To Start With

The Magnolia at the Modern film series continues to offer a vital palette of moving pictures to broaden its contemporary art exposition. The series’ works of solemnity or quirkiness, of historical note or modern interpretation, are always thought-provoking and tasty. This weekend’s selection, Andrew Wagner’s Starting Out in the Evening, based on Brian Wagner’s novel, may bring to mind past cinematic simmerings between “September” authors and the “May” nubile lovelies that have come to stir their creative juices—Lolita, Stealing Beauty and Wonder Boys. In Starting Out, Langella’s aging literary master Schiller is 10 years into writing his last novel when a beautiful grad student Heather asks for his time to research a thesis on him. Penetrating research…that will re-enervate his dried-out working regimen. Will the Master be swayed by the cheap Margarita and her motives of impulsive ambition that are common to her modern milieu of popular young writers? It’s always a delight to see Frank Langella, who can command the screen whether upside-down (in 1979’s horror Dracula) or en garde (in 1995’s exhilarating swashbuckler Cutthroat Island). Magnolia at the Modern film series runs 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. Friday, 5 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Sunday. Call 817-738-9215 or visit themodern.org.
Feb. 1-3, 2008