Cinema Art Theater: THIS WEEK

Film at CAT - John Lewis: Good Trouble

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John Lewis: Good Trouble is a poignant documentary that chronicles the moments in a civil rights activist and U.S. representative’s life that have shaped his place in American history.

Directed by Dawn Porter, the film follows Georgia Democrat John Lewis’s life through interviews and rare archival footage. Porter's present-day interviews with Lewis, now 80 years old, cover his upbringing, his first ventures into over 60+ years in social activism, his legislative actions on key issues and his relationship with Dr. Martin Luther King.

The filmmakers also spoke with notable figures in the Democratic party like House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, former Attorney General Eric Holder and Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, who died in October, 2019. Younger members of Congress are also featured in the film. John Lewis: Good Trouble takes its name from the congressman's favorite quotation: "Good trouble is necessary trouble." [2020, US, 112 min, Rated: PG].

Immediately following the feature, there will be a pre-recorded discussion between Representative Lewis and Oprah Winfrey, filmed last month and being made available exclusively for virtual cinema and in-theater engagements of the film. This is a wide-ranging, informal, 16-minute conversation that's a perfect follow-up to the documentary, and could not be more relevant.

Marc Bernardin of "Entertainment Weekly" says, "Absolutely inspiring!" Chris Barsanti of "The Playlist" writes, "A portrait in courage that pairs the past with the present."

He was one of the original 13 Freedom Riders. He shared the podium on the day Martin Luther King proclaimed he had a dream. His skull was fractured on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. But for all his troubles, Civil Rights icon John Lewis declares in this stirring (if at times infuriating) documentary, there’s nothing wrong with “good trouble” — the kind that shines a harsh light on injustice and serves to help bring about its rectification. Director Dawn Porter (Bobby Kennedy For President) hands the microphone to a dozen or so political luminaries who sing Lewis’ praises, but the most powerful voice here is of the Man himself, bowed by age but still standing tall.

 

 

Location: Cinema Art Theater   

Admission

  • $8.00 RBFS Members
  • $11.00 General

Click on the desired screening times for tickets

Film at CAT - The Tobacconist

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 “The Tobacconist,” is a tender, heart-breaking story about one young man and his friendship with the founding father of psychoanalysis during the Nazi occupation of an Austrian town.

Seventeen-year-old Franz journeys to Vienna to apprentice at a tobacco shop. There he meets Sigmund Freud (Bruno Ganz), a regular customer, and over time the two very different men form a singular friendship. When Franz falls desperately in love with the music-hall dancer Anezka, he seeks advice from the renowned psychoanalyst who admits that the female sex is as big a mystery to him as it is to Franz. As political and social conditions dramatically worsen with the Nazis’ arrival in Vienna, Franz, Freud, and Anezka are swept into the maelstrom of events. Each has a big decision to make: to stay or to flee? The “Tobacconist” was a sold-out film at the 2020 Rehoboth Beach Jewish Film Festival. 
[2018, Austria/Germany, in Czech and German with English subtitles, 113 min, Not Rated].

 

Please note that tickets are non-refundable and may not be exchanged for other screening dates/times or film title.

For one of his last films, the late Bruno Ganz (Wings of Desire) takes on the role of Sigmund Freud in this beautifully filmed drama based on Robert Seethaler’s novel. The good doctor strikes up an unusual friendship with a young apprentice (Simon Morze’) at his favorite Vienna tobacco shop — and soon finds himself advising the kid in the ways of women. Tragically, the warmth of their relationship is soon overwhelmed by the approaching Nazi tide. The real star here is cinematographer Hermann Dunzendorfer, who after a long career in TV movies hits his stride, filling the big screen with imagery of breathtaking scope.

 

 

Location: Cinema Art Theater   

Admission

  • $8.00 RBFS Members
  • $11.00 General

Click on the desired screening times for tickets

Film at CAT - Never Too Late

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“Never Too Late,” is a comedy-romance about a group of grumpy, senior veterans who make plans to break out of their retirement home.

It’s been decades since Caine, Bronson, Angus and Wendell escaped a tortuous POW camp during the Vietnam War. Now, they’re sharing a new prison, Hogan Hills Retirement Home. The four band together for another escape, but the rules of engagement have changed - and so has what they’re fighting for. A heartwarming story about how you’re never too old to chase your dreams, and it’s never too early to find love. [2019, Australia, 98 min, Rated: NR].

