The Loft Cinema

10:00 PM

7:00 PM

(2:00 PM)

"It's right out of a cheap melodrama," one character remarks in From up on Poppy Hill, after a particularly extreme twist of fate-- yet this film's gentle storytelling manages to extract the emotional payoffs of melodrama without ruining one's... More »

"It's right out of a cheap melodrama," one character remarks in From up on Poppy Hill, after a particularly extreme twist of fate-- yet this film's gentle storytelling manages to extract the emotional payoffs of melodrama without ruining one's suspension of disbelief. A film about fathers and children, and the way we use the past as a prism for the present, Poppy Hill is fittingly a collaboration between Japanese anime master Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away) and his son Goro (Tales From Earthsea). Our endearing protagonist is Umi (voiced by Sarah Bolger), a high school student in Yokohama, 1963. With an absent mother and a dead father, Umi has plenty of responsibilities, but adolescence being what it is, she's dragged into helping her crush, Shun (Anton Yelchin), save a local clubhouse from demolition. If the film was merely a depiction of adolescent longing, its portrayal of that state alone would be worth your $12-- unconstrained by the limitations of the human face, the animators paint remarkably nuanced states of teenage distress onto their principals. (You may be brought back to your own pimple-laden past.) Yet Poppy Hill also explores Umi's attempts to identify with a father she barely knew for the sake of her own budding individuality, and Shun's attachment to the clubhouse out of respect for its past. Some third-act revelations may really test the scales of plausibility, but Poppy Hill ultimately is not about its story as much as the emotional states it probes. « Less

(3:00 PM)

(4:30 PM)

9:45 PM

Over the course of its first 60 minutes, Ken Loach's The Angels' Share proves a testament to its director's enduring reputation as a master of British cinema and the social realist form, articulating the frustrations of Glasgow's working class... More »

Over the course of its first 60 minutes, Ken Loach's The Angels' Share proves a testament to its director's enduring reputation as a master of British cinema and the social realist form, articulating the frustrations of Glasgow's working class with clarity and sophistication. Robbie (non-actor Paul Brannigan) is a brash ne'er-do-well and recent father endeavoring, quite in earnest, to abandon a life of crime in favor of much-needed stability. His quest for redemption through community service and a newfound interest in the world of whiskey-- a matter of smelling and tasting rather than simply imbibing, of course-- forms the heart of this story, which is told with humor and empathy. Loach, always attuned to the nuances of social problems both personal and systemic, negotiates the audacious tonal shifts with confident ease, oscillating from candid kitchen-sink drama (a flashback finds Robbie nearly beating a stranger to death in the street) to broad humor (fart jokes and kilt gags abound). But when The Angels' Share suddenly transforms, in its final act, into a kind of farcical heist picture, that fleeting slapstick tendency wins out, regrettably diminishing the film's social consciousness in the process. It's one of the strangest narrative pivots in recent memory, reducing what began as a smart film about class to a vacuous one about nothing much at all, implicitly trivializing its serious themes the moment it decides to abandon them. « Less

(11:45 AM), 7:40 PM

(5:15 PM), 10:15 PM

(12:15 PM), (5:00 PM)

It's time, apparently, for the aging ghosts of '60s radicalism to once again take stock of their sins and compromises. Once it gets its walkers moving, Robert Redford's The Company You Keep nearly plays like a green-granola-lefty counterpart to... More »

It's time, apparently, for the aging ghosts of '60s radicalism to once again take stock of their sins and compromises. Once it gets its walkers moving, Robert Redford's The Company You Keep nearly plays like a green-granola-lefty counterpart to The Expendables, a Hollywood Elderhostel reunion crowded with septuagenarian icons looking back on the righteousness and failures of the Nixon–'Nam era with rheumy retirees' eyeballs. The story, from Neil Gordon's novel about the contemporary fate of a few surviving Weather Underground fugitives, all but blows a trumpet for how rad rad used to be. First Susan Sarandon's Vermont housewife, her kids all grown up, throws in the secret-identity towel and surrenders herself to the FBI; from there, the dominoes tumble, leading cub reporter Shia LaBeouf to uncover the similarly fake ID of Redford's upstate lawyer, sending this suede-faced ex-Weatherman running. The FBI closes in, LaBeouf's annoying snoop pesters every single other character motivated only by his journalistic creed, and withering guest-stars (Julie Christie, Sam Elliott, Richard Jenkins, a phlegm-plagued Nick Nolte) emerge to crinkle and wheeze about the good old days of bank robberies and protests. Redford’s noble Methuselah isn't just self-preserving-- he's got an unseasonably preadolescent daughter to worry about, and a case for his own redemption to make. It's little surprise that The Company You Keep turns out to be politically chicken-hearted—the progressive cant we hear sounds idiotic, and political principles are seen as pathetic challenges to the demands of family and law and order. Redford succeeds only in defanging the idea of resistance altogether. Far from engaged, the film surrenders in an arthritic faint. « Less

(12:00 PM), 7:20 PM

A decorous gathering of dames and other knighted U.K. doyens, Quartet centers on the residents of Beecham House, a baronial residence for retired musicians. Former conductor Cedric (Michael Gambon), bedecked in a series of fantastic caftans and... More »

A decorous gathering of dames and other knighted U.K. doyens, Quartet centers on the residents of Beecham House, a baronial residence for retired musicians. Former conductor Cedric (Michael Gambon), bedecked in a series of fantastic caftans and charged with organizing the annual gala fundraiser, determines that the reunion of the foursome who shone in a long-ago production of Rigoletto will be the event's biggest draw. Assembling the headlining act requires a few desultory scenes of encouraging Beecham’s newest addition, opera diva Jean Horton (Maggie Smith), to participate. Jean, once romantically involved with Reginald (Tom Courtenay), who passes the time giving gentle lectures to bused-in youths about the difference between opera and rap, states her objections sharply: "I can't insult the memory of who I was." That all-too-real fear for the eminences gathered here stands as the only true pathos in the sentimental and pandering Quartet, adapted by Ronald Harwood from his own 1999 play and directed by Dustin Hoffman, stepping behind the camera for the first time. "Their love of life is infectious," says the staff doctor, holding back tears in the final minutes, belying the previous scenes of agony over hip-replacement surgery and Reginald's stated wish to have "a dignified senility." The physician might have been referring exclusively to the randy joker played by Billy Connolly, prone to public urination and violating the staff's personal space-- acts sanctifying the memory of who he still is. « Less

(2:45 PM)