Do people under 50 still go to movie theaters?

Do they shell out for anything but kids' flicks (if they have kids) and 3-D superhero spectacles? Is the pull of Netflix and the laptop just too strong?

Do younger people stay home because TV does "adult drama" better than movies these days? (If theater owners could show next Sunday's "Breaking Bad" finale on their big screens, I'd be there in a heartbeat and buy a huge popcorn.)

Or is the problem that, since it's all digital now, people don't want to pay $10 to watch a bigger version of their TV screen?

Maybe it's one of those factors, or all of them, or none of them, that makes it hard to run an art-house these days. But those were the questions running through my mind as I read the latest grim press release from the Savoy Theater in Montpelier, titled "Drastic Cuts at the Savoy Theater."

Read it for yourself:

This week in movies you missed: That one where Sean Penn looks exactly like Robert Smith of the Cure.

What You Missed

Cheyenne (Penn) is a middle-aged rock star living in Dublin with his firefighter wife (Frances McDormand). He's still famous enough that MTV begs him to appear at the Video Music Awards, but he hasn't played since a couple of teens were inspired by his music to commit suicide.

When he hears his estranged father is on his deathbed, Cheyenne returns home to New York. His dad is dead, but one of his cronies, an elderly Nazi hunter (Judd Hirsch), gives Cheyenne a mission: Hunt down the extremely elderly Nazi who tortured his dad at Auschwitz.

This week in movies you missed: a visit to China, where two citizen journalists sneak over the "Great Firewall" to offer alternatives to government-sanctioned news.

What You Missed

When 27-year-old blogger "Zola" (real name: Zhou Shuguang) hears about a government cover-up, he's on the case. To mock the official story about a young girl's death — rumor is, she was murdered — he makes a viral video of himself on the bridge from which she supposedly leapt. Some call it insensitive, but Zola gets hits.

Far away in Beijing, 57-year-old "Tiger Temple" (real name: Zhang Shihe) is on his own crusade. He's helped the city's homeless find housing and biked more than 1000 kilometers to shoot footage of farmland flooded with sewage.

Zhang started his dangerous career as a critic of the government with videos of his kitten — because who would censor a talking cat? But now his blogging is starting to attract real attention.

This week in movies you missed: a mostly faithful version of Jim Thompson's pulp classic about a sociopath hiding in plain sight.

What You Missed

Everybody in the Texas town of Central City likes Lou Ford (Casey Affleck). He's such a nice, clean-cut, soft-spoken young man — a sheriff's deputy who doesn't even carry a gun. Sure, he's not the sharpest tool in the shed, and his corny remarks get on your nerves, but he's a good guy.

They don't know that Lou Ford has a pretty kinky thing going on with the prostitute (Jessica Alba) who lives on the edge of town. They don't know his slowness is an act. They don't see him letting off steam by putting out his cigar in a bum's palm.

They don't know that Lou Ford has a plan to avenge himself on an old enemy (Ned Beatty) that happens to entail a vicious, cold-blooded double murder. And then another murder, and another.

This week in movies you missed: Catch up with a British TV documentary series that has spanned almost a half century — and think about your own mortality.

What You Missed

In 1964, Granada Television ran a documentary profiling 14 British kids from various regions and social classes. The announcer intoned, "Why do we bring these children together? Because we want to get a glimpse of England in the year 2000. The shop steward and the executive of the year 2000 are now seven years old."

Well, it's 2013, and those "children" are nearing 60. Every seven years, the documentary crew (helmed since the second film by Michael Apted) has returned to check in on them, producing a one-of-a-kind record of how people evolve, or don't, as they pass through their lives.

For instance, the viewers have watched Neil Hughes transformed from a lively, imaginative kid to a college drop-out to a homeless man to a local politician. His schoolmate, Peter Davies (pictured), followed a more consistent path as a schoolteacher and lawyer — but he also has a late-in-life musical career.

