Author: Rob Newton

I have run the Cape Ann Community Cinema (www.CapeAnnCinema.com) on Boston's North Shore since 2007 and am the programming manager at the Salem Horror Fest (www.SalemHorror.com). I also make films and novelty records, and live in Gloucester, where I plan to die of old age.

Movie – “The Wizard Rockumentary”

Posted on by Rob Newton

wizard_rockumentary-posterTHE WIZARD ROCKUMENTARY
The Cape Ann Community Cinema
267 East Main Street
Gloucester, MA 01930
978/282-1988

THURSDAY, FEB. 19 @ 7:15PM

There is an entire genre of music called “Wizard Rock” (which started in Massachusetts, actually) dedicated solely to celebrating the universe of Harry Potter, and the Schuyler Sisters’ “movie about rocking and Rowling” focuses on the dedicated fans that created it.

This screening will benefit The Toad Hall Bookstore in Rockport.

“…a relevant, artistic component of the [Harry Potter] experience and an effective, fun way for young people to express their passion for the books. It entices those unfamiliar with Harry Potter and leads [Harry Potter] readers to further explore the ideas contained within. And the Schuylers have captured it all beautifully.” -Arabella Figg, HogwartsProfessor.com

Movie – “Greenheads”

Posted on by Rob Newton

greenheads-photoGREENHEADS
Wed., Feb. 18 @ 7:15pm
Cape Ann Community Cinema
267 East Main Street
East Gloucester
978/282-1988

Sometime painter Sam Holdsworth painted a series of 38 oil panels which were an imaginative, sideways tribute to that local summertime menace, the Tabanus americanus — or Greenhead horse fly. This short film, produced and narrated by Holdsworth’s Musician Magazine co-founder, Gordon Baird, is a simultaneously amusing and haunting short film, portraying the carnivorous creatures as human-like and alien at the same time.

Mr. Baird will be on hand to present the film and conduct a Q&A after the show, which is presented at the special discount price of $5.00, proceeds from which will benefit the Matteo Russo Fund. A selection of Gloucester-related short subjects will precede the film.

Movie – “Military Intelligence And You!”

Posted on by Rob Newton

Click poster to visit cinema website.MILITARY INTELLIGENCE AND YOU!
The Cape Ann Community Cinema
267 East Main St. * East Gloucester * 978/282-1988
Sat. & Sun. Feb. 14 & 15 @ 5:00pm

What is the greatest weapon in our war against evil? Not guns or bombs, but intelligence. Finally, a training film that dramatizes the importance of knowing what we’re attacking…before we attack it.

“Military Intelligence and You!” is a hilarious mash-up of scenes from vintage U.S. Army productions and newly shot scenes (think “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid”). Join Major Nick Reed and the crack…make that cracked…team at Central Command as they search for a hidden Nazi base. Stars Patrick Muldoon, Mackenzie Astin, Elizabeth Bennet, John Rixey Moore and Eric Jungmann are joined in their quest are Alan Ladd, William Holden, Arthur Kennedy, and a surprise appearance by Ronald Reagan!

“…two movies for the price of one. It’s both a loving spoof of World War II films and a pointed satire on America’s involvement in Iraq.” -Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

Movie – “Let The Right One In”

Posted on by Rob Newton

Click to visit the cinema's website.
Click to visit the cinema's website.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
The Cape Ann Community Cinema
267 East Main Street * East Gloucester
978/282-1988
Saturday 2/14 & Sunday 2/15 @ 7:15pm

Fragile, anxious 12-year-old Oskar is regularly bullied by his stronger classmates but never strikes back. The lonely boy’s wish for a friend seems to come true when he meets Eli, also 12, who moves in next door to him with her father. A pale, serious young girl, she only comes out at night and doesn’t seem affected by the freezing temperatures. It doesn’t take long before he figures out that Eli is a vampire. But by now a subtle romance has blossomed between Oskar and Eli, and she gives him the strength to fight back against his aggressors. Swedish filmmaker Tomas Alfredson weaves friendship, rejection and loyalty into a disturbing and darkly atmospheric, yet poetic and unexpectedly tender tableau of adolescence.

