LSC Event Descriptions

September 24 & 25, 2004

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LSC is proud to help bring the Boston Asian American Independent Film Festival to the MIT campus. The festival will include short films, student films, forum discussions, and the following feature presentations:


unrated
93 minutes

Close Call (2004)
September 24, 2004 at 10:00pm in 10-250.

Close Call is a coming of age awakening heartfelt story about a teenage girl trapped in a downward spiral of promiscuous sex, drugs, alcohol use, and criminality. Brutally honest in its depiction of the damage wrought by the breakdown of the family in contemporary America, Close Call adds another theme to the story: The ever-widening gap between first generation parents and the generation Y children. Close Call focuses on sixteen-year-old Jenny Kim, born and raised in corrupt Los Angeles. Family problems lead to a divorce causing Jenny to suffer from intense feelings of alienation and abandonment. Ignorant of her native culture and unsure of her place in American society, Jenny finds herself vulnerable to the evil influences and temptations surrounding her from friends, raves, boys and other mishaps. While her mother loses control of her, it is her father, David, who reunites with Jenny and leads the teenager to redemption. Never losing his all-consuming love for Jenny, David proves willing to make any sacrifice to save her. It is the intense psychological interplay between father and daughter in two different worlds that forms the heart and soul of Close Call. [primemediapictures.com]


Rated R
85 minutes

Charlotte Sometimes (2002)
September 25, 2004 at 1:00pm in 10-250.

Every beautiful woman has a friend like Michael -- a trusted and dependable soul, content to know he's "like a brother" to a woman he secretly longs to bed.

The woman in this case Michael's neighbor and tenant -- a girlishly sexy princess by the name of Lori. Lori feels coveted and yet chaste in the glow of Michael's calm, silent gaze -- an addictive combination she can scarcely live without. Physically, however, she prefers the touch of another man.

Justin is a handsome, half-Asian stock broker whose passion for life is trampled by the dizzying demands of his fast-track career. After work, Justin crashes at Lori's apartment hoping to steal a few extra moments of peace. But Lori's enticing bids to claim those moments for herself spur in Justin a flood of sexual intensity often bordering on cruelty. Afterwards, Justin pretends to sleep, sending lovesick Lori upstairs to Michael for late night movies cuddled up on his couch.

Into the fray wanders Darcy -- a novelist and world traveler who singles Michael out at the local nightspot. Michael senses the danger in Darcy's eyes, but he invites her into his life, and soon into the lives of Lori and Justin. Slowly, the seduction begins. By the time Darcy sets off into the world again, her insinuating power has sparked a chain reaction of passion and betrayal, where all the truths and all the lies, so carefully kept hidden, are ultimately revealed. [charlottesometimesthemovie.com]


unrated
91 minutes

Take Out (2004)
September 25, 2004 at 10:00pm in 10-250.

Take Out is a day-in-the-life of Ming Ding, an illegal Chinese immigrant working as a deliveryman for a Chinese take-out shop in New York City. Ming is behind with his payments on his huge debt to the smugglers who brought him to the US. The collectors have given him until the end of the day to deliver the money that is due. After borrowing most from friends and relatives, Ming realizes that the remainder must come from the day's delivery tips. In order to do so, he must make more than double his average daily income.

In a social-realist style, the camera follows Ming on his deliveries throughout the upper Manhattan neighborhood where social and economic extremes exist side by side. Intercutting between Ming's deliveries and the daily routine of the restaurant, Take Out presents a harshly real look at the daily lives of illegal Chinese immigrants in New York City 2003. [crefilm.com]

September 24 & 25, 2004 <-- Previous | Fall 2004 schedule | Next -->