Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain) gives a powerful breakout performance in this feminine variation on Into the Wild. Wendy Carroll (Williams) is driving to Alaska, hoping for a summer of lucrative work at the Northwestern Fish cannery, and the start of a new life with her beloved dog, Lucy. When her car breaks down in Oregon, however, the thin fabric of her financial situation comes apart, and she confronts a series of increasingly dire economic decisions, with far-ranging repercussions for herself and her dog. Wendy and Lucy is a poetic road drama that addresses issues of sympathy and generosity at the edges of American life, revealing the limits and depths of people's duty to each other in tough times. Co-starring Walter Dalton, Larry Fessenden and Will Patton. Directed and co-written by Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy).

This weekend Cinema Sundays will feature a pair of documentaries from the 1930's which have recently had their soundtracks and narrations re-recorded. The City with music by Aaron Copeland and The Plow That Broke the Plains with a score by Virgil Thompson. The City was created for the 1939 New York World's Fair and was seen by thousands of people, discusses America's urban and rural histories and focuses on the Greenbelt movement (of Greenbelt Maryland fame!). The Plow That Broke the Plains is a poignant tale of the Dust bowl. Cinema Sundays is honored to have Joseph Horowitz Artistic Director of the Post Classical Ensemble (the very group which recorded these works) as our guest speaker. Film and music fans alike are in for a rare and unusual treat.


Jonathan

Director Kevin Rafferty is renowned for his wit and fresh perspectives on American culture. He previously re-purposed Cold War archival footage for The Atomic Café, served as a cameraman to first-time director Michael Moore on Roger and Me and captured the unguarded comments of politicians in Feed.

In Harvard Beats Yale 29-29, Rafferty takes us into the world of America's Ivy League universities via a 1968 football match that had a highly unexpected outcome. He interviews players on both sides, who – in addition to talking about the game – summon the socio-political milieu of the time, recollecting their thoughts on issues like Vietnam, birth control and student insurrection. These testimonies interweave with remarkable footage of the game, an erstwhile style of college play that possessed a grace lacking in today's professional football.

Several aspects of this particular game resonate in the wider culture of 1968. At Harvard, the team included actor Tommy Lee Jones, who recalls a campus where “ideas were flying like bullets.” At Yale, the student comic strip, Doonesbury, introduced a jock character named B.D., inspired by Brian Dowling, the school's star quarterback. And players from either side were roommates with Al Gore (Harvard) and George W. Bush (Yale). As the football game is obsessively dissected, the reflections feel eerily comparable to what took place after the 2000 presidential election.

Although such details do not surface in the film, Rafferty himself went to Harvard, and happens to be the first cousin of George W. Bush – though he has different politics. At their prep school, Rafferty played football and Bush was a cheerleader. Rafferty's evident familiarity with the Ivy League environment grants the interviews an intimacy not often found in historical documentaries. As the former teammates (now pushing sixty) look back on their youth, they demystify the prestige of their elite universities. It becomes clear that no matter where you go to school, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes it's hard to tell.

Thom Powers