Recent Posts, page 23
60th Anniversary: THE BIRDS (1963)
October 4, 2023
A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people.
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BEYOND UTOPIA
October 4, 2023
A suspenseful, riveting portrait of the lengths people will go to gain freedom, BEYOND UTOPIA follows various families as they attempt to flee North Korea, one of the most oppressive places on Earth, a land they grew up believing was a paradise. At the film’s core is a courageous pastor, a man of God on a mission to help a mother reunite with the child she was forced to leave behind, and a family of five — including small children and an elderly grandmother — embarking on a treacherous journey into the hostile mountains of China. Leaving their homeland is fraught with unimaginable danger — yet these individuals are driven to take the risk. Gripping, thrilling, and never more timely, Madeleine Gavin’s award-winning film embeds the viewer with these family members as they attempt their perilous escape, palpably conveying life-or-death stakes. The result is a singular, heart-pounding, and unforgettable experience.
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STOP MAKING SENSE
September 26, 2023
Newly restored in 4K to coincide with its 40th anniversary, the 1984 film was directed by renowned filmmaker Jonathan Demme and is considered by critics as the greatest concert film of all time. Stop Making Sense stars core band members David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz, and Jerry Harrison along with Bernie Worrell, Alex Weir, Steve Scales, Lynn Mabry and Edna Holt. The live performance was shot over the course of three nights at Hollywood's Pantages Theater in December of 1983 and features Talking Heads' most memorable songs.
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The Lost Weekend: A Love Story
September 26, 2023
THE LOST WEEKEND: A LOVE STORY is the true tale that took 50 years to tell. It follows John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s personal assistant, May Pang, as she recounts her 18-month relationship with John—a relationship orchestrated by Yoko herself. During this extraordinary period, May helped John reunite with his son Julian and participated firsthand in his most productive period post-Beatles in which he released albums like Mind Games, Walls and Bridges, and collaborated with powerhouses like David Bowie and Elton John. Featuring moments with Julian Lennon, Mick Jagger, Alice Cooper, and Paul McCartney, May chronicles it all from her unique perspective as a 22-year-old experiencing her first unforgettable love.
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The Metropolitan Opera: Florencia En El Amazonas
August 31, 2023
Inspired by the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez, Mexican composer Daniel Catán’s 1996 opera tells the enchanting story of a Brazilian opera diva who returns to her homeland to perform at the legendary opera house of Manaus - and to search for her lost lover, who has vanished into the jungle. The Met premiere stars soprano Ailyn Pérez as Florencia Grimaldi, with Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on the podium to lead a spellbinding new production by Mary Zimmerman that brings the mysterious and magical realm of the Amazon to the Met stage. A distinguished ensemble of artists portray the diva’s fellow travelers on the river boat to Manaus, including soprano Gabriella Reyes as the journalist Rosalba, bass-baritone Greer Grimsley as the ship’s captain, baritone Mattia Olivieri as his enigmatic first mate, tenor Mario Chang as the captain’s nephew Arcadio, and mezzo-soprano Nancy Fabiola Herrera and baritone Michael Chioldi as the feuding couple Paula and Álvaro.
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The Metropolitan Opera: X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X
August 31, 2023
Anthony Davis’s groundbreaking and influential opera, which premiered in 1986, arrives at the Met at long last. Theater luminary and Tony-nominated director of Slave Play Robert O’Hara oversees a potent new staging that imagines Malcolm as an everyman whose story transcends time and space. An exceptional cast of breakout artists and young Met stars enliven the operatic retelling of the civil rights leader’s life. Baritone Will Liverman, who triumphed in the Met premiere of Fire Shut Up in My Bones, is Malcolm, alongside soprano Leah Hawkins as his mother, Louise; mezzo-soprano Raehann Bryce-Davis as his sister Ella; bass-baritone Michael Sumuel as his brother Reginald; and tenor Victor Ryan Robertson as Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. Kazem Abdullah conducts the newly revised score, which provides a layered, jazz-inflected setting for the esteemed writer Thulani Davis’s libretto.
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The Metropolitan Opera: Dead Man Walking
August 31, 2023
American composer Jake Heggie’s masterpiece, the most widely performed new opera of the last 20 years, has its highly anticipated Met premiere, in a haunting new production by Ivo van Hove. Based on Sister Helen Prejean’s memoir about her fight for the soul of a condemned murderer, Dead Man Walking matches the high drama of its subject with Heggie’s beautiful and poignant music and a brilliant libretto by Tony and Emmy Award–winner Terrence McNally. Met Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the podium for this landmark premiere, with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato starring as Sister Helen. The outstanding cast also features bass-baritone Ryan McKinny as the death-row inmate Joseph De Rocher, soprano Latonia Moore as Sister Rose, and legendary mezzo-soprano Susan Graham—who sang Helen Prejean in the opera’s 2000 premiere—as De Rocher’s mother.
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35th Anniversary: RAIN MAN
August 31, 2023
After a selfish L.A. yuppie learns his estranged father left a fortune to an autistic-savant brother in Ohio that he didn't know existed, he absconds with his brother and sets out across the country, hoping to gain a larger inheritance.
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