6/09/2015

Enjoy Movies in the Park at Centretown Movies this Summer

Moonrise Kingdom
Get ready for movies under the stars! Centretown Movies released the schedule for its annual outdoor movie fest, and this year brings a mix of contemporary and classic films to Ottawa. All films screen at Dundonald Park and begin at 9:00 pm. Bring a chair and/or blanket and enough popcorn to share!


This year’s Centretown Movies schedule is as follows:

Friday, July 24 – Selma
                -Presented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada
                -Synopsis: Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 legally desegregated the South, discrimination was still rampant in certain areas, making it very difficult for blacks to register to vote. In 1965, an Alabama city became the battleground in the fight for suffrage. Despite violent opposition, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (David Oyelowo) and his followers pressed forward on an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, and their efforts culminated in President Lyndon Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
                Review: Selma offers a resounding rallying cry of “enough is enough” from the onscreen Dr. King and from the director Miss DuVernay. Conversations are growing and growing about the necessity for more representation from female and minority voices behind the camera in Hollywood, and Selma couldn’t provide a better example for the necessity of diversity on both sides of the frame. DuVernay dramatizes this slice-of-history with a forcefully authentic voice. (Full Review)


Saturday, July 25 – Jurassic Park
                -In collaboration with Cellar Door Film Festival
                -Synopsis: In Steven Spielberg's massive blockbuster, paleontologists Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) and mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) are among a select group chosen to tour an island theme park populated by dinosaurs created from prehistoric DNA. While the park's mastermind, billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), assures everyone that the facility is safe, they find out otherwise when various ferocious predators break free and go on the hunt.
                -Dinosaurs! Laura Dern! Pre-War Horse Spielberg!


Friday, July 31 – Dr. Strangelove or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb
                -Presented by The Diefenbunker Museum
                -Synopsis: Peter Sellers and George C. Scott star in Stanley Kubrick’s classic satire about what could happen if the wrong person pushed the wrong button -- and it played the situation for laughs. U.S. Air Force General Jack Ripper goes completely insane, and sends his bomber wing to destroy the U.S.S.R. He thinks that the communists are conspiring to pollute the "precious bodily fluids" of the American people.


Saturday, August 1 – Toy Story
                Synopsis: Buzz + Woody = magic.


Friday, August 7 – Back to the Future
                -Presented by the Community Addictions Peer Support Association
                -Synopsis: In this 1980s sci-fi classic, small-town California teen Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is thrown back into the '50s when an experiment by his eccentric scientist friend Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) goes awry. Traveling through time in a modified DeLorean car, Marty encounters young versions of his parents (Crispin Glover, Lea Thompson), and must make sure that they fall in love or he'll cease to exist. Even more dauntingly, Marty has to return to his own time and save the life of Doc Brown.
                -N.B. Valet parking for DeLorean not provided.


Saturday, August 8 – Back to the Future II
                -Synopsis: In this zany sequel, time-traveling duo Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and Dr. Emmett Brown (Christopher Lloyd) return from saving Marty's future son from disaster, only to discover their own time transformed. In this nightmarish version of Hill Valley, Marty's father has been murdered and Biff Tannen, Marty's nemesis, has profited. After uncovering the secret to Biff's success -- a sports almanac from the future -- Marty and the Doc embark on a quest to repair the space-time continuum.              
-Back to back Backs!


Friday, August 14 – Film TBA
                -Presented by the Queer Mafia

Saturday, August 15 – Moonrise Kingdom
                Synopsis: The year is 1965, and the residents of New Penzance, an island off the coast of New England, inhabit a community that seems untouched by some of the bad things going on in the rest of the world. Twelve-year-olds Sam (Jared Gilman) and Suzy (Kara Hayward) have fallen in love and decide to run away. But a violent storm is approaching the island, forcing a group of quirky adults (Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray) to mobilize a search party and find the youths before calamity strikes.
                Review: The story of child’s play in Moonrise Kingdom provides the perfect fit for Anderson’s unique, quirky style. Set to the bombastic kettle drums of the score by Alexandre Desplat, Moonrise Kingdom is an unabashed celebration of the age of innocence. There’s always been something childlike about the colourful whimsy of his earlier works like Rushmore and The Royal Tenembaums, and both films feature characters that choose arrested development in lieu of abandoning their youth. Moonrise Kingdom, however, works at a higher level because the look, tone, and pace of Anderson’s style are impeccably tailored for an adult’s nostalgia for lost youth. Moonrise Kingdom lets viewers experience the joy of being a kid all over again. (Full review)


Friday, August 21 – The One-Hundred Foot Journey
                Synopsis: Hassan Kadam (Manish Dayal) is an extraordinarily talented and largely self-taught culinary novice. When he and his family are displaced from their native India and settle in a quaint French village, they decide to open an Indian eatery. However, Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren), the proprietress of an acclaimed restaurant just 100 feet away, strongly objects. War erupts between the two establishments, until Mallory recognizes Kadam's impressive epicurean gifts and takes him under her wing.


Saturday, August 22 – The Wizard of Oz
                Synopsis: Follow the Yellow Brick Road. (Check the forecast beforehand!)               


Friday, August 28 – Rain date or surprise movie!

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