The Secret World of Arrietty

Arrietty (Bridgit Mendler), a tiny, but tenacious 14-year-old, lives with her parents (Will Arnett and Amy Poehler) in the recesses of a suburban garden home, unbeknownst to the homeowner and her housekeeper (Carol Burnett). Like all little people, Arrietty (AIR-ee-ett-ee) remains hidden from view, except during occasional covert ventures beyond the floorboards to "borrow" scrap supplies like sugar cubes from her human hosts. But when 12-year-old Shawn (David Henrie), a human boy who comes to stay in the home, discovers his mysterious housemate one evening, a secret friendship blossoms. If discovered, their relationship could drive Arrietty's family from the home and straight into danger.

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Hotel for Dogs

Part of the FREE Click! Family Flick! Doors at 9:30am, film at 10:00am.

Adapted from author Lois Duncan's 1971 children's book of the same name, director Thor Freudenthal's Hotel for Dogs follows two mischievous orphans as they attempt to hide dozens of stray dogs in an abandoned hotel. Disheartened by their new guardians' announcement that pets are strictly forbidden, 16-year-old Andi (Emma Roberts) and her younger brother, Bruce (Jake T. Austin), race to find a home for their loyal dog Friday. Fortunately for Friday, there's an abandoned hotel just around the corner, and Bruce possesses just the kind of mechanical smarts needed to transform the rundown inn into a four-star retreat for canines. For a while, Friday and his friends have it made, but when the neighbors start to get suspicious, Andi and Bruce resort to every trick in the book in order to prevent their secret from being discovered.

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A Separation

Set in contemporary Iran, A Separation is a compelling drama about the dissolution of a marriage. Simin wants to leave Iran with her husband Nader and daughter Termeh. Simin sues for divorce when Nader refuses to leave behind his Alzheimer-suffering father. Her request having failed, Simin returns to her parents' home, but Termeh decides to stay with Nader. When Nader hires a young woman to assist with his father in his wife's absence, he hopes that his life will return to a normal state. However, when he discovers that the new maid has been lying to him, he realizes that there is more on the line than just his marriage.

Nomintaed for TWO Academy Awards: Best Foreign Language Film, Best Original Screenplay!

Winner of the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film!

In Persian with English subtitles.

The film wraps us, with stunning directness, in the complex folds of its characters' passions. -- Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

It is a rigorously honest movie about the difficulties of being honest, a film that tries to be truthful about the slipperiness of truth. -- A.O. Scott, New York Times

The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film belongs right here... 'A Separation' is a landmark film. No way will you be able to get it out of your head. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Official Site

Kinyarwanda

During the Rwandan genocide, when neighbors killed neighbors and friends betrayed friends, some crossed lines of hatred to protect each other. At the time of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the Mufti of Rwanda, the most respected Muslim leader in the country, issued a fatwa forbidding Muslims from participating in the killing of the Tutsi. As the country became a slaughterhouse, mosques became places of refuge where Muslims and Christians, Hutus and Tutsis came together to protect each other. KINYARWANDA is based on true accounts from survivors who took refuge at the Grand Mosque of Kigali and the madrassa of Nyanza. It recounts how the Imams opened the doors of the mosques to give refuge to the Tutsi and those Hutu who refused to participate in the killing. KINYARWANDA interweaves six different tales that together form one grand narrative that provides the most complex and real depiction yet presented of human resilience and life during the genocide. With an amalgamation of characters, we pay homage to many, using the voices of a few.

In English and Kinyarwanda with English subtitles.

