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<TITLE>Something Serious; A Scanner Darkly; and Poltergeist at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre</TITLE>
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<FONT COLOR="#000730"><FONT SIZE="4"><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'><B>This week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre-<BR>
</B> <BR>
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><FONT COLOR="#6F1010"><FONT SIZE="6"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:21.0px'><B>Something Serious (not rated)<BR>
</B></SPAN></FONT></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000730"><FONT SIZE="4"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'>A film by Nate Dail<BR>
<B>Tuesday, October 24<BR>
8:00 PM<BR>
</B>$5/general admission<BR>
<BR>
<U>Plot Summary<BR>
</U>Chris (played by Peter Beard), a depressed and lonely teenage boy, moves to Moscow with his mother (played by Pam Palmer) from California. He is introduced to the life of the small town through a kind, flirtatious female classmate, (played by Leah Meredith Payton). The story is broken into three acts, depicting the beginning, peak, and collapse of their relationship. The plot centers on Chris, who has built his entire foundation of happiness upon Leah, and his growing dependence on her as the relationship progresses and how he copes with the final breakup. - Kyle Miller helped edit and film <I>Something Serious</I>.<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT></FONT><FONT COLOR="#6F1010"><FONT SIZE="6"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:21.0px'><B>A Scanner Darkly (R)<BR>
</B></SPAN></FONT></FONT><B><FONT COLOR="#000730"><FONT SIZE="4"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'>Thursday & Friday, October 26 & 27<BR>
7:00 PM<BR>
Saturday & Sunday, October 28 & 29<BR>
4:35 & 7:00 PM<BR>
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></B><FONT COLOR="#000730"><FONT SIZE="4"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'>$5/adult<BR>
KFS pass good for Sunday movies<BR>
<B>(Review below)<BR>
</B> <BR>
</SPAN></FONT></FONT><FONT COLOR="#6F1010"><FONT SIZE="6"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:21.0px'><B>Poltergeist<BR>
</B></SPAN></FONT></FONT><B><FONT COLOR="#000730"><FONT SIZE="4"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'>Saturday, October 28<BR>
10:00 PM<BR>
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></B><FONT COLOR="#000730"><FONT SIZE="4"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'>$3/includes popcorn<BR>
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</SPAN></FONT></FONT><FONT SIZE="4"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'><FONT COLOR="#6F1010"><B>Late night. Dark theater. Big screen. Free popcorn.<BR>
And a crowd of friends of the verge of screaming.<BR>
</B></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000730"> <BR>
Check out our web-site for more information, ratings, and reviews. This is<BR>
your chance to see some of your favorite flicks on the BIG screen.<BR>
<B>* * *<BR>
<BR>
<I>The Best Little Theatre in Moscow </I></B>presents<BR>
a staged reading of<BR>
</FONT></SPAN></FONT><FONT COLOR="#00117A"><FONT SIZE="6"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:21.0px'><B><I>The Oldest Profession<BR>
</I></B></SPAN></FONT></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000730"><FONT SIZE="4"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'>by Paula Vogel<BR>
<BR>
Directed by Bev Wolff and Terri Schmidt<BR>
<BR>
<B>Friday, November 10<BR>
</B>Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre<BR>
7:00 pm Reception and music<BR>
8:00 pm Staged reading<BR>
Tickets $20<BR>
Proceeds benefit <I>Sirius Idaho Theatre</I> and <I>Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre<BR>
</I> <BR>
<U>Encore performance<BR>
</U><B>Saturday, November 11<BR>
</B>Gladish Little Theatre in Pullman<BR>
7:30 pm Staged reading<BR>
Tickets $12<BR>
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Tickets available at BookPeople of Moscow and Neill’s Flowers and Gifts in Pullman<BR>
<BR>
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<I>The Oldest Profession</I>, a comedy by Paula Vogel, focuses on the lives of five older prostitutes working in New York and facing the problems of an aging clientele, competition from younger street walkers, rising rent prices . . . and all without the safety net of social security or health insurance. The play is set in the eighties, just before Reagan is elected, and so is relevant to today - a backdrop of the upcoming elections, trickle-down economics, rising gas prices, high rents, social security, etc. There's even a reference to strip mining.<BR>
