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UW-Eau Claire Film Series Resumes
For Fall Semester Sept. 2-4

EAU CLAIRE — The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire film series resumes for the fall semester with free screenings of "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" at 6 and 8:30 p.m. Thursday through Sunday, Sept. 2-5, in Davies Theatre.

Co-written by Paul Reubens and Phil Hartman, the 1985 film was the first feature directed by Tim Burton, who stamps the entire film with his quirky trademark style. Pee-Wee Herman (Reubens) is not an average little boy — he exists in a grown-up body, has a penchant for 1950s retro memorabilia, and lives in a zany, make-believe world.

Sporting a molded Princeton cut, blush, lipstick and a shrunken gray flannel suit, Pee-Wee lives an idyllic life in his bizarre home until someone steals his most prized possession: a fire-engine-red customized bicycle, "the coolest bike in the world."

With imaginative sets and dream sequences that use claymation and pixilated models, the 90-minute film is rated PG — a comedy enjoyable for both children and adults.

The film is sponsored by the University Activities Commission of the UW-Eau Claire Student Senate. Admission is free at the door.

Admission to most campus films is $2 for International Film Society members and UW-Eau Claire faculty/staff, or $1 for UW-Eau Claire students. Membership in the International Film Society enables community members to purchase tickets to campus films throughout the year. Members also receive a newsletter with advance information about campus films. An individual IFS membership costs $4; a family membership costs $10. Membership and tickets are available at the University Service Center, (715) 836-3727, in Davies Center's east lobby.

Other fall semester films include the following:

• "Elephant" (U.S, 2003), Gus Van Sant's controversial film of how violence makes its way into a typical American high school; Sept. 9-12.
• "In America" (Ireland/U.K. 2002), Jim Sheridan's bittersweet portrait of an Irish immigrant family's first year in New York City; Sept. 16-19.
• "The Triplets of Belleville" (France 2003), a sophisticated animated feature about a doting grandmother who enlists the help of three eccentric jazz-age singers to help rescue her cyclist grandson from kidnappers; Sept. 23-26.
• "Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie" (U.S. 1996), a big-screen version of the Emmy-nominated Comedy Central series about a hapless human and his two robot sidekicks who are exiled to the far reaches of space and forced to watch an endless stream of cheesy B-movies as part of a fiendish experiment; Sept. 30-Oct. 3.
• "Whale Rider" (New Zealand 2002), Niki Caro's contemporary story of love, rejection and triumph about a young Maori girl (Keisha Castle-Hughes) who fights to fulfill a destiny her grandfather refuses to recognize; Oct. 7-10.
• "The Magdalene Sisters" (Ireland/U.K. 2002), a powerful document of cruelty that relates the experience of three girls at the Magdalene girls asylums in Ireland — workhouses that were the lifelong fate of thousands of girls regarded as immoral; Oct. 14-17.
• "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" ( U.S. 1975), the multiple Oscar winner about a rebellious inmate (Jack Nicholson) in a psychiatric hospital who brings a contagious sense of disorder to its mind-numbing world; Oct. 21-24.
• "Evil Dead II" ( U.S. 1987), Sam Raimi's blood-soaked send-up of the terror genre, starring Bruce Campbell as a man trapped in a remote cabin under attack by flesh-possessing demons; Oct. 28-31.
• "Distant" (Turkey 2002), Nuri Bilge Ceylan's story of the unbridgeable distances that isolate two men, distant relatives, who temporarily share an Istanbul flat; Nov. 4-7.
• "Man Bites Dog" ( Belgium 1992), Remy Belvaux's controversial film about a camera crew that follows a serial killer around as he exercises his craft; Nov. 11-14.
• "Amen" (France/Germany/Romania 2002), Costa-Gavras' dramatization of the all-too-true history of how religious leaders in Germany and the Vatican ignored the plight of Europe's Jews during WWII; Nov. 18-21.
• "The Story of the Weeping Camel" (Germany/Mongolia 2003), a tale consisting of equal parts reality, drama, and magic that follows the adventures of a family of shepherds in Mongolia's Gobi desert who face a crisis when a camel rejects her newborn calf after a difficult birth; Dec. 2-5.
• "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (U.S./New Zealand 2003), the final chapter in director Peter Jackson's critically acclaimed Oscar-winning trilogy; Dec. 9-12 (special screening times).

Presented by the International Film Society and the University Activities Commission of the UW-Eau Claire Student Senate, the films most often screen at 6 and 8:30 p.m. in Davies Theatre, a 250-seat theater in Davies Center on UW-Eau Claire's lower campus. Complete schedule information is available from the Activities and Programs office, (715) 836-4833.

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Judy Berthiaume, Director
UW-Eau Claire News Bureau
Schofield 201
(715) 836-4741
newsbur@uwec.edu

Updated: August 30, 2004