| Film | Evenings | Matinees | Runtime | Rating |
 |
7:15 | Sat. Sun. Mats. 2:15 | 93 |
R |
 |
7:00/ 9:30 | Sat. Sun. Mats. 2:00/ 4:30 | 131 |
R |
 |
7:10/ 9:25 | Sat. Sun. Mats. 2:10/ 4:25 | 112 |
R |
 |
7:20/ 9:20 | Sat. Sun. Mats. 2:20/4:20 | 99 |
R |
 |
9:05 | Sat. Sun. Mats. 4:05 | 134 |
PG-13 |
 |
9:15 Ends Thursday |
127 |
R |
|
 |
7:05 | Sat.Sun. Mats. 2:05 | 100 |
PG |
PRIVATE LIVES OF PIPPA LEE, THE
(93 R)
Showtimes: 7:15 + Sat. Sun. Mats. 2:15
"2009 is being heralded as a breakthrough year for female directors, with films by Kathryn Bigelow, Jane Campion and Nancy Meyers all strong candidates for year-end awards. It would be a shame if writer-director Rebecca Miller's "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee" doesn't join this group. Robin Wright Penn gives an award-caliber performance in the title role of a woman trying to find her place in the scheme of things after moving with her older husband to a retirement village in suburban Connecticut. While Pippa tries to adjust to a new, simpler lifestyle and fears she may be approaching a "quiet nervous breakdown," she flashes back to the troubled childhood and young adulthood that preceded her marriage to Herb (Alan Arkin), a wealthy publisher at least two decades her senior. The supporting cast assembled by Miller is full of recognizable names. Actors such as Winona Ryder, as Pippa's close friend, and Keanu Reeves, as a troubled new neighbor, get rare chances at solidly written roles, while "Gossip Girl" ingénue Blake Lively shows she can actually act playing the young Pippa. ...Flashes of dark humor and steady, grounded performances make it a welcome return for Miller, making her first film since 2005's "The Ballad of Jack and Rose." (Marc Mohan, Portland Oregonian)
Showtimes: 7:15 + Sat. Sun. Mats. 2:15
"2009 is being heralded as a breakthrough year for female directors, with films by Kathryn Bigelow, Jane Campion and Nancy Meyers all strong candidates for year-end awards. It would be a shame if writer-director Rebecca Miller's "The Private Lives of Pippa Lee" doesn't join this group. Robin Wright Penn gives an award-caliber performance in the title role of a woman trying to find her place in the scheme of things after moving with her older husband to a retirement village in suburban Connecticut. While Pippa tries to adjust to a new, simpler lifestyle and fears she may be approaching a "quiet nervous breakdown," she flashes back to the troubled childhood and young adulthood that preceded her marriage to Herb (Alan Arkin), a wealthy publisher at least two decades her senior. The supporting cast assembled by Miller is full of recognizable names. Actors such as Winona Ryder, as Pippa's close friend, and Keanu Reeves, as a troubled new neighbor, get rare chances at solidly written roles, while "Gossip Girl" ingénue Blake Lively shows she can actually act playing the young Pippa. ...Flashes of dark humor and steady, grounded performances make it a welcome return for Miller, making her first film since 2005's "The Ballad of Jack and Rose." (Marc Mohan, Portland Oregonian)
HURT LOCKER, THE
(131 R)
Showtimes: 7:00/ 9:30 + Sat. Sun. Mats. 2:00/ 4:30
We played Kathryn Bigelow’s film for a few weeks last fall, but ran into the "Iraq fatigue" syndrome which has turned viewers away from films connected to that war. But THE HURT LOCKER is something special, and its Oscar sweep (6 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director) has convinced many Ithacans to come see this extraordinarily gripping and intelligent fiction film on the big screen. “Bigelow is one of the few directors for whom action-movie-making and the cinema of ideas are synonymous. You may emerge from THE HURT LOCKER shaken, exhilarated and drained, but you will also be thinking.” (A.O. Scott, NYT)
Showtimes: 7:00/ 9:30 + Sat. Sun. Mats. 2:00/ 4:30
We played Kathryn Bigelow’s film for a few weeks last fall, but ran into the "Iraq fatigue" syndrome which has turned viewers away from films connected to that war. But THE HURT LOCKER is something special, and its Oscar sweep (6 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director) has convinced many Ithacans to come see this extraordinarily gripping and intelligent fiction film on the big screen. “Bigelow is one of the few directors for whom action-movie-making and the cinema of ideas are synonymous. You may emerge from THE HURT LOCKER shaken, exhilarated and drained, but you will also be thinking.” (A.O. Scott, NYT)
CRAZY HEART
(112 R)
Showtimes: 7:10/ 9:25 + Sat. Sun. Mats. 2:10/ 4:25
"Hand the Oscar to Jeff Bridges right now, and let's be done with it.
