THU FRI SAT SUN MON TUES WED THU
BY RICK LEVIN
SAINT MISBEHAVIN’ QUEEN TO PLAY
5:45
C
I
N
E
M
A
S
4:45
4:45
KEVIN KLINE
R
ONE WEEK ONLY!
5:00
5:00
5:00
5:00
5:30
8:30
5:30
8:30
5:30
8:30
call for
showtimes
7:25
7:25
7:25
THOMAS HACKETT
presents
BIG BOY
9:30
9:30
ENDS TONIGHT!
for July 21 - July 28
A
R
T
4:45
July 28
July 27
July 26
July 25
July 24
July 23
July 22
July 21
movies
THE TREE OF LIFE 2:00
5:30
8:30
5:00
8:00
5:00
8:00
MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
7:45
10:00
7:00
9:10
2:30
7:00
9:10
THE ROOM
Late Nite punch passes accepted!
Fri
11:00
Sat
11:00
HELD OVER!
2:00
5:00
8:00
2:30
7:00
9:10
TBD
HELD OVER!
AGAIN!
7:25
9:40
9:30
Coming soon: CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP
BEGINNERS
BEATS, RHYMES & LIFE: THE TRAVELS OF A TRIBE CALLED QUEST
492 East 13 th follow us!
HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN
686-2458
*Adults—$7*Students w/ID—$6*Seniors—$5*Matinees—$5*Lates—$5*Miser Mondays—$3*
bijou-cinemas.com
The Very Little Theatre presents
Check and Mate
An incessantly ringing cell phone in
a quiet café. A stranger at the next
table who has had enough. And a
dead man—with a lot of loose ends.
A wildly imaginative comedy about
the value of human connection in a
technologically obsessed world.
Chess is the game of life in Queen to Play
QUEEN TO PLAY: Directed by Caroline Bottaro.
Screenplay by Caroline Bottaro and Bertina
Henrichs, based on the novel by Bertina Henrichs.
Cinematography, Jean-Claude Larriue. Music,
Nicola Piovani. Editor, Tina Baz. Starring Sandrine
Bonnaire, Kevin Kline, Valerie Lagrange, Francis
Renaud, Alexandra Gentil, Alice Pol, Dominic Gould,
Jennifer Beals. Studio Canal, 2009. R. 97 minutes.
44421
C
hess is the perfect game — easy
to learn but impossible to master,
pretty much devoid of that thing
called luck, calling for cold calculation and
cunning strategy and, despite this, infi nite
in its possible outcomes. So the metaphors
pile up like pawns on the make: Chess is
like war, chess is like life, chess is like
thought itself, a series of synaptic snaps
and pops propelling the cosmos of cause
and effect. And yet, with its medieval
armament of phallic aggression, it’s hard
to imagine a less sensual game than chess.
As Helene, the stymied chambermaid in
director Caroline Bottaro’s lovely fi lm
Jouese, says to her daughter: “It’s not a
women’s game.”
As wistful, yearning and compact
as a short by Chekov, Bottaro’s fi lm —
marketed in the U.S. as Queen to Play —
is something of a Cinderella story, a pat
fable of empowerment and love. Played by
the wonderful Sandrine Bonnaire, whose
severe but stunning beauty blossoms with
every hint of a smile, Helene is trapped in
a dull, monotonous life on the otherwise
gorgeous Corsican coast of France. She
and her husband Ange (Francis Renaud)
work themselves ragged, barely making
ends meet; they have neither the time nor
the energy for romance, much less a decent
conversation, and when they do talk it is
usually of exhaustion and economic woes.
Their teenage daughter Lisa (Alexandra
Gentil) is disgusted by her parents’ poverty,
and regularly tells them so. Helene’s
economic status echoes her existential
dilemma: Having stifl ed all hope of a better
life, she lives on the outside looking in, a
spy in the house of love and her life a long,
unvarying march to death. She is Madame
Bovary in a smock and hair net.
Until one morning when, cleaning a
room in the hotel where she works, she
sees a couple (Dominic Gould and Jennifer
Beals) out on the sun porch, engaged in
a very intimate game of chess. Helene
is captivated and surprisingly moved,
especially by the easy sensuality and casual
charm of the woman as she plays the game.
Helene buys her husband a chessboard
for his birthday, but he’s only frustrated
by the game. So she stays up every night,
often until dawn, smoking cigaretts
and pitting herself against the board’s
computerized opponent. She starts seeing
elements of the game everywhere: chess
pieces in saltshakers and hunks of candy,
a chessboard in the checkered fl oor she
mops every day. Helene is fascinated and
newly aroused by the idea that, in chess,
“the most powerful piece is the queen.”
