SPECIAL GUESTS

OPENING NIGHT FILM AND PARTY:
STERLING SALUTES THE SILVER SCREEN, FEATURING CONFIDENCE
Sponsored by Sterling Vineyards
Friday, March 7 at Enzian Theater
Film at 7:00 pm
Party at 9:30 pm

ED BURNS
Edward Burns continues to mesmerize audiences and critics alike as an actor, writer, director and producer. Burns's Sidewalks of New York was his fourth feature as a writer, director, producer, and star. Burns was lauded by both critics and audiences for his first feature, The Brothers McMullen, which premiered in competition at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival, winning the Grand Jury Prize. The film also won "Best First Feature" at the 1996 Independent Spirit Awards. As an actor, Burns starred in Fifteen Minutes with Robert De Niro and also starred opposite Tom Hanks in Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan. In the last year Burns appeared in Ash Wednesday, where he took on the roles of writer, director, producer, and star. In addition, he appeared opposite Angelina Jolie in the romantic comedy Life or Something Like It. His upcoming projects include Peter Hyams's A Sound of Thunder, which is based on a short story by Ray Bradbury.

JAMES FOLEY
Themes have always been vital to James Foley's filmmaking. The complexities of his films have drawn the best and brightest actors. His debut film, the teen thriller Reckless starring Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah, established his unique ability to combine suspense with complicated, unsentimental character portraits. He next directed the critically admired At Close Range, starring Sean Penn, Christopher Walken, Christopher Penn, and Mary Stuart Masterson. Switching gears again, Foley directed Madonna in her first major leading role in the screwball comedy Who's That Girl? before delving into the noir world of Jim Thompson in the acclaimed After Dark, My Sweet. Foley also directed Glengarry Glen Ross, featuring a stellar cast including Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino and Kevin Spacey in the no-holds-barred screen version that brought Mamet's scorchingly funny tale of moral chaos to cinematic life. Foley's other films include Two Bits, Fear, The Chamber, and The Corrupter. Twice in his career, Foley has stepped briefly away from cinema for forays into innovative television, directing David Lynch's Twin Peaks and Robert Altman's Gun series on ABC.

CONFIDENCE
USA, 2002, 98 MIN, DIRECTED BY JAMES FOLEY
EAST COAST PREMIERE
Payback is a bitch. That's what Jake (Ed Burns, The Brothers McMullen) discovers in this grifter epic about triple crosses, eccentric crime bosses, and a complex financial scam that would make former Enron executives blush with pride. In a nod to Sunset Boulevard, Confidence opens with the image of Jake's body lying in a pool of blood on a Los Angeles street as his voice-over recounts the tale of how he got there. It all leads back to the scam of a rube who turns out to be the accountant of sinister baddie Winston King (Dustin Hoffman, in a fabulously finicky performance that's his best since Wag The Dog). When corpses start popping up, Jake knows it's only a matter of time until his number is called, so he approaches King and boldly offers to right the unintentional error by pulling off an even bigger con against a criminal banker/money launderer (Robert Forster). Good idea? Sure, until the moll shows up with freshly dyed red hair--a bad omen if ever there was one. Packed with eye-catching performances by Rachel Weisz, Andy Garcia, Paul Giamatti, Luiz Guzman, and Donal Logue, Confidence reinvigorates the con genre with sinuous camerawork and rhythmic editing that relentlessly drives the story. Veteran director James Foley (Glengarry Glenn Ross, At Close Range, TV's Twin Peaks) keeps the action fast-paced in this smartly executed and stylish crime caper that keeps audiences on the edge of their seats, never quite sure of who's doing what to whom, where, when, or why. (Confidence will receive a second screening on Wednesday, March 12, 7:00 PM at Loews.)
PRECEDED BY
I USED TO BE A FILMMAKER
USA, 2003, 10 MIN, DIRECTED BY JAY ROSENBLATT
WORLD PREMIERE

AN AFTERNOON WITH JAMES CAAN FEATURING THIEF

Sponsored by the Westin Grand Bohemian
Saturday, March 15, 1:00 PM at Enzian
Born in the Bronx and raised in Queens, New York, James Caan knew early on that he did not want to follow his father's footsteps and work in the family meat business. He entered Michigan State University at age sixteen to study economics and to play football, later transferring to Hofstra University to study law. Following a stint at Stanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse, he studied acting with Wynn Handman and went on to win the first four jobs he auditioned for in the theatre. He followed with a powerful slate of guest appearances in virtually every major television series.

