Cinema

The second installment of the Cinema Sunday Series at the Charles will commence at 10 a.m. Sunday. This series features an advance look at an unreleased film, which will be introduced and then discussed afterward by a local critic or artist.Sunday's film is a documentary well-received on the film festival circuit that just may have something to do with middle-Americans being raised by nannies.As an added attraction, John Jollis, a clerk at Video Americain, will show his short film "Your Montana Vacation Tour of the World's Wonders Begin With This Coupon" and answer questions afterward.

Regal Entertainment Group will open a 12-screen and IMAX movie theater this month at Waugh Chapel  Towne Centre in Gambrills, with preview events starting Monday and a Sept. 14 grand opening. The 2,200-seat Waugh Chapel Stadium 12 & IMAX will join anchors Target and Dick's Sporting Goods, which opened this year at the $275 million mixed-use project in western Anne Arundel County - the nation's largest retail project currently under construction. Wegmans is coming to the center, next to the Village at Waugh Chapel, this fall.

Just after announcing plans for a second huge shopping complex in East Columbia, the Rouse Co. wants to expand its first one -- booming Snowden Square -- by opening a multiplex cinema.If approved by the county, the cinema would be one of three movie theaters in the Columbia area.And the Rouse Co.'s plans aren't limited to the cinema at Snowden Square, behind the Hechinger Home Project Center on Commerce Center Drive. It also wants to develop three adjoining parcels for warehouse, retail, entertainment or service uses.

Five short narrative films, on themes ranging from a modern-day urban cowboy to a scamming extraterrestrial, kicked off the 14th annual Maryland Film Festival at MICA's Brown Center Thursday night. Maryland's festival remains the only one of its kind to devote its opening night to short films — works the evening's host, salon.com film critic Andrew O'Hehir, praised as a way for filmmakers to hone their craft. The evening's fare kicked off with MFF alum Christina Choe's "I am John Wayne," a cryptic modern take on the cowboy tradition, complete with a horse, a laconic hero and a two-timing woman, all set against a Coney Island backdrop.

The Winter 2002 season of Cinema Sundays at the Charles opens this weekend with Lantana, a thriller from director Ray Lawrence. The movie stars Barbara Hershey as psychiatrist Valerie Somers, who disappears one night; Anthony LaPaglia is Detective Leon Zat, who investigates - and whose wife has been seeing Dr. Somers. The cast also includes Geoffrey Rush. Lee Gardner, arts editor of the City Paper, will serve as host of Sunday's screening. Doors open at 9:45 a.m., and show time is 10:30 a.m. Coffee and bagels will be served.

Another film festival is being added to Baltimore's burgeoning film scene, this one dedicated to African-American cinema. Captivity, a four-day festival slated for July 5-8 at the Heritage Cinema House, will showcase somewhere between 15 and 18 films either made by African-American directors or featuring predominantly black casts, says Heritage founder Michael Johnson. Noting the success of other niche-oriented festivals, such as the Jewish Film Festival and MicroCineFest, Johnson says it's time Baltimore staged a film celebration geared toward its predominantly African-American population.

MOSCOW - In recent years, the Russian film industry has found itself swamped by Hollywood productions, abandoned by its stalwart audience and limited mostly to making art films or gangster flicks. Now comes the film Turkish Gambit to the rescue, sabers flashing in the sunlight, hooves pounding across grassy meadows. Since it opened Feb. 22, the historical spy thriller, set on the battlefields of a 19th-century war on the Balkan peninsula, has had more than $17 million in ticket sales.

EARLY AFRICAN-American films -- produced and distributed by black companies in competition with the Hollywood system -- are a little-known aspect of U.S. film history. And for an understandable reason. Although an estimated 500 such movies were made between 1915 and 1950, many were lost.That's why a monthlong series beginning at 8 tonight on the Turner Classic Movies network is so valuable. It devotes five consecutive Wednesday nights to 29 significant but rarely seen "race" films, including two classics by Oscar Micheaux that were long feared lost.

Three thousand outdoor cinema-goers showing up to watch Cher and Nicolas Cage under a full moon in Little Italy - now that's amore. It's opening night on High, Stiles and Albemarle streets, where a free summer film festival has brought throngs to the neighborhood in beach chairs to watch Moonstruck. The weekly Friday night event, which got off the ground four years ago when the Little Italy Restaurant Association decided to give open-air cinema a try, has become a Baltimore spectacle attracting anyone who wants to watch movies and people.

The Ann Arbor Film Festival is one of the best-regarded traveling festivals of independent and experimental short films in the United States. The University of Maryland, Baltimore County will play host to the festival today and tomorrow in room 306 in the Fine Arts Building. Twenty-three new films by emerging filmmakers from around the world will be presented at the festival. Screenings are at 7 p.m tonight and 6 p.m. tomorrow. Admission is $2 ($1 for students). For more information, call 410-455-2959.