“A spectacularly moving and elegant film that is, at this point, the best movie of the year.” -John Anderson, Washington Post

“I loved it, and it’s possibly the best vampire movie ever.” -Rob Newton, Creative Director of The Cape Ann Community Cinema

Movie – “Visible Silence”

Posted on by Rob Newton

VISIBLE SILENCE: MARSDEN HARTLEY, PAINTER AND POET
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12TH @ 7:15PM
***DIRECTOR IN ATTENDANCE***
THE CAPE ANN COMMUNITY CINEMA
(AT GLOUCESTER STAGE)
267 EAST MAIN STREET * EAST GLOUCESTER * 978/282-1988

This is the first documentary ever made about world-renowned painter Marsden Hartley. It was written, directed, and narrated by Michael Maglaras of 217 Films, who will be on hand to introduce the film and answer questions following the screening.

“Visible Silence” features 43 Hartley paintings and sketches as well as many photographs of Hartley — from early youth to his final years as “Maine’s Painter.” Drawing heavily from his poetical works, this documentary, a deeply personal statement by Maglaras, captures the essence of Hartley — long considered one of the fathers of American Modernism.

Hartley spent his life traveling the world in search of remote and forbidding landscapes. A critical period for Hartley was his stay in Gloucester in the 1930’s, where he painted his “Dogtown” series.

“The two periods in Hartley’s creative life, first in 1920 and then again in 1931 when he went to Gloucester and to Cape Ann to paint, left us some of the most wonderful and exciting work of Hartley’s career,” said Maglaras. “Hartley fell in love with the area around Gloucester, known as Dogtown, and from his humble boarding house at #1 Eastern Point Road, reported to friends that ‘… a sense of eeriness pervades all the place; the white ghosts of those huge boulders stand like sentinels guarding nothing but space.’”

An entire section of this film is devoted to an important early painting, “Carnival of Autumn,” which is in the permanent collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Art. Also featured is the late painting “Summer, Sea, Window, Red Curtain” from the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Mass.

In 2008, a Hartley painting sold for $6.31 million, setting an auction record at Christie’s for an American Modernist work, overtaking a record previously held by a work of Georgia O’Keeffe.

Check out Gail McCarthy’s great article from last Thursday’s GD Times.

Director Michael Maglaras will be on-hand to present the film and conduct a Q&A after the show, and will be joined by Mary Beth Bainbridge of the Peabody-Essex Museum.

61 cm
“Dogtown” (1931) by Marsden Hartley, oil on canvas, h: 18 x w: 24 in / h: 45.7 x w: 61 cm

Movie – “F.L.O.W. (For Love Of Water)”

Posted on by Rob Newton
flow_poster
Click for a trailer.

Irena Salina’s cautionary documentary is determined to stir things up. Water, the quintessence of life, sustains every creature on Earth. Flow: For the Love of Water is an inspired, yet disturbingly provocative, wake-up call. The future of our planet is drying up rapidly. Focusing on pollution, human rights, politics, and corruption, filmmaker Salina constructs an exceptionally articulate profile of the precarious relationship uniting human beings and water. While each community’s challenges are unique, the message is universal — the time to turn the tide is now.

“Galvanizing… An informed and heartfelt examination of the tug of war between public health and private interests.” -Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times

“The inconvenient truth at the center of ‘Flow: For Love of Water’ is that while the oil crisis is intensely debated and documented, disasters involving an even more essential fluid go perilously unnoticed.” -Fernando F. Croce, Slant Magazine

Movie – “Were The World Mine”

Posted on by Rob Newton

Click for a trailer.
Click for a trailer.

WERE THE WORLD MINE
Friday, Saturday & Sunday @ 7:15pm
Cape Ann Community Cinema (at Gloucester Stage)
267 East Main Street * East Gloucester * 978/282-1988

Timothy, prone to escaping his dismal high school reality through dazzling musical daydreams, gets cast by his eccentric teacher as Puck in his school’s production of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” He stumbles upon a recipe for a love potion hidden within the script, and uses it to turn almost everyone in his narrow-minded town gay. With vibrant imagery, a first-rate ensemble cast and innovative music rivaling the best of pop/ rock and contemporary Broadway, “Were The World Mine” attempts to push modern gay cinema and musical film beyond expectation.

“Endearing…an indie alternative to Disney’s ‘High School Musical’.” -Stephen Holden, New York Times

“A rousing, warm-hearted spectacle.” -Stephen Farber, The Hollywood Reporter

Meet The Director – Melanie Perkins of “Have You Seen Andy?”

Posted on by Rob Newton

haveyouseenandy-poster
SATURDAY, JANUARY 31ST @ 4:30PM
DIRECTOR IN ATTENDANCE!

