Girl Rising is an innovative new feature film about the power of education to change a girl -- and the world.

Girl Rising spotlights unforgettable girls like Sokha, an orphan who rises from the dumps of Cambodia to become a star student and an accomplished dancer; Suma, who composes music to help her endure forced servitude in Nepal and today crusades to free others; and Ruksana, an Indian "pavement-dweller" whose father sacrifices his own basic needs for his daughter's dreams. Each girl is paired with a renowned writer from her native country. Edwidge Danticat, Sooni Taraporevala Aminatta Forna and others tell the girls' stories, each in it's style, and all with profound resonance.

These girls are each unique, but the obstacles they faced are ubiquitous. Like the 66 million girls around the world who dream of going to school, what Sokha, Suma, Ruksana and the rest want most is to be students: to learn. And now, And now, by sharing their personal journeys, they have become teachers. Watch Girl Rising, and you will see: One girl with courage is a revolution.

Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Selena Gomez and other A-list actresses contribute voice performances to the film, which features original music from Academy Award winner Rachel Portman, in collaboration with Hans Zimmer.

Showtimes for GIRL RISING

• Saturday, May 25th - 2:00 PM
• Sunday, May 26th - 2:00 PM
• Monday, May 27th - 2:00 PM
• Tuesday, May 28th - 6:00 PM

Born in Arkansas in 1940, Levon Helm started playing music before anyone thought up the name rock & roll, and after taking up the drums, he teamed with Ronnie Hawkins, a fellow Arkansan who was becoming a popular rockabilly star in Canada. In time, Helm and his bandmates parted ways with Hawkins to go out on their own, and after a spell as Bob Dylan's backing group they became known as The Band, recording a handful of the most honored rock albums of the 1960s and '70s. When guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson decided to break up The Band in 1976, the group's final concert was a major musical event that spawned Martin Scorsese's acclaimed documentary The Last Waltz. But Levon Helm wasn't done with music by a long shot, and in spite of three decades that would have tested any man's patience -- including troubles with drug addiction, unpaid record royalties, bankruptcy, legal skirmishes over the rights to his music, accidentally shooting himself in the leg, the death of two of his closest friends, and a battle with throat cancer -- in 2008 Helm had a banner year as he earned a Grammy nomination for his first studio album in years, {^Dirt Farmer}, and he was given a lifetime achievement award by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Filmmaker Jacob Hatley offers an intimate look at a legend of American music as he struggles to keep moving forward against long odds in the documentary Ain't In It For My Health: A Film About Levon Helm, which was an official selection at the 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival.

Showtimes for LEVON HELM: AIN'T IN IT FOR MY HEALTH

• Friday, May 24th - 9:00 PM
• Saturday, May 25th - 9:00 PM
• Sunday, May 26th - 9:00 PM

Please note that we can not accept passes, including kickstart tickets, during the first 2 weeks of this film's 3 week run. Thank you for your understanding.

"The Great Gatsby" follows Fitzgerald-like, would-be writer Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) as he leaves the Midwest and comes to New York City in the spring of 1922, an era of loosening morals, glittering jazz, bootleg kings, and sky-rocketing stocks. Chasing his own American Dream, Nick lands next door to a mysterious, party-giving millionaire, Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), and across the bay from his cousin, Daisy (Carey Mulligan), and her philandering, blue-blooded husband, Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton). It is thus that Nick is drawn into the captivating world of the super rich, their illusions, loves and deceits. As Nick bears witness, within and without of the world he inhabits, he pens a tale of impossible love, incorruptible dreams and high-octane tragedy, and holds a mirror to our own modern times and struggles.

Showtimes for THE GREAT GATSBY

• Friday, May 24th - 6:00 PM
• Saturday, May 25th - 6:00 PM
• Sunday, May 26th - 6:00 PM
• Monday, May 27th - 6:00 PM
• Tuesday, May 28th - 8:30 PM
• Wednesday, May 29th - 6:00 PM
• Thursday, May 30th - 6:00 PM

Join us in welcoming So Brown, now based in Brooklyn, New York, back to her native Alabama for an intimate evening of music at the Crescent Theater on June 1st at 8:30 PM.

So Brown saunters by on the sidewalk dressed unassumingly in an old suede bomber jacket, dark dungarees, and a fading gray army cap. Guitar in hand, you might mistake So for a rebellious teenage boy. But when So begins to play, sensually engrossed in ethereal song, you quickly realize: this is not child’s play, this is a highly developed, fully realized artist. And, in observing the audience, ladies rapt with yearning, there is a seductive magnetism at work that affects everyone present. From out past railway tracks and the forgotten rivers of rural Alabama, So Brown has emerged with haunting songs of love, women, nature, and death.

A gender-bending outcast from an early age, So believed she was a boy spirit trapped in a girl’s body, and trying to honor that spiritual reality in the Houston, Texas society she was raised in caused constant friction. While other children passed time playing together and learning their socially ordained gender roles, So was alone wandering in bayous, fishing, or chasing down animals and bugs. Themes of conflict between flesh and spirit and society appear in So’s work, yet as So says, it is not the point of the music. Rather, “My first priority is always making beautiful, moving music. I’m not a protest writer and I don’t have an agenda, I just love music that moves my being, and I try to be honest in how I deliver it…”

In 2004, So moved to Point Legere, a hidden peninsula outside Mobile, Alabama where her family has lived for four generations, and began penning the songs that would become the album of the same name on an old porch surrounded by tall pines and a brackish river. It would end up taking seven years until it was finished and in a tangible form. Why would anyone dedicate seven years of life to writing about a peninsula in Alabama? So replied, “I’m not sure it makes rational sense, but I have been obsessed with that place my entire life – the old barn, the smell of the pecan trees…It’s my great love, my lifeline.”

