Author: newsletter

Fill the Void tells the story of an Orthodox Hassidic family from Tel Aviv. Eighteen-year-old Shira is the youngest daughter of the family. She is about to be married off to a promising young man of the same age and background. It is a dream-come-true, and Shira feels prepared and excited. On Purim, her twenty-eight-year-old sister, Esther, dies while giving birth to her first child. The pain and grief that overwhelm the family postpone Shiras promised match. Everything changes when an offer is proposed to match Yochay the late Esthers husband to a widow from Belgium. Yochay feels its too early, although he realizes that sooner or later he must seriously consider getting married again. When the girls mother finds out that Yochay may leave the country with her only grandchild, she proposes a match between Shira and the widower. Shira will have to choose between her hearts wish and her family duty.

Millions know their voices, but no one knows their names. In his compelling new film 20 Feet From Stardom, director Morgan Neville shines a spotlight on the untold true story of the backup singers behind some of the greatest musical legends of the 21st century. Triumphant and heartbreaking in equal measure, the film is both a tribute to the unsung voices who brought shape and style to popular music and a reflection on the conflicts, sacrifices and rewards of a career spent harmonizing with others. These gifted artists span a range of styles, genres and eras of popular music, but each has a uniquely fascinating and personal story to share of life spent in the shadows of superstardom. Along with rare archival footage and a peerless soundtrack, 20 Feet From Stardom boasts intimate interviews with Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger and Sting to name just a few. However, these world-famous figures take a backseat to the diverse array of backup singers whose lives and stories take center stage in the film.

Please consider purchasing your ticket in advance at https://tickets.landmarktheatres.com/(S(wkmvksocpxghgl0wncxcgh1m))/Ticketing.aspx?TheatreID=264&MovieID=14701&ShowDate=6/30/2013&ScheduleID=115742

In director Joss Whedon’s (The Avengers, Serenity) modern re-telling of William Shakespeare’s classic, a series of comic and tragic events conspire to keep two couples from truly finding happinessbut then again perhaps love will prevail. Leonato (Clark Gregg), the governor of Messina, is visited by his friend Don Pedro (Reed Diamond) who is returning from a victorious campaign against his rebellious brother Don John (Sean Maher). Accompanying Don Pedro are two of his officers: Benedick (Alexis Denisof) and Claudio (Fran Kranz). While in Messina, Claudio falls for Leonato’s daughter Hero (Jillian Morgese), while Benedick verbally spars with Beatrice (Amy Acker), the governor’s niece. The budding love between Claudio and Hero prompts Don Pedro to arrange with Leonato for a marriage. In the days leading up to the ceremony, Don Pedro, with the help of Leonato, Claudio and Hero, attempts to sport with Benedick and Beatrice in an effort to trick the two into falling in love. Meanwhile, the villainous Don John plots against the happy couple to destroy the marriage before it begins. Filmed at Whedon’s own house, Much Ado About Nothing also stars Nathan Fillion.

Frances Ha, a modern comic fable from Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale), explores New York, friendship, class, ambition, failure and redemption. Frances (co-writer Greta Gerwig), the exuberant 27-year-old heroine, is always on the move without ever seeming to get anywhere. The truth is she knows exactly where she wants to go, she’s just unwilling to make the kind of compromises that might get her there. A fount of optimism, Frances is singularly compelling because she never lets anythingincluding realityslow her down. Frances lives in New York, but she doesn’t really have an apartment. Frances is an apprentice for a dance company, but she’s not really a dancer. Frances has a best friend named Sophie (Mickey Sumner), but they aren’t really speaking anymore. Frances throws herself headlong into her dreams, even as their possible reality dwindles. Frances wants so much more than she has, but lives her life with unaccountable joy and lightness. Director/co-writer Baumbach shot this exhilarating comedy in black and white, using the music of Georges Delerue, composer for Truffaut’s French New Wave classics.

The crew of the Starship Enterprise returns home after an act of terrorism within its own organization destroys most of Starfleet and what it represents, leaving Earth in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Capt. James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) leads his people (Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana) on a mission to capture a one-man weapon of mass destruction, thereby propelling all of them into an epic game of life and death.

Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) first met in their twenties in Before Sunrise, reunited in their thirties in Before Sunset, and now, in director/co-writer Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight, they face the past, present and future. Jesse’s a successful novelist, and they’re in Greece at a writer’s retreat, staying in the bucolic country villa of an older expat writer, Patrick (Walter Lassally). As a treat, their Greek friends have gifted Jesse and Celine with a night at a luxurious seaside hotel while they babysit their young twin daughters Ella and Nina (Jennifer and Charlotte Prior). Feeling the undercurrent of friction between them, Celine wants to beg off, but their friends insist. They set off on foot through the spectacular countryside, enjoying each other’s company, talking, teasing, debating, flirting. But for Jesse and Celine, realities intrude: the weight of children, work, ambitions, disappointments and the strains of an evolving, deepening relationship. Their idyllic night tests them in unexpected ways, and before the clock strikes midnight, their story again unfolds.

You are encouraged to purchase your ticket in advance at https://tickets.landmarktheatres.com/(S(h2ihhan2f1ma02d2zp0gj0jx))/Ticketing.aspx?TheatreID=264&MovieID=14644&ShowDate=6/2/2013&ScheduleID=114553

In the inspired, genre-twisting new film Stories We Tell, Oscar-nominated writer/director Sarah Polley (Away From Her) discovers that the truth depends on who’s telling it. Polley is both filmmaker and detective as she investigates the secrets kept by a family of storytellers. She playfully interviews and interrogates a cast of characters of varying reliability, eliciting refreshingly candid, yet mostly contradictory, answers to the same questions. As each relates their version of the family mythology, present-day recollections shift into nostalgia-tinged glimpses of their mother, who departed too soon, leaving a trail of unanswered questions. Polley unravels the paradoxes to reveal the essence of family: always complicated, warmly messy and fiercely loving. Stories We Tell explores the elusive nature of truth and memory, but at its core is a deeply personal film about how our narratives shape and define us as individuals and families, all interconnecting to paint a profound, funny and poignant picture of the larger human story.

With her narrative feature debut, writer/director Xan Cassavetes (Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession) has crafted a stylish, bloody and erotic supernatural tale. Kiss of the Damned is the story of Djuna (Josephine de La Baume), a beautiful vampire who tries to resist the advances of the handsome, human screenwriter Paulo (Milo Ventimiglia), but eventually gives in to temptation.

When her troublemaker sister Mimi (Roxane Mesquida) arrives unexpectedly, Djuna’s love story is threatened and the whole vampire community becomes endangered. Recalling the best and smartest of racy European genre films from the 1960s and 1970s, Kiss of the Damned is the story of vampires trying to find the meaning in everlasting life, and thrillingly contrasts the loveliness and brutality of classic vampire tales. Also starring Anna Mouglalis, Michael Rapaport and Riley Keough.

MUD is an adventure about two boys, Ellis and his friend Neckbone, who find a man named Mud hiding out on an island in the Mississippi. Mud describes fantastic scenarios-he killed a man in Texas and vengeful bounty hunters are coming to get him. He says he is planning to meet and escape with the love of his life, Juniper, who is waiting for him in town. Skeptical but intrigued, Ellis and Neckbone agree to help him. It isnt long until Muds visions come true and their small town is besieged by a beautiful girl with a line of bounty hunters in tow.

The world of Jim Grant (director Robert Redford), a public interest lawyer and single father raising his daughter in the tranquil suburbs of Albany, New York, is turned upside down when a brash young reporter named Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf) exposes his true identity as a former 1970s antiwar radical fugitive wanted for murder. After living for more than 30 years underground, Grant must now go on the run. With the FBI in hot pursuit, he sets off on a cross-country journey to track down the one person that can clear his name. Shepard, knowing this to be the opportunity of a lifetime for a journalist, is willing to stop at nothing to capitalize on it. As Grant reopens old wounds and reconnects with former members of his antiwar group, the Weather Underground, Shepard uncovers the shocking secrets Grant has been keeping for the past three decades. Based on the novel by Neil Gordon, this cat-and-mouse thriller’s all-star cast includes Julie Christie, Sam Elliott, Brendan Gleeson, Anna Kendrick, Brit Marling, Stanley Tucci, Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon.