For up to date local cinema links and day-by-day listings every week visit the Virtual-Lancaster Cinema Page. Read on for the weekly round-up, and reviews.
A great deal of churn this period with a good helping of new releases.
Latest comedy releases include Muppets Most Wanted (U); A Long Way Down (15) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (15). Drama is represented with Labor Day (12A), Starred Up (18) and the action movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier (12A). Finally we have music with the release of Elton John: The Million Dollar Piano (12A).
We have lost the films Frozen; Mr. Peabody & Sherman and The Wolf on Wall Street. However a couple of fine movies have returned with further chances to see Philomena, The Railway Man and Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters.
For high culture there is The Royal Opera House: The Sleeping Beauty and NT Encore: War Horse. Finally for an alternative to the mainstream, try the excellent road movie Nebraska
Reviews
12 Years a Slave
Director: Steve McQueen
Category: 15
Cast Includes: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, Sarah Paulson, Michael Fassbender
Set in the 1800s, New York black man Solomon Northup (Chiwetel
Ejiofor) is drugged, kidnapped and sold as a slave to a New Orleans
Plantation. Here he works for slave-master Epps (Michael Fassbender)
who is a sadist, dishing out sexual abuse. The film is based on an 1853
memoir by Solomon Northup, the script being co-written by Steve McQueen
and John Ridley. This is one of the finest films about American
Slavery. It is very visceral, with Northup trying to maintain dignity
amidst the atmosphere of violence of the movie. Very well shot and
splendidly acted, this is the must see film for 2014.
300: Rise of an Empire
Director: Noam Murro
Certificate: 15
Cast includes: Sullivan Stapleton, Eva Green, Lena Headey, Rodrigo Santoro
The film is based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel ‘Xerxes’ and the
action adopts the visual style of the 2007 prequel ‘300’. The Persian
forces led by Xerxes (Santoro) and Artemisia (Green) are opposed by the
Greek General Themistokles (Stapleton). The film centres on a sea
battle. The story is rather predictable, but there is plenty of blood,
violence and CGI effects to keep the interest. If you liked the
original you will enjoy this movie
Gravity
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Certificate: 12A
Cast Includes: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney
Ryan Stone (Bullock) a medical engineer and seasoned astronaut Matt
Kowalsky (Clooney) are on a shuttle mission to repair the Hubble
Telescope. However during a routine space walk, disaster strikes as the
shuttle is destroyed by impact from space debris and Stone tumbles free
in space. The film follows Stone’s plight as she battles to survive.
Bullock gives a superlative performance in this spectacularly shot
movie. However the interest of the film is not the impressive special
effects but rather the exploration of human frailty in adversity.
Muppets Most Wanted
Director: James Bobin
Certificate: U
Cast includes: Ricky Gervais, Ty Burrell, Tina Fey, Eric Jacobson, Steve Whitmire
A long awaited sequel to ‘The Muppets’ in which the entire Muppet
cast undertake a sell out world tour. However Constantine (a Kermit
lookalike and major criminal) and his right hand man Dominic (Gervais)
involve the Muppets in an international crime heist. The film is an
upbeat Disney musical comedy that will appeal to all ages and generates
plenty of laughs. An excellent film.
Non-Stop
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Certificate: 12A
Cast includes: Liam Neeson, Nate Parker, Julianne Moore
Bill Marks (Neeson), an alcoholic and chain smoking air marshall on a
flight from New York to London, receives a series of text messages
demanding he get the government to transfer a large sum of cash to an
offshore account else a passenger will be killed every twenty minutes.
Yet the offshore account is in Mark’s own name, making him the prime
suspect. This is an excellent and enjoyable suspense drama, complete
with air turbulence, scared stewardesses and the inevitable deaths on
the airplane.
Philomena
Director: Stephen Frears
Certificate: 12A
Cast includes: Judi Dench, Steve Coogan
A quaint and charming film based on the book ‘The Lost Child
of Philomena Lee’ by Martin Sixsmith. Philomean (Dench) plays an Irish
woman who had her baby taken from her for adoption in the USA whilst
she was forced to live in a convent after becoming pregnant out of
wedlock. Much later in life she enlists the help of Sixsmith to try to
discover the whereabouts of her lost son. Coogan produced the film and
co-wrote the screenplay. He plays Sixsmith, the journalist who has
fallen out of favour. Both Dench and Coogan give superb performances in
this funny and heartwarming if a little sentimental film. Well worth
seeing.
