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, official film links and reviews.
A good time for action based new releases with the thriller Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (12A), the violent and moving 12 Years a Slave (15), and a clash of monsters with I, Frankenstein (12A). An equally good time for the return of old favorites with Saving Mr Banks, Philomena and Turbo all making a re-appearance.
Must see films still being shown are The Wolf of Wall Street and The Railway Man.
For an alternative to the more mainstream movies, there remains a good selection of high culture with The Royal Opera House: Giselle, Globe: The Taming of the Shrew and NT Live: Coriolanus. Also the excellent Gothic Season continues at the Dukes with Jean Cocteau’s classic La Belle et la Bete.
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.
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
Director: Adam McKay
Certificate: 15
Cast includes: Adam McKay, Paul Rudd, Kristen Wiig, Christina Applegate, Steve Carell, Will Ferrell
San Diego’s newsman Ron Burgundy returns for the sequel to
the original 2004 Anchorman film. The film is set in the 80s at the GNN
24 hour news network. We find Rob little changed; egomanical, blunt
and as idiosyncratic as ever and the action again has a strong element
of the surreal. The film has a few cringe worthy moments but is a real
‘laugh out loud’ comedy that is a worthy successor to the original
movie.
Devil’s Due
Director: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin , Tyler Gillett
Certificate: 15
Cast includes: Allison Miller, Zach Gilford
Newly-weds
Allison Miller and Zach Gilford return from their honeymoon having
conceived a baby rather earlier than they had planned. The husband
decides to record the pregnancy for posterity, but finds his wife
showing rather odd behaviour. With time her behaviour becomes more
extreme and there are suggestions that their baby has a sinister origin
as a mysterious cult takes an interest in its welfare. This is a horror
film in the tradition of Rosemary’s Baby and whilst it does not break
new ground with regards to plot, it merits a trip to the cinema.
Free Birds
Director: Jimmy Hayward
Certificate: U
Cast includes: Owen Wilson, Keith David, Colm Meaney, Woody Harrelson, Amy Poehler, Dan Fogler
Two turkeys, Reggie and Jake, use a time machine to attend
the first Thanksgiving meal in an attempt to get turkey removed from
subsequent thanks-giving diners. Reggie is from a free-range turkey farm
and he realises the reason why turkeys are being fattened. It is Jake
who has the vision of commandeering the time machine in an attempt to
change history. The film has some romantic interest with Reggie falling
for Jenny, a turkey he meets during the adventure. In all the plot of
this animation seems a little over complicated and the film contains
some rude humour that may not be appropriate for the very young. In all
an entertaining movie but one that is not destined to become a classic.
Frozen
Director: Chris Buck
Certificate PG
Cast Includes Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Josh Gad,Alan Tudyk, Jonathan Groff
This Disney musical animation is loosely based on the fairy
tale ‘The Snow Queen’ for it is she who has condemned a kingdom to
eternal winter. It is up to Anna (sister to the snow queen) and a loner
Kristoff to undertake an epic journey to find the Snow Queen and
convince her to lift the icy spell. This is a magical movie destined to
become a classic. It will appeal to families and children of all ages
and makes an movie for Christmas.
I, Frankenstein
Director: Stuart Beattie
Category: 12A
Cast Includes: Aaron Eckhart, Yvonne Strahovski, Bill Nighy, Miranda Otto
The Frankenstein monster (Aaron Eckhart) has survived to the
present day where he find himself the hero as he battles against
daemons and gargoyles who quest after the secret of immortality. A
rather lightweight movie owing little to Mary Shelly. However if you
want to see lots of computer generated monsters battling each other in a
quest to defeat humanity, this is the movie for you.
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. Philomena (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.
Saving Mr. Banks
Director: John Lee Hancock
Certificate PG
Cast Includes Emma Thompson, Bradley Whitford, Colin Farrell, Tom Hanks
A film exploring the tribulations as Walt Disney battled to make the
musical ‘Mary Poppins’. Disney promised his daughters that he would
make a film of the book, but the author, Mrs Travers, proves to be
difficult to work with and have very fixed ideas regarding the
interpretation of her work. She hated the sentimentalization and the
use of animation. She only gave grudging approval as she needed the
money. This film is more sentimental than accurate, and includes
numerous flashbacks regarding Traver’s rather troubled life. Acting is
great and the friction between Mrs Travers (Emma Thompson) and Walt
Disney (Tom Hanks) makes for compelling viewing.
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Director: Peter Jackson
Certificate: 12A
Cast includes: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Evangeline Lilly, Richard Armitage
In this second installment of the Hobbit. We find Bilbo
Baggins and his group of comrades continuing in their journey to the
Lonely Mountain in order to extract gold from the dragon Smaug whist
being pursued by an army of Orcs. This film is a splendid action
adventure, more so than the first of the trilogy. It is imaginative,
with plenty of special effects and a block buster feel about it.
However it again puts action above developing the characters of the
protagonists. A great Christmas movie that will leave you anticipating
the concluding film in the trilogy.
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 Wolf of Wall Street
Director: Martin Scorsese
Certificate: 18
Cast includes: Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, Jonah Hill, Kyle Chandler
The story of New York stockbroker Jordan Belfort (Di Caprio)
who rose from penny stocks to a life of affluence and corruption as he
founded the brokerage firm Stratton Oakmont. His life of drugs, sex and
ruthless achievement led to his title of Wolf of Wall Street. Scorsese
had produced a hard hitting and fast moving film and Di Caprio’s acting
rises to the challenge of portraying Belfort. However after building
up Belfort as a monster the film seems to say little about about the
morality of this sort of life and thus ultimately does not come to any
satisfactory resolution. Hence the movie seemed to lacked any real
depth.
Turbo
Director: David Soren
Certificate: U
Cast Includes: Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Peña
A DreamWorks animation in which Turbo is a snail obsessed with
racing cars who dreams of competing in the Indianapolis 500 race. His
hopes start to look more realistic when an accident with a car engine
provides him with a magical turn of speed. The animation is expertly
done. The snails have cute believable personalities and the whole has a
real ‘feelgood’ factor of an underdog following his dreams. The film
follows the DreamWorks hit animation ‘The Croods’ and whilst it is
extremely enjoyable, it lacks twists and subplots that make for a really
memorable movie.