Having gone about as far as she can go
with a computer, Helene approaches one of
her clients, Dr. Kroger (Kevin Kline) — a
mysterious, misanthropic American expat
grieving the death of his wife — with a
gambit: She will clean his rooms for free if
he teaches her to play chess. What follows
is no less romantically sublime for being
completely predictable. The relationship
that develops between Bonnaire and Kline
is fraught with a supercharged sexuality
that is channeled into the spirit of the game
itself. Both actors are a joy to behold, and
the complex chemistry they work on screen
elevates this small, simple fi lm, which
could have gone the way of Mr. Holland’s
Opus meets Pretty Woman, to something
more than the sum of its set pieces.
In fact, what makes Queen to Play so
appealing, especially in this season of 3D
sequels and CGI shell games, is exactly its
stature and simplicity. Like the best of art,
it captures in its slice-of-life details a bevy
of universal themes — themes of class,
spiritual renewal, love, mortality and loss.
Thanks in large part to Bottaro’s nicely
paced direction, which allows her actors
room to breathe, the fi lm achieves a kind of
breezy grace, even while offering a fairly
well-worn story of inspiration. But themes
and symbols and inspiration be damned.
As Dr. Kroger cautions Helene, no matter
how serious it gets, chess is only a game, so
have fun. Which brings that wry, warming
smile to her face — a smile that says check,
and mate.
ew
By Sarah Ruhl | Directed by Patrick
July 29-31*, Aug. 4-7*, 11-13
Curtain at 8 pm Thurs.-Sat. | 2 pm for *Sunday Matinees
Tickets: $15 ($10 for Thursday)
Call the VLT Box Office: 541-344-7751
Open 2:00-5:30 Wed.–Sat. 2350 Hilyard St.
More info at TheVLT.com
Visit us on Facebook at facebook.com/TheVLT
BAD TEACHER (DIGITAL) R
10:25,12:40,3:00,5:10,7:25,9:40
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST
AVENGER (3D) PG-13
SPECIAL EVENT PRICING: $3.00
UPCHARGE ALL TICKETS
10:30,1:30,4:30,7:30,10:30
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST
AVENGER (DIGITAL) PG-13
11:30,12:30,2:30,3:30,5:30,6:30,
8:30,9:30
CARS 2 (3D) G
SPECIAL EVENT PRICING: $3.00
UPCHARGE ALL TICKETS
10:25,4:10,9:50
CARS 2 (DIGITAL) G
1:20,7:05
FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS
(DIGITAL) R
11:55,2:30,5:05,7:40,10:15
LARRY CROWNE (DIGITAL)
PG-13
12:35,2:55,5:20,7:45,10:10
HARRY POTTER AND THE
DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 2
(3D) PG-13
SPECIAL EVENT PRICING: $3.00
UPCHARGE ALL TICKETS
10:00,11:30,1:00,2:30,4:00,5:30,
7:00,8:30,10:00
HARRY POTTER AND THE
DEATHLY HALLOWS, PART 2
(DIGITAL) PG-13
10:45,12:15,1:45,3:15,4:45,6:15,
7:45,9:15,10:45
HORRIBLE BOSSES (DIGITAL) R
12:15,2:55,5:25,7:55,10:25
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN:
ON STRANGER TIDES (3D)
PG-13
SPECIAL EVENT PRICING: $3.00
UPCHARGE ALL TICKETS
1:00,7:20
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN:
ON STRANGER TIDES
(DIGITAL) PG-13
4:15,10:30
TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF
THE MOON (DIGITAL) PG-13
10:30,1:50,5:10,8:30
TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF
THE MOON (3D) PG-13
SPECIAL EVENT PRICING: $3.00
UPCHARGE ALL TICKETS
12:30,3:50,7:10,10:30
WINNIE THE POOH (DIGITAL) G
11:00,1:05,3:00,5:00,7:00
THE ZOOKEEPER (DIGITAL) PG
