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Slumdog Millionaire
2008; 120mins; Cert 15 |
Tuesday 1st September Evening showing, 19:30 Sponsored by:
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| Director:
Danny Boyle Starring: Dev Patel An 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's "Kaun Banega Crorepati?" (Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?) But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show's questions. Each chapter of Jamal's increasingly layered story reveals where he learned the answers to the show's seemingly impossible quizzes. But one question remains a mystery: what is this young man with no apparent desire for riches really doing on the game show? When the new day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about to find out. At the heart of its storytelling lies the question of how anyone comes to know the things they know about life and love. (from imdb). A dystopian by nature, whose films regularly move in the direction of entropic chaos, Boyle resists the natural tug of Slumdog Millionaire toward happily-ever-after territory, counterbalancing each of Jamal's triumphs with equal or greater episodes of personal loss and steadfastly refusing the age-old movie wisdom that love conquers all (especially money). Yet it's that very tension between gritty, street-level reality and fairy-tale invention that ultimately makes Slumdog Millionaire feel even more buoyant and life-affirming. Like so many of the Bollywood melodramas it stylistically apes, Boyle's film is unapologetically pop, even as Boyle himself seems to be at once inside and outside the idiom, embracing it while winking slyly at our collective need for escapist fantasy. Then, just when you figure he has pulled out all the stops, Boyle proves to have one more trick left up his sleeve: a joyous musical number that sends everybody out of the theatre feeling like a winner. (The Village Voice New York) |
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Man On Wire
2008; 94mins; Cert 12 |
Saturday 26th September,
19.30
+£2 for food; bring your own drink.
Sponsored by: |
| Director:
James Marsh Before the acrobats of Parkour and the gonzo activists of free-running, before the situationist-anarchists of skateboarding in California's Dogtown, who covertly drained suburban swimming-pools to ride their sky-blue curves, there was Philippe Petit. This was the 24-year-old French highwire artiste who loved to trespass on famous high buildings and ply his marvellous trade, stringing cables between spires and ledges and masts and walking across without a net. On August 7 1974, he achieved his masterpiece: walking across the towers of the World Trade Centre in downtown New York as a stunned crowd gathered below. He and his crew had had to creep up both structures in twin teams, and then attach the wire by literally firing across the initial guiding rope from one tower to the other with a bow and arrow. It was the epat to end all epats : a sensational piece of victimless criminal daring which required enormous cunning and discipline, not merely in the extraordinary act itself - Petit impishly danced back and forth across the wire over and over again while fuming cops raged near the ledge - but in the preparation and the skulduggery involved smuggling in the gear and disguised personnel, as if for a bank job. James Marsh's documentary about this sublime piece of audacity does full justice to Petit's vision, using interviews with the man himself and his crew, and using photos from the time, and dramatised reconstructions - there is evidently no home-movie record and no television footage, as this was before the age of rolling coverage and rapid-response news 'copters. (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian) It had taken six years of work and planning to get to that moment, and Philippe Petit never wanted it to end. His greatest dream, unbelievably, had come true. He was 24 years old. He finally surrendered to the police. In the film he remembers that the only moment he actually feared for his safety was when he was being hustled down the WTC stairs. Back on earth, he was mobbed by reporters, all with the same question: why? "There is no why, " he said. "When I see three oranges, I juggle; when I see two towers, I walk." Like many in the theatre, I was crying at this point. It was all so senselessly brave and beautiful. And, of course, there was another reason: although it's never mentioned in the film, you are constantly reminded — especially as you watch Petit and his accomplices plan their audacious but benevolent "crime" — that the World Trade Center towers no longer exist. (Michael Beirut) |
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In Bruges
2008; 107mins; Cert 18
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Evening showing, 19:30 Sponsored by:
