Tryon Fine Arts Center’s new film season opens with the British comedy “A Fish Called Wanda” on Tuesday, Oct. 6 at 7 p.m. The season will run on the first Tuesday of each month from October through May, showcasing eight British movies, mostly comedies.

Reviewing the movie when it was released in 1988, Roger Ebert said, “A Fish Called Wanda” is the funniest movie I have seen in a long time. One of its strengths is its mean-spiritedness. Hollywood may be able to make comedies about mean people (usually portrayed as the heroes), but only in England are the sins of vanity, greed and lust treated with the comic richness they deserve.”

Ebert continues, “This movie is essentially a late-1950s-style British comedy in which the Americans turn up to do and say all of the things that would be appalling to the British characters.”

The film stars two Americans, Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline, and two British Monty Python veterans, John Cleese and Michael Palin.

The film received no less than 14 award nominations, with Kevin Kline winning the Academy Award for best supporting actor and John Cleese and Michael Palin winning the British Academy Awards for their roles. Fans of the British television series Monty Python’s Flying Circus will certainly appreciate the script and comic acting of two Flying Circus veterans, but these performers never overshadow the brilliant comic performances of Kevin Kline and Jamie Lee Curtis.

This season, there will be opportunities to sponsor each movie and honor or surprise someone for a birthday or other special occasion. To find out more, come out for “A Fish Called Wanda.” Tickets are available from the TFAC box office when the doors open at 6:30, allowing time to mingle around the bar before the show starts at 7 p.m.

For more information about this and other events at the Tryon Fine Arts Center visit tryonarts.org or call 828-859-8322. The next film in the series will be screened on Nov. 3 and is a romantic comedy with a twist “Once Upon A Time In The Midlands.”
– Submitted by Frances Flynn