Babe: Pig In The City writer Mark Lamprell reunites with his old barnyard friend James Cromwell in this off-kilter Australian caper flick about a group of senior war veterans who decide to bust out of their high-security retirement home — just as they escaped a notorious Vietnamese POW camp back in the day. The most fun here is in watching some seasoned Aussie film actors —including the always-spectacular Jackie Weaver — clearly having the time of their lives.

 

 

Location: Cinema Art Theater   

Admission

  • $8.00 RBFS Members
  • $11.00 General

Click on the desired screening times for tickets

Film at CAT - Hope Gap

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“Hope Gap” is a romantic story about the dramatic turn of events occurring on a couple's 29th wedding anniversary.

Grace (Annette Bening) and her husband (Bill Nighy) have been married for 29 years living a tranquil life in their cozy Tudor. They are such opposites it makes the viewer wonder what the initial attraction was that brought these two together. Their anniversary weekend becomes a sudden break-up. The ensuing emotional fallout significantly impacts their grown son (Josh O'Connor). Unraveled and feeling displaced in her small seaside town, Grace ultimately regains her footing and discovers a new, powerful voice. [2019, UK, 101 min, Rated: PG-13].

Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat of “Spirituality and Peace” remark, “An old-fashioned drama about love and divorce that touches the heart.” Peter Travers of “Rolling Stone” says, “Indelible and infuriating in equal measure, filmmaker William Nicholson's anatomy of his parents' own broken marriage rides high on superb performances from Annette Bening and Bill Nighy and raw emotions that cut deep.”

Writer/director William Nicholson (Gladiator, Shadowlands) based this portrait of a dissolving marriage on his own parents’ split after 33 years. A history professor (Bill Nighy) who thinks he’ll be happier with the mother of one of his students, and a writer (Annette Bening) so focused on her work that she never noticed her husband’s unhappiness, etch a tableau of mutual reclusiveness enlivened only by a shared love for their grown son (Josh O’Conner, The Crown‘s Prince Charles).

 

Location: Cinema Art Theater   

Admission

  • $8.00 RBFS Members
  • $11.00 General

Click on the desired screening times for tickets

Streaming Film - Quarantine Cat Film Festival

“Quarantine Cat Film Festival” is a compilation reel that brings together the cutest, funniest, bravest, and most loving cat videos from more than 1,200 amateur filmmakers. The submissions were filmed during the COVID-19 quarantines. This 70-minute compilation consists of the most purr-fect, a-meow-zing, and totally fur-tastic cat videos anyone has ever seen! This film is family-friendly.

Click this link to register to see film:
https://catfest.vhx.tv/products/quarantine-cat-film-festival-rehoboth-film

Streaming Film - The Last Tree

The Last Tree is a semi-autobiographical drama that follows the story of a British boy of Nigerian descent who, after a happy childhood in rural Lincolnshire with his white foster mother, moves to inner London to live with his Nigerian mom.

In his teens, Femi (played by Sam Adewunmi) is struggling with the culture and values of his new environment. Femi must decide which path to adulthood he wants to take, and what it means to be a young black man in London during the early 00s. Going back home to Nigeria with his mum to find his Nigerian roots will help adolescent Femi find grounding and hope for a better future. Winner of the 2019 British Independent Film Awards. [2019, UK, 98 min., Rating: NR].

Jonathan Christian of The Playlist says, “A hypnotic coming-of-age story.” Mark Kermode of Observer praises, “Powerful performances, tactile visuals and an elegantly fluid score add to the impact of this impressively understated yet profoundly moving tale.”

 

Click this link to register to see film:
https://vimeo.com/ondemand/cinemaartdelasttree

Streaming Film - Lucky Grandma

Lucky Grandma is a rollicking follow-the-money caper about a Chinese-American woman in New York City who is spurred into action after receiving good news.

In the heart of Chinatown, an ornery, chain-smoking, newly widowed 80-year-old Grandma (Tsai Chin) is eager to live life as an independent woman, despite the worry of her family. When a local fortune teller predicts a most auspicious day in her future, Grandma decides to head to the casino and goes all in, only to land herself on the wrong side of luck... suddenly attracting the attention of some local gangsters. Desperate to protect herself, Grandma employs the services of a bodyguard from a rival gang and soon finds herself right in the middle of a Chinatown gang war. The film also features a new song by Akwafina. [2019, USA, 100 min., Rating: Not Rated].