12:00,2:35,5:00,7:30,9:00,10:00
FAST FIVE PG-13
12:05, 4:05, 7:00, 9:55
INSIDIOUS PG-13
11:35, 2:10, 4:45, 7:40,10:20
JUDY MOODY AND THE NOT
BUMMER SUMMER PG
11:15, 1:40, 4:15, 7:25, 9:40
JUMPING THE BROOM PG-13
11:20, 1:55, 4:30, 7:30,10:00
PRIEST PG-13
11:40, 2:00, 4:10, 7:35,10:15
RANGO PG
11:00, 1:30, 4:00, 6:30, 9:25
RIO G
12:25, 3:15, 5:40, 8:15
RIO (3D) G
SPECIAL EVENT PRICING: $2.00
UPCHARGE ALL TICKETS
11:30, 2:20, 4:40, 7:20, 9:50
THOR PG-13
12:15, 3:05, 5:45, 8:25
THOR (3D) PG-13
SPECIAL EVENT PRICING: $2.00
UPCHARGE ALL TICKETS
11:05, 1:45, 4:25, 7:05, 9:45
WATER FOR ELEPHANTS PG-13
11:55, 3:00, 7:10,10:05
X-MEN: FIRST CLASS PG-13
11:45, 3:55, 7:15,10:10
Adv. Tix on Sale COWBOYS AND ALIENS
IMAX: HARRY POTTER & DEATHLY HALLOWS 2
3D (PG-13) ★
Fri. - Sun.1030 135 430 735 1030
✔ CAPTAIN AMERICA IN REALD 3D- EVENT
PRICING (PG-13) ★
Fri. - Sun.(1115 200) 445 730 1015
CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER (PG-13) ★
Fri. - Sun.(1045 130 230) 415 515 700 800 945 1045
FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS (R) - ID REQ'D
Fri. - Sun.(1105 1135 145 215) 420 500 715 745 955 1020
✔ HARRY POTTER & DEATHLY 2 IN REALD 3D- EVENT
PRICE (PG-13) ★
Fri. - Sun.(100) 400 705 1000
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS 2 (PG-13)
★
Fri. - Sun.(1100 205) 500 805
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS 2 (PG-13)
★
Fri. - Sun.(1130 1200 235 300) 530 630 830 930
OC & DA: WINNIE THE POOH (G)
Fri.(1125 AM)
Sat.(220 PM)
Sun.(1125 AM)
WINNIE THE POOH (G)
Fri.(220 PM) 440 PM
Sat.(1125 AM) 440 PM
Sun.(220 PM) 440 PM
THE ZOOKEEPER (PG)
Fri. - Sun.(1120 AM)
THE ZOOKEEPER (PG)
Fri. - Sun.(1050 120) 405 645 940
HORRIBLE BOSSES (R) - ID REQ'D
Fri. - Sun.(1040 155) 435 750 1010
TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF IN REALD 3D- EVENT
PRICING (PG-13) ★
Fri. - Sun.(245 PM) 705 PM 1025 PM
TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON (PG-13)
Fri. - Sun.(1110 AM)
CARS 2 (G)
Fri. - Sun.(1035 115) 410 710
BAD TEACHER (R) - ID REQ'D
Fri. - Sun.950 PM
SUPER 8 (PG-13)
Fri. - Sun.640 PM 935 PM
Adv. Tix on Sale COWBOYS AND ALIENS
WINNIE THE POOH (G) Sat. - Sun.(1245 PM 340 PM) 655 PM
CAPTAIN AMERICA IN REALD 3D- EVENT PRICING (PG-13)
★
Fri. - Sun.(1255) 400 705 1000
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS 2 (PG-13)
★
Sat. - Sun.950 PM
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS 2 (PG-13)
★
Sat. - Sun.(115) 440 745 1040
HARRY POTTER & DEATHLY 2 IN REALD 3D- EVENT
PRICE (PG-13) ★
Sat. - Sun.(105) 410 725 1020
HORRIBLE BOSSES (R) - ID REQ'D
Sat. - Sun.(125) 420 735 1035
TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON (PG-13)
Sat. - Sun.(1235 PM)
TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF IN REALD 3D- EVENT
PRICING (PG-13) ★
Sat. - Sun.(350 PM) 715 PM 1030 PM
CARS 2 (G)
Sat. - Sun.(135) 450 755 1050
Summer Movie Express - Tues & Wed. 10 am
Adv. Tix on Sale COWBOYS AND ALIENS
FRIENDS WITH BENEFITS (R) - ID REQ'D
Fri.(145) 430 730 1010
Sat.(145 430) 730 1010
Sun.(145) 430 730 1010
HORRIBLE BOSSES (R) - ID REQ'D
Fri. - Sun.(130) 415 715 955
CARS 2 (G)
Fri. - Sun.(115 345) 645 950
THE TREE OF LIFE (PG-13)
Fri. - Sun.(100) 400 700 1020
Times For 07/22 - 07/24 © 2011
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EUGENE WEEKLY JULY 21, 2008 23