Daily Loaf

Eckerd College’s International Cinema series is back this week with a double feature, loosely tied together around the theme of Asian hit men.

Ashes of Time Redux

The free action starts at 7pm at Eckerd College’s Miller Auditorium. Wong Kar-Wai’s wuxia delight Ashes of Time was redone for the big screen as Ashes of Time Redux and it’s astonishing how gorgeous it looks. As long as you don’t get all obsessed with minor details (like what exactly is going on and who is pining for whom), you will be blown away … this is a must-see on the big screen, playing in a new 35mm print!

At 9pm don’t miss Hiroyuki Tanaka’s inventive, intense and amusing Postman Blues: Sawaki is a postman, bored with his way of life until it all changes when his old schoolmate, who has just joined the Yakuza (Japanese mafia) smuggles a few items into his friend’s bag. Now the police are after him, and a series of coincidences convince them that this seemingly mild-mannered postal worker is a seriously dangerous man.

Warning: if you come to the series you may get hooked and have your Friday nights during the regular school year booked for the next decade. The series has been running for five years now and there are a number of folks who have been there every week for the last several. Come and bring your friends!

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All films in the series are free and open to the public, and screen in the Miller Auditorium of Eckerd College (4200 54th Ave. So., St. Petersburg). Tickets and reservations are not required.

For more information on the International Cinema Series, and to see upcoming films, go to www.eckerd.edu/ic

Questions? Contact the Eckerd College Office of Communications at 727-864-7979 or events@eckerd.edu.

The International Cinema Series is coordinated by me: Nathan Andersen, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Eckerd College.

Voted “Best Local Film Series” by Creative Loafing’s Best of the Bay 2007.

Every year for the past several, Eckerd College’s “International Cinema” series has been offering up exciting and innovative films from around the world to anyone who wants to show up, most Fridays (7pm) during the regular school year.

Mind Game (plays THIS Friday, Feb. 6, 7pm)

Maybe this is shameless self-promotion, since I run the program, but it is free and open to the public and there are usually some empty seats in the Miller Auditorium that are nearly as comfortable as the couch you’ll need to vacate in order to make it down to south Saint Pete and check out what we have to offer. For the past few weeks, my students and I have been bragging about the great time we were having in Park City at the Sundance Film Festival, so now we’re giving you a chance to see some of the cool things that tend not to play in the local multiplexes. Nearly everything we screen is from a 35mm print (the real thing!), and our theater is very nice – no sticky floors and loud teenagers (unobnoxious teens are of course welcome)!

This week’s film (Fri, Feb. 6, 7pm) is a strange one: a mind-bending and innovative Japanese animation focusing on Nishi, a loser with a crush on his childhood girlfriend, on a psychedelic journey to heaven and back, chased by Yakuza. Mind Game is definitely not for children! Read the rest of this entry »