News Roundup •••• Adam Sessler, host of G4TV's gaming flagship “X-Play,” has left the network and the long-running show. Sessler was a fixture on the network's previous incarnations, ZDTV and TechTV, having co-hosted “X-Play” with Morgan Webb for nearly a decade. [ Kotaku ] •••• A new study has found that playing “Tetris” can ease the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. It can also get you kicked out of math class if you play it too conspicuously on your TI-86 calculator.

Martin Scorsese has made so many provocative movies over the decades that probably the only way left for him to shock an audience was to make a children's film. Yes, "Hugo" is rated PG. It's also in 3-D, meaning that this Christmas release delivers the dazzling special effects now expected in a big-budget movie. This immensely gifted director really does deliver in terms of a family-friendly movie that qualifies as a genuine gift for the holiday season. Ironically, it may be a gift more appreciated by seasoned movie buffs than by small children.

Two Door Cinema Club lead singer Alex Trimble walked onto the FreeFest West stage at 1:45 p.m., swigging a Heineken. No water for him, and after a handful of songs from his band's debut LP Tourist History , it seemed appropriate -- he and his band were here to start a party. Two Door played a tight set of jangly indie-rock, which at times recalled Vampire Weekend at its quickest (think "A-Punk") and Bloc Party. Knowing the group's material wasn't necessary (although the crowd was full of fans, including many girls in Wayfarers singing along to every word)

If you've got a smartphone or a phone with a mobile browser, Yahoo! Movies and Regal Cinemas wants to give you free popcorn this summer, according to livingrichwithcoupons.com . Just go to movies.yahoo.com/popcorn and follow the instructions to get a free bag of popcorn after you arrive at one of three theaters: the UA Movies at Marley Station mall, the UA Cinema at Snowden Square or the Regal Hunt Valley Mall. From a mobile phone with GPS, you can go to the free popcorn mobile site . The offer lasts until August 31 or until they give away 1 million bags of popcorn, whichever comes first.

What's the best way to fill an open space with smiles for a summer night? Fit in a big, bright movie screen, and hundreds are sure to follow. Every summer, in every corner of Baltimore, the light of the silvery moon turns outdoor silver screens into magnets for fun-seekers. Even a movie presentation expert as exacting as restoration whiz Robert A. Harris ("Lawrence of Arabia") has taken a turn at open-air presentation. "We did it with 'Napoleon.' We sat 5,000 people outside the Colosseum.

Regal Cinemas will open a theater at Waugh Chapel Towne Centre, a planned mixed-use development in Gambrills in West Anne Arundel County, project developer Greenberg Gibbons said Monday. The theater will offer digital projection and will be the first IMAX cinema in the area. The 52,000-square-foot theater will join anchors Wegmans, Target, Dick's Sporting Goods and Petco in a 1.2 million-square-foot center with 650,000 square feet of shops, 125,000 square feet of offices and 380 apartments.

After weeks of anticipation, it's finally here: Opening night of the new Maryland Film Festival, which will unspool starting tonight at the Senator Theatre with a gala screening of Barry Levinson's home-movie documentary, "Diner Guys."But that's the easy part. "Diner Guys," which traces the lives of the men who inspired Levinson's 1982 movie "Diner" over nine years, is the only thing playing tonight (the screening will be followed by a question-and-answer session with Levinson, then with a block party at the Charles Theatre on Charles Street)

A Jane Austen novel forms the basis of the Sunday Cinema at the Charles presentation this Sunday at the art theater on Charles Street.Local film critic Mike Guiliano will introduce the film, which stars lTC Corin Redgrave and Fiona Shaw and has received wonderful reviews in the cities where it's opened.The Sunday Cinema offers viewers a first look at an art film as introduced before, then discussed afterward, by a local critic. The doors to the theater open at 10, and the screening begins at 10:30.

If you're looking for something to do tonight, how about a movie at the Rotunda ? All seats are only $5 on Tuesdays and right now they are showing The King's Speech, Rango, and The Adjustment Bureau. Rango in particular looks good, check out the trailer below and our review here :  

A murdered screenwriter who narrates from the grave. An idealistic script reader who thinks she can work her way up in a studio on smarts alone. A producer who would push a baseball project if he could turn it into a musical for a female star. Those are just the "normal" characters in "Sunset Boulevard," the anchor of the opening-day bill for "You Be Cinema," the University of Baltimore's new film series at UB's Student Center Performing Arts Theater, 21 W. Mount Royal Ave. Billy Wilder's coruscating pop tragedy, streaked with horror and black comedy, is still the ultimate Hollywood movie, 60 years after its premiere.