Projects
Here's a list of films that are screening with Flicks in the Sticks.
Beautifully framed and shot, this is the best film about the impact of the Holocaust I have ever seen, made without a single image of the concentration camps. August 1945, the war is ending. Two Jews arrive at a remote rural railway station. As the villagers prepare for a big wedding, word spreads like wildfire, sending them into a panic of paranoia and recrimination. The local ‘big man’ in particular is desperate to cover up how he profited from the Jews being deported. Tautly told using the camera rather than too many words, this slowly ratchets up the tension to a stunning, thought-provoking finale that lingers long in the mind.
A fading LA action star (Burt Reynolds) finds himself caught between a rock and a Bard place after being duped into taking a gig as King Lear in Stratford, England. Problem is, this Stratford is not quite upon-Avon, but firmly placed in wet and muddy Suffolk. One-time Miss Moneypenny Samantha Bond is a firm but sweet director determined the play’s the thing in an undemanding comedy chosen for 2008’s Royal Film Performance. Also starring Imelda Staunton and Derek Jacobi.
1947 in a small town in England. The war has been won two years ago, but there's still rationing of meat. When princess Elizabeth is going to marry, a group of businessmen wants to impress (or probably bribe) the local government by giving a big party. They want to slaughter an illegally raised pig for this event. Unfortunately someone steals the pig.
Two parents do what it takes to keep their children safe in a world full of creatures hunting every sound they can hear. Not a sound can be heard from the family hiding in silence, but all it takes is one noise and everything can go wrong.
Seasoned musician Jackson Maine discovers-and falls in love with-struggling artist Ally. She has just about given up on her dream to make it big as a singer, until Jack coaxes her into the spotlight. But even as Ally's career takes off, the personal side of their relationship is breaking down, as Jack fights an ongoing battle with his own internal demons.
A UNITED KINGDOM is a biographical romantic drama about Prince Seretse Khama, later to become the first president of Botswana, who causes a diplomatic stir when he marries a white woman from London in the late 1940s.
All The Wild Horses documents the Mongol Derby horse race, the longest and toughest horse race in the world, and easily the most epic and dangerous, as it leads through 1,000km of Mongolian steppe, desert and mountain ranges.
An epic adventure set in the last Ice Age, ALPHA tells a fascinating, visually stunning story that shines a light on the origins of man's best friend. While on his first hunt with his tribe's most elite group, a young man is injured and must learn to survive alone in the wilderness. Reluctantly taming a lone wolf abandoned by its pack, the pair learn to rely on each other and become unlikely allies, enduring countless dangers and overwhelming odds in order to find their way home before winter arrives.
Marty McFly, a typical American teenager of the Eighties, is accidentally sent back to 1955 in a plutonium-powered DeLorean "time machine" invented by a slightly mad scientist. During his often hysterical, always amazing trip back in time, Marty must make certain his teenage parents-to-be meet and fall in love - so he can get back to the future.
Set in Ireland during the Great Famine, the drama follows an Irish Ranger who has been fighting for the British Army abroad, as he abandons his post to reunite with his family. Despite experiencing the horrors of war, he is shocked by the famine's destruction of his homeland and the brutalization of his people and his family.
This powerful, amusing depiction of the race divide in 1980s USA can be enjoyed by all audiences, but is specially geared towards those of us who have never had to live with the repercussions of racism. When Rob, Colorado Springs first black officer goes undercover to infiltrate the Klu Klux Klan all sorts of shenanigans follow. Lee wrings as many laughs as possible from a farcical situation, the hapless KKK and the reactions of Rob’s police colleagues. Revealing the horrors of white racism from lynchings and segregation to Trump and his clowns, you will laugh, but also feel weird and uneasy. This may be the year's most important and relevant piece of cinema, highly recommended.
Bohemian Rhapsody is a foot-stomping celebration of Queen and lead singer Freddie Mercury. The film traces the meteoric rise of the band through their iconic songs and revolutionary sound. They reachunparalleled success, but in an unexpected turn Freddie, shuns Queen in pursuit of his solo career only to reunite with his bandmates just in time for Live Aid. Facing a recent AIDS diagnosis, Freddie leads the band in one of the greatest performances in the history of rock music.
Four lifelong friends’ lives are turned upside down to hilarious ends when their book club tackles the infamous Fifty Shades of Grey. From discovering new romance to rekindling old flames, they inspire each other to make their next chapter the best chapter.
A sophisticated comedy studded with sparkling moments, Breakfast at Tiffany’s tells the story of two bohemians falling in love against a Manhattan backdrop. When aspiring writer Paul Varjak (George Peppard) moves into his new apartment, he is both intrigued by and drawn to his unconventional neighbour Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn). A Givenchy-clad free spirit, Holly is a party girl whose intensely stylish façade masks an inner despair and a hidden past. Henry Mancini provides the musical score, with the Oscar-winning ballad ‘Moon River’ underscoring a sublimely romantic climax.
