City of Your Final Destination, adapted from Peter Cameron’s 2002 novel of the same name,  is as pure an example of the Merchant Ivory brand of upscale literary cinema as devotees of Howard’s End, A Room With a View and The Remains of the Day could ask for. Anthony Hopkins, Laura Linney and Charlotte Gainsbourg, playing cultured, cosmopolitan residents of a remote estate in Uruguay, are among the actors who lend the film a classy endorsement. The story follows the quest of Omar Razaghi (Omar Metwally), an Iranian-born graduate student at the University of Colorado, to gain permission from the family of Jules Gund, a Latin American author who committed suicide, to write Gund’s authorized biography. Omar’s academic and financial future depends on his writing the book, and when the Gund family unexpectedly denies permission, his bossy, live-in girlfriend, Deirdre (Alexandra Maria Lara), pushes him to fly to South America to change their minds. Omar arrives unannounced at the lavish Gund estate, presided over by Jules’s imperious widow, Caroline (Linney), and his older brother Adam (Hopkins). Also in residence are Jules’s girlfriend Arden Langdon (Gainsbourg); Arden’s young daughter, Portia (Ambar Mallman); and Pete (Hiroyuki Sanada), Adam’s much younger male Asian lover of 25 years. Omar ends up staying at the Gunds for a period of time during which he has a tepid flirtation with Arden, wins the support of Adam — who tries to enlist him in a smuggling scheme — and pressures the intransigent Caroline to change her mind.

Tickets are $10 or $8 for matinees.

In the highly anticipated second installment of the Millennium Trilogy…

Lisbeth Salander is a wanted woman. A researcher and a Millennium journalist about to expose the truth about the sex trade in Sweden are brutally murdered, and Salander’s prints are on the weapon. Her history of unpredictable and vengeful behavior makes her an official danger to society – but no-one can find her anywhere.

Meanwhile, Mikael Blomkvist, editor-in-chief of Millennium, will not believe what he hears on the news. Knowing Salander to be fierce when fearful, he is desperate to get to her before she is cornered and alone. As he fits the pieces of the puzzle together, he comes up against some hardened criminals, including the chainsaw-wielding ‘blond giant’ – a fearsomely huge thug who can feel no pain.

Digging deeper, Blomkvist also unearths some heart-wrenching facts about Salander’s past life. Committed to psychiatric care aged 12, declared legally incompetent at 18, this is a messed-up young woman who is the product of an unjust and corrupt system. Yet Lisbeth is more avenging angel than helpless victim – descending on those that have hurt her with a righteous anger terrifying in its intensity and truly wonderful in its outcome. -Dragontattoofilm.com

Tickets are $10 or $8 for matinees.

This Swedish thriller is based on Stieg Larson’s popular trilogy about a murder within a tightly knit clan intent on keeping its secrets. Harriet Vanger disappeared from a family gathering 40 years ago on an island owned and inhabited by the powerful Vanger family. Convinced it was a murder and that the killer is a member of his own dysfunctional clan, Harriet’s uncle employs a disgraced journalist and a troubled, 20-something computer hacker to investigate. When Harriet’s disappearance is linked to a number of grisly murders, the pair begin to unravel the Vangers’ dark family history.

Tickets are $10 or $8 for matinees.

Join sponsor Mary Mother of God Mission Society* for a six-month series of Catholic feature-length films shown on each second Sunday at 2 p.m.

* The purpose of the Mary Mother of God Mission Society is to bring spiritual and material support to the Catholic Church in the Diocese of St. Joseph, Irkutsk and the Far East of Russia. For information about the society or sponsoring the film series contact the Mother Mary of God Mission Society office at 209-408-0728 or go to www.vladmission.org.

August's film is A Distant Thunder

There are pro-life people who work in Hollywood, and two of them – Jonathan and Deborah Flora – have created a new tool to help the American people wrestle with abortion. “A Distant Thunder” is a powerful new 35-minute film that combines courtroom drama and supernatural warfare to help reveal the reality of what abortion does to a baby, and to the baby’s mother. The film helps the viewer wrestle with the issues and their implications, but is not presented in explicitly pro-life or religious themes. What it does, instead, is to help the viewer touch some of the aspects of the abortion issue that the other sides tries so desperately to cover up. In touching these painful and often scary facets of the issue, the viewer has the opportunity to let the light of conscience and compassion inform his or her conclusions.

Without a doubt, this film will become one of the most powerful tools to make people think and wrestle with the abortion issue, and will challenge them to do something about it.

Doors at 1:30 p.m.; film at 2 p.m.