In CRAZY HEART, a sublime American indie from writer/director Scott Cooper, Bridges is Bad Blake, a whiskey-soaked onetime country legend who still zags around the Southwest in his beat-up Chevy Suburban - with an empty gallon jug to pee in and a book of cheat sheets to hand to his pickup bands. As CRAZY HEART opens, Bridges' Blake is zipping his fly and stumbling into the night's venue, a nowheresville bowling alley with a stage tucked in one corner. He can play all the free games he wants, the lanes' owner, a longtime fan, tells Blake, but his manager had already phoned with explicit instructions - no bar tab. Despite the familiar story line - the alcoholic artist looking for redemption, and maybe an AA meeting to help him get there - CRAZY HEART is the real thing, and a real gem. Bridges, an actor who makes it look effortless - he slips into his characters like he's just putting on a fresh shirt - has been handed the role of his career. (And for a guy who's already played the Dude, a Fabulous Baker Boy, a Starman, and car builder Preston Tucker, that's saying a lot.)" (Steven Rea, Phila. Inquirer)
Showtimes: 7:10/ 9:25 + Sat. Sun. Mats. 2:10/ 4:25
"Hand the Oscar to Jeff Bridges right now, and let's be done with it.
In CRAZY HEART, a sublime American indie from writer/director Scott Cooper, Bridges is Bad Blake, a whiskey-soaked onetime country legend who still zags around the Southwest in his beat-up Chevy Suburban - with an empty gallon jug to pee in and a book of cheat sheets to hand to his pickup bands. As CRAZY HEART opens, Bridges' Blake is zipping his fly and stumbling into the night's venue, a nowheresville bowling alley with a stage tucked in one corner. He can play all the free games he wants, the lanes' owner, a longtime fan, tells Blake, but his manager had already phoned with explicit instructions - no bar tab. Despite the familiar story line - the alcoholic artist looking for redemption, and maybe an AA meeting to help him get there - CRAZY HEART is the real thing, and a real gem. Bridges, an actor who makes it look effortless - he slips into his characters like he's just putting on a fresh shirt - has been handed the role of his career. (And for a guy who's already played the Dude, a Fabulous Baker Boy, a Starman, and car builder Preston Tucker, that's saying a lot.)" (Steven Rea, Phila. Inquirer)
SINGLE MAN, A
(99 R)
Showtimes: 7:20/ 9:20 + Sat. Sun. Mats. 2:20/4:20
"We're always looking for those performances that truly define an actor, where we can sit back and simply watch the talent soar. For Colin Firth, "A Single Man" is that film. George, the single man Colin Firth imbues with amazing grace, is a Briton transplanted to L.A., where he's been an English professor for years. George is also gay at a time -- the early '60s -- when being open about such things wasn't commonplace. The man he loves has died, sending him first into depression and then on a mission to simply end it all. That's the back story. Our tragedy actually begins on the day George has decided will be his last. Fashion designer Tom Ford has constructed an impressive directing debut, infusing Christopher Isherwood's sad story with warmth and humor to spare. While loss is what makes George's experience universal, heart is what gives him such life." (Betsy Sharkey, LA Times) (Also starring Julianne Moore as George's best friend and Nicholas Hoult from "About A Boy" as a bright student who seems to suspect a kindred spirit in George)
Showtimes: 7:20/ 9:20 + Sat. Sun. Mats. 2:20/4:20
"We're always looking for those performances that truly define an actor, where we can sit back and simply watch the talent soar. For Colin Firth, "A Single Man" is that film. George, the single man Colin Firth imbues with amazing grace, is a Briton transplanted to L.A., where he's been an English professor for years. George is also gay at a time -- the early '60s -- when being open about such things wasn't commonplace. The man he loves has died, sending him first into depression and then on a mission to simply end it all. That's the back story. Our tragedy actually begins on the day George has decided will be his last. Fashion designer Tom Ford has constructed an impressive directing debut, infusing Christopher Isherwood's sad story with warmth and humor to spare. While loss is what makes George's experience universal, heart is what gives him such life." (Betsy Sharkey, LA Times) (Also starring Julianne Moore as George's best friend and Nicholas Hoult from "About A Boy" as a bright student who seems to suspect a kindred spirit in George)
INVICTUS
(134 PG-13)
Showtimes: 9:05 + Sat. Sun. Mats. 4:05
INVICTUS takes place in South Africa in the mid-1990s, just after Nelson Mandela’s election as the country’s first black president. Many of the whites in the film — most of them Afrikaner nationalists still attached to a system that kept their black compatriots poor, disenfranchised and oppressed — brace themselves for payback as Mandela assumes power. Quite a few of the president’s black supporters expect it, too, as their due after decades of brutality and humiliation under apartheid. But Mandela, played with gravity, grace and a crucial spark of mischief by Morgan Freeman, knows that score-settling would be a disastrous course for a new and fragile democracy." (A.O. Scott) He chooses to try to unite the country, using the South African rugby team, formerly a hated symbol of white power, to rally both factions. "Freeman seems born to play Mandela, and he never delivers a false note. Freeman lets us see the wily politician percolating underneath Mandela's calm surface. Eastwood's modest approach to these momentous events shames the usual Hollywood showboating. In a rare achievement, he's made a film that truly is good for the soul." (Peter Travers)
