ACADEMY SCREENINGS 2018

In January 1972, Aretha Franklin gave two days of gospel performances at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts, Los Angeles, recording what would become her bestselling album “Amazing Grace.” The sessions were captured by a film crew led by Sydney Pollack, but the footage wound up shelved in a vault and has remained one of the lost cinematic treasures of twentieth-century music. Before Pollack’s death in 2008, he expressed a wish for the film to be completed, and producer Alan Elliott took it up with a team of supporters as a passion project.

Directed by Sydney Pollack (USA, 2018, 87 minutes, Not rated)
Film courtesy of Al’s Records and Tapes

Vice

Wednesday, December 26
6:45pm
Wheeler Opera House

VICE

Wednesday, December 26 @ 6:45pm
Wheeler Opera House
(1 hr 59 min)

The story of Dick Cheney, the most powerful Vice President in history, and how his policies changed the world as we know it. VICE explores the story of Dick Cheney (CHRISTIAN BALE), a bureaucratic Washington insider, who quietly wielded immense power as vice president to George W. Bush, reshaping the country and the globe in ways that we still feel today. Directed and written by Adam McKay, VICE Stars Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell, Tyler Perry, Alison Pill, Lily Rabe and Jesse Plemons.

Directed by Adam McKay (USA, 2018, 132 minutes, Rated R)
Film courtesy of Annapurna Pictures

Thursday, December 27 @ Wheeler Opera House

WOMAN AT WAR

Thursday, December 27
3:00pm
Wheeler Opera House

WOMAN AT WAR

Thursday, December 27 @ 3:00pm
Wheeler Opera House
(1 hr 40 min)

Halla is a fifty year-old independent woman. But behind the scenes of a quiet routine, she leads a double life as a passionate environmental activist. Known to others only by her alias “The Woman of the Mountain,” Halla secretly wages a one-woman-war on the local aluminum industry. As Halla’s actions grow bolder, from petty vandalism to outright industrial sabotage, she succeeds in pausing the negotiations between the Icelandic government and the corporation building a new aluminum smelter. But right as she begins planning her biggest and boldest operation yet, she receives an unexpected letter that changes everything. Her application to adopt a child has finally been accepted and there is a little girl waiting for her in Ukraine. As Halla prepares to abandon her role as saboteur and savior of the Highlands to fulfill her dream of becoming a mother, she decides to plot one final attack to deal the aluminum industry a crippling blow.

Directed by Benedikt Erlingsson
(Iceland, France, Ukraine, 2018, 100 minutes, Rated R)

Film courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Community Partner: Wilderness Workshop

ROMA 

Thursday, December 27
5:30pm
Wheeler Opera House

ROMA 

Thursday, December 27 @ 5:30pm
Wheeler Opera House
(2 hr 15 min)

The most personal project to date from Academy Award®-winning director and writer Alfonso Cuarón, ROMA follows Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a young domestic worker for a family in Mexico City’s middle-class Roma neighborhood. Delivering an artful love letter to the women who raised him, Cuarón draws on his own childhood to create a vivid and emotional portrait of domestic strife and social hierarchy amidst Mexico’s political turmoil of the 1970s.

Directed by Alfonso Cuarón (Mexico, USA, 2018, 135 minutes, Rated R)

Film courtesy of Netflix

THE FAVOURITE

Thursday, December 27
8:30pm
Wheeler Opera House

THE FAVOURITE

Thursday, December 27 @ 8:30pm
Wheeler Opera House
(2 hr)

Early 18th century. England is at war with the French. Nevertheless, duck racing and pineapple eating are thriving. A frail Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) occupies the throne and her close friend Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) governs the country in her stead while tending to Anne’s ill health and mercurial temper. When a new servant Abigail (Emma Stone) arrives, her charm endears her to Sarah. Sarah takes Abigail under her wing and Abigail sees a chance at a return to her aristocratic roots. As the politics of war become quite time consuming for Sarah, Abigail steps into the breach to fill in as the Queen’s companion. Their burgeoning friendship gives her a chance to fulfill her ambitions and she will not let woman, man, politics or rabbit stand in her way.

Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos
(Ireland, UK, USA, 2018,119 minutes, Rated R)

Film courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

Friday, December 28 @ PAEPCKE AUDITORIUM

NEVER LOOK AWAY

Friday, December 28
3:00pm
Paepcke Auditorium

NEVER LOOK AWAY

Friday, December 28 @ 3pm
Paepcke Auditorium
(3 hr 9 min)

Inspired by real events and spanning three eras of German history, NEVER LOOK AWAY tells the story of a young art student, Kurt (Tom Schilling) who falls in love with fellow student, Ellie (Paula Beer). Ellie’s father, Professor Seeband (Sebastian Koch), a famous doctor, is dismayed at his daughter’s choice of boyfriend, and vows to destroy the relationship. What neither of them knows is that their lives are already connected through a terrible crime Seeband committed decades ago.

Directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

(Germany, Italy, 2018, 189 minutes, Rated R)

STAN & OLLIE

Friday, December 28
7:00pm
Paepcke Auditorium

STAN & OLLIE

Friday, December 28 @ 7pm
Paepcke Auditorium
(1 hr 37 min)

Laurel & Hardy, one of the world’s great comedy teams, set out on a variety hall tour of Britain in 1953. Diminished by age and with their golden era as the kings of Hollywood comedy now behind them, they face an uncertain future. As the charm and beauty of their performances shines through, they re-connect with their adoring fans. The tour becomes a hit, but Stan & Ollie can’t quite shake the specter of Laurel and Hardy’s past; the long-buried ghosts, coupled with Oliver’s failing health, start to threaten their precious partnership. A portrait of the most tender and poignant of creative marriages, they are aware that they may be approaching their swan song, trying to rediscover just how much they mean to each other.

Directed by John S. Baird
(USA, 2018, 97 minutes, Rated PG)

Film courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

FREE SOLO

Friday, December 28
9:00pm
Paepcke Auditorium

FREE SOLO

Friday, December 28 @ 9pm
Paepcke Auditorium
(1 hr 40 min)

From award-winning documentary filmmaker E. Chai Vasarhelyi and world-renowned photographer and mountaineer Jimmy Chin, the directors of MERU, comes FREE SOLO, a stunning, intimate and unflinching portrait of free soloist climber Alex Honnold, as he prepares to achieve his lifelong dream: climbing the face of the world’s most famous rock … the 3,200-foot El Capitan in Yosemite National Park … without a rope. Celebrated as one of the greatest athletic feats of any kind, Honnold’s climb set the ultimate standard: perfection or death. Succeeding in this challenge places his story in the annals of human achievement.

Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin
(USA, 2018, 100 minutes, Rated PG-13)

Film courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment, National Geographic Documentary Films

Saturday, December 29 @ Paepke Auditorium

CAPERNAUM

Saturday, December 29
12:15pm
Paepcke Auditorium

CAPERNAUM

Saturday, December 29 @ 12pm
Paepcke Auditorium
(2 hr 1 min)

CAPERNAUM (“Chaos”) tells the story of Zain (Zain al Raffea), a Lebanese boy who sues his parents for the “crime” of giving him life. Zain, a gutsy streetwise child, flees his negligent parents, survives through his wits on the streets, takes care of Ethiopian refugee Rahil (Yordanos Shiferaw) and her baby son, Yonas (Boluwatife Treasure Bankole), is jailed for a crime, and finally, seeks justice in a courtroom. CAPERNAUM was made with a cast of non-professionals playing characters whose lives closely parallel their own. While steeped in the quiet routines of ordinary people, the film has an expansive palette: without warning it can ignite with emotional intensity, surprise with unexpected tenderness, and inspire with flashes of poetic imagery. Although it is set in the depths of a society’s systematic inhumanity, CAPERNAUM is ultimately a hopeful film that stirs the heart as deeply as it cries out for action.

Directed by Nadine Labaki
(Lebanon, USA, 2018, 121 minutes, Rated R)

Film courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

BOY ERASED

Saturday, December 29
3:00pm
Paepcke Auditorium

BOY ERASED

Saturday, December 29 @ 3pm
Paepcke Auditorium
(1 hr 55 min)

BOY ERASED tells the courageous story of Jared Eamons (Lucas Hedges), the son of a Baptist pastor in a small American town, who must overcome the fallout of being outed to his parents (Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe). His parents struggle with reconciling their love for their son with their beliefs. Fearing a loss of family, friends, and community, Jared is pressured into attending a conversion therapy program. While there, Jared comes into conflict with its leader (Joel Edgerton) and begins his journey to finding his own voice and accepting his true self.

Director: Richard Linklater

Film courtesy of Amazon Studios

For your consideration: Best Performance

Community Partner: AspenOut

IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

Saturday, December 29
5:45pm
Paepcke Auditorium

IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK

Saturday, December 29 @ 5:45pm
Paepcke Auditorium
(1 hr 55 min)

Based on the novel by James Baldwin, IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK is the story of Tish, a newly engaged Harlem woman who races against the clock to prove her lover’s innocence while carrying their first-born child to term. It is a celebration of love told through the story of a young couple, their families and their lives, trying to bring about justice through love, for love and the promise of the American dream.

Directed by Barry Jenkins
(USA, 2018, 119 minutes, Rated R)

Film courtesy of Annapurna Pictures

VOX LUX

Saturday, December 29
8:30pm
Paepcke Auditorium

VOX LUX

Saturday, December 29 @ 8:30pm
Paepcke Auditorium
(1 hr 50 min)

VOX LUX begins in 1999 when teenage sisters Celeste and Eleanor survive a seismic, violent tragedy. The sisters compose and perform a song about their experience, making something lovely and cathartic out of catastrophe — while also catapulting Celeste to stardom. By 2017, the now 31-year-old Celeste is mother to a teenage daughter of her own and struggling to navigate a career fraught with scandals when another act of terrifying violence demands her attention.

Directed by Brady Corbet
(USA, 2018, 110 minutes, Rated R)

Film courtesy of Neon

Sunday, December 30 @ Wheeler Opera House

BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY

Sunday, December 30
3:00pm
Wheeler Opera House

BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY

Sunday, December 30 @ 3:00pm
Wheeler Opera House
1 hour 27 minutes

When he started as a comedy writer for the Late Show with David Letterman, Steve Young had few interests outside of his day job. But while gathering material for a segment on the show, Steve stumbled onto a cache of vintage record albums that would change his life forever. Bizarre cast recordings — marked “internal use only” — revealed full-throated Broadway-style musical shows about some of the most recognizable corporations in America: General Electric, McDonald’s, Ford, DuPont, Xerox. They also featured writers and performers who would become legends, such as Chita Rivera, Kander & Ebb, Florence Henderson, and Bob Fosse. Steve didn’t know much about musical theater, but these recordings delighted him in a way that nothing ever had. This documentary follows Young on his quest to uncover all he can about this hidden world. While delving into treasure troves of forgotten archives, tracking down rare albums, unearthing unseen footage, and rediscovering composers and performers, he comes to form unlikely friendships and discovers how this discarded musical genre starring tractors and bathtubs was bigger than Broadway.

Directed by Dava Whisenant
(USA, 2018, 87 minutes, Rated PG-13)

Film courtesy of Focus Features

AT ETERNITY’S GATE

Sunday, December 30
5:15pm
Wheeler Opera House

AT ETERNITY’S GATE

Sunday, December 30 @ 5:15 pm
Wheeler Opera House
(1 hr 50 min)

Julian Schnabel’s AT ETERNITY’S GATE is a journey inside the world and mind of a person who, despite skepticism, ridicule and illness, created some of the world’s most beloved and stunning works of art. This is not a forensic biography, but rather scenes based on Vincent van Gogh’s (Academy Award® Nominee Willem Dafoe) letters, common agreement about events in his life that present as facts, hearsay, and moments that are just plain invented.

Directed by Julian Schnabel
(Switzerland, UK, France, USA, 2018, 110 minutes, Rated PG-13)

Film courtesy of CBS Films

For your consideration: Best Documentary Feature

Community Partner: Aspen Art Museum

BEN IS BACK

Sunday, December 30
8:00pm
Wheeler Opera House

BEN IS BACK

Sunday, December 30 @ 8:00pm
Wheeler Opera House
(1 hr 43 min)

19 year-old Ben Burns (Lucas Hedges) unexpectedly returns home to his family’s suburban home on Christmas Eve morning. Ben’s mother, Holly (Julia Roberts), is relieved and welcoming but wary of her son staying clean. Over a turbulent 24 hours, new truths are revealed, and a mother’s undying love for her son is tested as she does everything in her power to keep him safe. BEN IS BACK also stars Courtney B. Vance (“The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story”) and Kathryn Newton (LADY BIRD).

Directed by Peter Hedges
(USA, 2018, 103 minutes, Rated R)

Film courtesy of Lionsgate, LD Entertainment, Roadside Attractions