Starring: Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Riz Ahmed, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Richard Ayoade, Rupert Friend, Hope Davis, Benedict Cumberbatch
The story of a family and a family business. Benicio del Toro plays tycoon Anatole “Zsa-zsa” Korda, one of the richest men in Europe; Mia Threapleton is Sister Liesl, his daughter/a nun; Michael Cera is Bjorn Lund, their tutor.
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Janeane Garofalo, Joe Don Baker, John Mahoney, Steve Zahn, Swoosie Kurtz, Winona Ryder
The Future of Film is Female celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Gen-X malaise classic REALITY BITES, and honors the work of its writer, Helen Childress, and editor, Lisa Zeno Churgin. To make an additional $10 donation to The Future of Film is Female, select the “Event + Donation” ticket on the checkout screen.
“There are many ways to peg the twentysomething generation, but none funnier, more accurate or less pretentious than by using the details that stick to characters like a second skin in REALITY BITES. On their college graduation day, the film’s heroes — Lelaina, Vickie, Troy and Sammy — gather on a rooftop in Houston to smoke cigarettes, drink beer and sing ‘Conjunction Junction,’ a Saturday-morning cartoon snippet that helped educate them. Higher education is fine, but as a life-shaping experience it’s just no match for television.
Lelaina (Winona Ryder) is the center of the film and of its romantic triangle. An aspiring filmmaker and her class valedictorian, she is taping a documentary about her friends. The audience sees snippets of this throughout “Reality Bites,” a technique that offers a visual tie to the MTV generation without becoming intrusive. ‘I kind of made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t think about where it was going to end up,’ Lelaina says of her film. ‘I didn’t want to unintentionally commercialize it.’ That’s not a problem REALITY BITES has, and that mainstream sleekness accounts for a great deal of its charm. This film is SLACKER without the slackness, intentionally commercial and breezily entertaining.
REALITY BITES is directed by the comedian Ben Stiller with a sure comic touch and a feel for the texture of lives that are pretty much all texture and no forward drive. This generation has the overwhelming sense that ambition is wasted on the old. Helen Childress, the 23-year-old screenwriter, perfectly captures the slightly defensive wit of people like Lelaina, who can hold up a giant soft-drink cup and announce, ‘The most profound, important invention of my life: the Big Gulp.'” –Caryn James, The New York Times, Feb. 18, 1994
Starring: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Ralph Ineson, Julia Garner, Paul Walter Hauser, John Malkovich, Natasha Lyonne, Sarah Niles
Set against the vibrant backdrop of a 1960s-inspired, retro-futuristic world, The Fantastic Four: First Steps introduces Marvel’s First Family—Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Johnny Storm/Human Torch and Ben Grimm/The Thing as they face their most daunting challenge yet.
Starring: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Edi Gathegi, Anthony Carrigan, Alan Tudyk, Nathan Fillion, Isabela Merced, Skyler Gisondo
Superman embarks on a journey to reconcile his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing as Clark Kent.
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, Mahershala Ali
Five years after the events of Jurassic World Dominion, the planet’s ecology has proven largely inhospitable to dinosaurs. Those remaining exist in isolated equatorial environments with climates resembling the one in which they once thrived. The three most colossal creatures across land, sea and air within that tropical biosphere hold, in their DNA, the key to a drug that will bring miraculous life-saving benefits to humankind.
Starring: Kevin Costner, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Tina Majorino, Dennis Hopper
After the melting of the polar ice caps, most of the globe is underwater. Some humans have survived, and even fewer still, notably the Mariner (Kevin Costner), have adapted to the ocean by developing gills. A loner by nature, the Mariner reluctantly befriends Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and her young companion, Enola (Tina Majorino), as they escape from a hostile artificial island. Soon the sinister Smokers are pursuing them in the belief that Enola holds the key to finding the mythical Dryland.
Starring: Brad Pitt, Simone Ashley, Javier Bardem, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, Damson Idris
A former driver finds himself back in action when he returns to Formula 1 racing to take on the sport’s top competition.
Starring: Greta Gerwig, Lio Tipton, Adam Brody, Megalyn Echikunwoke
Violet (Greta Gerwig) fancies herself an important force at her liberal arts school. With a small but devoted friend group in tow, she seeks to improve the lives of her peers, offering up donuts, if not useful advice, at a suicide prevention center, and making projects out of potential love interests, boys she considers her inferiors. Though on its surface it seems like the behavior of a narcissist, Violet is as earnest as she is naive, seriously reflecting on criticisms offered to her by transfer student Lily (Lio Tipton).
Released over a decade after his previous feature (The Last Days of Disco), Whit Stillman retains his unique brand of humor and wit in Damsels in Distress, drawing the kinds of would-be popular girls as altruistic eccentrics.
The individual journeys of the four members of Led Zeppelin, as they move through the music scene of the 1960s, playing small clubs throughout Britain and performing some of the biggest hits of the era, until their meeting in the summer of 1968 for a rehearsal that changes their lives forever.
Starring: Ralph Macchio, Jackie Chan, Ben Wang, Joshua Jackson, Ming-Na Wen, Shaunette Renée Wilson
Kung fu prodigy Li Fong is uprooted from his home in Beijing and forced to move to New York City. When a friend needs his help, Li enters a karate competition. Li’s teacher Mr. Han enlists original Karate Kid Daniel LaRusso for help.
