3 /1
3/2
for March 1-8
THU
ELITE SQUAD ACADEMY AWARD WINNER! BEST FOREIGN FILM
Ends tonight!
8:45
A SEPARATION
4:45
7:25
ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATED GARY OLDMAN
A
R
T
TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
6:00
ANIMATED
SHORT FILMS
C
I
N
E
M
A
S
Ends
tonight!
LE HAVRE
3 /5
3 /6
3 /7
5:20
8:00
2:00
4:45
7:25
2:35
5:20
8:00
2:00
4:45
7:25
2:35
5:20
8:00
BY RICK LEVIN
R
5:20 5:20 5:20 9:00
8:00 8:00 8:00 SUNSET
BLVD
12:30 12:30
(1950)
FREE
W/ UO ID
4:00
JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME
(FREE SHOWING SPONSORED BY THE U OF O CULTURAL FORUM)
KILL LIST
IN DARKNESS
CRAZY HORSE
CINEMA PACIFIC FILM FESTIVAL
DISORIENT ASIAN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL
7:15
movies
3 /8
4:45 4:45 4:45 4:45
7:25 7:25 7:25 7:25
COMING SOON:
LIVE ACTION
SHORT FILMS
Ends
tonight!
686-2458
3 /4
FINAL SHOWINGS!
5:25
9:30
492 East 13 th
3 /3
FRI SAT SUN MON TUE WED THU
CINEMA PACIFIC
PRESENTS
EVERYDAY
SUNSHINE:
THE STORY OF
FISHBONE
6:30
w/director
Q&A
bijou-cinemas.com *Adults—$7 * Students w/ID—$6 * Seniors—$5 * Matinees—$5 * Miser Mondays—$3*
TIX $2 Tix 21 & FOOD
$5 Sun & Tues ovER MENU
762-1700 | 180 E. 5TH AVE
davidminortheater.com
DIRTY ROTTEN
SCOUNDRELS
THURS MAR 1 – WED MAR 7
THU
OSCAR WINNER
Divorce, Iranian Style
HUGO
5:10
MONEYBALL
M
5:10
50/50
7:30
OSCAR WINNER
The uproarious award-winning musical
comedy Broadway hit, from the popular
movie about two con men on the French
Riviera who make a living out of talking
ladies out of their money. It will keep you
laughing, humming and guessing to the end!
Book by Jeffrey Lane, Music & Lyrics by
David Yazbek | Directed by Chris Pinto
MIDNIGHT IN
PARIS
7:30
DRIVE
9:20
THE RUM
DIARY
9:20
ORDER DRINKS & FOOD RIGHT FROM YOUR SEAT
Current movie
schedule was
unavailable at
time of press.
Please visit
cinemark.com
for movies and times
A SEPARATION: Writen and Directed by
Asghar Farhadi. Starring Peyman Moadi, Leila
Hatami and Sareh Bayat, 2011. PG13. 123 minutes.
44444
Mar. 9-11*, 15-17, 22-25*, 29-31
Curtain 8:00 pm Thurs.–Sat. *2:00 pm Sun.
Tickets: $18 ($13 for Thursday)
NEXT WEEK: EW’S TOP PICK MELANCHOLIA
“TEXT-A-BEER” 541-913-5733
Oscar-winning A Separation is a riveting anatomy
of good intentions gone wrong and other
inevitable pitfalls of everyday life
THEVLT.COM
For tickets, call 541-344-7751
Box office open 2-5:30 Wed.–Sat.
2350 Hilyard Street, Eugene
On Facebook at TheVLT
Adv. Tix on Sale SILENT HOUSE
IMAX: DR SEUSS' THE LORAX 3D (PG) ★
Fri. - Sat.1245 300 515 730 950
DR SEUSS' THE LORAX IN REAL D 3D - EVENT
PRICING (PG) ★
Fri. - Sat.(230 PM) 925 PM
DR SEUSS' THE LORAX (PG) ★
Fri. - Sat.(1145 1215 200) 415 445 630 700 900
PROJECT X (DIGITAL) (R) - ID REQ'D
Fri. - Sat.(1200 245) 500 745 1015
ACT OF VALOR (R) - ID REQ'D Fri.(225 PM) 450 PM 1005 PM
Sat.(1155 AM) 450 PM 720 PM
THE ARTIST (PG-13)
Fri. - Sat.(1235) 410 640 915
HUGO IN REAL D 3D - EVENT PRICING (PG) ★
Fri. - Sat.(1240 PM) 400 PM 655 PM
GONE (PG-13)
Fri. - Sat.(1140 210) 440 715 945
WANDERLUST (R) - ID REQ'D
Fri. - Sat.(1210 240) 510 740 1010
THIS MEANS WAR. (PG-13) Fri. - Sat.(1130 205) 435 710 940
THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY (G)
Fri. - Sat.(1135 155) 420 645
JOURNEY 2: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND IN REAL D 3D (PG)
★
Fri. - Sat.(1230 PM) 705 PM
JOURNEY 2: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (PG)
Fri. - Sat.405 PM 935 PM
SAFE HOUSE (R) - ID REQ'D Fri. - Sat.(1225) 430 735 1020
STAR WARS: EP. 1 IN REALD 3D - EVENT PRICING (PG) ★
Fri. - Sat.955 PM
THE VOW (PG-13)
Fri. - Sat.(1150 235) 505 750 1025
CHRONICLE (PG-13)
Fri.910 PM
Sat.925 PM
THE DESCENDANTS (R) - ID REQ'D
Fri. - Sat.(1220 310) 635 920
Adv. Tix on Sale SILENT HOUSE
DR SEUSS' THE LORAX IN REAL D 3D - EVENT
PRICING (PG) ★
Fri. - Sat.(1230 240) 450 700 920
DR SEUSS' THE LORAX (PG) ★
Fri. - Sat.(100 315) 520 730 950
PROJECT X (DIGITAL) (R) - ID REQ'D
Fri. - Sat.(130) 420 715 1010
ACT OF VALOR (R) - ID REQ'D Fri. - Sat.(140) 430 720 1000
THIS MEANS WAR. (PG-13)
Fri. - Sat.(110) 400 650 940
GHOST RIDER IN REAL D 3D (PG-13) ★
Fri. - Sat.(120) 410 710 955
JOURNEY 2: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (PG)
Fri. - Sat.(350 PM)
JOURNEY 2: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND IN REAL D 3D (PG)
★
