opening this week
AMIRA & SAM Martin Starr, a supporting-cast member of the regular Judd Apatow comedies going back to Freaks and Geeks , takes a lead role in this indie film about a veteran (Starr) who falls in love with an Iraqi immigrant (Dina Shihabi). Not rated. 90 minutes. Jean Cocteau Cinema , Santa Fe. (Not reviewed)
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Jean Cocteau’s first full-length feature is an enchanting fairy tale for the ages. A man plucks a rose from the garden of the Beast ( Jean Marais), who means to kill him for the theft unless he sends one of his three daughters in his place. When Belle ( Josette Day) comes to the Beast’s castle, he falls in love with her — and, in time, her fondness for him grows. Beauty and the Beast (La Belle
et la Bête) is a magical fantasy, full of the director’s signature trick photography and other in-camera effects that hold up as well today as they did in 1946. Not rated. 93 minutes. In French with subtitles. Jean Cocteau Cinema , Santa Fe. (Michael Abatemarco)
See Screen Gems , Page 32. FIFTY SHADES OF GREY The erotic novel about a young woman, Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson), who falls in with billionaire Christian Grey ( Jamie Dornan) and his kinky preferences finally comes to the big screen. Some say that reading the book is an act of masochism — here’s hoping director Sam Taylor-Johnson has whipped the dialogue into shape. Rated R. 125 minutes. Regal Stadium 14 , Santa Fe; DreamCatcher , Española. (Not reviewed)
KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE Comic-book writer Mark Millar has seen his irreverent superhero books Wanted and Kick-Ass adapted to film, and now he’s looking to class up the joint with Colin Firth playing Harry Hart, a master spy, in the adaptation of his The Secret Service . The story finds Hart mentoring his snot-nosed nephew (Taron Egerton) and trying to defeat the evil Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson). Rated R. 129 minutes. Regal Stadium 14 , Santa Fe; DreamCatcher , Española. (Not reviewed)
THE MET LIVE IN HD: IOLANTA & BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE Anna Netrebko stars in this staging of Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta and Nadja Michael stars in Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle , a double bill broadcast live from the Met. Not rated. 219 minutes. 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 14, with an encore at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 17. Lensic Performing Arts Center , Santa Fe. (Not reviewed)
1971 On March 8, 1971, a team of antiwar activists broke into an FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania, and took every last file. It was a criminal enterprise undertaken to shed light on the criminal enterprise that was J. Edgar Hoover’s secret FBI. The burglars were never caught, the files were distributed to the press, and Hoover’s sealed empire was blown open. Johanna Hamilton, a TV documentary producer making her directorial debut, has now brought that story to the screen. At the 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 13, screening Hamilton appears via Skype and subject Bob Williamson appears in person. Not rated. 79 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts , Santa Fe. ( Jonathan Richards) See review, Page 48.
STILL ALICE Get ready to add this film — Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland’s adaptation of Lisa Genova’s novel — to your list of “hardest movies to watch.” A renowned author and linguistics professor, Alice (Oscar nominee Julianne Moore) is in the middle of a lecture when she loses her train of thought. While jogging, she becomes disoriented and panics. After visits to a neurologist, she is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. Even the opening scenes have a sense of dread about them, and we watch the other shoe drop as Alice and her family endure the cruel and absurd conditions of the disease’s progression. The film can feel predictable and a little too neat, and many supporting parts feel sketchy. But it’s held aloft by Moore and Kristen Stewart, who, with her deep, resonant, heartfelt performance as Alice’s younger daughter, takes another step away from the
Twilight franchise. Rated PG-13. 101 minutes. Regal DeVargas , Santa Fe. (Laurel Gladden) See review,
Page 49.