Hoai-Tran Bui of SlashFilm writes, “An outrageously funny, unquestionably cool black comedy.” Lorry Kilkta of Film Threat remarks, “If you're a fan of comedy, Asian cinema or both, you will almost definitely love this movie. It's a unique fast-paced film that'll be sure to entertain even the most persnickety of audiences.”

A caper film unlike any you’ve ever seen, first-time director Sasie Sealy has built a raucous, twisty and consistently hilarious yarn around a pitch-perfect performance by Tsai Chin (The Joy Luck Club, Memoirs of a Geisha). She plays a recently widowed New York Chinatown matron who, assured by her fortune teller that she’s about to enjoy the luckiest day of her life, heads for a casino to cash in. But there’s good luck and there’s bad luck — and soon Grandma is knee-deep in the latter, dodging bullets in a Chinatown gang war. Of course, Lucky Grandma has more than fun thrills in mind: It’s also an unvarnished critique of the marginalization of older people in America — whatever their cultural outpost.

 

Click this link to register to see film:
https://kinonow.com/lucky-grandma-rehoboth-beach-film-society

Streaming Film - Shirley

Shirley is a spell-binding drama about a famous horror story writer who finds inspiration for her next book after she and her husband take in a young couple.

Shirley Jackson (played award-winning Elisabeth Moss) is on the precipice of writing her masterpiece when the arrival of newlyweds upends her meticulous routine and heightens tensions in her already tempestuous relationship with her philandering husband. The middle-aged couple, prone to ruthless barbs and copious afternoon cocktails, begins to toy mercilessly with the naïve young couple at their door. [2019, USA, 101 min., Rating: Not Rated].

Benjamin Lee of The Guardian lauds the film “A perversely entertaining take on a brief period of Shirley Jackson’s life gives Elisabeth Moss one of her most daring roles to date.” Carlos Aguilar of The Wrap writes “A psychologically layered portrait of unapologetic womanhood that’s dangerously sensual and sumptuously rebellious.”

Director Josephine Decker (Madeline’s Madeline) explores her continuing fascination with the darker regions of female creativity with this deep dive into the mind of horror writer Shirley Jackson, whose short story, The Lottery, gave many of us nightmares back in high school. Elizabeth Moss utterly disappears into the role of the author, exhibiting Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf-caliber ferocity as she spars with her husband (A Serious Man’s Michael Stuhlbarg).

 

Click this link to register to see film:
https://neonrated.vhx.tv/buy/cinema-art-theater-presents-shirley

Film at CAT - The Truth

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“The Truth,” is a bold drama that offers a relatable look at human relationships and features exquisite performances from its all-star cast.

Fabienne (Catherine Deneuve) is an aging French movie star who, despite her momentary lapses in memory, remains a venerable force to be reckoned with. Upon the publication of her memoirs, her daughter Lumir (Juliette Binoche) returns to Paris from New York with her husband (Ethan Hawke) and their young daughter to commemorate its release. A sharp and funny battle of wits ensues between the mother-daughter duo, as Lumir takes issue with Fabienne's rose-colored version of the past and their strained relationship takes a poignant journey toward possible reconciliation. [2019, France, 106 min, Rated: PG].

Armond White of “National Review” states, “We're unlikely to witness such brutal honesty about the clash of art and politics in any other movie this year.” Wendy Shreve of “Featuring Film” writes, “The viewer will never weary of the intelligence, emotional resonance that radiate from this story.”

