The Savoy Theater

THE SAVOY THEATER
26 Main Street
Montpelier, VT 05602

  • Recording:
    802-229-0509
  • VT toll-free recording:
    800-676-0509
  • Savoy office:
    802-229-0598
  • Downstairs Video:
    802-223-0050
  • VT toll-free DV phone:
    800-898-0050
  • Email:
    film@savoytheater.com

 

Coming Soon

The Visitor

Friday, May 16

In a world of six billion people, it only takes one to change your life. In actor and filmmaker Tom McCarthy’s follow-up to his award winning directorial debut The Station Agent, Richard Jenkins (Six Feet Under) stars as a disillusioned Connecticut economics professor whose life is transformed by a chance encounter in New York City.

Sixty-two-year-old Walter Vale (Jenkins) is sleepwalking through his life. Having lost his passion for teaching and writing, he fills the void by unsuccessfully trying to learn to play classical piano. When his college sends him to Manhattan to attend a conference, Walter is surprised to find a young couple has taken up residence in his apartment. Victims of a real estate scam, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman), a Syrian man, and Zainab (Danai Gurira), his Senegalese girlfriend, have nowhere else to go. In the first of a series of tests of the heart, Walter reluctantly allows the couple to stay with him.

Touched by his kindness, Tarek, a talented musician, insists on teaching the aging academic to play the African drum. The instrument’s exuberant rhythms revitalize Walter’s faltering spirit and open his eyes to a vibrant world of local jazz clubs and Central Park drum circles. As the friendship between the two men deepens, the differences in culture, age and temperament fall away.

After being stopped by police in the subway, Tarek is arrested as an undocumented citizen and held for deportation. As his situation turns desperate, Walter finds himself compelled to help his new friend with a passion he thought he had long ago lost. When Tarek’s beautiful mother Mouna (Hiam Abbass) arrives unexpectedly in search of her son, the professor’s personal commitment develops into an unlikely romance.

And it’s through these new found connections with these virtual strangers that Walter is awakened to a new world and a new life. --© Overture Films

Rated PG-13; 103 minutes.


Young @ Heart

Coming Soon

Pete Hammond , Hollywood.com,

For about a quarter of a century, Northhampton, Mass., has been home to one of the most unique musical groups in the world, The Young At Heart chorus, a revolving group of senior citizens who aren’t content to sing obvious chestnuts like “Hello Dolly” or “As Time Goes By”. No, these 70, 80 and 90–somethings are more into the tunes of Sonic Youth, The Clash, Coldplay and Prince. We are much more likely to hear them rocking out to “Stayin’ Alive” than “Moon River”. And that’s a good thing because it’s what gives this group a unique stamp. Some of the younger audience members just might find that this menagerie of musical adventurers a lot hipper than they are! With cameras seemingly everywhere, the film expertly chronicles the lives of several members and captures the six-week rehearsal process for this particular edition of Young At Heart. With a European tour planned and several other shows, the pressure is on to get this gathering of talented oldies but goodies--some veterans and some newcomers--into performance groove. What director Stephen Walker couldn’t have anticipated was the sheer human drama that would be taking place as his cameras rolled. Inspirational, funny, sad and very satisfying, Young@Heart is a documentary winner that proves life is available to those who want to keep living it--no matter how old you are.

Not Rated; 111 minutes.

 


Son of Rambow

Coming Soon

Eric D. Snider , Film.com (excerpted)


  • Son of Rambow perfectly captures the innocent, whimsical joys of boyhood, and it does this in the simplest possible way: by being innocent and whimsical itself.
  • The boys, both about 12 and living in England circa 1983, are as different as can be. Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner) skinny and timid, obedient to his widowed mother (Jessica Stevenson) is restricted from watching TV or movies by the family's membership in the no-frills Plymouth Brethren sect.
  • The other lad, Lee Carter (Will Poulter), is a broad-faced bully and mischief-maker. The first time we see him, he's sitting with his feet up at the local cinema, the only audience member in the non-smoking section, brazenly using a video camera to pirate the film First Blood (often called Rambo I), and he has it in his head to make his own Rambo movie and enter it in a young filmmakers' contest. He and Will are thrust together one day, and Lee -- an expert con-man as well as a thug -- somehow convinces Will that he owes him something. Lee's demand is that Will be his stunt man in the film. Will has never seen a movie before, but when he watches the bootlegged First Blood at Lee's house, it instantly becomes the subject of his frequent daydreams.
  • Son of Rambow is ultimately about that delicate balance of childhood relationships, in which the emotions run deep but the kids lack the sophistication to express or understand them. Will and Lee are at the age where everything is in flux, where the kid you used to hate can become your best buddy in a day, and where the social laws that will be strictly enforced in your later teen years -- the ones governing who's allowed to be friends with whom -- haven't been established yet. At this point, even a shy, quiet kid like Will Proudfoot has the potential to be popular.
  • But most of all, Son of Rambow is flat-out hilarious -- good-naturedly, charmingly and inventively hilarious, with just enough of a subversive streak to give it zest. Written and directed by Garth Jennings (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), it brings Will and Lee's imagination to life with matter-of-fact special effects and occasional bits of line-drawn animation. A grand musical score by Joby Talbot and an endlessly creative visual style. Yet even as it's being funny, the story manages to examine the boys as real, three-dimensional characters: Will's struggle with his restrictive religion, Lee's surprising devotion to his mean older brother and the peculiar -- but instantly recognizable -- dynamic of friendship between the kids.

Not Rated; 95 minutes.