Event - CINEMA

Movies at The American Center

December 15 : Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)

Neal Paige (Steve Martin) is frustration as family man and advertising agent leaves New York aboard a jet that is bound for home Chicago, but ends in Omaha because of a snowstorm. Martin, who meets Del Griffith (a shower curtain ring travelling salesman) aboard the flight, tries to get home in time for Thanksgiving. Accompanied by Griffith, Paige resorts to travelling by train, by bus and by automobile, before finally making it back while hitchhiking in the refrigerated section of a meat semi-tractor trailer.

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Six-year -old Susan has doubts about childhood's most enduring miracle Santa Claus. Her mother told her the 'secret' about Santa a long time ago, so Susan doesn't expect to receive the most important gifts on her Christmas list. But after meeting a special department store Santa who's convinced he's the real thing, Susan is given the most precious gift of all something to believe in.

December 29: A Christmas Story (1983)

Narrated by a man (Jean Shepherd) recalling his childhood, the film looks back at the compulsive efforts of seven-year-old Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) as he tries every means possible to acquire his dream Christmas gift a Daisy-brand Red Ryder repeating

BB carbine with a compass mounted in the stock. Problem is, he lives in a Norman Rockwell esque Midwestern town in the 1940s, where his parents, teachers, and even Santa Claus all warn Ralphie that "he'll shoot his eye out." Episodic in nature and seen entirely through the eyes of a child, the film offers a wonderful look at the day to day eccentricities that grew out of this conservative period. More interestingly, it cleverly captures childhood urgency, where even the most trivial fantasies or objects become immediate life or death necessities.