One of the most versatile actors in motion pictures, James Caan is best known for his Academy Award nominated performance as Sonny Corleone in The Godfather and for his Emmy-nominated portrayal of football star Brian Piccalo in Brian's Song. He has appeared in more than 50 feature films over the course of his career, earning great recognition starring in Misery and For the Boys. He was equally praised for his performance in Francis Ford Coppola's The Rain People, which garnered him the Best Actor Award form the San Sebastian Film Festival. For The Gambler he received the Actor of the Year Award from the National Association of Theater Owners.

Caan's other film credits include Cinderella Liberty, Funny Lady, A Bridge Too Far, T.R. Baskin, Slither, Silent Movie, Rollerball, The Killer Elite, Comes a Horseman, Gardens of Stone, Alien Nation, Flesh and Bone, The Program, Honeymoon in Vegas, Eraser, and Mickey Blue Eyes. He directed as well as starred in the critically acclaimed Hide in Plain Sight.

Caan was most recently seen in The Yards, The Way of the Gun, and on television in A Glimpse of Hell (FX Network original movie) and A&E's science fiction telepic The Lathe of Heaven.

Special support provided by the Academy Foundation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Visiting Artist Program.

THIEF
USA, 1981, 122 MIN, DIRECTED BY MICHAEL MANN
Thief is a stripped-to-the-metal crime thriller about Frank (James Caan), a professional safecracker who specializes in high-profile diamond heists. Hardened by prison but still an honorable man, Frank longs to exchange the crime biz for a banal middle-class life with his new wife (Tuesday Weld) and family. To finance retirement, he uncharacteristically agrees to work for somebody else (Robert Prosky). After meticulous planning and execution, the heist goes off flawlessly, but the result leaves Frank worse off than before. Though this was only Mann's second film in the director's chair, he demonstrates a savvy understanding of casting, location, costumes and music (listen for the genre-busting score from Tangerine Dream). Thief offers a crash course in many of Mann's later cinematic trademarks, such as wet streets, neon lights, steel-blue colors, and stylized action sequences. Caan, in his best role since The Godfather, holds the film together with a cool intensity that manages to suggest both his unsavory past and incredible vulnerability. His rich, multi-layered performance has only gotten better with time and is one reason why Thief is so much fun, filled with nuance and subtlety not often found among caper flicks.

James Caan will be present for a Q&A following the film.

AN EVENING WITH ALAN RUDOLPH,
FEATURING THE SECRET LIVES OF DENTISTS
Sponsored by Directors Guild of America
Sunday, March 16, 6:30 PM at Enzian
Alan Rudolph, one of America's most distinct cinematic voices, is a writer-director whose hallmarks are visual richness, memorable and emotionally nuanced characters, and a quirky sense of humor. Rudolph has made 19 films, including Welcome to LA, Songwriter, Trouble in Mind, and Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle. He is known as a director who gives performers the leeway to explore their roles, and has attracted an astonishing list of top-of-the-line actors. He wrote or co-wrote the screenplays for thirteen of his own films, as well as for Robert Altman's Buffalo Bill and the Indians, which won the Golden Bear at the 1976 Berlin Film Festival. His filmed subjects have included art forgery in 1920s Paris (The Moderns), murderous New Jersey households (Mortal Thoughts), a language-impaired private eye (Trixie), an adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's contemporary literary classic, Breakfast of Champions, and an Oscar Wilde-like comedy of manners, Investigating Sex.

The Secret Lives of Dentists centers on the question, "Where does love really reside?" It's a theme Rudolph has explored in previous movies such as Choose Me, winner of the 1984 International Critic's Prize at the Toronto Film Festival, and Afterglow, which earned Julie Christie an Oscar nomination and Best Actress Award from the New York Film Critics Circle. In this film, he posits that "marriage is in layers and layers of details."

THE SECRET LIVES OF DENTISTS
USA, 2002, 105 MIN, DIRECTED BY ALAN RUDOLPH
EAST COAST PREMIERE
Acclaimed filmmaker Alan Rudolph returns with a scathing and subversive look at how insane jealousy can manifest within a happy marriage. The Secret Lives of Dentists focuses on the practical and methodical Dr. Dave Hurst (Campbell Scott, Roger Dodger), who shares a dental practice and an uneventful but peaceful existence with his passionate and spontaneous wife, Dana (Hope Davis, About Schmidt). Their idyllic home life is suddenly thrown into turmoil, as Dave convinces himself that he witnessed his wife share an intimate moment with another man. As his grip on reality slips, Dave turns to imaginary conversations with a disgruntled patient named Slater (Denis Leary), who helps escalate Dave's insecurities into blind rage. Through deft direction and wonderfully inflected performances from a stellar cast, this entertaining and humorous film, based on Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley's novella "The Age of Grief," provocatively explores the complexities of the "perfect" all-American marriage.

Alan Rudolph will be present for a Q&A following the film.