Fri. - Sat.(1245 PM) 640 PM 930 PM
PROJECT X (DIGITAL) (R) - ID REQ'D
Fri. - Sat.(100 315) 525 735 950
GONE (PG-13)
Fri. - Sat.(110 PM) 715 PM
WANDERLUST (R) - ID REQ'D
Fri. - Sat.(130) 415 700 930
THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY (G)
Fri. - Sat.(120) 430 650 920
STAR WARS: EP. 1 IN REALD 3D - EVENT PRICING (PG) ★
Fri. - Sat.400 PM 940 PM
C
omposed with patient precision and
restraint by Iranian director Asghar
Farhadi from his own script, the
Oscar-winning fi lm A Separation spools
out as a gripping domestic and legal drama
as well as a gentle but exacting anatomy of
emotional cause and effect — of life as a
kind of compound error, full of decent but
fl awed people, driven by love but blinded
by pride and prejudice.
On the surface, the premise of A
Separation is stark: A husband refuses to
travel abroad with his wife because he must
care for his stricken father; also, because
Iranian law requires that both parties agree
to the terms of a divorce, the husband
thwarts his wife’s desire to remove their
11-year-old daughter from “this situation”
of their current lives. Mistakes are made;
bad things happen to good people; good
people do bad things; and we all fall down.
But such a thumbnail sketch makes
checkers of chess. As a given character’s
actions — whether motivated by fear,
pride, love, need — lead ineluctably to
another character’s response, the audience
bears witness to a chain of events that result
in a crisis far more profound and harrowing
than crime and punishment, guilt and
innocence. What A Separation depicts so
perfectly, and with an almost unbearable
generosity of spirit, is the fl im-fl am fuckery
of negotiating life’s daily pitfalls and
constant upheavals, the late payments and
family spats, the slights, fi ghts and sudden
fl ights of anger, and it does so with a calm
omniscience that the fi lm’s characters lack.
The movie draws its quiet force from
this tension, the tug-of-war between the
angels of our better nature and slings and
arrows of our own limitations. As the
drama unfolds and motives are revealed,
as buttons are pushed and egos bruised, the
viewer is guided beyond the realm of easy
judgments — beyond the familiar comfort
of common sympathies — and into a
heart-wrenching plateau of solitude where
there presides an understanding of human
frailty and fallibility that can only be called
spiritual.
There were moments during A
Seperation when I was yelling warnings
at the screen — “Yes, you idiot, ask her
back! Fuck your pride!” — or moaning
about the inevitable outbreak of further
misunderstanding. This is a fi lm that
embodies the idea that if God never existed,
we would have invented her anyway, a
sentiment that strikes me not as cynical but,
instead, quite comforting — the notion that
life is an impossible morass which we are
ill equipped to navigate but still capable of a
scorched nobility. In A Separation, the road
to hell truly is paved with good intentions.
Farhadi has written ten fi lms and
directed fi ve, and with A Separation he has
concocted a thing of rare and fragile grace.
It is a modest fi lm, the existential opposite
of the epic bombast of Hollywood’s
“important” fi lms. With unswerving
honesty and a persistently forgiving spirit,
A Separation turns the strictures of blunt
morality and codifi ed law upside-down
and inside-out. The movie asks us to
imagine fate as the great equalizer, a force
that reveals humanity’s suffering to be a
condition as inevitable as it is untenable.
And, in the most slant-wise and
improbable way, Farhadi has created one
of the most effective anti-war fi lms in
years. Because, if you can sit through A
Separation and still believe that Iran is
in every way the antithesis of the United
States, you are already a casualty of war.
Whether intended or not, and whether
intentions even matter in the end, Farhadi’s
fi lm tells us in no uncertain terms that we
are sometimes you and you are often us,
and that life at ground level is tough and
shitty for everyone, maybe even in equal
measure. Perhaps, even, in similar ways.
And this is what great movies can and
should do, and why they are so important.
ew
Times For 03/02 - 03/03 © 2012
20
MARCH 1, 2012
EUGENE WEEKLY
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • BLOGS.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM