September hastens the end of summer vacations, brings on the first football tailgate weekends … and marks the start of the movie season at the Flint Institute of Arts. Which to choose, football or movies? Hmmm…
Here’s my vote for movies: The museum launches the 2014-15 Friends of Modern Art film series on September 5-7 with Third Person, the latest from the Academy Award-winning writer and director, Paul Haggis. Like Haggis’ Crash – the 2004 winner of the Best Picture Oscar – this film offers a set of interlocking stories, three tales set in Rome, Paris, and New York. Also like Crash, there’s a starry cast: Liam Neeson as a womanizing writer, James Franco and Mila Kunis as an estranged couple fighting for custody of their son, with other characters played by Olivia Wilde, Adrien Brody, Kim Basinger, and Maria Bello.
Weekend No. 2 – September 12-14 – brings a comedy from Ireland, The Bachelor Weekend, with a cast headed by a face increasingly familiar to American audiences: Andrew Scott, who plays Moriarty in TV’s Sherlock. He’s part of a bachelor party that takes some unexpected detours in the great outdoors.
A documentary follows on September 19-21, but Herb & Dorothy 50X50 has some faces that might be familiar to FOMA film regulars. This is the follow-up to the award-winning documentary Herb & Dorothy, which showed at FIA during the 2009-10 season, and concerns an elderly married couple and their amazing art collection. In the new film, Herbert and Dorothy Vogel continue to find homes for the works that have filled their New York apartment for decades.
If you love fine art, or simply like a good story, the Vogels might be the right couple for you. And if you missed the first film, we’ll be repeating it on September 18 at 7:30pm in our occasional Thursday night “Best of FOMA” series.
As with Third Person, there are many familiar faces in the FIA’s September 26-28 presentation, Hateship Loveship. Hailee Steinfeld from True Grit plays a rebellious teen who promotes a romance between her nanny, played by the fabulous Kristen Wiig, and her recovering-addict father, played by Guy Pearce. Nick Nolte co-stars in what The New York Times has called “an absorbing, messy, modest story of damaged relationships.”
All FIA screenings begin at 7:30pm on Fridays and Saturdays – and select Thursdays – and 2pm on Sundays. Tickets, available at the door, are $6 general admission, $5 for FIA members and $4 for FOMA members. “Best of FOMA” tickets are $2 apiece. For more details, visit flintarts.org.
And, by the way, you have my blessing to enjoy both football and movies. It’s what makes autumn worth the wait! ♦
Ed Bradley is the associate curator of film at the Flint Institute of Arts. He was entertainment editor and film critic at the Flint Journal from 1989-2007. He teaches Journalism at the University of Michigan-Flint and Film Appreciation at the FIA Art School, and is busy at work on this third book on early Hollywood cinema.
