All in good taste

Trine's spring Cinema Sampler starting

 

Trine University and its Humanities Institute will offer a tasteful menu of 2009 cinema delights with “After Taste…,” the annual spring Cinema Sampler series.

Films will be screened in Fabiani Theatre in the university’s University Center at 7 p.m. on Thursdays. The series is free and open to the public. A schedule follows.

Feb. 11 – “Julie and Julia,” a two-hour, three-minute film, is rated PG-13. Rolling Stone magazine called award-winning actress Meryl Streep “at her brilliant, beguiling best” in an amusing, energizing drama about famous chef Julia Child. Amy Adams co-stars.

Feb. 18 – “The Hurt Locker” runs two hours, 10 minutes and is rated R for violence and language. Time magazine has called it “one of the great war movies” and the New York Times “an adrenaline-soaked tour de force.” Director Kathryn Bigelow shadows an American military bomb squad in Iraq.

Feb. 25 – “Up,” rated PG, runs an hour and 36 minutes. The Pixar/Disney creation offers another colorful, fanciful and exciting animated adventure for “youths” of all ages. Pete Docter of “Monsters, Inc.” directs.

March 4 – “A Serious Man” runs an hour and 45 minutes and carries an R rating for language, nudity and sexuality. Writer/director team Joel and Ethan Coen have made their latest protagonist a thought-provoking, modern version of the biblical Job, while delivering their characteristically dark, dry and piercing comedy.

March 18 – “Is Anybody There?” tells a funny, sad and moving coming-of-age story in which an old magician, played by Michael Caine, moves into a retirement home where the proprietors’ young son is ripe for some wacky life lessons. The film runs an hour and 35 minutes and is rated PG-13.

March 25 – “The Informant!” focuses on corporate whistle-blowing in America. “A charismatic turn by star Matt Damon and a consistently ironic tone boost this … funny satire,” says rottentomatoes.com. The one hour, 45-minute film directed by Steven Soderbergh is rated R for language.

April 8 – “Bright Star,” a visually stunning film by director Jane Campion, quietly dramatizes the great love between celebrated English poet John Keats, played by Ben Whisaw, and his muse, Fanny Brawne, played by Abbie Cornish. The film has a PG rating and runs one hour, 59 minutes.

April 15 – “Away We Go,” a comic drama directed by Sam Mendes, tracks John Krasinski of “The Office” and Maya Rudolph of “Saturday Night Live” as a distinctive, loving couple navigating contemporary America looking for a home. It has an R rating for language and sexuality and runs an hour and 38 minutes.