Destination :: Brussels!

There's a lot to love about Brussels; the architecture, the history, and oh, the shopping! Still, even though Brussels is the capital of Belgium, and indeed, the seat of the European Union, this city still manages to fly under the tourism radar.

At heart, Brussels is a provincial place with a small town feel and lots of independent designers, boutiques, and restaurants. In recent years, however, a flow of money from prominent multinational corporations has begun to pour into the city, raising its profile as an important European center. It seems as though the city is in the midst of a major transformation, blending the Old World with this brave new one. Almost like a time capsule, Brussels is a place of beauty, and a must-see for travellers wishing to experience a bit of authentic Europe.

The city is positively alive with culture, energy, and diversity. So much diversity, in fact, that Brussels sports three parliaments; one representing the southern French, one the northern Flemish, and one for the neutral city of Brussels. Every public institution is likewise bilingual, with natives that speak primarily French or Dutch, but also English and occasionally German or Arabic in deference to the growing number of tourists visiting each year.

The play of past and present, new and old, is part of what gives Brussels its charm. This is a city that was built on the backs of the working class; immigrants traveled here and prospered, giving birth to the cutting edge boutiques, eateries, galleries, and designers that call the city home today. Warehouses that once were used for wholesale food and textiles are now renovated into avant-garde lofts for the trendster or artist. Still, history reigns supreme in this city, and nothing is as breathtaking as the buildings of old.

Videodrome

There isn't a film director more concerned with the dangers of technology than Canadian visionary David Cronenberg. His early feature They Came from Within dealt with the notion of aphrodisiacs parasites that could easily have been developed from some rogue bio-medical lab. Scanners, his breakthrough film, looked at the effects of drug therapies that created people who could "download" the central nervous systems of other individuals. The Fly, based on the popular 1950s sci-fi classic, took the notion of scientific experimentation to black comic heights as Jeff Goldblum morphed into an insect being. Videodrome is his most advanced, and complicated exploration of the place where technology and horror film mythology meet. In it James Woods plays a video entrepreneur who becomes fascinated with violent sex videos seemingly being broadcast from Malaysia. "Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant, and almost no production costs. Where do they get actors who can do this?" he wonders. This being Cronenberg, though, don't expect a logical explanation; rather this 1983 feature takes audiences on a hallucinatory journey that puts new meaning to the term personal video. Part of the New Visions Series.

Friday , January 05, 07:00 pm
Tickets: $9 general admission; $7 members, seniors, and students

Sneak Preview: Pan’s Labyrinth

Mexican director Guillermo del Toro is best-known for his comic book adaptations Hellboy and Blade II, but with Pan's Labyrinth, his latest feature, he creates what's being considered an instant classic: a cinematic fairy tale for adults. Set in of the Spanish Civil War, del Toro's film follows the real and imagined adventures of a young girl, named Ofelia, who discovers a hidden mythological world where she asked to perform three difficult tasks. "Pan's Labyrinth drew glowing praise at Cannes last spring, and this is one case in which rapturous word of mouth doesn't ring hollow," wrote Stephanie Zacharek in her revies for Salon.com. "This is del Toro's sixth feature, and it's not only one of the great fantasy pictures but one of the great end-of-childhood elegies."

Sunday, January 07, 2007, 03:00 PM
Sneak Preview: Tickets are free and can be reserved by calling 617-478-3103 or e-mailing [email protected]. Limit 6 tickets.

The Matrix

The Wachowski Brothers (Andy and Larry Wachowski) jolted film audiences in 1999 with this dazzling mix of elements of various genres (traditional science-fiction, Hong Kong martial arts, Hollywood action films) and technology (a mix of live and still action photography that they label "bullet time.") Their story is set in a futuristic world where humans exist in an alternative universe run by computers called The Matrix. Rebels discover that a real world beyond this false one, and elicit the help of a rogue computer programmer (Keunu Reeves) attempt to destroy it. This was the first, and best, film in the trilogy.

Thursday, January 18, 2007, 07:00 PM
Tickets: $9 general admission; $7 members, seniors, and students

Being John Malkovich

Spike Jonze made the transition from video to Hollywood filmmaking with this inspired, zany farce - Being John Malkovich is a screwball comedy for the new Millennium. Charlie Kaufman's ingenious screenplay follows what happens when a failed puppeteer (John Cusack) takes a job as a file clerk for a company that exists on the 7? floor of an office building. There he discovers a portal that leads him into the brain of actor John Malkovich. Complicating matters is his unhappy wife (Cameron Diaz) and his domineering boss (Catherine Keener.) ''Do you know what a metaphysical can of worms this portal is?'' asks Cusack. Yes, the film, replies, with hilarious results.