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Martin McDonagh Starring: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes Playwright Martin McDonagh, author of The Lieutenant of Inishmore, makes his feature debut as writer-director with In Bruges, a stylish, funny, exciting thriller in a tradition of tales about professional assassins that goes back through Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994) and Pinter's The Dumb Waiter (1957) to Hemingway's The Killers (1927). It centres on two Irish hitmen, the edgy young novice Ray (Colin Farrell) and the reflective, more experienced Ken (Brendan Gleeson). They've been sent by their London boss, Harry (Ralph Fiennes), to await their next assignment in the quiet, beautiful, medieval, Belgian town of Bruges. McDonagh's plotting is fiendishly clever, his dialogue crashes in on us like a tide throwing nails ashore with each wave and his black humour is laced with serious moral issues. Farrell, his eyebrows constantly wrinkling like a pair of leeches limbering up for a fight, Gleeson, the ultimate principled hitman, and Fiennes, the family man as sadistic killer, have rarely been better. The violence is extreme, the blood flows as thick and dark as the city's canals and the picture could well have been called 'Brügge Mortis'. My favourite joke is Farrell's remark about the nature of Purgatory while looking at Hieronymus Bosch's The Last Judgement: 'It's when you're not really bad and not really good - like Tottenham.' (Philip French, The Observer). ‘Bruges is the best preserved medieval town in Belgium,’ reads Brendan Gleeson’s impressed Ken. ‘It’s a f**king sh**hole!’ fires back his new, younger room-sharer and fellow hitman-on-the-run Ray (Colin Farrell). Thus begins the running joke of Martin McDonagh’s clever, savvy and enjoyable revamp of the odd-couple/gangster caper. (Time Out) In Bruges is a quirky, black comedy, that appears to have come out of nowhere to win big awards and plaudits. The film was nominated for the best screenplay Oscar, won Colin Farrell a best actor golden globe, and writer/director McDonagh best screenplay at the 2009 Baftas. The setting is what makes the story and the oddball characters all the more absurd. Lying low after a botched job, hitmen Ken and Ray are sent to Bruges to await further orders from the boss man Harry. There they encounter an array of colourful characters including a beautiful drug dealer (Clemence Posey), a racist dwarf (Jordan Prentice) and an assortment of irksome tourists. The In Bruges dialogue is always sharp and dry witted, revealing a relationship between the two leads that is part sarcasm, part genuine affection. And although the strange encounters along the way appear random at first, McDonagh's clever script ties all the loose ends together in a stunning final denouement. (Michelle Strozykowski) |
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The Reader
2008; 124mins; Cert 15
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Tuesday 3rd November Evening showing, 19:30 Sponsored by:
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| Director:
Stephen Daldry Based on book by Bernard Schlink Starring: Kate Winslet, David Kross, Ralph Fiennes In post-WWII Germany, teenager Michael Berg falls ill and is helped home by Hanna, a stranger twice his age. When he recovers, Michael finds Hanna to thank her. She loves being read to and they enter a passionate, secretive affair, but one day she disappears. Eight years later, Michael is stunned to find her again as a defendant in Nazi war crime trials. The Reader is an exemplary piece of filmmaking, superbly acted by Kate Winslet, David Kross and Ralph Fiennes, beautifully lit by two of Britain's finest cinematographers (Roger Deakins and Chris Menges) and sensitively directed by Stephen Daldry from a screenplay by David Hare. In certain ways they sharpen Bernard Schlink's bestselling German novel of 1995 which deals with Nazi concentration camps and the Holocaust. (Philp French, The Observer) more... The Reader is a look at the emotional
and psychological damage done to a generation who, in the 1960s, woke
up to the war crimes of their parents. (The Germans even have a
therapeutic-sounding term for this struggle to come to terms with the
past: Vergangenheitsbewältigung.) The film poses the question: how do
we react to those we love when we discover their dirty secrets? That
is the question that haunts the lawyer Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes),
who had an affair with an attractive older woman, Hanna (Winslet),
when he was a 15-year-old schoolboy. (Cosmo Landesman, The Sunday
Times)
more... |
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Bolt
2008; 96mins; Cert PG
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Thursday 26th November Leven Valley School Evening showing, 18:30
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Bryan Howard, Chris Williams Bolt, an American White Shepherd, has lived his whole life on the set of his action TV show, where he believes he has superpowers. When separated from the studio by accident, he meets a female alley cat named Mittens and a hamster named Rhino. Along the way, he learns that he doesn't have superpowers and that the show is not real...