Each vignette adds to the mosaic. Characters from one turn up in another. Gradually a powerful outcome is arrived at. -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

It adds texture to the central facts: This happened, and this matters. -- David DeWitt, New York Times

Cast with both professional and novice actors, the beautifully shot film is filled with exquisite moments... -- Ernest Hardy, Village Voice

Official Site

Pina

Pina is a feature-length dance film with the ensemble of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, featuring the unique and inspiring art of the great German choreographer, who died in the summer of 2009. Pina is a film for Pina Bausch by Wim Wenders. He takes the audience on a sensual, visually stunning journey of discovery into a new dimension: straight onto the stage with the legendary Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch ensemble, he follows the dancers out of the theatre into the city and the surrounding areas of Wuppertal - the place, which for 35 years was the home and centre for Pina Bausch's creativity. *Not shown in 3D.*

Contains German, French, English, Spanish, Croatian, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Korean with English subtitles.

It should appeal to dance mavens, and to folks who have no idea what a pas de deux is. -- V.A. Musetto, New York Post

Pina is, in every way, a moving experience. -- Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine

The power and intelligence of Bausch's approach, which at times seems more cerebral than sensual, is communicated. -- A.O. Scott, New York Times

Official Site

Hipsters

Hipsters is a lavish, candy-colored musical set in Cold War Russia circa 1955. It tells the story of a communist party youth, Mels (named after Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin), whose life is changed when he encounters Moscow's vibrant underground, American influenced jazz scene and the non-conformist kids, Hipsters, who inhabit it.

In Russian with English subtitles.

Raucous and vibrant. -- Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times

Todorovsky cleverly indicates how every generation holds bragging rights to its own unique brand of youthful defiance. -- Jeff Shannon, Seattle Times

Official Site

The Music Lovers

Part of our Tuesday Film Series - one day, two showings! Also presented in coordination with the Tacoma Art Museum and their Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Potraiture Exhibit! Learn more here.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is given the Ken Russell treatment in The Music Lovers, which means that there is plenty of music, plenty of passion, plenty of debauchery, and plenty of excess. Tame by Russell's later standards (Lisztomania), The Music Lovers nevertheless thrives on creative and sexual anguish. Richard Chamberlain plays Tchaikovsky with a bug-eyed intensity as a composer consumed by his art -- so consumed that his romantic attachments become bisexual and irrational. He falls in love with Nina (Glenda Jackson), the hysterical trollop he marries with dire consequences. As he explodes emotionally, his public performance of Piano Concerto in B flat minor becomes a cue for flashbacks to a series of discomforting childhood events that suggest incestuous relations with his sister. Back in real time, Tchaikovsky has to deal with Nina's outbursts while juggling his homosexual urges and his almost hidden desire for Count Anton Chiluvsky (Christopher Gable). The film also details the curious relationship between Tchaikovsky and his rich patroness, the middle-aged widow Madame Nadedja von Meck (Isabella Telezynska), who loves Tchaikovsky deeply, but refuses to meet him -- their only communication being through letters, even though he lives on her estate. Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra perform Tchaikovsky's music.

Losing Control

You may remember seeing LOSING CONTROL in the 2011 Tacoma Film Festival line-up, or maybe you attended its sold-out screening during the fest! Well don't miss this audience favorite when it comes back to the Grand Cinema for a week-long engagement in March!

LOSING CONTROL is a quirky romantic comedy about a young Bridget Jones-like scientist, Samantha (Miranda Kent), who conducts a controlled experiment to find proof that her boyfriend is "the one." Written and directed by Valerie Weiss, LOSING CONTROL is loosely based on her experiences getting a PhD at Harvard Medical School.

Official Site

The Times of Harvey Milk

Part of our Tuesday Film series - one day, two showings! Also presented in coordination with the Tacoma Art Museum and their Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Potraiture Exhibit! Learn more here.                  

