Fun and Affordable, Cinema Under the Stars Brings Friday Nig

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Fun and Affordable, Cinema Under the Stars Brings Friday Night "Musicals and Mayhem" to the Lawn of Reynolda House Museum of American Art

Monday, July 20, 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Sharyn Turner
336.758.5580
sturner@reynoldahouse.org
or Sarah Mansell
336.758.5524
manselss@reynoldahouse.org

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (July 15, 2009) — This summer, Reynolda House Museum of American Art will host its fourth annual Cinema Under the Stars evening film series, cosponsored by the School of Filmmaking of the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. This year's series celebrates "Musicals and Mayhem" with films ranging from 1939's classic for children of all ages "The Wizard of Oz" to the terrifying 1978 version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" to 2001's romantic tragedy, "Moulin Rouge!"

Films from different eras will be screened at 9 p.m. each Friday night in August and the first Friday in September. Weather permitting, the movies will be shown outside on the lawn. In case of rain, films will be shown in the museum's Babcock auditorium. Beer and wine will be available for purchase, and film goers are encouraged to come early and picnic on the lawn. The gates open at 8 p.m. Admission is $5 for the general public, $3 for members and students.

Cinema Under the Stars Schedule

Friday, August 7
Victor Fleming's "The Wizard of Oz" (1939)
Unrated, 101 min.
Starring Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, and Margaret Hamilton
The music! The Technicolor! The flying monkeys! Pack a dog and a dinner in your basket and escape with Dorothy and Toto into Hollywood fantasyland.

Friday, August 14–DOUBLE FEATURE
Richard Lester's "A Hard Day's Night" (1964) 9 p.m.
Unrated, 87 min.
Starring John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison
The first Beatles movie—more a fantasia with music than a standard musical—was a celebration of youth, freedom, and sheer momentum. It launched a movie franchise and a hundred imitations, and the songs are incomparable.

Philip Kaufman's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1978) 11 p.m.
Rated PG, 115 min.
Starring Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, and Leonard Nimoy
From the British invasion to alien infiltration! This remake of the sci-fi classic is as paranoid as the Beatles were exuberant, and its acting, timing, and special effects still have the power to terrify. As film critic Pauline Kael noted, it may be the "best movie of its kind ever made."

Friday, August 21
Robert Wise's "The Sound of Music" (1965)
Unrated, 174 min.
Starring Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, and Eleanor Parker
When the dog bites, when the bee stings, we simply remember our favorite things, like "The Sound of Music." Winner of the Oscar for Best Picture in 1965, the film features a timeless score by songwriting team Rodgers and Hammerstein in the pair's final collaboration. The aerial shot of Julie Andrews singing the title song in the Austrian Alps is one of the most spectacular film openings of all time, and with song lyric subtitles we can all sing along. Children will be encouraged to make their "favorite things" at nearby craft tables, to wave as they are mentioned by Maria and the Trapp family singers.

Friday, August 28
Baz Lurhmann's "Moulin Rouge!" (2001)
Rated PG-13, 127 min.
Starring Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, John Leguizamo, and Jim Broadbent
"Moulin Rouge!" recasts Verdi's "La Traviata" as a romantic musical in a fin de-siècle Paris cabaret, accompanied by the songs of Madonna, Elton John, and Nirvana. The plot involving a young British poet in love with a cabaret actress and courtesan is mostly a pretext for some of the most extravagant song numbers and costumes to appear in film since the heyday of Hollywood musicals.

Friday, September 4
Randall Kleiser's "Grease" (1978)
Rated PG, 110 min.
Starring John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, and Stockard Channing
Australian foreign-exchange student Sandy falls for "greaser" Danny in roles that were career-defining for their stars. At the film's beginning, Sandy tells Danny, "I've just had the best summer of my life, and now I have to go away." What better way to wrap up our season of musicals on the lawn? Come dressed as T-Birds and Pink Ladies, and sing along on "Summer Nights" like "Beauty School Dropouts." Grease is the word.

About Reynolda House
Reynolda House Museum of American Art is one of the nation's premier American art museums, with masterpieces by Mary Cassatt, Frederic Church, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O'Keeffe and Gilbert Stuart among its permanent collection. Affiliated with Wake Forest University, Reynolda House features traveling and original exhibitions, concerts, lectures, classes, film screenings and other events. The museum is located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in the historic 1917 estate of Katharine Smith Reynolds and her husband, Richard Joshua Reynolds, founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Reynolda House and adjacent Reynolda Gardens and Reynolda Village feature a spectacular public garden, dining, shopping and walking trails. For more information, please visit reynoldahouse.org or call 336.758.5150.

About UNCSA
The University of North Carolina School of the Arts is the first state-supported, residential school of its kind in the nation. Established as the North Carolina School of the Arts by the N.C. General Assembly in 1963, UNCSA opened in Winston-Salem ("The City of the Arts") in 1965 and became part of the University of North Carolina system in 1972. More than 1,100 students from middle school through graduate school train for careers in the arts in five professional schools: Dance, Design and Production (including a Visual Arts Program), Drama, Filmmaking, and Music. UNCSA is the state's only public arts conservatory, dedicated entirely to the professional training of talented students in the performing, visual and moving image arts. Internationally renowned conductor John Mauceri has been chancellor of UNCSA since 2006. UNCSA is located at 1533 S. Main St., Winston-Salem. For more information, visit www.uncsa.edu.

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