ashfield u3a cinema

Ashfield U3A Cinema Club

An inaugural meeting of the Cinema Club was held on Tuesday 5th May, 2009 at 13:30 at the home of Anthea Purvis. It was decided to hold future meetings on the first Tuesday of each month, initially at Anthea's and the programme of films chosen is shown below.

If you wish to join this group or would like more details, please contact the co-ordinator, Anthea Purvis, on 01623 550739 or email Anthea.

DATE	TIME	VENUE	SUBJECT	PLOT SUMMARY

2009
Tuesday 1st September	13:30	Anthea Purvis	Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997)	Based on Peter Hoeg's bestseller, this film is set in snowy Copenhagen where a small boy is found dead after he fell off a roof. Smilla Jasperson, a close friend who lives in the same house begins to suspect murder because she knows that the boy was afraid of heights and would not have played on the roof. As she begins to investigate, she is pulled deeper and deeper into a conspiracy that could very well mean her death.
Tuesday 6th October	13:30	Anthea Purvis	Miller's Crossing (1990)	A highly styled 'genre' film which can perhaps be seen as a pastiche of all gangster movies. Tom Reagan is the laconic anti-hero of this amoral tale which is also, paradoxically, a look at morals within the criminal underworld of the 1930s. Two rival gangs vie for control of a city where the police are pawns, and the periodic busts of illicit drinking establishments are no more than a way for one gang to get back at the other. Black humour and shocking violence compete for screen time as we question whether or not Tom, right-hand man of the Irish mob leader, really has a heart.
Tuesday 3rd November	13:30	Anthea Purvis	Italian for Beginners (2000)	Several lonely hearts in a semi-provincial suburb of a town in Denmark use a beginner's course in Italian as the platform to meet the romance of their lives. VIEW TRAILER
Tuesday 1st December	13:30	Anthea Purvis	Joyeux noel (2005)	In 1914, World War I, the bloodiest war ever at that time in human history, was well under way. However on Christmas Eve, numerous sections of the Western Front called an informal, and unauthorized, truce where the various front-line soldiers of the conflict peacefully met each other in No Man's Land to share a precious pause in the carnage with a fleeting brotherhood. VIEW TRAILER

