Academy Award Nominee! Best Foreign Language Film.
THE WHITE RIBBON
Friday, Mar. 5 through Thursday, Mar. 11
Nightly at 4:30, 7:20
Matinees Sat, Sun & Wed at 1:30
Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, THE WHITE RIBBON is the new film from Michael Haneke (CACHE) and has already won a Golden Globe for Best Foreign-Language Film and more awards than you could count including European Film Awards for Best Film Director and Screenplay of the Year, a sweep of the major American film critics’ awards for best cinematography. A village in Protestant northern Germany. 1913-1914. On the eve of World War I. The story of the children and teenagers of a choir run by the village schoolteacher, and their families: the baron, the steward, the pastor, the doctor, the midwife, the tenant farmers. Strange accidents occur and gradually take on the character of a punishment ritual. Who is behind it all? The village schoolteacher observes, investigates and little by little discovers the incredible truth. Are we being asked to consider whether these events heralded something that would explode years later with the rise of Nazi Germany? Did these events contain the germs of the tragedies that followed? R. In German, Italian, Polish and Latin with English subtitles. 144 Min
Academy Award Nominations!
Best Actress: Helen Mirren
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer
THE LAST STATION
Friday, Mar. 5 through Thursday, Mar. 11
Nightly at 4:40, 7:00
Matinees Sat, Sun & Wed at 12:10, 2:25
“Three years after her triumphant, Oscar-winning performance as a modern British monarch in THE QUEEN, Helen Mirren is magnificent as Countess Sofya–better known as Mrs. Leo Tolstoy–in THE LAST STATION, a grandly entertaining historical drama about the final year of the great Russian writer’s life. Based on the equally entertaining, erudite novel by Jay Parini, the movie is at once a hot marital showdown and a cool political debate, a domestic War and Peace. While Count Leo (Christopher Plummer, a boffo choice), living under the sway of a rigid Tolstoyan acolyte named Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), supports anarchy, pacifism, and the abolishment of property rights, Countess Sofya fights, tigress-style, for the security of well-ordered laws regarding copyrights and inheritance–specifically her inheritance from her husband’s estate, which she would lose if Chertkov and his ilk got their way. (The biographical fact is that at the end of his life, 82-year-old Tolstoy fled his family and their demands, making it only as far as the local train station before falling mortally ill.) The war between Leo and Sofya is filtered through the perceptions of an eager, chaste young man (James McAvoy) who arrives at Tolstoy’s country home to work as the writer’s secretary. He stays to be initiated into lusty manhood by Rome’s Kerry Condon, playing an attractive young believer in Tolstoyan utopia–a sweet, sexy scene shot, as is the whole refined movie, with an aim to please and a love of sunlight. But as fetching as the young lovers are, the pair could learn a thing or two about passion from Mirren; at this point the actress can convey fury, tenderness, or voracious will with a mere raise of an eyebrow.”–Lisa Schwartzbaum, Entertainment Weekly. R. 112 Min.
3 Academy Award Nominations!
including Best Actor: Jeff Bridges
CRAZY HEART
Friday, Mar. 5 through Thursday, Mar. 11
Nightly at 4:50, 7:10 Also Fri and Sat at 9:25
Matinees Sat, Sun & Wed at 12:15, 2:40
Jeff Bridges is the darkhorse frontrunner to win the Oscar for Best Actor for his wondrous leather-authentic performance in CRAZY HEART after winning a Golden Globe. Bad Blake is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who’s had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician. As he struggles down the road of redemption, Bad learns the hard way just how tough life can be on one man’s crazy heart. “Bridges draws us deeply inside Blake’s moment-to-moment heartbreaks. He makes us root for him as we would root for a dear friend. Ultimately, his triumphs become our own.”–Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor. “Every detail of Jeff Bridges’ performance in CRAZY HEART is so delicious you want to sop it up with buttermilk biscuits: the counterintuitive line readings, the throwaway bits of business, the way he walks and smokes and drinks and flirts and sings. In Bridges’ hands, the down-and-out country music star Bad Blake becomes a kind of Fender-playing Falstaff, his pathos inseparable from his humor and his weakness inseparable from his strength. On first viewing, Crazy Heart seemed like a pretty good movie with one great performance. After a second time through, it’s sneaking up on the title of my favorite film of the year.”–Dana Hall, Slate. R.111 Min.
6 Academy Award Nominations!
including Best Picture of the Year
Best Actor: George Clooney
Best Director: Jason Reitman
UP IN THE AIR
Friday, Mar. 5 and Saturday, Mar. 7
at 9:15 p.m. Only!
There’s a reason that UP IN THE AIR garnered 6 Academy Award nominations including Best Picture of the Year, Best Actor (George Clooney) and Best Director (Jason Reitman): “UP IN THE AIR is light and dark, hilarious and tragic, romantic and real. It’s everything that Hollywood has forgotten how to do; we’re blessed that director Jason Reitman (JUNO, THANK YOU FOR SMOKING) has remembered.” (Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly.) George Clooney stars as Ryan Bingham is a corporate downsizing expert whose cherished life on the road is threatened just as he is on the cusp of reaching ten million frequent flyer miles and after he’s met the frequent-traveler woman of his dreams. Is he about to be downsized himself? Or upsized to a new life of real human connection? UP IN THE AIR is a romantic comedy with a difference–or maybe several. R. 109 Min.
HANNAH FREE
2 Shows only
Sunday, March 14, 2:45 p.m.
Tuesday, March 16, 7:10 p.m.
Hannah and Rachel grew up as little girls in the same small Midwest town, where traditional gender expectations eventually challenge their deep love for one another. Hannah becomes an adventurous, unapologetic lesbian and Rachel a strong but quiet homemaker. Weaving back and forth between past and present, the film reveals how the women maintained their love affair despite a marriage, a world war, infidelities, and family denial. HANNAH FREE, winner of Best Film Awards from International Lesbian and Gay Film festivals around the world, is “”touching and haunting, this love story told through the ages is both sad and encouraging, a must-see for anyone who has loved and lost–or still has hope for the future.”–Fresno Reel Pride. Unrated. 86 Min.
Admission Prices at Railroad Square Cinema
$7.50 for Adults in the evenings, $6.00 for matinees.
Children (12 and under) are $5.00 at all times.
Seniors and Students are $6.50 in the evenings.
Mondays — $5.00 all day!
Discount books are available. $60 for 10 admissions or $50 if you’re a Railroad Square Cinema member. Click here to get info about membership.
Finding Railroad Square Cinema
It’s easy! We are located in Railroad Square between College Ave. and Main Street in Waterville, Maine. If you’re coming from Interstate 95, get off at Main Street, exit 130 (formerly 34) and head towards downtown Waterville. About a mile from the exit look for our large, yellow sign on your left as you cross the railroad tracks. Our entrance is between the RR tracks and the Burger King sign. Scroll down to see maps. Click here for detailed driving directions
