Artvoice: Buffalo's #1 Newsweekly
Home Blogs Web Features Calendar Listings Artvoice TV Real Estate Classifieds Contact
Previous story: Movie Times (Friday, January 7 - Thursday, January 13)
Next story: See You There!

Film Now Playing

Airplane!

Opening This Week:

COUNTRY STRONG—Gwyneth Paltrow as a faded country singer on the comeback trail. Co-starring Tim McGraw and Garrett Hedlund. Directed by Shana Feste. Regal Quaker.

I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS—True story starring Jim Carrey as a con artist who pulled off impossible schemes in order to maintain life with his lover (Ewan McGregor). Leslie Mann and Rodrigo Santoro co-star in the directorial debut of screenwriters Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (Bad Santa). Reviewed this issue. North Park

SEASON OF THE WITCH—This month’s Nicolas Cage movie is a medieval thriller in which he and fellow Crusader Ron Perlman escort an accused witch through a plague-ravaged world to a rite of exorcism. Co-starring Stephen Campbell Moore, Ulrich Thomsen, Claire Foy, and Christopher Lee. Directed by Dominic Sena (Kalifornia). Flix, Maple Ridge, Market Arcade, Regal Elmwood, Regal Niagara Falls, Regal Transit, Regal Walden

ETC:

AIRPLANE! (1980) and THE NAKED GUN (1988)—Comedy double feature starring the late Leslie Nielsen. Sun 6pm. Riviera Theatre, 67 Webster St, N. Tonawanda (692-2413 / www.rivieratheatre.org)

CHARADE (1964)—As slick and sophisticated as you’d expect from a movie starring Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. Hepburn’s recently deceased husband swindled a lot of money out of some men who want it back; Grant offers to help keep them off her tail, but is he after the loot too? Co-starring Walter Matthau, James Coburn, and Ned Glass. Directed by Stanley Donen (Singin’ in the Rain). 4pm daily (no show on Sun). HD Video Café, 5445 Transit Rd, Williamsville (688-4933 / www.hdvideocafe.com)

HONEST MAN: THE LIFE OF R. BUDD DWYER—Local premiere of a documentary about the Pennsylvania politician who gained infamy by killing himself on camera during a 1987 press conference. The film will be presented by its director, Buffalo native James Dirschberger Fri 7pm. Reviewed this issue. Market Arcade Film and Arts Center, 639 Main St. (855-3022).

M (Germany, 1931)—Fritz Lang’s visceral thriller about a hunt for a child killer that unites the police and the criminal underworld of Berlin. Peter Lorre became an international star as the murderer, a victim of his compulsions, but it’s Lang’s film: look at his depiction of a city falling under the sway of fascism and you’ll understand why he fled a year later. Well worth seeing before next week’s showing of Lang’s Metropolis at the Buffalo Film Seminars. Tue 7:30pm. Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, 25 Nottingham Court

MEET JOHN DOE (1941)—Frank Capra’s political fable starring Gary Cooper as a bum hired to pose as a manufactured “forgotten man” to boost a newspaper’s readership, only to find that he is being used as a symbol for a fascistic movement to be run by that paper’s owner. It’s sad to think how pertinent this 70-year-old film is to modern politics (Tea Partiers please note). Co-starring Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Arnold, Walter Brennan and James Gleason. The program includes an episode of the 1950s serial Radar Men From the Moon and other classic short features. Tue 7pm, Wed 1pm. Lancaster Opera House, 21 Central Avenue (683-1776 / www.lancopera.org)

NOTORIOUS (1946)—Roger Ebert calls this Alfred Hitchcock thriller ”The most elegant expression of the master’s visual style.” Ingrid Bergman stars as a woman whose troubled past makes her an easy target for American agents who want her to spy on escaped Nazis living in Rio de Janiero. With Cary Grant and Claude Rains. Written by Ben Hecht. Fri, Tue 7:30pm. The Screening Room, Northtown Plaza in Century Mall, 3131 Sheridan Drive, Amherst (837-0376 / www.screeningroom.net)

PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1956)—Ed Wood’s best remembered film is hardly the “worst movie ever made,” but it is one of the most entertaining bad ones. The fun lies not in the story about aliens intent on destroying Earth before we destroy the universe but from the cardboard sets, stock footage, and overripe acting from an assortment of Hollywood wannabes (padded out with a few minutes of left-over footage of Bela Lugosi, shot just before his death). Fri-Sat 5, 7, 9pm. HD Video Café, 5445 Transit Rd, Williamsville (688-4933 / www.hdvideocafe.com)

STORM IN A TEACUP (1937)—Rex Harrison had his first starring role in this politically-tinged comedy as a reporter who disrupts the campaign of a pompous candidate. Co-starring Vivien Leigh and Cecil Parker. Directed by Victor Saville and Ian Dalrymple. Fri 7:30pm. The Old Chestnut Film Society, Philip Sheridan School, 3200 Elmwood (836-4757)