Author Archive | Alex Kamody

What happens when a college psych study goes shockingly wrong? In 1971 Stanford University professor Dr. Philip Zimbardo (Billy Crudup) cast 24 student volunteers as prisoners and guards in a simulated jail to examine the source of abusive behavior in the prison system. The results astonished the world, as participants went from middle-class undergrads to drunk-with-power sadists and submissive victims in just a few days.

“Alvarez captures an emotional immediacy and risk that is deliberately excluded from academic debate.” -Andrew O’Hehir, Salon

“Tim Talbott’s dense script provides much to discuss and argue about, providing both left and right with talking points.” -Kyle Smith, New York Post

“Billy Crudup gives a fine performance as Dr. Philip Zimbardo, who engineered the whole thing and was then pulled into his own power trip.” -J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader

Share this Film

Click on Showtimes to Get Tickets Online

122 MIN

It’s Christmas Eve in Tinseltown and Sin-Dee (newcomer Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) is back on the block. Upon hearing that her pimp boyfriend (James Ransone, STARLET, “Generation Kill”) hasn’t been faithful during the 28 days she was locked up, the working girl and her best friend, Alexandra (newcomer Mya Taylor), embark on a mission to get to the bottom of the scandalous rumor. Their rip-roaring odyssey leads them through various subcultures of Los Angeles, including an Armenian family dealing with their own repercussions of infidelity.

“This is sublime filmmaking, a textbook example of how indies can tell groundbreaking stories in a way that Hollywood simply can’t match.” -David Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle

“Shot on an iPhone 5 for practically no money, Tangerine jumps off the screen and wows you like nobody’s business.” -Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

“It’s the warmth and absence of judgment or condescension toward its marginalized characters that make Sean Baker’s film such a vibrant and uplifting snapshot.” -David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

Share this Film

Click on Showtimes to Get Tickets Online

88 MIN

Amy tells the story of six-time Grammy-winner Amy Winehouse – in her own words. A once-in-a-generation talent, Amy Winehouse was a musician that captured the world’s attention. A pure jazz artist in the most authentic sense – she wrote and sung from the heart using her musical gifts to analyze her own problems. The combination of her raw honesty and supreme talent resulted in some of the most unique and adored songs of the modern era. Her huge success, however, resulted in relentless and invasive media attention which coupled with Amy’s troubled relationships and precarious lifestyle saw her life tragically begin to unravel. Amy Winehouse died from alcohol poisoning in July 2011 at the age of 27.

“Watching Amy is a torturous but endlessly hypnotic experience.” -Rex Reed, New York Observer

“Amy is alternately thrilling and devastating, throwing you back and forth until the devastation takes over and you spend the last hour watching the most supernaturally gifted vocalist of her generation chase and find oblivion.” -David Edelstein, New York Magazine

“Mr. Kapadia isn’t simply revisiting Ms. Winehouse’s life and death, but also – by pulling you in close to her, first pleasantly and then unpleasantly – telling the story of contemporary celebrity and, crucially, fandom’s cost.” -Manohla Dargis, New York Times

*Close Caption devices are available for this film.

Share this Film

Click on Showtimes to Get Tickets Online

128 MIN

In 1947, an aging Sherlock Holmes (Ian McKellen) returns from a journey to Japan, where, in search of a rare plant with powerful restorative qualities, he has witnessed the devastation of nuclear warfare. Now, in his remote seaside farmhouse, Holmes faces the end of his days tending to his bees, with only the company of his housekeeper and her young son, Roger. Grappling with the diminishing powers of his mind, Holmes comes to rely upon the boy as he revisits the circumstances of the unsolved case that forced him into retirement, and searches for answers to the mysteries of life and love – before it’s too late.

“Even those who’ve read the book can be startled by what happens in Mr. Holmes, while they’re being moved by McKellen in a role he’s come to late, but with his customary elegance.” -Bob Mondello, NPR

“Mr. Holmes is about how the past defines us. It is also very much about regret and trying to put things right.” -Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer

“McKellen is masterful, in a multilayered tale that navigates the no man’s land between memory and fiction.” -John Anderson, Newsday

*Visual Impairment and Close Caption devices are available for this film.

Share this Film

Click on Showtimes to Get Tickets Online

104 MIN

Libby Day (Charlize Theron) was only seven years old when her mother and two sisters were brutally murdered in their rural Kansas farmhouse. In court, the traumatized child pointed the finger at her brother, Ben (Tye Sheridan), and her testimony put the troubled 16-year-old in prison for life. Twenty-five years later, a broke and desperate Libby has run through donations from a sympathetic public and royalties from her sensational autobiography, without ever moving past the events of that night. When Libby accepts a fee to appear at a gathering of true-crime aficionados led by Lyle Wirth (Nicholas Hoult), she is shocked to learn most of them believe Ben is innocent and the real killer is still at large. In need of money, she reluctantly agrees to help them reexamine the crime by revisiting the worst moments of her life. But as Libby and Lyle dig deeper into the circumstances surrounding the murders, her recollections start to unravel and she is forced to question exactly what she saw—or didn’t see. As long-buried memories resurface, Libby begins to confront the wrenching truths that led up to that horrific night.

“As heroines go, it’s refreshing to get one as complex as this: When psychologically scarred female characters do turn up in thrillers, they’re usually little more than shivering victims who set a group of male cops in motion, but here, Libby does her own detective work, while Hendricks lends star power to the flashback scenes.” -Peter Debruge, Variety

“…Theron offers up an earnest and downbeat turn that says a lot with little dialogue” -Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter

“…Chloe Grace Moretz gives yet another pitch-perfect performance.” -Lisa Nesselson, Screen International

Share this Film

Click on Showtimes to Get Tickets Online

113 MIN

When a burned-out, brilliant professor – one who believes in lessons from life rather than textbooks – takes a job at a small college, everyone there is abuzz. He becomes involved with a teacher as well as a precocious student, but it takes a dramatic, existential act to turn his life around and make him see the world through a much rosier and more positive perspective.

“Allen serves the comedy black and stinging hot.” -Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

“…a darkly funny, intellectually rigorous campus comedy.” -Scott Foundas, Variety

“Woody Allen is in fine vintage form in Irrational Man, a slinky, jazz-infused existential teaser in which various themes from some of the veteran filmmaker’s most memorable work dovetail into a darkly humorous quasi-thriller explored with a deft lightness of touch.” -David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter

*Visual Impairment and Close Caption devices are available for this film.

Share this Film

Click on Showtimes to Get Tickets Online

96 MIN

THE END OF THE TOUR tells the story of the five-day interview between Rolling Stone reporter (and novelist) David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel), which took place right after the 1996 publication of Wallace’s groundbreaking epic novel, Infinite Jest. As the days go on, a tenuous yet intense relationship seems to develop between journalist and subject. The two men bob and weave around each other, sharing laughs and also possibly revealing hidden frailties – but it’s never clear how truthful they are being with each other. Ironically, the interview was never published, and five days of audio tapes were packed away in Lipsky’s closet. The two men did not meet again. The film is based on Lipsky’s critically acclaimed memoir about this unforgettable encounter, written following Wallace’s 2008 suicide.

“This is no conventional biodrama about the tortured artist, but very much the film that lovers of Wallace’s dazzlingly perspicacious fiction and essays would want.” -David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“The End of the Tour may be a niche movie but for those willing to tunnel in, it’s a thing of beauty.” -Stephen Rebello, Playboy

“The script is so full of acute observations that I found myself scribbling down the whole movie as I was watching.” -Kyle Smith, New York Post

Share this Film

Click on Showtimes to Get Tickets Online

106 MIN