Jeff Bridges is Bad Blake in Crazy Heart, a role for which he finally won the best actor Oscar.
These days cinema–goers know Theatr Mwldan as the place to see the latest blockbuster and 3D films, from Avatar, to Harry Potter to Shrek.
But at the core of Theatr Mwldan’s development as an Independent Cinema over the last 15 – 20 years has been a varied programme of less commercial films and today Theatr Mwldan is one of the leading Welsh exhibitors of cultural and art-house cinema.
These films, which the UK Film Council classifies as ‘Specialised Film’, offer audiences a different experience. It is Theatr Mwldan’s specialism in screening this type of film that has enabled the venue to access United Kingdom Film Council funding for a digital projector. This, in turn, has meant that Mwldan is now able to screen more cultural film, as well as introduce live broadcast events from the Met Opera and the National Theatre – not forgetting 3D films – to boot.
This is a great week to enjoy the range of films that Mwldan has to offer.
From Tuesday, April 27, you can catch The Last Station (15), directed and written by Michael Hoffman and starring Helen Mirren, Christopher Plummer and James McEvoy. After almost 50 years of marriage and 13 children, the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy has renounced his noble title, his property and even his family in favor of poverty, vegetarianism and celibacy. His wife, Countess Sofya, afraid that he has written her out of his will, uses every bit of her cunning and every trick of seduction to fight for what she believes is rightfully hers. Examining the tug-of-war between idealism and pragmatism, fame and privacy, the nobility of the soul and the delights of the flesh, this handsome, engrossing, frequently very funny and ultimately deeply moving film is illuminated by pitch-perfect performances from a stellar cast.
There is a chance to see Colin Firth’s BAFTA winning performance in A Single Man (12A) from Tuesday, April 27. Based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Isherwood and set in Los Angeles in 1962 at the height of the Cuban missile crisis, it is the story of a British college professor (Colin Firth) who is struggling to find meaning to his life after the death of his long time partner. The story is a romantic tale of love interrupted, the isolation that is an inherent part of the human condition, and ultimately the importance of the seemingly smaller moments in life.
Carey Mulligan gave one of the best performances of the year in An Education – from Friday, May 30, which Theatr Mwldan first screened during January’s Film Festival. In the post-war, pre-Beatles London suburbs, a bright schoolgirl is torn between studying for a place at Oxford and the more exciting alternative offered to her by a charismatic older man. Mulligan’s Bafta winning performance is unmissable.
Four-time Academy Award nominee Jeff Bridges stars as the richly comic, semi-tragic romantic anti-hero Bad Blake in Crazy Heart – from Sunday, May 2 – finally winning the Oscar for Best Actor. Bad Blake is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who’s had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician. As he struggles down the road of redemption, Bad learns the hard way just how tough life can be on one man’s crazy heart.
And if you want to try something a little bit different, don’t forget that there’s a live screening of The Metropolitan Opera House’s new production of Armida starring Renee Fleming, on Saturday, May 1 from 6pm.
To book tickets and for further information visit www.mwldan.co.uk or call the Box Office on 01239 621200.
