at 3:50 and 7PM<BR>
<BR>
<B>Enduring Love (R)<BR>
</B>Jan 14 at 7PM<BR>
Jan 15 - 16 at 4:30 and 7PM<BR>
<BR>
<B>The Motorcycle Diaries (R)<BR>
</B>Jan 21 at 7PM<BR>
Jan 22 - 23 at 6 4:15 and 7PM<BR>
<BR>
<B>Stage Beauty (R)<BR>
</B>Jan 28 at 7PM<BR>
Jan 29 - 30 at 4:30 and 7PM<BR>
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<B>Regular Movie prices</B>: $5 adults, $2 children 12 and younger. <BR>
KFS passes accepted for Sunday movies<BR>
<BR>
508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho<BR>
For more information, call 208-882-4127 or visit www.kenworthy.org<BR>
<B>* * *<BR>
<BR>
This week’s review-<BR>
<BR>
</B><FONT COLOR="#800000"><H2>I HEART HUCKABEES<BR>
</H2></FONT><BR>
Directed by David O. Russell; <BR>
Written by Mr. Russell and Jeff Baena<BR>
Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes<BR>
<BR>
"I Heart Huckabees" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It includes some adult language, but probably nothing any teenager hasn't heard before.<BR>
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<B><I><U>As reviewed by Manohla Dargis writing for the New York Times<BR>
</U></I></B><BR>
The high-wire comedy "I Heart Huckabees" captures liberal-left despair with astonishingly good humor: it's "Fahrenheit 9/11" for the screwball set. Chockablock with strange bedfellows-- Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin play a hot-and-heavy married couple, Jason Schwartzman gets his groove on with Isabelle Huppert-- the film is a snort-out-loud-funny master class of controlled chaos. In this topsy-turvy world, where Yes is the new corporate No and businesses sponsor environmental causes while bulldozing over Ranger Rick, a pair of existentialist detectives sift through clients' trash to solve the riddle of their malaise. Like the film's director, David O. Russell, they gladly risk foolishness to plunge into the muck of human existence.<BR>
<BR>
The film hinges on one of these clients in mid-crisis, Mr. Schwartzman's Albert Markovski, a Sisyphean figure with a flop of hair and his own giant rock. The founder of an environmental advocacy group (the rock is the sole survivor of one of its campaigns), Albert has recently agreed to join forces with Huckabees, a Wal-Mart-like corporation with the newspeak motto of "one store, one world."<BR>
<BR>
Bewitched by the synergistic soft-sell of the Huckabees executive Brad Stand (Jude Law), who would tag a bald eagle with the corporate logo if he could, Albert has just realized the downside to cozying up with the Devil. Now, as Brad stakes a claim on Albert's reason for being, the activist dreams of hacking his blond doppelgänger to pieces, a fantasy that Mr. Russell obliges with some low-key digital trickery. <BR>
<BR>
"I Heart Huckabees" is a comedy of dialectics, in which opposing dualities slug it out like wounded lovers, but it's nothing if not deeply sincere. Mr. Russell and his co-writer, Jeff Baena, are clearly furious about the state of things (you name it) but, like Jon Stewart, they slide in the knife with a smile. The film's Trojan horse strategy reaches its apotheosis in Tommy, a figure of both comedy and unexpected pathos. After turning to the existentialist detectives following Sept. 11, the firefighter peers through the keyhole opened by the catastrophe and discovers a world of sorrows (child labor, melting icecaps, the works), becoming a man who truly knows too much. Knowledge may be power, but as the history of the post-1968 left in this country suggests, it can also be an excuse for factionalism, impotence, despair. <BR>
<BR>
"I Heart Huckabees" will probably drive some audiences bonkers. Loud, messy, aggressively in your face and generally played for the back row in the theater, the film doesn't offer up solutions, tender any comfort or rejoice in the triumph of the human spirit. All we can do, says Mr. Russell, is keep pushing that rock back uphill. That's kind of a bummer, but in its passion, energy and go-for-broke daring, in its faith in the possibility of human connection (if not its probability), Mr. Russell's film provides its own reason for hope. It's a mad mad mad mad world, and for those who already feel crazy, who wake up and read the morning paper with dread and wonder if we'll ever wake up from our nightmare, well, have I got a movie for you.<BR>
<BR>
<B><I><U>As reviewed by Sam Adams writing for the Philadelphia City Paper<BR>
</U></I></B><BR>
In the way that the overstuffed sprawl of the <U>Kill Bills</U> felt like a direct outgrowth of Quentin Tarantino six-year quest, so David O. Russell's I Heart Huckabees, his first feature since 1999's <U>Three Kings</U>, seems to be crammed with every idea he's had in the last five years. Luckily, most of them are good ideas, although even at a frenetic clip, the movie finally can't keep up with its creator. Perhaps it's the other way around. <BR>
<BR>
Most comedy has a core of despair, and Huckabees' lies pretty close to the surface. You don't have to know that Russell was a political organizer before he was a filmmaker to feel Albert's genuine panic as the coalition he's built from scratch slips from his grasp, and it's hard to miss <U>Three Kings'</U> pointed critique of the oil industry's undue influence on American foreign policy poking out from behind Tommy's obsession with petroleum products. And then, of course, there's "the big September thing," which subtly underwrites Huckabees' frenetic search for meaning—as well as its characters' pressing urge to disconnect from the world, which they indulge by smacking themselves in the face with a rubber ball until they can't think straight. <BR>
<BR>
Russell doesn't have the take-no-prisoners heart of a true farceur, or Woody Allen's gift for intellectual absurdism, so the best he can do is space out the Big Ideas with the occasional spurt of awkward slapstick, following every philosophical musing with a whack in the face. After a nearly pitch-perfect first hour, Huckabees grows jagged, unsteady, as if the closer Russell gets to his grand conclusions, the less comfortable he is stating them. He lacks the courage of his pretensions.<BR>
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<B><I><U>As reviewed by Tom Brook writing for BBC Talking Movies<BR>
</U></I></B><BR>
In reviewing '<I>I Heart Huckabees</I>' I found it chaotic, confusing but very much alive and very enjoyable. <BR>
<BR>
This film is like a whirlwind with all kinds of ideas flying about presented with some eye-catching visual effects. It also has an ambitious aim – to use Albert’s journey of self-discovery to provide a critique of everything from corporate culture to philosophical arguments. <BR>
<BR>
But David O’Russell doesn’t quite pull it off – his picture is complex but it lacks coherence. His characters are forced into byways that are amusing and idiosyncratic and baffling, but the film is helped by some strong performances – Jason Schwartzman makes Albert very endearing, and Jude Law is good as the cocksure corporate executive.<BR>
<BR>
There are some great scenes in '<I>I Heart Huckabees</I>' which make at least moments in the film truly unforgettable.<BR>
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<I>Film reviews are researched and edited by Peter A. Haggart<BR>
</I>* * *<BR>
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</U></FONT><FONT COLOR="#800000"><B><BR>
</B></FONT>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<BR>
PAMELA PALMER, <B>Volunteer<BR>
</B>Mailto:ppalmer@moscow.com<BR>
Film and Events Committee <BR>
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre<BR>
<BR>
http://www.kenworthy.org<BR>
To speak with a KPAC staff member, <BR>
call (208) 882-4127<BR>
Mailto:kpac@moscow.com<BR>
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