VOLUNTEER PICK: YOU CAN COUNT ON ME on 35MM

May 11, 12, 19
YOU CAN COUNT ON ME on 35MM
The final screening on 5/19 will have a post-film discussion between special curator Michael Radelich and OFS program director Rob Patrick
OFS volunteer of the year, Michael Radelich presents You Can Count On Me, a 2000 American drama film starring Laura Linney, Mark Ruffalo, Rory Culkin, and Matthew Broderick. Written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan, it tells the story of Sammy (Laura Linney), a single mother living in a small town, and her complicated relationships with family and friends. The film and its performances received highly positive reviews among critics, and earned dozens of award nominations and awards at film festivals, especially during the awards season, including two Oscar nominations.
Dir: Kenneth Lonergan / 2001 / US / 111 min

Welcome to all OFS volunteer and staff colleagues, dear friendly OFS members and patrons, and Olympia cinema connoisseurs. This Sunday, May 19^th, they will finally let me, Michael Radelich, think and talk outside the box office when I, along with OFS Film Programmer Rob Patrick-Linney, give a talk and moderate a Q&A on Kenneth Lonergan’s 2000 realistic film You Can Count On Me, one of my five favorite movies (anyone who can guess all five wins a lifelong OFS Membership!).  It’s the first of my films in this year’s series of my favorite films, one that is deeply personal for me, so I hope you can join me and Rob after the film for the discussion.

Written by Lonergan and his directorial debut, it stars the great Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo, Matthew Broderick, Jon Tenney, and Rory Culkin (“the stable Culkin”). 

The movie centers about a brother and sister, Terry and Samantha Prescott, and her young son, Rudy.  Sammy is a small-town bank loan officer, the older, seemingly mature, staid, and predicatable sibling; Terry is a drifter, the younger sibling, and the consumate, perennial failure-at-life.  Young, well-adjusted but fatherless Rudy is the object over which they take up sibling-arms. 

          Terry’s arrival in the small upstate New York town throws Sammy’s life into disequilibrium.  Terry earnestly tries to somewhat settle-down and paternally foster young Rudy with a string of well-meaning but misguided efforts that more or less largely fail. Terry’s stab at small-town stability leads the typically steadfast Sammy in an opposite direction, nudging her life off-kilter.  She initiates and revels in an adulterous, clandestine workplace relationship with her banker boss, and tries to balance this precarious dalliance by dating the stable but unexciting Bob, predictable and small-town-secure.

To see how Lonergan resolves these situations, you’ll have to come to OFS and watch the movie.  You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and I hope you’ll share your views this Sunday at 9:30 p.m. after the film.  I look forward to seeing you there.  If you saw the film earlier this week, or just want to come for the talk and Q&A, please do, at 9:30 p.m. this Sunday night at OFS.

–Michael

ABOUT VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR MICHAEL RADELICH:
Michael Radelich is a native New Yorker, nonfiction writer, gourmand and traveller. A former elementary educator in Brooklyn, Michael was also a university teacher of 28 years. Michael is a celebrated and longstanding Olympia Film Society volunteer, and can likely bench press 10 film reel canisters at any given time. Even though Michael has degrees in mathematics, literature, and writing, his dog Bob is still the scholar of the household.

SCREENING: SAT 5/11 6:30PM; SUN 5/12 5:00PM; SUN 5/19 7:30PM
Tickets available at the box office 1/2 hour before showtimes.