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FILM ASHEVILLE FILM FESTIVAL ashevillencfilmfestival. com • SA (9/16) - Film festival with pre-show gala, independent movies and an awards party. Visit website for locations, times and costs. BUNCOMBE COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARIES buncombecounty. org/governing/depts/ library • FR (9/15), 4:306:15pm - Pixar Film Series: Inside Out. Free. Held at West Asheville Public Library, 942 Haywood Road • MO (9/18), 2pm Legends of Music Film Series: Thelonious Monk. Free. Held at Pack Memorial Library, 67 Haywood St. • TU (9/19), 7pm - The Glass Menagerie, film screening. Free. Held at Weaverville Town Hall, 30 S. Main St., Weaverville CITY OF MORGANTON MUNICIPAL AUDITORIUM 401 South College St. Morganton, commaonline.org
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• TH (9/21), 7pm Dirty Dancing, movie screening. $5. MOVIES IN THE PARK ashevillenc.gov/Parks, kperez@ashevillenc. gov • FR (9/15), 6:30pm - Children’s craft activities and screening of the movie Rogue One at dusk. Free. Held at Pack Square Park, 121 College St. TRANSYLVANIA COUNTY LIBRARY 212 S. Gaston St., Brevard, 828-884-3151 • TH (9/14), 7pm - A Great American Tapestry: The Many Strands of Mountain Music, documentary screening. Creekside Crawfish perform at 6:30pm. Free. UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CONGREGATION OF ASHEVILLE 1 Edwin Place, 828254-6001, uuasheville.org • FR (9/15), 7pm - Environmental & Social Justice Film Screenings: Tomorrow, documentary film screening and discussion. Free.
SEPT. 13 - 19, 2017
Yiddish, Weinstein presents his cast as people first and Jews second, even though their lives and circumstances are so completely dominated by their religious affiliation. The line between narrative and documentary is increasingly blurred as we follow the character Menashe — played by nonprofessional actor Menashe Lustig in a role that shares not only his name but many pertinent details of his real life. A recently widowed father who’s more than a bit of a screw-up, Menashe struggles to make ends meet as a clerk at a kosher grocery store so that he can maintain a home for his young son. His schlubbiness puts him at odds with his late wife’s brother as well as the community’s rabbi, so when they take a hard-line interpretation of the Torah’s dictum that a single man can’t raise a child on his own, he’s already overextended their indulgences — putting him in a tough spot when it comes to preventing his more successful brother-in-law from taking custody of the boy. This all sounds like the setup for a relatively straightforward family melodrama, but the immediacy and directness of Lustig’s portrayal of the fictional Menashe create such an indelible presence on screen that it’s impossible not to identify with him even as we watch him fail frequently and predictably. It’s a performance that’s tragicomic in the most honest sense of that term, and Lustig is the linchpin that keeps Weinstein’s narrative debut from coming apart at the seams. While it might be easy to assume that you have little in common with the Hasidim of Crown Heights or Borough Park, the devout orthodoxy of these Haredic enclaves is not the point Weinstein’s trying to make with Menashe. Instead, this is a thoughtful examination of an outsider constantly trying succeed in world where the deck seems perpetually stacked against him — de Sica’s neorealist classic Umberto D. comes to mind — and while the stakes are high for Menashe, they’re also painfully relatable. Don’t expect a fairytale ending, but if you’re prepared to walk a mile in another man’s tallit, you’ll find Menashe well worth your time. Rated PG for thematic elements. Yiddish with English subtitles. Opens Friday at Fine Arts Theatre. REVIEWED BY SCOTT DOUGLAS JSDOUGLAS22@GMAIL.COM
MOUNTAINX.COM
by Edwin Arnaudin | edwinarnaudin@gmail.com
PICKING PIONEERS: Revered string band players Joe and Odell Thompson are among the mountain musicians featured in David Weintraub’s documentary A Great American Tapestry. Photo courtesy of Nancy Kalow • The Joseph Initiative, a local nonprofit organization that works to provide life skills and enrichment programs for Asheville-area teenagers, will screen the feature documentary made by participants in its What’s Your Story filmmaking class on Thursday, Sept. 14, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Fine Arts Theatre. The students worked with Stephen Nadeau from Brother Blue Studio during the winter and spring. Short films created by other local filmmakers will also be shown, and the evening ends with a short afterparty. All proceeds go toward purchasing filmmaking equipment for future classes. Tickets are $5 and available online. avl.mx/42s • The Transylvania County Library will show David Weintraub’s documentary A Great American Tapestry: The Many Strands of Mountain Music on Thursday, Sept. 14, in its Rogow Room. Brevard youth string band Creekside Crawfish will perform at 6:30 p.m., and the 70-minute film begins at 7 p.m. Free. library.transylvaniacounty.org • The West Asheville Library’s Pixar film series continues on Friday, Sept. 15, at 4:30 p.m. with a screening of Inside Out. The feature presentation will be preceded by the Pixar short film Lava. Free. avl.mx/1z5 • The City of Asheville Parks & Recreation Department’s 2017 season of Movies in the Park concludes Friday, Sept. 15, with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Children’s craft activities begin at 6:30 p.m., and the film starts at dusk on a giant screen on the Pack Square Park
stage. Bring a chair or a blanket. Free. avl.mx/3s9 • Grail Moviehouse screens Tommy Wiseau’s cult film The Room on Friday, Sept. 15, at 9:30 p.m. The theater will show the film on the third Friday of each month. Tickets are $7 for senior citizens and students, and $9 for the general public. They are available online and at the Grail box office. grailmoviehouse.com • Hi-Wire Brewing’s Summer Classics movie series ends with a Saturday, Sept. 16, screening of Wayne’s World at 8:30 p.m. at its Big Top location. The brewery’s parking lot will be transformed into an outdoor movie theater, and the event will occur rain or shine. Admission is free, and attendees are invited to bring their own lawn chairs or blankets. Foothills Local Meats will provide classic movie theater eats, including $3 corndogs. hiwirebrewing.com • Pack Memorial Library continues its monthly Legends of Music film series — curated by local jazz pianist Michael Jefry Stevens — on Monday, Sept. 18, at 2 p.m., with a documentary on Thelonious Monk. Free. avl.mx/ff • On Tuesday, Sept. 19, at 7 p.m., the Weaverville Library hosts a screening of Paul Newman’s 1987 adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, starring Joanne Woodward, John Malkovich and Karen Allen. Free. avl.mx/3yr X