Admission: $6 in advance or $7 at the door

As the opening credits roll, writer-director Juan Jose Campanella – who has directed episodes of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit – shows a one-time criminal investigator struggling to pen a novel about a crime that's haunted him for decades. In the mid-1970s, Benjamin Esposito (Ricardo Darin) had doggedly pursued a case — the brutal rape and murder of a bank employee's wife — despite official efforts to discourage him. He'd become emotionally involved, and empathetic. But the nearer he'd gotten to solving the crime, the stranger and more labyrinthine it had become.  Determined to bring literary closure to a case he'd been unable to close legally, he returns to his old Supreme Court stomping grounds where he runs into Irene Menendez Hastings (Soledad Villamil), a judge he worked with — and carried a torch for – some 25 years earlier. When she hears that his novel will rehash the Morales case, though, her own eyes cloud. The original investigation had led both of them down dark legal alleyways that became more treacherous the further they ventured: In flashbacks, we learn of trumped-up charges, forced confessions, political interference and a killer still on the loose — until Ben and a brilliant but alcoholic co-worker (comedian Ricardo Morales) track him one day to a soccer stadium. This film is the August selection of The State Cinema Club: a discussion will follow the film.

Admission is $10 for the general public and free for Cinema Club members (and those who join or renew that night).

The Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson is the foremost literary phenomenon of the last decade, with 15 million books sold worldwide, 25 translations in over 40 countries and a series of movies that is shattering European box office records. Just as fascinating is the story behind the books, which this documentary explores. Larsson, who worked for years as a journalist before becoming an author, died from a heart attack at a relatively young age -- after he had completed the trilogy. The three books were published posthumously, and a fight over his fortune ensued. Millennium: The Story features interviews with his friends and family, who reflect on how he overcame a tough childhood, and colleagues, who talk about his bravery as a journalist deeply invested in cherished causes: defending democracy and freedom of the press and fighting violence against women and racism. Also interviewed are the actors who play the heroes of his novels, Elisabeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist.

Join us for these FREE screenings and enter to win a drawing for boxed sets of the trilogy!

Local writer and director Arvin N. Berner, the son of a car mechanic, has spent many happy hours twisting wrenches.  When he realized his dream was to direct movies, he combined his can-do attitude learned from working on cars with a vigorous amount of work and discovered those two things to be a powerful combination. 

Checkmate is Arvin's first feature-length movie. He wrote the script over a period of about 10 months and decided to produce the movie independently here in Northern California.  Soon a team assembled around the project, including Cornerstone Studio's Sean Stencil and Eric Raingruber, Joey Huestis from RIO Arts, and Robin Bjerke of the Riverbank Community Theater. At this point Arvin realized he had a great script, and a great team.  Sony had just introduced a revolutionary new camera, the PMW EX-1, that enabled him to shoot at a level of quality not previously available to young artists. 

Arvin had the crew and the gear, and now he needed the cast.  After holding several casting sessions, he decided to cast the entire movie with Northern California actors.  The star of the movie, Zachary W. Barnes, had only recently moved to California to pursue his dream of acting.  When Arvin discovered Zach, he knew he now had all the ingredients for a great movie. Arvin describes his film with way: Win a game, win your destiny. This is the opportunity given to Aaron Carlson when his dreams of law school are failing at every step. He doesn't have the grades, he doesn't have the money, he doesn't have the connections to become a lawyer. But a respected judge is moved by his mock trial talent and offers him an opportunity to achieve something extraordinary: win a national chess tournament. Win a game, and win his destiny. This is the premiere of his film, Checkmate.

Tickets are $10.

The second entry in George Lucas' Star Wars trilogy finds Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), the green-as-grass hero from the first film, now a seasoned space warrior. Luke's Star Wars cohorts Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) are likewise more experienced in the ways and means of battling the insidious Empire, as represented by the brooding Darth Vader (body of David Prowse, voice of James Earl Jones). And, of course, "The Force," personified by the ghost of Luke's mentor Ben Kenobi (Alec Guinness), is with them all. Retreating from Vader's minions, Luke ends up, at first, on the Ice Planet Hoth, and then the tropical Dagobah. Here he makes the acquaintance of the gnomish Yoda (voice of Frank Oz), whose all-encompassing wisdom comes in handy during the serial-like perils of the rest of the film. Before the film's open-ended climax, we are introduced to the apparently duplicitous Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams) and are let in on a secret that profoundly affects both Luke and his arch-enemy, Vader. Many viewers consider this award-winning film the best of the Star Wars movies, and its special-effects bonanza was pure gold at the box office.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Admission is $8.

If you haven’t seen this 1971 cult classic here’s your chance (on the big screen nonetheless!). Harold and Maude is ranked number 45 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Funniest Movies of all Time, and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1997 for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." A young man fascinated with death and a 79-year-old high on life find love in Hal Ashby's cult black comedy. Deadpan rich boy Harold (Bud Cort) keeps staging elaborate suicide attempts to get the attention of his socialite mother (Vivian Pickles), but she keeps planning his brilliant future for him instead. Obsessed with the trappings of death, Harold freaks out his blind dates, modifies his new sports car to look like a mini-hearse, and attends funerals, where he meets the spirited Maude (Ruth Gordon). An eccentric to the core, Maude lives exactly as she pleases, with avid collecting and nude modeling among her many pursuits. To the disgust of Harold's relatives and the befuddlement of Harold's shrink, Harold falls in love with her.

Presented by McHenry Bowl.

Tickets are $8.