Based on the Thomas Frank's best-seller, What's the Matter with Kansas? shows how Kansas transformed from an outpost of radicalism to a bastion of hard-core conservatism. The film follows two conservative Kansas families as their fortunes suddenly and precipitously decline, and contrasts them with an idealistic Kansas farmer who revives his state's erstwhile progressive tradition. Angel Dillard, a lifelong Republican activist, helps run the most popular booth at the Kansas State Fair: Kansans For Life. 18-year-old Brittany Barden's mission is to return America to its roots as "a Christian nation." Donn Teske describes himself as "a red-neck Kansas farmer." He also says corporate greed is "not very Christian." He lobbies the government to save his family farm and others like it. Angel and Brittany both attend Terry Fox's 6,000-member Immanuel Baptist Church in Wichita. Fox thunders from his pulpit denouncements of gay marriage, abortion and liberal politicians. He urges his flock to vote on the eve of the midterm elections. Then, the winds of change blow across Kansas. Republicans start to lose elections. Terry Fox's church splinters. And Donn Teske gets a call from Washington. Keep watching — you'll be surprised who you're rooting for…

In 2003, Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) and his team of inspectors are on a mission to find Iraq's reported stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Traveling from one dangerous site to the other, Miller and his team fail to find any chemical agents or other weapons. Instead, they discover an elaborate cover-up in which the most elusive weapon of all is the truth.

RocketBar
714 7th Street NW
Washington, DC

Please join us for a FREE viewing of the 82nd Academy Awards at RocketBar. As per usual RocketBar DOES allow external food/snacks, so feel free to bring something along or have your favorite food delivered! However, please remember that NO EXTERNAL DRINKS will be permitted. Please RSVP so that we can give the bar an estimated number of people.

For more information about the awards visit www.oscar.com, also available is this printable Oscar cheat sheet: http://oscar.go.com/media/2010/pdf/OSCAR_BALLOT.pdf?cid=10_oscars_landingCallout_nominations

* NOTE: Attendees must be 21+ (with valid IDs required upon entry); this venue is not wheelchair accessible.

Learn more here: http://www.meetup.com/SNFCDC/calendar/12743386/

In this twisted, darkly comic thriller, Robert Hanson (Jakob Cedergren) is a Copenhagen police officer who, following a nervous breakdown, is transferred to a small provincial town to take on the mysteriously vacated Marshal position. He subsequently gets mixed up with a married femme fatale (Lene Maria Christensen) who comes to him for help with her domestic problems. But can she be trusted? Robert’s big city temperament makes it impossible for him to fit in, or understand the uncivilized, bizarre behavior displayed by the townspeople. Quickly spiraling downward into an intense fable reminiscent of the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple and No Country for Old Men, Terribly Happy displays a unique, often macabre vision of the darkest depths to which people will go to achieve a sense of security and belonging. Denmark’s official Oscar selection and winner of 19 international awards, including the Silver Hugo (for director/co-writer Henrik Ruben Genz) at the Chicago International Film Festival. (Fully subtitled).

As with all films in their opening weekends, we recommend you pre-buy your tickets at http://www.landmarktheatres.com/tickets/default.asp

Note: You may want to purchase tickets in advance.

Don't miss this rare opportunity to see all five Academy Award nominees in the category of Best Animated Short and more! Program includes: French Roast (France), in which an uptight businessman in a fancy Parisian café who is about to pay his check finds out that he has lost his wallet; Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty (Ireland), in which a grandmother loses the plot as she tells her version of "Sleeping Beauty" to her terrified granddaughter; The Lady and the Reaper (Spain), in which a sweet old lady who is waiting for death so she can see her beloved husband once again is invited to enter death's domain—if someone doesn't ruin it for her; Logorama (Argentina), featuring spectacular car chases, an intense hostage crisis, and wild animals rampaging through the city; and A Matter of Loaf and Death (UK), the latest adventure from Nick Park, in which Wallace & Gromit start a new bread baking business. Although business is booming, Gromit is concerned by the news that a dozen local bakers have 'disappeared' this year, so he turns sleuth to protect his master and solve the escalating murder mystery. Program also features three bonus shorts: Pixar's Partly Cloudy (USA), Poland's The Kinematograph and Canada's Runaway.

Learn more here: http://www.meetup.com/SNFCDC/calendar/12652206/

Stir crazy after a week stuck in the snow? Frustrated by traditional Valentine's/Singles Awareness Day celebrations? Don't want anyone to see you wearing red for lunar new year? Join SNFC - DC for some campy sci-fi thriller action on this (roughly) third anniversary of the group's existence!

