Woody Allen’s “Irrational Man” opens Aug. 7 at UNL’s Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center. “The Stanford Prison Experiment” continues through Aug. 13.
“Irrational Man,” which shows through Aug. 20, is about a tormented philosophy professor who finds a will to live when he commits an existential act. Philosophy professor Abe Lucas, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is at rock bottom emotionally, unable to find any meaning or joy in life. Abe feels that everything he’s tried to do, from political activism to teaching, hasn’t made any difference. Soon after arriving to teach at a small town college, Abe gets involved with two women: Rita Richards, a lonely professor who wants him to rescue her from her unhappy marriage, and Jill Pollard, his best student, who becomes his closest friend.
While Jill loves her boyfriend Roy, she finds Abe’s tortured, artistic personality and exotic past irresistible. Even as Abe displays signs of mental imbalance, Jill’s fascination with him only grows. Still, when she tries to make their relationship a romantic one, he rebuffs her. Pure chance changes everything when Abe and Jill overhear a stranger’s conversation and become drawn in. Once Abe makes a profound choice, he is able to embrace life to the fullest again. But his decision sets off a chain of events that will affect him, Jill and Rita forever.
“The Stanford Prison Experiment” features Billy Crudup as Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford University professor who cast 24 student volunteers as prisoners and guards in a simulated jail. The study, completed in 1971, was designed to examine the source of abusive behavior in the prison system.
Results of the study were astonishing as, within just a few days, participants went from middle-class undergraduates to drunk-with-power sadists and submissive victims.
The film, created with the help of Zimbardo, won two awards at the Sundance Film Festival, including best screenplay.
Both films are rated “R” by the Motion Picture Association of America.
Show times are available online or by calling 402-472-5353.
