“An Evening with Andrew Davis" at the Last Picture House -- October 24. (pictured: Davis on the set of The Fugitive)
Thursday, October 24, 6:30 p.m.
The Last Picture House, 325 East Second Street, Davenport IA
On October 24, a Golden Globe and Directors Guild of America nominee – and the director of 1993's Oscar-winning smash The Fugitive – will be of guest of The Last Picture House in the Davenport venue's An Evening with Andrew Davis, a special evening for movie fans featuring a signing of Davis' first novel (co-written by Davenport author Jeff Biggers), a screening of Davis' 1989 thriller The Package, and a Q&A with the filmmaker afterward.
Raised on the south side of Chicago, David is the acclaimed director and screenwriter of numerous films, including Holes, Under Siege, Code of Silence, A Perfect Murder, and The Guardian, and whose landmark film The Fugitive – chosen in 2020 by Los Angeles Times readers as the ultimate summer movie – was nominated for seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, and won Best Supporting Actor for Harrison Ford's co-star Tommy Lee Jones. David received Golden Globe and Directors Guild of America nominations for the 1993 blockbuster, and his work on The Fugitive led fellow Chicagoan Roger Ebert to rave that "Davis paints with bold visual strokes," and that he "transcends genre and shows an ability to marry action and artistry that deserves comparison with Hitchcock, yes, and also with David Lean and Carol Reed."
Released in 1989, Davis' political action thriller The Package stars Gene Hackman, Joanna Cassidy, Tommy Lee Jones, John Heard, and Dennis Franz. Set during the Cold War, the film depicts the U.S. and Soviet governments as they are about to sign a disarmament treaty to completely eliminate nuclear weapons. However, elements within each country's military are vehemently opposed to such a plan, and determined to stop it at all costs. Ebert was also a fan of this pre-Fugitive project, writing of The Package, "The movie’s plot is so intricate that it seems there have to be loose ends, but there aren’t any, and after it’s over you rerun the events in your head, seeing at last how all the pieces fit together. Untangling the conspiracy is one of the story’s pleasures."
Co-written by Jeff Biggers, Disturbing the Bones is Davis' first novel, and is due for release on October 15. As the narrative is detailed by Publishers Weekly: "Global peace struggles collide with intimate family drama in this thrillingly cinematic collaboration between The Fugitive director Davis and journalist Biggers (In Sardinia). During an archaeological dig in Alexander County, Ill., in which ambitious young scientist Molly Moore uncovers ancient villages dating back to 6,000 BCE, her drones and remote sensing equipment also unearth the bones of Florence Jenkins, a civil rights reporter who went missing in 1978.
“The discovery catches the attention of Florence’s son, Chicago homicide detective Randall Jenkins, who’s long wondered what happened to his mother. Ignoring warnings from federal officials, Molly and Randall try to piece together Florence’s fate. Meanwhile, a breakthrough defense program operates out of nearby Fort Defiance with hopes of giving the U.S. clear dominance over Russia. A misstep in that program causes a nuclear disaster in Siberia, further heating up the impending U.S. presidential election and increasing pressure on an upcoming peace summit in Chicago.”
Based in Davenport, Disturbing the Bones co-author Biggers is the American Book Award-winning author of many works of investigative journalism, history, and theatre, including Reckoning at Eagle Creek, winner of the Delta Prize for Literature and the Brower Award for Environmental Reporting, and the recent In Sardinia. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, and on NPR, and with Oscar-nominated filmmaker Michael Mann (Heat, The Insider) calling Disturbing the Bones "an ingenious page turner," New York Times bestselling author Sara Paretsky deemed the novel a "high-voltage thriller" featuring "an amazing range of characters" and "an astonishing conclusion.”
An Evening with Andrew Davis takes place on October 24, with the Disturbing the Bones book signing at 6:30 p.m., The Package screened at 7 p.m., and a Q&A with Davis immediately following. Admission is $15, and more information and tickets are available by visiting LastPictureHouse.com.