The tracks on the album appear in the order that they were conceived. They call on an immense pool of influences— from the refined classical aesthetic derived from her piano teacher mother to the ghosts of delta bluesmen like Skip James and Leadbelly. Part Gershwin and Stravinsky, part Muddy Waters, with some David Bowie androgyny thrown in for good measure. A penetratingly gifted guitarist and lyricist, So paints an almost Faulknerian portrait of the South, alternately sublime and brutal. The hard-hitting One by One, a sinister account of food and feeding, sits next to the beautiful Dauphin Island, a sweet, nostalgic childhood photo of a song about fishing with Grandpa on the barrier island off the coast of Alabama. That song was all the more relevant because Norah Jones and Sasha Dobson covered it in concert in Mobile, Alabama the very same night tar balls began washing ashore from the BP oil spill. And let’s not leave out the driving, freight-train push of Johnny Cash that pulses in songs like Bad Love. Hell, the animals themselves seem to have become arranged in the music: old tortoises and owls, crabs and coquinas, all the life of the Gulf Coast wrapped up into a song . And ultimately there are the relationships and the women; bold and lusty, but plagued by hidden psychological forces, and thus doomed.

In 2009, So Brown left the hermetic peninsula for Brooklyn and found the extended musical family that would help record the album. Bryce Goggin signed on as co-producer, an appropriate fit having worked with Anthony and the Johnsons, and Joan as Policewoman. In keeping with the sound and legacy of so many of the artists who had inspired her, it was important to So to record the album live to analog tape (she didn’t even wear headphones for most of the recording). So began assembling a team of musicians who were technically brilliant but also sensitive enough to honor the vulnerability of her music. In the end there would be an all-star cast of 14 musicians appearing on the album. Friends Norah Jones and Sasha Dobson appear alongside legends of the NY country (Jim Campilongo of the Little Willies), jazz (Adam Levy and Tony Scherr) and art rock world (Doug Wieselman). The stars aligned and every one was in town, and they spent one week recording at Trout Studios in Park Slope.

Far from the little house on the river, So Brown lives in Brooklyn now. A life that was mostly solitary and sedentary is now filled with people and is lived mostly on the move. Point Legere is complete, and the word is getting out. Adam Levy tweeted “So’s new ‘Point Legere’ is the best record I’ve heard so far this year,” and tours are in the works for both North and South or the Mason-Dixon line, and beyond. So’s mission: “It’s time to share the hidden secrets and hidden loves of my youth; I put it all into this album.” And thus a little unknown pocket of Alabama is introduced to a world that has no idea it exists, as So takes a place alongside the great American songwriters. The music is bold, sensual and mesmerizing; by all means, experience it, and of course keep a sharp eye on your woman.

Purchase Tickets for AN INTIMATE EVENING WITH SO BROWN

A young boy learns that he has extraordinary powers and is not of this Earth. As a young man, he journeys to discover where he came from and what he was sent here to do. But the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind.

The Dust Bowl comes to life on the big screen at this special screening of the 1928 silent film The Wind, based on the novel of the same name by Dorothy Scarborough. The book, originally published anonymously, created an uproar in West Texas where community leaders resented the bleak depiction of their region and insisted the author must never have visited the area.

Decide for yourself if the movie is a truthful portrait of West Texas life.

The film will be accompanied by an original score written and performed live by The Invincible Czars. The band's dramatic soundtrack matches the stark portrayal of west Texas and is performed by a stripped-down line-up -- a four piece of only flute/clarinet, violin, electric bass and acoustic guitar with looping technology. The band incorporates several other auxiliary instruments --- most notably a homemade 1930s radio era wind sound-effect generator constructed by bass player (and Fairhope's own) Hen3ry Q Vines!

Purchase Tickets for THE WIND FEATURING A LIVE SCORE BY THE INVINCIBLE CZARS

Uptight FBI special agent Sarah Ashburn is paired with testy Boston cop Shannon Mullins in order to take down a ruthless drug lord. The hitch: neither woman has ever had a partner -- or a friend for that matter.

Please note that we can not accept passes, including kickstart tickets, during the first week of this film’s 2 week run. Thank you for your understanding.

The Sapphires is set in the heady days of the late '60s when four young, talented singers from a remote Aboriginal mission, are discovered by an unlikely talent scout. Plucked from obscurity and branded as Australia's answer to The Supremes, The Sapphires grasp the chance of a lifetime when they're offered their first real gig - entertaining the troops in Vietnam. For the girls, a whole new world of friendship, love, war and soul opens before them.
The Sapphires is an adaptation of the hugely successful Australian stage musical of the same name, and is inspired by the remarkable true story of writer Tony Briggs' mother and her family. It stars AFI Award winner Deborah Mailman and Australian singer Jessica Mauboy alongside Bridesmaids actor Chris O'Dowd, and features an unbeatable soul music soundtrack. Destined to be a smash Australian hit, The Sapphires boasts a great story full of love, laughter and tears, set against the backdrop of the social upheaval of the 1960s, with wonderful performances from the entire cast.

FB: http://www.facebook.com/TheSapphires
OFFICIAL SITE: http://thesapphires-movie.com/

Purchase Tickets for THE SAPPHIRES

Friends of the Crescent Theater

By donating $20 or more, you can become a friend today. As a member, you will be eligible for special events available only to Friends of the Crescent Theater.

Support Levels

Cinephile : $20 yearly Silver Screen Circle : $100 yearly Director's Circle : $500 yearly