Showtimes: 9:05 + Sat. Sun. Mats. 4:05
INVICTUS takes place in South Africa in the mid-1990s, just after Nelson Mandela’s election as the country’s first black president. Many of the whites in the film — most of them Afrikaner nationalists still attached to a system that kept their black compatriots poor, disenfranchised and oppressed — brace themselves for payback as Mandela assumes power. Quite a few of the president’s black supporters expect it, too, as their due after decades of brutality and humiliation under apartheid. But Mandela, played with gravity, grace and a crucial spark of mischief by Morgan Freeman, knows that score-settling would be a disastrous course for a new and fragile democracy." (A.O. Scott) He chooses to try to unite the country, using the South African rugby team, formerly a hated symbol of white power, to rally both factions. "Freeman seems born to play Mandela, and he never delivers a false note. Freeman lets us see the wily politician percolating underneath Mandela's calm surface. Eastwood's modest approach to these momentous events shames the usual Hollywood showboating. In a rare achievement, he's made a film that truly is good for the soul." (Peter Travers)
BROKEN EMBRACES
(127 R)
Showtimes: 9:15 Ends Thursday
"Can there be such a thing as exuberant melancholy? I can’t think of another way to describe the spirit of BROKEN EMBRACES, Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film, the title of which carries a telling hint of paradox. It is grave and effervescent, tender and cruel.
The story might seem simple at first — a film noir potboiler of jealousy and revenge — but as it unfolds, the narrative reveals an intricate and enigmatic structure, full of twists and reversals...." (A.O. Scott, NYT) "In Almodóvar and Penelope Cruz we have a real collaboration of artist and inspiration that only seems to improve and deepen over time. As the director’s mastery grows, he finds more and more uses for this fiery beauty, and she finds greater stores of expressive and emotive ability with each new project with him. The rest of us should just count ourselves lucky for being around to witness it." (The Oregonian)
Showtimes: 9:15 Ends Thursday
"Can there be such a thing as exuberant melancholy? I can’t think of another way to describe the spirit of BROKEN EMBRACES, Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film, the title of which carries a telling hint of paradox. It is grave and effervescent, tender and cruel.
The story might seem simple at first — a film noir potboiler of jealousy and revenge — but as it unfolds, the narrative reveals an intricate and enigmatic structure, full of twists and reversals...." (A.O. Scott, NYT) "In Almodóvar and Penelope Cruz we have a real collaboration of artist and inspiration that only seems to improve and deepen over time. As the director’s mastery grows, he finds more and more uses for this fiery beauty, and she finds greater stores of expressive and emotive ability with each new project with him. The rest of us should just count ourselves lucky for being around to witness it." (The Oregonian)
YOUNG VICTORIA, THE
(100 PG)
Showtimes: 7:05 + Sat.Sun. Mats. 2:05
Surrounded by schemers, the 18-year-old Victoria becomes queen of England, and struggles to rise to the challenge. A relationship with her cousin Prince Albert at first seems a trap laid by her mother to control Victoria through a proxy, but eventually becomes a real partnership. "And watching the slow, cautious courtship between Victoria and Albert is so pleasurable, so surprisingly not-boring, that it doesn't matter how much of the ending we already know." (Stephanie Zacharek, Salon)
"What filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée has done in this delicious historical romance is capture that hot blush of pure emotion that comes before kisses, sex, heartbreak and the rest can dilute it. Vallée understands the power in the promise of things to come, and though kings and queens might abuse the power, the director uses it wisely. This is a smartly told story, and as fresh as any contemporary romance." (Betsy Sharkey, LA Times)
Showtimes: 7:05 + Sat.Sun. Mats. 2:05
Surrounded by schemers, the 18-year-old Victoria becomes queen of England, and struggles to rise to the challenge. A relationship with her cousin Prince Albert at first seems a trap laid by her mother to control Victoria through a proxy, but eventually becomes a real partnership. "And watching the slow, cautious courtship between Victoria and Albert is so pleasurable, so surprisingly not-boring, that it doesn't matter how much of the ending we already know." (Stephanie Zacharek, Salon)
"What filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée has done in this delicious historical romance is capture that hot blush of pure emotion that comes before kisses, sex, heartbreak and the rest can dilute it. Vallée understands the power in the promise of things to come, and though kings and queens might abuse the power, the director uses it wisely. This is a smartly told story, and as fresh as any contemporary romance." (Betsy Sharkey, LA Times)