Friday, January 19, 2007, 07:00 PM
Tickets: $9 general admission; $7 members, seniors and students

Superman

Richard Donner's spectacular take on the most popular of DC Comics superheroes. Telling the story of his escape from Krypton, his childhood with the Kents, and his life in Metropolis where he's meek-mannered Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent, the film made a star out of Christopher Reeve when it was released in 1978. "In Christopher Reeve," wrote Vincent Canby in the New York Times, "a young New York stage and television actor who plays Superman and Clark Kent, the mild-mannered newspaper reporter who is Superman's cover, the producers and Richard Donner, the director, have a performer who manages to be both funny and comic-strip heroic without making a fool of himself." Superman's canny supporting cast includes Gene Wilder, Margot Kidder, and Marlon Brando in one of the most celebrated cameos in the history of films. With a rousing musical score by John Williams.

January 21, 2007, 03:00 PM
Tickets: $9 general admission; $7 members, students, and seniors

Cremaster 5

The final, and climatic section of American artist Matthew Barney's cycle of films about the "cremaster," also known as the muscle in the male reproductive system, which "controls testicular contractions in response to external stimuli". According to film critic Rich Cline "Barney has a knack for creating objects and locations that are familiar yet completely alien at the same time; he's like the adopted lovechild of Davids Lynch and Cronenberg. Deeply interesting ... and also utterly impenetrable." About Cremaster 5: "Produced in a lush operatic style, and filmed in the Budapest Opera House, this seriously strong piece is just as surreal and untouchable and yet it taps into a powerful sense of emotion as a woman (Ursula Andress) performs an opera while sitting alone in a theatre that's empty except for the orchestra, a man climbing around the edge of the proscenium, and a dramatic series of events taking place in a pool beneath her. Beautifully shot with sweeping camera angles and an intriguing use of water, the film is full of images that resonate somewhere just beyond the conscience if you let them."

Sunday, January 21, 2007, 07:00 PM
Tickets: $9 general admission; $7 members, seniors, and students

Antonia’s Line

Marleen Gorris's magically realistic film won a Best Foreign Oscar in 1996. It tells the story of a woman named Antonia (Willke van Ammelrooy,) who, when approaching death, recalls key events of her life, beginning with her return to the village where she was born after World War II where she has come to bury her mother. Not before her the older woman, in one of the film's zany touches, sits up in her coffin to sing "My Blue Heaven." From there it follows the lives of Antonia and her daughter Danielle, and the eccentric group of neighbors, over the years. This feminist fantasy - the women of the film have little need for men in their lives - explores life's cycles with humor and quirky charm.

Thursday, March 8, 03:00 PM and 07:00 PM
Tickets: $9 general admission; $7 members, seniors, and students

Zidane, a 21st-Century Portrait

Using 17 cameras, Turner Prize-winning artist and filmmaker Douglas Gordon, French artist Philippe Parreno, and cinematographer Darius Khondji focus soley on footballer Zin?dine Zidane over the course of a single match between Real Madrid and Villareal. Zidane himself recounts, in voice-over, what he can and cannot remember from his matches. Accompanied by a majestic score from Scottish rock heroes Mogwai, this has been called the greatest football movie ever made, as well as one of the finest studies of man in the workplace, an ode to the loneliness of the athlete and the poise and resilience of the human body.

Thursday, May 10, 2007, 07:00 PM
Tickets: $10 general admission; $8 members, students, and seniors

Experimental Film and Video by Leighton Pierce

A longtime influence in the realm of experimental film and video, Pierce has recently moved into the museum and gallery world, with work at the 2002 Whitney Biennial and the Centre Pompidou. Co-presented with the Department of Film & Television at Boston University.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007, 07:00 PM
Tickets: $9 general admission; $7 members, seniors, and students

The city of Brussels is truly a wonder, with the Hotel Amigo as its jewel. As you step out of the doors of the hotel, you are greeted by a place that has somehow been captured in time, with a unique charm all its own, to be savoured, appreciated, and definitely to be experienced.