A documentary portrait of San Francisco's first openly gay politician, city supervisor Harvey Milk, The Times of Harvey Milk might not have been made but for the tragic circumstances of Milk's death. On November 27, 1978, Dan White, a former city supervisor who was desperate to regain his post, entered City Hall with a gun and murdered both San Francisco's mayor, George Moscone, and Milk. At the trial, White's lawyer skillfully turned the jury's attention away from his client's public anti-gay statements to focus on White's spotless record and his extremely agitated mental state on the day of the murders. White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to a relatively brief jail term, sparking a demonstration and riot by gay supporters of the murdered men. The film considers Milk's accomplishments and his exceptional popularity; this is not an objective look at a man, but a celebration of a martyr. Winner of an Academy award for Best Documentary Feature, The Times of Harvey Milk was released while White was serving his sentence; he was paroled in 1984 and committed suicide the next year. 

Official Site

A Better Life

Part of the Tacoma Community College Diversity Film Festival!

From the director of About a Boy comes A Better Life - a touching, poignant, multi-generational story about a father's love and the lengths a parent will go to give his child the opportunities he never had.

On the surface, the film seems like one of those docudramas that beg to be rewarded solely for their good intentions. But Chris Weitz cuts deep. This movie will get under your skin. -- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Official Site

Gun Hill Road

Part of the Tacoma Community College Diversity Film Festival, and the Grand's Tuesday Film Series - one day, two showings only!!

After three years in prison, Enrique (Esai Morales) returns home to the Bronx to find the world he knew has changed. His wife, Angela (Judy Reyes), struggles to hide an emotional affair, and his teenage son, Michael (Harmony Santana), explores a sexual transformation well beyond Enrique's grasp and understanding. Unable to accept his child, Enrique clings to his masculine ideals while Angela attempts to hold the family together by protecting Michael. Still under the watchful eye of his parole officer (Isiah Whitlock, Jr.), Enrique must become the father he needs to be or, once again, risk losing his family and freedom.

In writer-director Rashaad Ernesto Green's assured hands, "Gun Hill Road" manages somehow to be gritty, delicate, in your face and nuanced at the same time. -- David Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle

Official Site

Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story

Part of the Tacoma Community College Diversity Film Festival, and the Grand's Tuesday Film Series - one day, two showings only!!

Cairo, today. Hebba, a television show host, presents a successful political talk show on a privately owned network. Karim, her husband, is deputy editor in chief of a government-owned newspaper. He is led to believe by the party leaders, that his wife's constant meddling with opposition politics could put his promotion in danger. Using his boyish charm and sexual prowess, he convinces Hebba to stay away from politics, and devote her program to social issues for which the government cannot be held responsible. She starts a series of talk shows around issues involving women. She listens to the stories of resilient, strong women, who, like Scheherazade in "A Thousand and One Nights", tell their stories to stay alive.          

Together with scribe Waheed Hamed, helmer Yousry Nasrallah presents women's sexuality as an expression of self-determination, making clear the parallels with an ever-degenerating political system. -- Jay Weissberg, Variety

Official Site

Mitchell 20

This is the story of teachers as heroes during a tough time to be a teacher. In 2007, one teacher at Mitchell School in Phoenix, AZ set out to change her school. Little did she know she was starting a movement that would inspire others and change schools in Arizona and around the country. Along the way, the teachers at Mitchell have encountered no shortage of drama in and out of the school. The Mitchell 20 is a story of teachers and schools everywhere.

If there is anything objective that can be said about education it's this: Good teachers matter. -- Tom Keogh, Seattle Times

"The Mitchell 20" stakes out a position and sticks with it. Good debate strategy, perhaps, but the human drama on display here is far more compelling. -- Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic

Official Site

Caravaggio

Part of our Tuesday Film Series - one day, two showings! Also prsented in coordination with the Tacoma Art Museum and their Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Potraiture Exhibit! Learn more here.

Jarman’s most profound reflection on art, sexuality and identity retells the life of the celebrated 17th-century painter through his brilliant, nearly blasphemous paintings and his flirtations with the underworld. CARAVAGGIO incorporates the painter’s precise aesthetic into the movie’s own visuals, while touching on all of Jarman’s major concerns: history, homosexuality, violence and the relationship between painting and film.

Official Site