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September 9 - 16, 1999

[Boston Film Festival]

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The Tavern

A Phoenix pick

More difficult, perhaps, than getting an independent movie off the ground is opening a restaurant in Manhattan; first-time director Walter Foote succeeds admirably at the former in depicting the latter. Ronnie (Cameron Dye), an underachieving, 40ish bartender, realizes he has just one last chance to grab the brass ring, so he enlists his best friend, Dave (Kevin Geer), and his dead brother's widow, Gina (Nancy Ticotin), in fronting some money to buy a thriving tavern. The establishment becomes more successful as a metaphor for human aspiration gone awry than as a going venture: Ronnie and Dave struggle with treacherous competitors, fickle fashions, family feuding, and bad cooking. More resourceful than his heroes is director Foote, whose understated, oblique exposition and narrative, delicate balance of comedy and pathos, and expert handling of a talented cast transform his meat-and-potato premise into a place where everyone will feel at home, for better and worse. Screens at the Copley Place Thursday, September 9 at 7:15 and 9:45 p.m. and Friday, September 10 at 12:30, 2:45, and 5 p.m. Director Walter Foote will be present at tonight's 7:15 showing.

-- Peter Keough


Film Festival Feature Films

| The Minus Man | The Tavern | Black Eyed Dog | The Last September | A Wake in Providence | Man of the Century | Pups | Dreaming of Joseph Leeds | Wisdom of Crocodiles | That's The Way I Like It | American Beauty | Mifune | Black Cat, White Cat | Hit and Runway | All the LIttle Animals | Me Myself I | The Alchemist and the Virgin | Trash | Old Man River | The Poet and the Con | Snow Falling on Cedars | Guinevere | East is East | American Movie | Rivers of Babylon | Two Ninas | Rats | Keepers of the Frame | The Runner |


More Boston Film Festival information, film descriptions, and show times



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