Cape Ann Community Cinema, originally uploaded by captjoe06.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18

SHOWN AT 5:00PM
A wry blend of dark humor, romantic deception, and stylish melodrama—with an invigorating dash of suspense—Married Life is an unconventional fable for grown-ups about the irresistible power and utter madness of love. After decades of marital contentment, Harry (Chris Cooper) concludes that he must kill his wife Pat (Patricia Clarkson) because he loves her too much to let her suffer when he leaves her. Harry has fallen hard for the young and lovely Kay (Rachel McAdams), but his best friend Richard (Pierce Brosnan) wants to win Kay for himself. As Harry implements his maladroit plans for murdering his wife, the other characters are entangled with their own deceptions. Like Harry, they race towards their passions but trip over their scruples, seemingly well-intended towards all, but truthful to none. Married Life is an uncommonly adult film that surprises and confounds expectations. While it plays with mystery, comedy, and intrigue, its ultimate concern is: “What is married life?” In its sly way, Married Life poses perceptive questions about the seasonal discontents and unforeseen joys of all long-term relationships.

“A sly little fable with at least six very obvious homages to Alfred Hitchcock thrillers, and a dark little heart that happily hides under a double-breasted suit.” -Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News

SHOWN AT 7:15PM

La Scala Ballet brings to the Teatro degli Arcimboldi what could be called a “sold out” premiere, which has indeed been the case worldwide for Mauro Bigonzetti’s much celebrated Mediterranea, a production that La Scala is adding to its repertoire in world exclusive.

On this occasion, for the fifteenth anniversary of the show (created for the Balletto di Toscana in 1993), Mauro Bigonzetti will give the La Scala artists not only a revival but a true choreographic adaptation. With them and “on” them he will renew the production while maintaining its strength and colors, and the sense of travel through the musical cultures of the countries that face each other on the mare nostrum.

Mediterranea, which does not indulge in the folklore but varies the musical genres that range from popular Turkish music to Ligeti and Mozart to archaic Grecian melodies, focuses on the gestures and the moves in a refined balance between lyricism and pure energy.

Tickets to this special event are $15.00,
and can be reserved by e-mailing the CACC at the address at the top of this page.

Come experience “Mediterranea” with us in glorious HD, the next best thing to being there!

“A hit with the public, ‘Mediterranea’ was acclaimed by critics for its power…” -Dance Magazine

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19

SHOWN AT 12:30PM
“Gonzo” is the definitive film biography of Hunter S. Thompson, a mythic American figure, a man that Tom Wolfe called our “greatest comic writer.” Thompson is the man that launched a thousand sips of bourbon, endless snorts of cocaine and a brash, irreverent, fearless style of journalism – named “gonzo” after an anarchic blues riff by James Booker. “Gonzo” is directed by Alex Gibney, the Academy Award nominated director of “Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room” and the director of the Academy Award-winning documentary, “Taxi To The Dark Side.” While Gibney shaped the screen story, every narrated word in the film springs from the typewriters of Thompson himself. Those words are given life by Johnny Depp, the actor who once shadowed Thompson’s every move for the screen version of “Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas,” and who bankrolled Thompson’s spectacular funeral (photographed for this film) in which the good doctor’s ashes were fired from a rocket launcher mounted with a towering two-thumbed fist whose palm held a giant peyote button.

“A tender, even-tempered elegy to a writer who at his peak could ingest staggering (literally) amounts of drugs and alcohol and transform, like Popeye after a can of spinach, into a superhuman version of himself.” -David Edelstein, New York Magazine

SHOWN AT 2:45PM
In their documentary “Chris & Don: A Love Story,” directors Tina Mascara and Guido Santi show us so many of the famous people that artist Don Bachardy and author Christopher Isherwood (“Cabaret”) knew in their more than three decades together that anyone coming to the film in the middle without any context might think it a “Forrest Gump” caliber ruse. However, there is no digital manipulation here, just incredible pictures of scores of moments from an incredible love shared by an unlikely couple.

“Primed as we are by a culture rich in both homophobia and dirty old men, we can be forgiven for anticipating a sordid cautionary tale. It’s a shock – a happy shock – when ‘Chris & Don’ recounts a love that approaches the transcendental.” -David Edelstein, New York Magazine

SHOWN AT 5:00PM
Actor, performer, and multi-platinum rock icon Marvin “Meat Loaf” Aday reveals surprising shades of himself – and a fertile creative mind in constant flux – in this intimate and highly entertaining theatrical feature documentary. The time is early 2007, one of the most stressful in Meat Loaf’s career. He’s about to launch his most ambitious tour ever, an 18 month long marathon to support “Bat Out Of Hell III,” the final album of the legendary “Bat” trilogy. The earlier “Bat” albums were two of the biggest sellers of all time, with combined sales of over 55 million, so a lackluster but respectable performance on this new tour just won’t measure up. Meat Loaf’s exhausting and often poignant journey takes him from grueling rehearsals in Burbank, California and through the Canadian portion of his tour. Along the way, an unexpected media controversy erupts over the staging of one of his songs – a controversy that raises questions about his art, his age, his relevance – and brings into focus the drive (and demons) that have fueled his over-the-top stage persona for almost 40 years. “Meat Loaf: In Search Of Paradise” is a rich, first-ever portrait of an extraordinary, international icon that includes riveting performances of his biggest hits like “I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That),” “Took The Words Right Out Of My Mouth,” “Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad,” and of course, “Paradise By The Dashboard Light.”

“Meat Loaf: In Search Of Paradise” is part of our “Sundays Swing” music series.

“‘In Search Of Paradise’ portrays Meat Loaf as an obsessive, self-punishing performer, striving in vain to put on a live show that matches the visions in his head.” -Matt Zoller Seitz, The New York Times

SHOWN AT 7:15PM
This year’s Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language film is a curiosity of sorts; it is a Holocaust drama, yet its protagonist is an antihero. Soon after meeting Salomon “Sally” Sorowitsch (a captivating Karl Markovics), we realize that he is an opportunistic forger whose dubious skills and penchant for partying landed him in a concentration camp in 1936. As we flash-forward to the back side of the war, we soon realize that Sally has been tapped to create flawless copies of the pound and the dollar with which his Nazi captors will flood the British and American economies while funding a faltering Third Reich’s own war effort.

“Slick, exciting, emotionally trenchant – well done all around.” -Ty Burr, The Boston Globe