“Have You Seen Andy?” is the Emmy-winning personal story of a childhood friendship abruptly ended by the tragic abduction of a young boy. On a hot summer day in August 1976, ten year-old Andy Puglisi was playing along with dozens of other children at the Higgins Memorial Pool in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Then suddenly, he disappeared. Twenty-two years later, filmmaker Melanie Perkins, Andy’s childhood friend, begins her search for answers in this feature-length documentary.

Director Melanie Perkins will be on-hand to conduct a Q&A after the film.

“An absorbing, often tormenting glimpse at the mystery surrounding an unspeakable crime whose reverberations live on.” -Ray Richmond, The Hollywood Reporter

“A distinguished contribution to the true-crime genre…the loving testament of a woman who never allowed herself to forget her ill-fated playmate.” -Tim Page, The Washington Post

“…truly terrifying…” -Tenley Woodman, The Boston Herald


THE CAPE ANN COMMUNITY CINEMA
(AT THE GLOUCESTER STAGE COMPANY)
267 EAST MAIN STREET
GLOUCESTER, MA 01930
978/282- 1988 [SHOWTIMES] * 978/309-8448 [OFFICE]

What’s Opera, Doc? – Pavarotti Tribute At The CACC Saturday

Posted on by Rob Newton

pavarotti_main
SATURDAY, JANUARY 31ST @ 1:00PM & 2:45PM

“Salute Petra” is a wonderful charity tribute concert to the late Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti.

This event was presented on October 12th 2008, Pavarotti’s birthday, in front of an exclusive invited audience of royalty, classical and popular music stars at the world heritage site Petra, Jordan. The combination of inimitable and mesmerizing settings with performances from some of the world’s most respected and revered musicians made it one of the musical events of the decade.

The performance was set against a breathtaking natural amphitheatre and featured Placido Domingo and José Carreras, who famously performed with Pavarotti as the Three Tenors for more than 17 years; Domingo and Carreras sang together for the first time since Pavoratti’s passing. This extraordinary event also featured performances by Sting, Angela Gheorghiu, Andrea Bocelli, Cynthia Lawrence and Sherrill Milnes, flutist Andrea Griminelli, Jovanotti and Laura Pausini, and thirteen year old violin sensation Aleem Kandour. Italian rock star Zucchero performed ‘Misere’ as a duet with Pavarotti on screen. The sublime Prague Philharmonic Orchestra served accompanied all the stars.

Tickets are $12.50, all seats, and proceeds from this special event will benefit joint projects in Afghanistan by the U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP).

And don’t forget to enter our contest to win a trip to Austria!


THE CAPE ANN COMMUNITY CINEMA
(AT THE GLOUCESTER STAGE COMPANY)
267 EAST MAIN STREET
GLOUCESTER, MA 01930
978/282- 1988 [SHOWTIMES] * 978/309-8448 [OFFICE]

This Week’s Main Feature – “Synecdoche, New York”

Posted on by Rob Newton

Movie Poster - Synecdoche, New York
Playing Jan. 27-Feb. 7

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK [R] (2008 * USA * 124 minutes)
TUES., JAN. 27 @ 7:15PM; FRI., JAN. 30 @ 5:00PM & 7:15PM; SAT., JAN. 31 @ 7:15PM; SUN., FEB. 1 @ 1:30PM; WED., FEB. 4 @ 7:15PM; FRI., FEB. 6 @ 5:00PM; SAT., FEB. 7 @ 2:45PM
For theater director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman), life catering to suburban blue-hairs at the local regional theater in Schenectady, New York is looking bleak. His wife (Catherine Keener) has left him to pursue her painting in Berlin. His therapist (Hope Davis) is better at plugging her best-seller than she is at counseling him. A new relationship with the alluringly candid Hazel (Samantha Morton) has prematurely run aground. And a mysterious condition is systematically shutting down each of his autonomic functions, one by one. Worried about the transience of his life, he leaves his home behind. He gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in New York City, hoping to create a work of brutal honesty. Co-starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Michelle Williams, Tom Noonan, Emily Watson and Dianne Wiest. Written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, screenwriter of “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind” and “Being John Malkovich.”

“To say that Charlie Kaufman’s ‘Synecdoche, New York’ is one of the best films of the year or even one closest to my heart is such a pathetic response to its soaring ambition that I might as well pack it in right now.” -Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

THE CAPE ANN COMMUNITY CINEMA (AT GLOUCESTER STAGE)
267 East Main Street
Gloucester, MA 01930
978/282-1988 (showtimes) * 978/309-8448 (office)
website ::: http://www.CapeAnnCinema.com
e-mail ::: RobertNewton@MassBayFilmProject.org