Shakespearean Delights, Other Films Coming to The Music Hall

The Music Hall continues its tradition of offering a variety of outstanding offerings on screen this month, including a trio of Shakespearean delights: The National Theatre of London’s HD Broadcast of Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch (10/25); The Music Hall Film Club offering of Orson Welles’ Macbeth (1948) (10/20); and a new staging of Verdi’s masterpiece Otello (10/24) as part of The Met @ The Music Hall series, according to a press statement.

In addition, “Our October films are packed full of stars, from The Diary of a Teenage Girl with Kristen Wigg to Grandma with Lily Tomlin,” said Chris Curtis, Programming coordinator. “Over at the Loft, We have Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney’s new documentary, Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine. Also, mark your calendar for the first Met @ The Music Hall broadcast, Verdi’s Il Trovatore on Oct. 3.”

Special on screen offerings include The Human Experiment (10/1) about the chemicals we put in and on our bodies, Roger Waters’ The Wall (10/22), and This Changes Everything (10/20), an ambitious documentary about climate change. On October 28 Lon Chaney’s Phantom of the Opera (1925) with an original score performed live by Boston ‘Steam-Crunk’ ensemble Walter Sickert & the Army of BRoken TOys will light up the Historic Theater screen. Presented in affiliation with and as a fundraiser for the Portsmouth Halloween Parade.

October On Screen

Film Matters: The Human Experiment (NR, 1h31m, US)

10/1 Historic Theater

Narrated and Executive Produced by Sean Penn. With thousands of untested chemicals in our everyday products, have we all become unwitting guinea pigs in one giant human experiment? This powerful and inspiring new documentary goes behind the scenes in the fight to protect us from these toxic products before they cause irrevocable harm to our health. Post film discussion with a panel of local experts.

Extraordinary Cinema: Mistress America (R, 1h26m, US)

10/2; 10/3; 10/4; 10/6; 10/7; 10/8 @ 7pm • Historic Theater

Tracy (Lola Kirke) is a lonely college freshman in New York, having neither the exciting university experience nor the glamorous metropolitan lifestyle she envisioned. But when she is taken in by her soon-to-be stepsister, Brooke (Greta Gerwig) - a resident of Times Square and adventurous gal about town - she is rescued from her disappointment and seduced by Brooke’s alluringly mad schemes.

Extraordinary Cinema: Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine (R, 2h, US)

10/6; 10/8; 10/14 @ 7pm • 10/11 @ 3pm • Loft

Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney (Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief) pulls no punches in his documentary portrait of Apple founder Steve Jobs and his legacy. This probing and unflinching look at the life and aftermath of the bold, brilliant and at times ruthless iconoclast explores what accounted for the grief of so many when he died.

Extraordinary Cinema: The Diary of a Teenage Girl (R, 1h42m, US)

10/9; 10/10; 10/11; 10/13; 10/14 @ 7pm • Historic Theater

Like most teenage girls, Minnie Goetze (Bel Powley) is longing for love, acceptance and a sense of purpose in the world. Minnie begins a complex love affair with her mother’s (Kristen Wiig) boyfriend, “the handsomest man in the world,” Monroe Rutherford (Alexander Skarsgård). What follows is a sharp, funny and provocative account of one girl’s sexual and artistic awakening, without judgment.

Wildcard: This Changes Everything (NR, 1h30m, US) 10/ 20 @ 7pm • Historic Theater

Filmed in nine countries and five continents over four years, This Changes Everything is an epic attempt to re-imagine the vast challenge of climate change. Directed by Avi Lewis, and inspired by Naomi Klein’s international non-fiction bestseller This Changes Everything, the film presents seven powerful portraits of communities on the front lines, from Montana’s Powder River Basin to the Alberta Tar Sands, from the coast of South India to Beijing and beyond. What if confronting the climate crisis is the best chance we’ll ever get to build a better world?

TMH Film Club: MacBeth (1948) (NR, 1h47m, US)

10/20 @ 7pm • Loft

For Halloween month, Welles’ horror movie: a chiaroscuro nightmare that underscores the “mania” in megalomania. Shot in 23 days on an aglet budget with stock costumes and papier-mache sets, Orson makes Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy even shorter, cutting and pasting it to fit a haunted atmosphere and noir lighting, and propelling it with relentless tracking shots. As fast-beating as a terrified heart, Macbeth is a breathless downward slide into one man’s madness, and in the opinion of some critics, possibly the director’s most underrated film. With Jeanette Nolan, Dan O’Herlihy, Roddy McDowall, and, in the title role, Orson Welles.

Wildcard: Roger Waters’ The Wall (R, 2h50m, UK)

10/22 @ 7pm • Loft

Be taken on a journey that unfolds on many levels - as an immersive concert experience of the classic Pink Floyd album, a road movie of Waters’ reckoning with the past and as a stirring anti-war event, highlighting the human cost of conflict. Additionally, fans will have a unique opportunity to see The Simple Facts with Roger Waters and his Pink Floyd bandmate Nick Mason - reunited, unscripted, and in conversation to answer questions submitted the fans from around the world. Don’t miss this monumental event where music and personal passion collide.

Extraordinary Cinema: Grandma (R, 1h22m, US)

10/21; 10/23; 10/24; 10/25; 10/27 @ 7pm • Historic Theater

Lily Tomlin stars as Elle who has just gotten through breaking up with her girlfriend when Elle’s granddaughter Sage unexpectedly shows up needing $600 bucks before sundown. Temporarily broke, Grandma Elle and Sage spend the day trying to get their hands on the cash as their unannounced visits to old friends and flames end up rattling skeletons and digging up secrets.

Extraordinary Cinema: The Tribe (NR, 2h10m, Ukraine)

10/27; 10/29 @ 7pm • Loft

Somewhere in Ukraine, Sergey enters a specialized boarding school for the deaf. Alone in this new and unfamiliar place, he must find his way through the school’s hierarchy. Sergey quickly encounters the tribe, a student gang dealing in crime and prostitution. After passing their hazing rituals and being inducted into the group, he takes part in several robberies and begins to work his way up the chain of command.

Halloween Wildcard: The Phantom of the Opera (1925) (NR, 1h33m, US)

10/28 @ 7pm • Loft

$13 (no passes)

Lon Chaney stars as the Phantom, in what is probably his most famous and certainly his most horrifying role. The story concerns a much-feared fiend who haunts the Paris Opera House. Lurking around the dank passages deep in the cellars of the theater, he secretly coaches soprano understudy Christine Daae (Mary Philbin) to be an opera star and ‘arranges’ for the lead singer to drop out of the production.

Once again, we are thrilled to have an original score performed live by Boston ‘Steam-Crunk’ ensemble Walter Sickert & the Army of BRoken TOys. In affiliation with, and as a fundraiser for, Portsmouth Halloween Parade.

For more information on all shows, films, and events, go to www.themusichall.org/calendar