Readers' Choice:
Heart of America Shakespeare Festival
Seeing a movie isn't cheap. At least not in theaters. At the Kemper Museum, though, seeing a movie is free -- not to mention classy. For the Kemper's Sunday Cinema Series, host Michael Fabrizio selects a few films that fit a certain category, then screens them on a handful of consecutive Sundays. From the winter's series on the 1960s (which included both the Beatles documentary I Wanna Hold Your Hand and the Mick Jagger movie Performance) to the spring animation festival (which included work by such groundbreaking animators as the Quay brothers) to Ooh la la! Sexy French Films (featuring Krzystof Kieslowski Trois Couleurs trilogy), both the themes and Fabrizio's selections are truly engaging. The most popular offering so far may be the annual Silent Cinema Series, for which local musicians in the Terrestrial Consort play live soundtracks. You rarely get that kind of pampering even when you pay for a ticket at the movies, let alone when you just happen to stumble into the museum on a Sunday. And Fabrizio's prefilm commentary is insightful and to the point. His enthusiasm and love for the movies are contagious.