<BR>
Barbara Kirschner, in her eighties, and considered one of the grande dames of Palouse theatre, plays the part of Mae, the madam. Bev Hyde plays the part of Ursula, next in line for management, while Martha Godchaux plays the part of Lillian, the rose of Mae's stable. Karen Rogers is Edna, hardworking and good at her job, while Phyllis Van Horn is Vera, the baby of the group. Kirschner has been involved with Lewiston Civic Theatre, Pullman Community and Civic Theatre, and starred in major roles in 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf', 'Trip to Bountiful' and 'On Golden Pond'. All of the rest of the cast, except one, are retired.<BR>
<BR>
Staged readings of the play will be Friday, November 10 at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre in Moscow and Saturday, November 11th at the Gladish Little Theatre in Pullman. The Moscow performance, a joint fundraising event with proceeds going to <I>Sirius Idaho Theatre</I> and the <I>Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre</I>, includes music and a reception prior to curtain time. Tickets are $20 per person. Tickets for Saturday’s performance in Pullman are $12. Tickets are available at BookPeople of Moscow and Neill’s Flowers and Gifts in Pullman.<BR>
<BR>
For more information contact Bev Wolff at </SPAN></FONT></FONT><FONT SIZE="4"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'><FONT COLOR="#0022F2"><U>bevw@adelphia.net</U></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000730">, or call 509-336-9664<BR>
* * *<BR>
<B> <BR>
November at the Kenworthy-<BR>
</B> <BR>
<B>The Fall of ?55<BR>
</B>A Seth Randall Film<BR>
November 2<BR>
7:00 PM<BR>
Panel Discussion following<BR>
<BR>
<B>Factotum (R)<BR>
</B>November 3<BR>
7:00 PM<BR>
November 4<BR>
4:40 & 7:00 PM<BR>
<BR>
<B>The Grub-Stake (1922)<BR>
</B>Silent Film with intro by Tom Trusky<BR>
November 5<BR>
4:00 & 7:00 PM<BR>
<BR>
The Best Little Theatre in Moscow presents<BR>
A staged reading of<BR>
<B>The Oldest Profession<BR>
</B>November 10<BR>
7:00 PM<BR>
Benefit for KPAC and <I>Sirius Idaho Theatre<BR>
</I>Tickets $20<BR>
<BR>
<B>Half Nelson (R)<BR>
</B>November 11 & 12<BR>
4:20 & 7:00 PM<BR>
<BR>
<B>House of Sand (R)<BR>
</B>November 16 & 17<BR>
7:00 PM<BR>
November 18 & 19<BR>
4:20 & 7:00 PM<BR>
<BR>
<B>Pirates of the Caribbean (PG-13)<BR>
</B>November 24<BR>
7:00 PM<BR>
November 25<BR>
12:30, 3:45 & 7:00 PM<BR>
November 26<BR>
3:45 & 7:00 PM<BR>
<BR>
<B>Coming in December:</B> This Film is Not Yet Rated; The Science of Sleep<BR>
Regular movie prices: $5/adult, $3/child 12 or younger<BR>
KFS series pass prices: $30/10 films, $75/30 films. KFS pass good only for Sunday movies.<BR>
<BR>
For more information on movies, events, rental rates, and/or to download a schedule, <BR>
visit our website at www.kenworthy.org or call 208-882-4127.<BR>
<B>* * *<BR>
<BR>
This week’s Review-<BR>
<BR>
</B></FONT></SPAN></FONT><B><FONT COLOR="#6F1010"><FONT SIZE="6"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:21.0px'>A Scanner Darkly<BR>
</SPAN></FONT></FONT></B><FONT COLOR="#000730"><FONT SIZE="4"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'> <BR>
Directed and Written by Richard Linklater <BR>
Rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian)<BR>
Advisory: This film contains lots of profanity, drug use, a fantasy sequence where a head explodes and nudity, including a momentarily naked Winona Ryder -- except she's animated, which really doesn't count.<BR>
Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.<BR>
<BR>
<B><I><U>As reviewed by Peter Hartlaub writing for the San Francisco Chronicle<BR>
</U></I></B> <BR>
Moviemakers over the past few decades have scavenged Philip K. Dick's science fiction the way ivory hunters approach an elephant carcass. Films such as "Total Recall" and even Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" adopt the loose themes and action elements of those stories, while discarding most of the subtleties of his writing.<BR>
<BR>
Richard Linklater's "A Scanner Darkly," based on a Dick book by the same name, goes in the opposite direction -- even using the rotoscoping animation techniques featured in Linklater's "Waking Life" to enhance the drug-hazed themes of the author's novel.<BR>
<BR>
The visual style and lethargic pace can be frustrating -- at least if you're sober -- but the animated tragedy is still a success. For science fiction fans who prefer ideas over laser battles, this is the most meticulous and faithful movie adaptation of Dick's work -- and one of the most thoughtful. "A Scanner Darkly" has a gloomy "Soylent Green" vibe, while containing less violence than "Bridget Jones's Diary."<BR>
