Our first Theme Month in November, 2024 is Dubious Politics. And what better month for it than November! To kick things off, the New Parkway will host four acclaimed movies and a bonus Election Afterparty. Here’s the Wednesday night line-up:
11/6: Election Afterparty–will it be a celebration? Will it be a wake? Or, most likely, will it be a continued counting of the votes? Regardless, we’ll open our doors for what will be a combination of election coverage, dubious and less dubious political videos, and, most importantly, a night of activism where community groups and organizers will share ways for us to get out of our political hangover/stupor and get engaged/stay involved in the following days, months, and years.
11/6: Manchurian Candidate–we start with the original Manchurian Candidate, starring Frank Sinatra, Lee Harvey, and Angela Lansbury. It’s a terrifyingly timeless film noir portrait of subversive adversaries infiltrating and corrupting our government in an attempt to undermine our democracy, aided and abetted by traitors within our highest ranks of power, which has resonance today, though its critics have called out what they consider to be Cold War paranoia and fear-mongering. You decide.
11/13: Election–Alexander Payne’s breakthrough dark comedy hit Election, starring Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon, is as much about the personal politics of everyday life as it is about the malicious machinations behind a high school student body competition, which, of course, is a microcosm of our society under the duress of conflicting ideologies and agendas jockeying for power.
11/20: Fahrenheit 9/11–Michael Moore’s landmark documentary about the Bush Administration’s duplicitous handling of the Iraq War and foreign terrorism, reminds us how we’ve been where we are before, meaning in deep trouble, but our standards of conduct and discourse in the political realm have deteriorated so much this film elicits almost as much nostalgia as it does outage.
11/27: Charlie Wilson’s War–Finally, Charlie Wilson’s War is also based on actual events but dramatized for mass consumption. It’s a satirical take on “Operation Cyclone,” a massive covert program conceived by U.S. Congressman Charlie Wilson and CIA operative Gust Avrakotos to aid Afghan mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan War. Directed by Mike Nichols from a screenplay by Aaron Sorkin (based on the book), it features a cast of luminaries including Oakland’s own Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Ned Beatty. Naturally, it garnered multiple Oscar nominations. So yeah. It’s damn good.
Additionally, we’re re-instituting the New Parkway Movie Club for some pre-Dubious Politics discussion. Join us at 8:30pm in the theater lobby each Wednesday to discuss our November movies!
Come for the political posturing but stay for the creative catharsis. And please vote!