Ride Along
Director: Tim Story
Certificate: 12A
Cast includes: Ice Cube, Bruce McGill, Kevin Hart, John Leguizamo, Tika Sumpter
Ben (Hart) is a security guard who wants to marry his sweetheart
Angela (Sumpter). Yet to do so he must convince Angela’s brother James
(Cube), a cop in Atlanta that he is worthy. Hence Ben gets to spend a
day riding along on the brothers shift whilst James is trying to catch a
notorious criminal. The plot is not very convincing, but that is no
great distraction from the film which is a really a buddy cop movie
giving Hart the situations for his stand up humour. This is a fun
movie, enjoyable and entertaining which benefits from not taking itself
too seriously.
The Book Thief
Director: Brian Percival
Certificate: 12A
Cast includes: Sophie Nelisse, Geoffrey Rush, Roger Allam, Emily Watson
The film is based in World War II Germany and tells the story of
Liesel (Nelisse) a young girl sent to live with a foster family after
family problems. She copes by stealing books to read and this enables
her to become close with her foster father and with Max, a Jewish boy
hiding in their basement. The film does not make any comments on the
horrors of Nazi Germany, it simply provides a backdrop for what is
essentially a love story, and during the film we have Death providing
the narration. The acting is acceptable but the characters are not
totally believable.
The Dallas Buyers Club
Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
Certificate: 15
Cast includes: Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Garner, Griffin Dunne, Jared Leto
The movie is set in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Texan
electrician and part-time cowboy Ron Woodroof (McConaughey) is diagnosed
as HIV positive and given 30 days to live. Ron finds there is no
approved treatment for his condition and such is the hysteria over this
disease he is ostracized by many in his circle of friends. He joins
forces with a number of outcasts for form a buyers club in 1985 and
undertakes a world wide search of unorthodox treatments for this
condition. Potentially this could have been a depressing movie, but
superb acting by McConaughey makes this an excellent film looking at the
bigotry of this period. A strong film that must be seen.
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Director: Wes Anderson
Certificate: 15
Cast includes: Saoirse Ronan, Ralph Fiennes, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Tony Revolori
An idiosyncratic movie telling the adventures of Gustav (Fiennes)
the concierge at the Budapest hotel and his friend Zero Moustafa
(Revolori). The film is full of madcap characters and is filmed in the
classic Anderson style. Set in Europe between the wars, the film tells
the story of the theft of a Renaissance painting and disputes over
fortunes. The movie has a star-studded cast and much of the plot of
interlocking stories is told in flashbacks. A fine comedy making this a
must see movie.
The Railway Man
Director: Jonathan Teplitzky
Certificate: 15
Cast: Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth
The story of Army Officer Eric Lomax (Colin Firth), this film is
based on Lomax’s memoir. Lomax was a POW during world war II, tortured
and brutalized whilst was forced to work on the Burma Railway. The film,
set in 1980, tells of his meeting, courtship and subsequent marriage to
Patti (Nicole Kidman). The background of Lomax is shown in flashbacks
as Patti herself learns of his history from one of her husbands fellow
POWs. Patti encourages Lomax to face his demons and return to the place
of torture. Here he discovers an old Takashi Negase, who was one of
his torturers. The acting of Kidman and Firth is excellent and the
flashbacks of Lomax’s experience as a POW are strong and harrowing.
However the end of the film does not quite live up to the tension built
up during the movie.
The Stag
Director: John Butler
Certificate: 15
Cast includes: Andrew Scott, Michael Legge, Peter McDonald, Brian Boru Gleeson, Hugh O’Conor, Amy Huberman
Fionan (O’Conor) is due to marry Ruth (Huberman). He does not want a
stag night but Ruth gets the best man Davin (Scott) to arrange a stag
weekend with groom and assorted friends as they hike in Ireland. This
is an inoffensive British comedy that comes up with a good selection of
wacky situations, male bonding and predictable nudity. A run of the
mill film that generates some laughs.