2010
Tuesday 5th January	-	Anthea Purvis	-	MEETING CANCELLED OWING TO ADVERSE WEATHER
Tuesday 2nd February	13:30	Anthea Purvis	I've Loved You So Long (2008)	This powerful story of familial struggles and redemption follows a shell-shocked Juliette (Scott-Thomas), who returns to live with her young sister Lea (Zylberstein) after being banished from the family for 15 years. An enormous critical and box office success in France, Scott-Thomas' phenomenal performance was singled out by critics for the end-of-year award consideration. VIEW TRAILER
Tuesday 2nd March	13:30	Anthea Purvis	The Secret Life of Bees (2008)	Lily Owens( Dakota Fanning) is a young girl who lives on a peach farm owned by her abusive father. Rosaleen(Jennifer Hudson) is a black woman hired by Lily's father to be a stand-in mother for Lily, whose mother died in a horrendous accident when she was a toddler. But when Rosaleen insults some of the biggest racists in town, Lily is forced to take Rosaleen away to the town where Lily believed her mother once lived. In the course of looking for someone who knew her mother, they find a lady who gathers honey ( Queen Latifa) and her two sisters, who run the farm and offer them refuge. Here, Lily learns to gather honey and many lessons about life, and also learns what it is like to have a real family. VIEW TRAILER
Tuesday 6th April	13:30	Anthea Purvis	Hong Kong 1941 (1984)	Years later, a woman narrates her personal story of the Japanese takeover of Hong Kong in 1941. She's Nam, young, attractive, daughter of a wealthy rice merchant, and prey to painful, disabling seizures. Her boyhood friend is Coolie Keung, whose family used to have wealth; he's now impoverished, a tough kid, a leader, in love with her. Into the mix steps Fay, cool and resourceful, an actor from the north, intent on getting to Gold Mountain in the US or Australia. They form a threesome, but the day they are to leave Hong Kong, the invasion stops them. Fay must rescue Keung from collaborators, Nam falls in love with Fay, and danger awaits their next attempt to escape. VIEW BEGINNING OF FILM
Tuesday 4th May	13:30	Anthea Purvis	Jindabyne (2006)	Stewart Kane, an Irishman living in the Australian town of Jindabyne, is on a fishing trip in isolated hill country with three other men when they discover the body of a murdered girl in the river. Rather than return to the town immediately, they continue fishing and report their gruesome find days later. Stewart's wife Claire is the last to find out. Deeply disturbed by her husband's action, her faith in her relationship with Stewart is shaken to the core. She wants to understand and tries to make things right. In her determination to help the victim's family, Claire sets herself not only against her own family and friends but also those of the dead girl. Her marriage is taken to the brink and her peaceful life with Stewart and their young son hangs in the balance. The story of a murder and a marriage - a film about the things that haunt us. VIEW TRAILER
Tuesday 1st June	-	Anthea Purvis	-	NO MEETING THIS MONTH - HOLIDAY
Tuesday 6th July	13:30	Anthea Purvis	The House of Mirth (2000)	Terence Davies' The House of Mirth, is a tragic love story set against a background of wealth and social hypocrisy in turn of the century New York. Lily Bart is a ravishing socialite at the height of her success who quickly discovers the precariousness of her position when her beauty and charm start attracting unwelcome interest and jealousy. Torn between her heart and her head, Lily always seems to do the right thing at the wrong time. She seeks a wealthy husband and in trying to conform to social expectations, she misses her chance for real love with Lawrence Seldon. VIEW TRAILER
Tuesday 3rd August	13:30	Anthea Purvis	Love in the Time of Cholera (2007)	Colombia just after the Great War - an old man falls from a ladder. Dying, he professes great love for his wife. After the funeral, a man calls on the widow and she dismisses him angrily. Flash back more than 50 years to the day Florentino Ariza, a telegraph boy, falls in love with Fermina Daza, the daughter of a mule trader. Ariza is persistent, writing to her constantly, serenading her, speaking poetically of love. Her father tries to keep them apart, and then, one day, she sees this love as an illusion. She's soon married to Urbino, a cultured physician, and for years, Ariza carries a torch, finding solace in the arms of women, loving none. After Urbino's fall, are Ariza's hopes delusional? VIEW TRAILER
Tuesday 7th September	13:30	Anthea Purvis	Christ Stopped at Aboli (1979)	The story follows a real life anti-fascist intellectual, Carlo Levi, into his forced exile in small, isolated village in a remote region of Southern Italy. The village is populated by inhabitants who barely survive on the meager harvest of the unyielding land. Eboli, the closest train station, is the last outpost of civilization (such as it is) before entering a world that has changed very little since the Middle Ages. The movie title, after the book written by Carlo Levi, expresses all the sense of abandon, neglect, desolation and human despair. According to the local tales, even Christ, in his southward journey, went no further than Eboli. Beyond that point, not even God dared (or could be bothered) to go...
Tuesday 5th October	13:30	Anthea Purvis	Little Miss Sunshine (2006)	A family determined to get their young daughter into the finals of a beauty pageant take a cross-country trip in their VW bus. VIEW TRAILER
Tuesday 2nd November	13:30	Anthea Purvis	In Memory of Me (2006)	Andrea is an intelligent, handsome young man who seems to have everything necessary to succeed. But the world's infinite possibilities have only confused him. In this disoriented state, he undertakes the novitiate, a period of spiritual training leading to priesthood. Within the large religious community of novices, Father Superiors and retired priests, Andrea discovers more than a simple world of semi-silence and prayer. The monastery becomes a mysterious universe where every look, every sound, reveals intrigue as the novices are encouraged to denounce one another's shortcomings. Daily routines, rituals and readings are marked by constant surveillance and questioning, as the novices struggle to lose themselves on behalf of God. Andrea's attention turns to the nervous Fausto, obviously tormented and not a strong public speaker. Andrea is also shaken by his encounters with zealous novice Zanna, who rebelliously accuses the novitiate and the Church itself of using God's Word to gain power and influence. In comparison, Andrea begins profoundly to feel he is merely feigning faith. Despite strong support from the Father Superior, Andrea flounders on his mystical test of absolute faith. As his frustration for solid answers grows, he risks to abandon the Order like others before him.
Tuesday 7th December	13:30	Anthea Purvis	The Chorus (2004)	A French film. They were the orphans of World War 2, forgotten by society. He was a composer who had given up on music. They had no future until he found a way to reach them... VIEW TRAILER