film

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ELAIN STRITCH: SHOOT ME 

Now in her late 80s, Broadway legend Elaine Stritch remains as ferociously funny as ever. In this bold, hilarious and poignant portrait, the uncompromising Tony and Emmy Award-winner is revealed both on and off stage. Candid reflections about her life are punctuated with words from friends (including James Gandolfini, Tina Fey, John Turturro, Hal Prince, George C. Wolfe, Nathan Lane and Cherry Jones) and archival footage that showcases some of the great moments from her career. Whether dominating the stage, tormenting Alec Baldwin on the set of “30 Rock,” or sharing her struggles with aging, diabetes and alcoholism, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me reaches beyond the icon’s brassy exterior and reveals an inspiring portrait of a complex woman and artist. At Boedecker. — Boedecker Theater

CHILD’S POSE

Seeing a way to reassert control over her adult son’s life when he faces manslaughter charges, an affluent Romanian woman sets out on a campaign of emotional and social manipulation to keep him out of prison, navigating the waters of power, corruption and influence. Child’s Pose is based on the sense of loss of parents who have to send their children away-physically and psychologically. The parent-child relationship is re-assessed through a son in his 30s that wants to escape from his mother, who in turn wants to keep her adult son by her side. The mother’s character is quite familiar, but this film is unique in that the director delicately portrays how the controlling mother wants to deny that her son is destined to leave her by following the characters’ emotional flows and gazing at their twisted desires. Luminita Gheorghiu turns in an extraordinary performance in playing a mother struggling to “save” her son. Heading to the conclusion, the film shows that the unhealthy mother-son relationship is not that simple when it comes to matters of humane duty. At Boedecker. — Boedecker Theater

CLASSICS: TOKYO STORY — TALK BACK WITH ALBERT HAND 

A profoundly stirring evocation of elemental humanity and universal heartbreak, Tokyo Story is the crowning achievement of the unparalleled Yasujiro Ozu. The film, which follows an aging couple’s journey to visit their grown children in bustling postwar Tokyo, surveys the rich and complex world of family life with the director’s customary delicacy and incisive perspective on social mores. Featuring lovely performances from Ozu regulars Chishu Ryu and Setsuko Hara, Tokyo Story plumbs and deepens the director’s recurring theme of generational conflict, creating what is without question one of cinema’s mightiest masterpieces. At Boedecker. — Boedecker Theater

ENEMY 

Academy Award Nominee Jake Gyllenhaal reteams with his Prisoners director, Academy Award nominee Denis Villeneuve, in this sexy and hypnotically surreal psychological thriller that breathes new life into the doppleganger tradition. Adam Bell (Gyllenhaal) is a glum, disheveled history professor, who seems disinterested even in his beautiful girlfriend, Mary (Mélanie Laurent). Watching a movie on the recommendation of a colleague, Adam spots his double, a bit-part actor named Anthony Clair, and decides to track him down. The identical men meet and their lives become bizarrely and irrevocably intertwined. Gyllenhaal is transfixing as both Adam and Anthony, provoking empathy as well as disapproval while embodying two distinct personas. With masterfully controlled attention to detail, Villeneuve takes us on an enigmatic and gripping journey through a world that is both familiar and strange – and hard to shake off long after its final, unnerving image. At Boedecker. — Boedecker Theater

ERNEST & CELESTINE 

Deep below snowy, cobblestone streets, tucked away in networks of winding subterranean tunnels, lives a civilization of hard-working mice, terrified of the bears who live above ground. Unlike her fellow mice, Celestine is an artist and a dreamer — and when she nearly ends up as breakfast for ursine troubadour Ernest, the two form an unlikely bond. But it isn’t long before their friendship is put to the test by their respective bear-fearing and mice-eating communities. Magical and funny, Ernest & Celestine joyfully leaps across genres, propelled with brilliant comic timing, to capture the kinetic possibilities of animated storytelling. At Boedecker. — Boedecker Theater

THE GALAPAGOS AFFAIR: SATAN CAME TO EDEN 

Darwin meets Hitchcock in this feature-length documentary. The Galapagos Affair is a gripping tale of idealistic dreams gone awry, set in the brutal yet alluring landscape of the Galapagos Islands. Featuring voice-over performances by Cate Blanchett, Diane Kruger, Connie Nielsen, Sebastian Koch, Thomas Kretschmann, Gustaf Skarsgard and Josh Radnor, this film skillfully interweaves an unsolved 1930s murder mystery with stories of present day Galapagos pioneers (a handful of Europeans, Americans and Ecuadoreans who settled idiosyncratically on the Islands between the 1930s and 1960s). As such, it is a parable about the search for paradise — about what happens when a handful of individualists settle on the same small island seeking their own distinct and sometimes clashing notions of Eden. At Boedecker. — Boedecker Theater

LEVIATHAN 

One of the most highly anticipated films of the year, from the directors of Sweetgrass and Foreign Parts, Leviathan is a thrilling, immersive documentary that takes you deep inside the dangerous world of commercial fishing. Set aboard a hulking fishing vessel as it navigates the treacherous waves off the New England coast — the very waters that once inspired Moby Dick — the film captures the harsh, unforgiving world of the fishermen in starkly haunting, yet beautiful detail. Employing an arsenal of cameras that pass freely from film crew to ship crew, and swoop from below sea level to astonishing bird’s-eye views, Leviathan is unlike anything you have ever seen; a purely visceral, cinematic experience. Thu April 24, Muenzinger Auditorium. — International Film Series

OPERA: LA BOHEME — SALZBURG FESTIVAL 

One of the operas performed most frequently all over the world, Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème has its grand premiere in 2012 at the Salzburg Festival – its brilliance already ensured by the star cast led by conductor Daniele Gatti. As in a film, scenes, images and impressions flit past the viewer. Like snapshots, momentary images record the pact of friendship between four young individualists in the metropolis of Paris: Rodolfo writing, Colline philosophizing, Marcello painting, and Schaunard, who has turned towards music. Into this artists’ idyll, Rodolfo introduces fragile Mimì – who, however, does not seem cut out for the life of the bohemians. At Boedecker. —Boedecker Theater

OBVIOUS CHILD 

For aspiring comedian Donna Stern, everyday life as a female twenty-something provides ample material for her incredibly relatable brand of humor. On stage, Donna is unapologetically herself, joking about topics as intimate as her sex life and as crude as her day-old underwear. But when Donna gets dumped, loses her job, and finds herself pregnant just in time for Valentine’s Day, she has to navigate the murky waters of independent adulthood for the first time. As she grapples with an uncertain financial future, an unwanted pregnancy, and a surprising new suitor, Donna begins to discover that the most terrifying thing about adulthood isn’t facing it all on her own. It’s allowing herself to accept the support and love of others. And be truly vulnerable. Never failing to find the comedy and humanity in each awkward situation she encounters, Donna finds out along the way what it means to be as brave in life as she is on stage. April 21 only, Muenzinger Auditorium. International Film Series 

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