This week in movies you missed: Writer-director Brandon Cronenberg, son of David, demonstrates the apple doesn't fall far from the tree with this high-concept science-fiction indie.

What You Missed

Imagine if celebrity culture really got out of control, and you have the world of Antiviral. Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones) works at the tony Lucas Clinic, where ordinary people come to have themselves injected with celebrity diseases. Do you worship Beyoncé? Now you can suffer through a flu virus taken straight from her body! And pay for the privilege!

Actually, all the celebrities featured in the film are fictional. The clinic has an exclusive arrangement with blonde bombshell Hannah Geist (Sarah Gadon), who is so idolized that consumers also clamor for steaks grown from her muscle cells. (And, yes, they eat them. The film's celebrity butcher shop is worth seeing.)

Syd himself is addicted to the viruses of the famous, shooting them up before the general public gets a chance. But when he goes to collect a new bug from Hannah, he gets more than he bargained for. This one is killing her.

This week in movies you missed: Meet the real-life demonologist Vera Farmiga portrayed in The Conjuring in this documentary about one of the youngest victims of the famous Amityville house (or famous hoax, depending on your perspective).

What You Missed

In 1975, when Daniel Lutz (pictured) was 10, his family moved into a Long Island ocean-front dwelling that they'd purchased at a discount after one of the former inhabitants killed his family of six there. Twenty-eight days later, the Lutzes fled the Amityville house, telling tales of haunting and possession that would spawn a bestselling book, talk-show appearances and a string of cheesy Hollywood films.

This 2012 documentary from Amityville aficionado Eric Walter (who runs this site) is essentially a portrait of Lutz in his late forties. Despite allegations over the years that the "horror" was a hoax, Lutz insists it's all true, and more horrifying than people realize.

Every week I choose still pics from new movies to place on our Showtimes page. Some of those stills are just crying out for creative captions, but, sadly, the studios do not supply them.

You could, though! Check out these images and suggest your own captions in the comment section. The reward for good ones will be ... uh, nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. But, hey, that's also how much snark costs!

P.S. Apologies for the title of this post. I've been watching too much "Breaking Bad" this week.

So, what's new in theaters?

At the top of this post is a still from Jobs, starring, you guessed it, Ashton Kutcher. Your caption?

Personally, I'm going for: "Hey, think anybody will mistake me for Affleck in an Argo sequel and give me an Oscar?" Lame, I know. You can do better.

Since the advent of high-definition broadcasts, Vermonters have been offered a regular diet of lavish productions in real time from New York's Metropolitan Opera, or La Scala in Milan. Then came documentaries, pop concerts and other specialty programs. And then: art exhibits from major museums around the world.

Middlebury's Town Hall Theater has gotten in on the acts by installing HD satellite technology, and in addition to opera broadcasts has already shown a Manet exhibit this year, in April. In October, a Vermeer show from London's National Gallery will arrive.

Today, in two screenings at 11 a.m. and 7 p.m., it's Edvard Munch's turn.

You may know him as the bloodthirsty Sweeney Todd in Stephen Sondheim's musical of the same name. Or that guy Jack Nicholson pounded in About Schmidt. Or, perhaps as Tom Selleck's dad on CBS' popular police procedural "Blue Bloods."

But on August 17, at 7:30 p.m., Len Cariou will play the real-life role of cabaret chanteur at a benefit for the Greensboro Arts Alliance at that town's Mountain View Country Club. A dinner precedes the show at 5:30 p.m.

The veteran singer and actor introduced his show "Musical Memoirs" last November at New York nightclub 54 Below, which specializes in cabaret shows starring well-known Broadway performers.

He'll perform it for the first time since then in the Green Mountains, which he says he last visited to film skiing scenes in Stowe for Alan Alda's 1981 directorial debut, The Four Seasons.

Although the act is a new one, the 73-year-old says that he got his start in show business singing in clubs in his native Winnipeg as a teenager.