Show Times: Monday, Jan. 25 - Thursday, February 4, 2010

Crazy Heart
Feb 5-11..................4:30, 7:20

Nine
Feb 5-11..................4:00

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Feb 5-11..................7:00

General Admission: $8 - Seniors: $7 (62 and over) and Students (middle & high school with ASB card or student ID) - Children: $6 (12 and under) - Matinees: $1 less

Crazy Heart
Directed by Scott Cooper
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robert Duvall
Rated R for language and brief sexuality. 111 min.
View the Trailer: www.crazyheartmovie.com
NPR interview with Jeff Bridges

There's something comforting about the way Jeff Bridges' relaxed drawl floats lazily at the center of Scott Cooper's wonderful Crazy Heart, the tale of a faded man trying to find color again. Bridges, in one of the finest performances of the past year, revisits territory he first explored 20 years ago in The Fabulous Baker Boys: a talented yet undisciplined musician on the outskirts of success, playing small venues and just getting by.

But while his Jack Baker, plunking out "Feelings" at tired piano bars, still had a weary bad-boy glamour, the fate of Bad Blake in Crazy Heart is somewhat less picturesque. Bad, in his late 50s, wrote hit country songs once upon a time; now he crisscrosses the country in his beat-up car and staying at the kind of motels where the pool is always drained. He plays at bowling alleys and low-rent bars, usually getting drunk before closing. "I used to be somebody," he sings, "now I'm somebody else."

And then, as a country song might have it, love walks in, in the form of a journalist named Jean Craddock (Gyllenhaal). An awkward yet delicate love affair ensues, with Bad knowing she's good for him and Jean knowing he's bad for her.

First-time writer/director Cooper is a rare talent; he knows how to write a truly complex, troubled character who nonetheless enters our hearts. His casting is right on: Bridges and Gyllenhaal have a sweet yet spiky chemistry. (Excerpted from Moira Macdonald's Seattle Times review)

"'Crazy Heart' is blessed with so many marvelous moments, lovely lines and vivid characters." -Wall Street Journal

"Some actors are blessed. Jeff Bridges is one of them. He creates characters we simply believe."-Roger Ebert

Golden Globe Winner - Best Actor, Drama, Jeff Bridges

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Nine
Directed by Rob Marshall
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Fergie, Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren
Rated PG-13 for sexual content and smoking. 118 min.
View the Trailer: www.Nine-Movie.com
NPR interview with Daniel Day-Lewis

There's a moment of perfect movie-musical magic in Rob Marshall's Nine that reminds us of what miracles can be wrought with just an actor, a tune and a camera. And then there's the rest of it, but we'll get to that.

That magical bit, which to my mind is almost worth the ticket price, is Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose) singing "My Husband Makes Movies." She's the wife of an Italian film director (Daniel Day-Lewis) who neglects her for his mistress (Penlope Cruz) and his work.

In the song, she ponders how her husband is different form other men, and how their marriage has changed. It's a quiet passage in a mostly frenetic film, and Marshall slows things down and lets Cotillard create something delicate and devastating in the moment, keeping it very simple and very small, revealing a character's heart to us through song. "Long ago...," she sings of the past, "someone else ago,..." and her voice breaks, just a tiny bit, remembering. You think she's alone there, and we're alone with her, and the rest of the movie and the world slips away.

And Nine could almost float on that moment for the rest of the movie, but it too soon evaporates in favor of the Chicago remake that Marshall seems otherwise hellbent on creating.

A few vivid performances emerge from the clamor: Hudson's irresistibly sunny fashionista; Dench's crisp former showgirl; Cruz's wounded lover; Day-Lewis' self-absorbed yet magnetic auteur. But it's Cotillard who remains when all the Nine noise and lights have faded, reminding us that simplicity is sometimes the main ingredient for magic. (Excerpted from Moira Macdonald's Seattle Times review)

"A hot-blooded musical fantasia full of song, dance and simmering sexuality." - RollingStone

"Marion Cotillard gives one of the best performances of the year." - Time

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The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Directed by Terry Gilliam
Cast: Heath Ledger, Christopher Plummer, Lily Cole, Tom Waits, Johnny Depp, Colin Ferrell, Jude Law
Rated PG-13 for violent images, sexuality, language, smoking. 122 min.
View the Trailer: www.sonyclassics.com
NPR interview with Terry Gilliam

Heath Ledger's last screen performance, a remarkable one interrupted by his tragic death at age 28 in 2008, comes wrapped in the kind of passionate provocation of a movie that the Aussie actor favored.

Terry Gilliam, the mad visionary behind Brazil, Time Bandits and Monty Python, was ready to scrap the film after the passing of Ledger, who had filmed only the London scenes. As the movie was conceived, Ledger's con man, Tony, would join the traveling horse-drawn caravan of Dr. Parnassus (a terrific Christopher Plummer) and lead customers behind a mirror to a parallel world of computer-generated fantasy.

What saved the film was Gilliam's decision to call on three of Ledger's colleagues -- Johnny Depp, Judy Law and Colin Farrell -- to play Tony in scenes behind the mirror. Despite a shaky framework, the magic works. It's a chance to see Ledger one last time in the act of doing what he loved. Take it. (Excerpted from Peter Travers' Rolling Stone review)

"Heath Ledger's last screen performance is remarkable." -Rolling Stone

"Terry Gilliam's fantastical visual imagination is the director's best film in years." - Kenneth Turan, L.A. Times

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*Schedule subject to change.

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