<BR>
Since Dick died in 1982, just a few months before Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner" was released, two generations have experienced mostly third-rate films made out of Dick's first-rate writing. <BR>
<BR>
Keanu Reeves is Bob Arctor, who is addicted to crack-meets-ecstasy superdrug Substance D, living in a dumpy house in the Orange County suburbs with a group of losers including Barris (Robert Downey Jr.) and Luckman (Woody Harrelson). Arctor is also Agent Fred, an undercover narcotics officer who is spying on himself -- a fact unknown to his superiors because the identities of drug cops are hidden by "scramble suits," psychedelic-looking devices that turn the user into sort of a human quilt.<BR>
<BR>
More than his predecessors, Linklater mines the often-tragic humor in Dick's writing. This is made much easier by the psychedelic properties of rotoscoping -- which overlaps the actors' features with the amoeba-like animation, so everyone looks as if they're made out of Jell-O. Rory Cochrane's performance as a paranoid drug addict would seem like overacting in a live-action movie, but Linklater adds hallucinations of swarming ticks to the palette, and the result is creepy dark comedy.<BR>
<BR>
For most of the film, Arctor doesn't really know what's going on with his life, and Linklater doesn't clue the audience in, either. Themes are explored -- the artistic advantages of drugs and the fear of human contact that results -- but the path isn't always clear. "A Scanner Darkly" is mostly people talking, and they don't always make very much sense.<BR>
<BR>
The book "A Scanner Darkly" was reportedly based on Dick's own confused experiences, living in Marin County and struggling with drug addiction. The movie has a few bad side effects, but it's worth the trip just to see what one of the author's books really looks like on the big screen.<BR>
<BR>
<B><I><U>As reviewed by Michael Wilmington writing for the Chicago Tribune<BR>
</U></I></B> <BR>
Philip K. Dick was a dark literary visionary, sometimes disguised as a prolific pulp science fiction writer, whose explosively imaginative tales could usher his readers into realms of dread, alternative lives and utter madness. So do some of the many movies of his stories (notably 1982's "Blade Runner"), though few of them are the pure stuff.<BR>
<BR>
Richard Linklater's film of "A Scanner Darkly" comes close, though. It's one of the most faithful movie adaptations of any Dick story to date, and it comes from the scariest of all his books, as well as the truest: a bad dream that springs less from Dick's wild talent for future extrapolation than from his own sad, scarred life in the drug world of the '60s. (Dick died of heart failure at 53, in 1982.)<BR>
<BR>
The movie isn't quite as scary, but it's fascinating: a stylistic experiment involving animation and rotoscoping (drawing on top of live-action filming), in the manner of Linklater's 2001 "Waking Life." And though it will bewilder some, as Dick's books often do, the movie conveys a shattering sense of wasted lives and mounting nightmare.<BR>
<BR>
Dick based the 1977 novel "Scanner" partly on his own experiences in the California drug subculture. At the end of the book, there's a list of his friends who suffered or died from drug problems; Dick includes himself in that roster of casualties. In the film, though, we see only a little "family" of addicts drifting around in Anaheim, Calif., (seven years in our future).<BR>
<BR>
Linklater is great with actors, and that includes the ensemble here. Everybody is good, especially Downey and Harrelson. Downey does Barris as a treacherous, egotistical creep rattling off long deadpan raps, most of which seem designed to show he's smarter than everyone else. Luckman is primo Harrelson; he's funny, pseudo-dumb and boisterous, a perfect foil for everybody.<BR>
<BR>
"A Scanner Darkly" is a movie that tries, in a way, to mess up our minds. And it does. But the story was also meant by Dick as a healing experience, and Linklater gets that too. He even includes, at the end, that devastating list of Dick's drug-wounded friends. While the animation is more conventional, less startling or magical than in "Waking Life" (there were troubles during production this time), the movie plunges us into nightmare. Watching "A Scanner Darkly," we can feel Dick's world close in on us. And we can be glad we're only visitors.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<B><I><U>As reviewed by Manohla Dargis writing for the New York Times<BR>
</U></I></B> <BR>
