opening this week
THE AGE OF ADALINE Blake Lively (Gossip Girl) plays a woman who is immortal and eternally young. For years, she has lived alone. When she meets a man (Michiel Huisman) she could love, but who could also cause her to lose her immortality, she faces a big decision. Rated PG-13. 110 minutes. Regal Stadium 14, Santa Fe; Dream-Catcher, Española. (Not reviewed)
CUPCAKES Imagine if Pedro Almodóvar had directed an episode of Glee. The result might have been something like this lighthearted, candy-colored film from Israeli director Eytan Fox. Six friends — five gals and a guy — in contemporary Tel Aviv find themselves chosen to represent Israel in a televised singing competition (something like American Idol), despite the fact that only one of them is a professional musician. The film treads no new ground. It’s manipulative, albeit in a well-meaning way, and the characters are neither complex nor fully developed. Still, if you have a sunny disposition, it’s a perfectly bubbly way to pass some time. Not rated. 90 minutes. In Hebrew with subtitles. Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe. (Laurel Gladden)
EX MACHINA English novelist (The Beach) and screenwriter (28 Days Later) Alex Garland makes his directorial debut with this small-scale sci-fi thriller about a computer coder (Domhnall Gleeson) who is chosen to work on an effort to make fully humanlike androids a reality. The subject is Ava (Alicia Vikander), a humanoid robot with a blend of female and mechanical features. Rated R. 108 minutes. Regal DeVargas, Santa Fe. (Not reviewed)
5 TO 7 In the world of uptown Manhattan, a youngish couple (Anton Yelchin and Bérénice Marlohe) meet and fall in love. The only hitch is that she’s hitched. Fortunately, she’s in an open marriage, but the lovers can only conduct their relationship between 5 and 7 p.m., which, apparently, is a French thing. Frank Langella and Glenn Close co-star. Rated R. 95 minutes. The Screen, Santa Fe. (Not reviewed)
THE KIDNAPPING OF MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ Michel Houellebecq is a controversial French novelist and poet whose work has won prizes and been denounced as hate speech. He was the caricatured cover boy of the
Charlie Hebdo issue when the murderous attack took place, on the same day his novel Submission, about a 2022 Islamist takeover of the French government, hit the bookstores. In 2011, while he was promoting another novel, Houellebecq briefly disappeared, and the rumor was that he had been abducted by al-Qaida. This provides the point of departure for Guillaume Nicloux’s movie about his fictional kidnapping by three French goons. The movie starts aimlessly, but after the snatch, things acquire an intriguing drollery. Not rated. 92 minutes. In French with subtitles. The Screen, Santa Fe. ( Jonathan Richards) See review, Page 38.
LITTLE BOY Jakob Salvati plays Pepper Flynt Busbee, a young child in the 1940s who idolizes his dad (Michael Rapaport) and loves the adventures they pretend to have. When his father is called away to fight in the war, Pepper tries hard, through faith and imagination, to bring him back home. Kevin James, Emily Watson, and Tom Wilkinson co-star. Rated PG-13. 100 minutes. Regal Stadium 14, Santa Fe. (Not reviewed)
THE MET LIVE IN HD: CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA AND PAGLIACCI Marcelo Álvarez stars in this double bill of operas, by Mascagni and Leoncavallo respectively, which is broadcast live from the Met. Eva-Maria Westbroek (Cav) and Patricia Racette (Pag) also star. 10:30 a.m. Saturday, April 25, with a 6 p.m. encore. Lensic Performing Arts Center, Santa Fe. (Not reviewed)
MONSTERS: DARK CONTINENT This sequel to the 2010 sci-fi horror film Monsters finds the “infected zones” spreading and monsters everywhere. People are in panic mode and military efforts are ramping up, which inspires the question: Are we the real monsters? Rated R. 119 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe. (Not reviewed)
PERFORMANCE AT THE SCREEN The series of high-definition screenings continues with a showing of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, from the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden, Germany. Rolando Villazón directs and stars. 11:15 a.m. Sunday, April 26, only. Not rated. 135 minutes. The Screen, Santa Fe. (Not reviewed)
THE RIOT CLUB This drama tells the story of a group of students at Oxford University who are all quite posh but are also a bunch of wankers. Having been kicked out of all the pubs in town, they join the Riot Club, a long-standing drinking establishment for spoiled young Brits. Once they learn the secret handshake, they begin hiring prostitutes, pummeling one another, and dodging accountability for their actions. Rated R. 107 minutes. Jean Cocteau Cinema, Santa Fe. (Not reviewed)
SONG FROM THE FOREST In the 1980s, New Jersey born ethnomusic-olgist Louis Sarno traveled to the forests of Central Africa to record the music of the Bayaka Pygmy tribe. He found the environment so appealing
that he decided not to return to the U.S. Michael Obert’s meditative documentary looks at Sarno’s life as he brings his young half-Bayakan son to New York. Rather than focus too much on Sarno’s past, Obert contrasts tribal and city life with an objective eye that highlights the beauty of both places and accentuates their differences without stating a preference for either one. Not rated. 98 minutes. In English and Yaka with subtitles. Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe. (Robert Ker) See review, Page 36.
THE WATER DIVINER Russell Crowe directed and stars in this historical drama about an Australian farmer in 1919 who learns that his sons died in the Battle of Gallipoli. After his wife kills herself, he travels to Turkey to bring his sons’ bodies home, and learns that one of them may still be alive. Rated R. 111 minutes. Regal DeVargas, Santa Fe. (Not reviewed)