Friday, July 25, 2025



Film Series Confidential

This weekend, the Film Series features my favorite movie of last year, Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist” – a film so good that it brought me to tears repeatedly. I found it so incredibly moving that I could not physically move for a while after I first saw it. (The same thing happened to me when I first saw Lars von Trier’s “Dancer in the Dark.”) “The Pianist” is the film that “Schindler’s List” should have been. It is not the cloying, pandering holocaust tale that Speilberg shoved down our collective throats but, rather, is the holocaust tale directed by a survivor of the holocaust. Polanski’s experiences in Warsaw’s ghettos certainly show here. But we must remember that this man also directed “Chinatown,” “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Repulsion.” These are fantastic movies and this man is a great director.

Some people accused “The Pianist” of screwing up the facts of Wladyslaw Szpilman’s life story. I think you can’t judge a film based on how faithful it is to the source material. It’s “based on a true story.” If it WERE the true story it would be a documentary, dig?

Anyway, it’s an amazing movie. Adrien Brody’s performance is subtle, nuanced and entirely worthy of the Best Actor Oscar he won for it. You believe his emotions one-hundred percent, and he doesn’t even need to speak for you to understand him. The transformation that he had to undergo as an actor is absolutely mind-boggling. If you haven’t already, please see this beautiful and profoundly human film.
Friday and Saturday, 7:30 and 10 p.m., $3 in the CFA cinema.

And for free in the science center: Friday night is George Miller’s “The Road Warrior,” starring Mel Gibson as Mad Max. This is some crazy post-apocalyptic car racing insanity stuff. And this’ll be your last chance to see a Mel Gibson movie before he’s castrated by everyone for making his Jesus epic, “The Passion.” Art or anti-semitism? We’ll have to wait and see.

Saturday night is Jacques Tati’s “Mr. Hulot’s Holiday.” This is a crazy and delightful French comedy from Tati who also stars as the bumbling Mr. Hulot on a vacation by the seaside. Here’s how good this guy is: Three of his films were released by Criterion as special edition DVDs. They quickly went out of print. Now you can get them on ebay, if you’re willing to shell out $75 for each one. He’s that good.

And next Wednesday: The posters say “Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers,” but New Line Cinema pulled the prints. So we’re not showing it. We’re sorry. Instead, we’re showing “Pirates of the Carribean.” Tell your friends! JOHNNY DEPP IS SO HOT! Yay!

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