FILM FORUM [March and April]

March 16: Blake Edwards was a terrific director of many of our favorite films, including the Pink Panther comedies, and Thoroughly Modern Millie, but this one is his best. We find ourselves in 1932 Paris, with a starving soprano played by a wild Julie Andrews as you’ve never seen her/him before, with Robert Preston in the draggiest drag ever, abetted by James Garner’s Chicago gangster and Leslie Ann Warren as the ditsiest gangster moll you’ll ever see. And, it’s a great musical with Julie in fine form…and that scene with the cockroach in the café…well!  1982. 132 min.

April 6: Chocolat is a 2000 American-British romantic drama film based on the novel of the same name by Joanne Harris, and was directed by Lasse Hallström. Chocolat tells the story of a young mother, played by Juliette Binoche, who arrives at the fictional, repressed French village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes with her six-year-old daughter and opens La Chocolaterie Maya, a small chocolaterie. Her chocolate quickly begins to change the lives of the townspeople. The film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Judi Dench won a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance in the film. Alfred Molina plays the up-tight mayor, Lena Olin, a neglected wife, and Leslie Caron as a village widow. 2000. 121 min.

April 20: Hayao Miyazaki recently retired as Japan’s preeminent creator/director of animation stories that are so visually breath-taking and with stories that range from magic and sorcery to environmental epics beyond imagination. Sophie, a quiet girl working in a hat shop is literally swept off her feet by a strange, handsome and wonderful wizard named Howl. A spell is cast on Sophie, who climbs aboard Howl’s flying castle to encounter unimaginable adventures on a quest to break the spell. Miyazaki also gave us Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro and Castle in the Sky, among others. 2004. 119 min.