As dark as a comedy gets, and possibly as profound, this account of the frantic repositioning that accompanied the death of Russia's brutal dictator is mercilessly co-written and directed by Armando Iannucci (Veep). His superb cast, including Jeffrey Tambor, Steve Buscemi and Michael Palin, bring performances that drip with deadpan doom. The scariest/funniest thing about this film is that even a cursory reading of the era's history indicates that the actual events happened much as depicted here — and that these very same lines could be uttered in a play-it-straight docudrama. The characters don’t really say anything funny, but Innucci has assembled a cast that ingeniously mines every phrase for its ironically hilarious subtext. I usually don’t have much patience for films about how hard it is to be a movie star — hey, I hear Starbucks is hiring — but there’s no denying the thrill of seeing the great Catherine Deneuve as a fading screen goddess coming to terms with movie mortality. She plays Fabienne Dangeville, a bygone screen siren who has written her memoirs — a selective account at best. Now her daughter (Juliette Binoche) has come to Paris with her hubby (Ethan Hawke) in tow, fuming because mom’s book totally sugar coats her miserable childhood. To make matters worse, Fabienne is currently filming a cheesy sci-fi flick in which she plays the elderly daughter of a beautiful young mother who never grows old. Welcome relief from all this drama is provided by Hawke, whose character cheerfully endures all — largely because he doesn’t speak a word of French. .

 

 

Location: Cinema Art Theater   

Admission

  • $8.00 RBFS Members
  • $11.00 General

Click on the desired screening times for tickets

Film at CAT - Death of Stalin

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“Death of Stalin,” is an audacious comedy that is a bitingly funny takedown of bureaucratic dysfunction performed to the hilt by a sparkling ensemble cast.

The one-liners fly as fast as political fortunes fall in this uproarious, wickedly irreverent satire from Director Armando Iannucci (Veep, In the Loop). Moscow, 1953: when tyrannical dictator Joseph Stalin drops dead, his parasitic cronies square off in a frantic power struggle to be the next Soviet leader. Among the contenders are the dweeby Georgy Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor), the wily Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi), and the sadistic secret police chief Lavrentiy Beria (Simon Russell Beale). But as they bumble, brawl, and backstab their way to the top, just who is running the government? [2017, USA, 107 min, Rated: R].

Jorge Ignacio Castillo of “The Canadian Crew” exclaims, “Everything about this movie works, particularly depicting the dictator's inner circle as a frat house - hilarious and unsettling.” Bill Goodykoontz of “The Arizona Republic” writes, “This film makes real-life horrors the source of hilarity - and it is hilarious - while never making light of the insanity that inspired it.”

Starts Friday, July 17.

As dark as a comedy gets, and possibly as profound, this account of the frantic repositioning that accompanied the death of Russia's brutal dictator is mercilessly co-written and directed by Armando Iannucci (Veep). His superb cast, including Jeffrey Tambor, Steve Buscemi and Michael Palin, bring performances that drip with deadpan doom. The scariest/funniest thing about this film is that even a cursory reading of the era's history indicates that the actual events happened much as depicted here — and that these very same lines could be uttered in a play-it-straight docudrama. The characters don’t really say anything funny, but Innucci has assembled a cast that ingeniously mines every phrase for its ironically hilarious subtext.

 

 

Location: Cinema Art Theater   

Admission

  • $8.00 RBFS Members
  • $11.00 General

Click on the desired screening times for tickets

Film at CAT - 45 Years

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“45 Years,” is a romantic drama about a married couple who receive shattering news that promises to change the course of their lives.

Kate Mercer and her husband (played by Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay) are excitedly planning a party to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary. However, one week before the celebration, a letter arrives for her husband. The body of his first love has been discovered, frozen in the icy glaciers of the Swiss Alps. As the party nears, it becomes doubtful there will be anything to celebrate. [2015, UK, 95 min, Rated: R].

Leslie Combemale of “Cinema Siren” remarks, “One of the most shining examples of depth and power in independent filmmaking.” Linda and Al Lerner of “Movies and Shakers” say, “This film is slow, intense, sometimes painful, but also very beautiful.”

A master class in screen acting, this finely focused story of a long-married couple (Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay) facing some harsh realities about their relationship on the eve of their 45th wedding anniversary finds power in the smallest details. Writer/director Andrew Haigh introduces us to the humdrum rhythms of the pair’s comfortable, if dispassionate, life — then upends it with a long-kept secret that introduces a lot more drama than either partner is comfortable with. Two of film’s most seasoned pros, Rampling and Courtenay use the film’s spare script as a jumping off point to explore the profound silences of everyday life.

 

 

Location: Cinema Art Theater   

Admission

  • $8.00 RBFS Members
  • $11.00 General

Click on the desired screening times for tickets

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Located on Delaware’s Atlantic Ocean coast in a vibrant resort town, the Rehoboth Beach Film Society promotes cinematic arts and provides education and cultural enrichment.