Identities shift and melt like shadows in Richard Linklater's animated adaptation of "A Scanner Darkly," a look at a future that looks an awful lot like today. Based on a 1977 novel by the science fiction visionary Philip K. Dick, the semi-speculative story involves a cop (call him Officer Fred) who, by assuming an undercover identity (call him Bob Arctor), is inching his way up toward a big drug bust, score by score. But there's a little problem: Fred is starting to forget he's Bob, or maybe vice versa.<BR>
<BR>
Given that Fred/Bob has been regularly dropping Substance D, as in Death, tab by tab, it's no wonder he's feeling a bit off; no wonder, too, given that this is the world Philip K. Dick made. Like the writer's other worlds, that of "A Scanner Darkly" is one in which drugs predominate and reality tends to be a big question mark, hovering like an electro-colored thought bubble above characters who are more everyday normal than super-this or -that. Ordinary guys who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances like Fred/Bob, who in Mr. Linklater's film has been given seductive voice and corporeal outline by Keanu Reeves, an actor whose penchant for otherworldly types and excellent adventures make him well suited for vision quests like this one.<BR>
<BR>
Mr. Dick wrote "A Scanner Darkly" after several years of firsthand experience with what he called the street scene in the early 1970's. By 1971 he was ingesting a whopping 1,000 hits of speed a week, along with plentiful daily doses of tranquilizers. "The happiness pills," he admitted around that time, "are turning out to be nightmare pills." <BR>
<BR>
On its most basic level, the novel serves as a cautionary tale about the perils of drug abuse and indeed closes with a poignant roll call of Philip K. Dick's friends who had been lost, "punished" — as he wrote — "entirely too much for what they did." That said, to reduce the novel to a "just say no" diatribe would be to greatly miss one of its and its author's sustaining points. Drugs are generally a bad idea in "A Scanner Darkly," in the book and film both, though in the novel it's the real world or what we perceive the real world to be that makes for the more obviously bad trip, not scary little pills. "So-called 'reality,' " as Mr. Dick once said, "is a mass delusion that we've all been required to believe for reasons totally obscure."<BR>
<BR>
As he did in an earlier film, "Waking Life," Mr. Linklater uses the animation technique called rotoscoping to translate Mr. Dick's worldview, mostly to fine expressive effect. With this technique, a version of which was used by early giants like Max Fleischer and even in the old Disney factory, animators directly trace over live-action images of performers. (What was once achieved through ink and paint is now accomplished through software.) The results tend to look fluid, almost as if the bodies were floating above the background visuals — an effect that appears to have been pushed in "A Scanner Darkly," where the bodies can appear almost liquid, as if the characters had been recently poured and had yet to harden into final shape.<BR>
<BR>
“A Scanner Darkly" has a kind of hypnotic visual appeal, and there's something very appropriate in how a chair in Bob Arctor's kitchen appears to hover above the floor, replicating the kind of time-space visual dislocations that can be produced through the consumption of hallucinogens. Even so, considering that the animation is not transcendently beautiful and that Mr. Downey has been pretty much out of commission lately, in part because of his own drug troubles, it would have been nice to see real shadows crossing his face.<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
<I>Film reviews researched and edited by Peter Haggart<BR>
</I><B>* * *<BR>
<BR>
<I>Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre<BR>
</I>508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho<BR>
</B>Sign up for this weekly email on events and movies at the Kenworthy by logging onto our website <BR>
</SPAN></FONT></FONT><FONT SIZE="4"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:14.0px'><FONT COLOR="#0022F2"><U><a href="http://www.kenworthy.org">http://www.kenworthy.org</a><BR>
</U> <BR>
</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000730">~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<BR>
PAMELA PALMER, <B>Volunteer<BR>
</B><a href="Mailto:ppalmer@moscow.com">Mailto:ppalmer@moscow.com</a><BR>
Film and Events Committee <BR>
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre<BR>
<BR>
<a href="http://www.kenworthy.org">http://www.kenworthy.org</a><BR>
To speak with a KPAC staff member, <BR>
call (208) 882-4127<BR>
<a href="Mailto:kpac@moscow.com">Mailto:kpac@moscow.com</a><BR>
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