From fandango.com: Scott Stewart's supernatural thriller Legion, scripted by Peter Schink, concerns a group of strangers in an out-of-the-way eatery who become the first line of defense when God, believing the human race is no longer worthy of Him, decides to end their existence. This motley crew's only spiritual ally is the archangel Michael, played by Paul Bettany. Dennis Quaid, Tyrese Gibson, Charles S. Dutton, and Lucas Black co-star in the Screen Gems production. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide

In the not-too-distant future, across the wasteland of what once was America, a lone warrior (Washington) must fight to bring civilization the knowledge that could be the key to its redemption and save the future of humanity.

Jeff Bridges (The Men Who Stare at Goats, The Big Lebowski) stars as the richly comic, semi-tragic romantic anti-hero Bad Blake in the debut feature film from writer-director Scott Cooper. Bad Blake is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who's had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician. As he struggles down the road of redemption, Bad learns the hard way just how tough life can be on one man’s crazy heart. Co-starring Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall.

Nine is a vibrant and provocative musical that follows the life of world famous film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) as he reaches a creative and personal crisis of epic proportion, while balancing the numerous women in his life including his wife (Marion Cotillard), his mistress (Penélope Cruz), his film star muse (Nicole Kidman), his confidant and costume designer (Judi Dench), a young American fashion journalist (Kate Hudson), the whore from his youth (Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson) and his mother (Sophia Loren). The original 1982 Broadway production of Nine, as directed by Tommy Tune, was nominated for twelve Tony Awards and won five, including Best Musical. This feature film version is directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago).

As a teenage fan of Albert Camus and Jean-Luc Godard, Nick Twisp (Michael Cera) is most definitely out of his element when his mother and her boyfriend move the family to a trailer park. When a pretty neighbor named Sheeni (Portia Doubleday) plays records by French crooners, it's love at first sight for frustrated virgin Nick. Upon learning that Sheeni is already dating someone, Nick launches a hilarious quest to find his way into Sheeni's heart, and bed.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous super-sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, gets an update with this adaptation of Lionel Wigram's comic book series by writer/director Guy Ritchie (RocknRolla) starring Robert Downey Jr. as the titular detective, with Jude Law stepping into the shoes of his sidekick, Dr. Watson. Heading up the rest of the cast are RocknRolla's Mark Strong as the film's villain, Blackwood, and Rachel McAdams portraying the love interest, Irene Adler.

The eagerly awaited 17th feature by one of the world's leading directors, Pedro Almodóvar (Volver, Talk to Her), is a lavish melodrama tinged with humor, showcasing the spectacular talents of Penélope Cruz. The story is told in flashback by Harry Caine (Lluís Homar, Bad Education), a blind screenwriter, who reveals that before an auto accident took his sight and the life of his love, he was the famous director Mateo Blanc. He had fallen in love with his leading lady, Lena (Cruz), who had made a startling metamorphosis from secretary and bereaved daughter to sought-after movie star when the ruthless industrialist Ernesto Martel (José Luis Gómez) became her lover and patron. The film Mateo is making with Lena (for which the jealous Martel insists on being producer) is a kinky comedy called Girls and Suitcases, reminiscent of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. As Mateo and Lena try to get away together for a romantic tryst, Martel's gay son is constantly following and videotaping them for a "making of" feature—which Martel uses for surveillance (even getting a lip reader to decode the lovers' conversations).

From Jason Reitman, the Oscar® nominated director of “Juno,” comes a comedy called “Up in the Air” starring Oscar® winner George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a corporate downsizing expert whose cherished life on the road is threatened just as he is on the cusp of reaching ten million frequent flyer miles and just after he’s met the frequent-traveler woman of his dreams.

Set among a small circle of friends and neighbors in a Parisian suburb, 35 Shots of Rum is a gloriously delicate and sublime new film from the great French filmmaker Claire Denis (Beau Travail, Chocolat). Lionel (Alex Descas), a metro conductor, lives with his daughter Josephine (Mati Diop), a beautiful university student, in a bustling apartment complex. They have been sharing the same space for many years and have grown accustomed to one another's company. Josephine has begun spending time with Noé (Grégoire Colin), a handsome young neighbor, while Lionel is being drawn into a romance with a longtime friend, taxi driver Gabrielle (Nicole Dogué). As their lives are pulled in different directions, father and daughter realize they must confront a painful aspect of their past in order to embrace what lies ahead. Sumptuously shot by frequent Denis collaborator Agnès Godard, this warm, funny and enchanting film casts a lovely spell unlike any other movie this year. Original music by Tindersticks (Denis's Trouble Every Day and Nénette and Boni).