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Grow Your Own
2007; 101mins; Cert PG
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Tuesday 1st December Evening showing, 19:30 Sponsored by: Brenda and Lawrence
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| Director:
Richard Laxton Starring: Benedict Wong, Eddie Marson
Political refugees are given allotments as
part of a scheme to help them fit into the local community. Reaction
is mixed amongst the allotment holders of Blacktree Road, ruled with a
rod of iron by committee chairman and ex-cop Big John, who bullies his
son, known as Little John. Mobile phone company employees Carla, a
go-getting bitch, and her dim young assistant, Mike, arrive at the
allotments, offering five grand for one of the plots to make way for a
phone mast. It is obvious that the sacrifice will be made by one of
the new-comers. John is not keen for it to be Iranian Ali, because he
is a qualified doctor, who gives free advice. However, Ali and his
family are arrested as unsuccessful asylum seekers and John turns his
attention to the plot given to Kung Sang, a traumatised oriental whose
young children tend to communicate on his behalf. John's bullying
treatment of his son over the latter's interest in African Miriam, and
his strict adherence to the rules - including the introduction of a
secret ballot - start to alienate some of the other gardeners,
especially ageing free spirit Kenny and his friends. This intensifies
in the knowledge that Big John has excluded all the other committee
members in his greedy dealings with Carla and coincides with Kung
Sang's acceptance by the group as he makes them all a soup from his
freshly-grown squashes. Ultimately Big John will regret the use of the
secret ballot, as a little international harmony comes to Blacktree
Road, along with a new chairman. (From
Internet Movie Database) |
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Let the Right One In
2008; 115mins; Cert 15
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Saturday 12th December,
19.30
Sponsored by: |
| Director:
Tomas Alfredson Based on the book by: John Ajvide Lindqvist Starring: Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson One of the great films of the year, infinitely superior to Twilight, a blast of wintery magic about a 12 year old vampire and a snow-blown Swedish housing estate that has become her happy hunting ground" Xan Brooks (Guardian) see video clip. It’s all too rare to stumble on to something genuinely original. And it’s even more unexpected for that film to be a vampire movie, a genre that has been explored and exploited in every conceivable shape and form. But Let the Right One In, a deliciously macabre story of a tentative romance between a bullied 12-year-old boy and the strange girl who moves in next door, is pure magic. It’s safe to say that the film, set in the early Eighties in a sterile suburb of Stockholm, is unlike pretty much any other vampire film you might have seen before. The director Tomas Alfredson pays far more attention to the awkward friendship between these two outsider kids than he does to the film’s more gruesome elements. At nearly two hours in length and paced with the meticulous deliberateness of a killer stalking his prey, the film certainly doesn’t share many structural similarities with a classic horror flick. Alfredson allows us the breathing space to appreciate the purity and beauty of a dusting of frost on a branch; he frames his violence in austere wide shots. It’s witty, too — Alfredson relishes the bizarre juxtaposition of the violence of a vampire’s existence with the drone of normal life in this snowbound concrete backwater. (Wendy Ide, Times Online) more.... Oskar is bullied and is hoping for a friend when Eli, also 12, moves in next door. A pale, serious girl, she only comes out at night, she can't stand the sun or food and to come into a room she needs to be invited. Eli gives Oskar the strength to hit back but when he realizes that Eli needs to drink other people's blood to live he's faced with a choice. How much can love forgive? Let The Right One In is a story both violent and highly romantic, set in the Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg in 1982. Some movies, while never quite attaining masterpiece status, nonetheless have a monumental WTF-factor. This is one such: a vampire horror-thriller from freezing-cold Sweden, trebling up unwholesomely as a teen love-story and a bully-victim revenge fantasy. The director is Tomas Alfredson, and the screenplay is by John Ajvide Lindqvist, adapted from Lindqvist's own novel. The resulting grisly nightmare is much closer to Abel Ferrara than Stephenie Meyer, although there may be a tiny debt to JK Rowling in there somewhere. Let the Right One In is thoroughly macabre, maintaining a downbeat, realist lugubrious air, like a cop procedural - but there's no point waiting for Kenneth Branagh's careworn Wallander to come trudging through the snow to save the day. (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian) more...
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Tinners'
Rabbit Picture Framing