Based on the true story of producer Jonathan Cavendish's own parents; an inspirational love story about living every breath as though it's your last. Adventurous and charismatic, Robin Cavendish has his whole life ahead of him when he is paralysed by polio whilst in Africa in 1958. Against all advice, Robin's wife, Diana, brings him home from hospital. Together they refuse to be imprisoned by his suffering; dazzling others with their humour, courage and lust for life.
Set in the 1950s, young Irish woman Ellis Lacey travels to New York City, hoping to find a better life. Initially homesick, she adjusts to her new surroundings meeting Italian-American Tony Fiorello with whom she becomes romantically involved. A family crisis calls Ellis home to Ireland where she becomes acquainted with Jim Farrell and she finds herself torn between two very different paths. Romantic drama adapted from the novel by Colm Tóibín.
A family in Chicago inherits the yacht formerly owned by Clark Gable. They decide to sail it from the island of Ste. Pomme de Terre to Miami, and they sail with the assistance of Captain Ron and their lives will never be the same again
Following audience favourites ‘Stories from the Hop Yards’ and ‘Chewing the Cud’, this new Catcher Media film delves deep into the Derek Evans photographic archive from the 1950s-1970s to explore the county’s enduring memories of the May Fair, Hereford United FC, Derek’s Studio, music, rural life, childhood, Fownhope Heart of Oak Walk, and much, much more.
The young boy who embarked on countless adventures in the Hundred Acre Wood with his band of spirited and lovable stuffed animals, has grown up and lost his way. As an adult Christopher Robin, is now focused on his new life, work, and family, suddenly he meets his old friend Winnie the Pooh. Now it is up to his childhood friends to venture into our world and help Christopher Robin remember the loving and playful boy who is still inside.
Pawlikowski follows his stunning, Oscar-winning Ida with this epic romance that spans decades and nations to tell a tragic, moving love story. In the ruins of post-war Poland, Wiktor and Zula fall deeply, obsessively and destructively in love. Fatefully mismatched, they are separated by politics, temperament and unfortunate twists of fate - an impossible love story in impossible times. Tiny cogs in the Soviet propaganda machine, they dream of escaping to the West. One day in Berlin as they spot their chance, they make a split decision that will mark their lives forever. Sumptuously shot in luminous black and white, this offers a stunning marriage of haunting imagery and heartfelt emotion while retaining a quiet humour throughout.
This contemporary romantic comedy, based on a global bestseller, follows native New Yorker Rachel Chu to Singapore to meet her boyfriend's family. The story follows Rachel Chu, an American-born Chinese economics professor, who travels to her boyfriend Nick's hometown of Singapore for his best friend's wedding. Before long, his secret is out: Nick is from a family that is impossibly wealthy, he's perhaps the most eligible bachelor in Asia, and every single woman in his ultra-rarefied social class is incredibly jealous of Rachel and wants to bring her down.
In 19th century Qing Dynasty China, a warrior gives his sword, Green Destiny, to his lover to deliver to safe keeping, but it is stolen, and the chase is on to find it. The search leads to the House of Yu where the story takes on a whole different level.
Action opens in November of 1793, with Danton returning to Paris from his country retreat upon learning that the Committee for Public Safety, under Robespierre's incitement, has begun a series of massive executions, The Terror. Confident in the people's support, Danton clashes with his former ally, but calculating Robespierre soon rounds up Danton and his followers, tries them before a revolutionary tribunal and dipatches them to the guillotine.
This is a terrifically enjoyable true story about a group of friends from a workingmen's club in the Valleys who decide to breed themselves a racehorse. Amazingly the horse they raised on the allotments in Cefn Forest takes them on a roller coaster journey to the top of the racing world. Following their dream the bar maid, ex-miners and pensioners mix with Countesses and Sheikhs in the owners enclosure at Aintree. They’re a hugely likeable crew who tell their story with broad smiles on their faces, still barely able to believe how a horse gave hope to their whole village. "Funny, inspiring - with a round of applause at the end." Flicks Promoter
Within days of becoming Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill must face one of his most turbulent and defining trials: exploring a negotiated peace treaty with Nazi Germany, or standing firm to fight for the ideals, liberty and freedom of a nation. As the unstoppable Nazi forces roll across Western Europe and the threat of invasion is imminent, and with an unprepared public, a skeptical King, and his own party plotting against him, Churchill must withstand his darkest hour, rally a nation, and attempt to change the course of world history.
Marcello, a small and gentle dog groomer, finds himself involved in a dangerous relationship of subjugation with Simone, a former violent boxer who terrorizes the entire neighbourhood. In an effort to reaffirm his dignity, Marcello will submit to an unexpected act of vengeance.
This thought-provoking cinematic journey follows a Dutch family who roam the globe in search of a new perspective on life. During their five-year journey they live with tribal communities around the world who share their ancient, earthly wisdom. From the Amazon to the jungles of India, from the Australian outback to the Kalahari Desert we meet one-to-one with the Earth Keepers. Humble, connected individuals who have something that most of us have lost completely. They are still connected to the Earth, the elements and to the Other Worlds. This poignant, timely reflection on our civilized world and a more spiritual way of living is both a wake up call and a resurgence of hope for our future.
A group of Earth children (jncluding a very young Drew Barrymore) help a stranded alien botanist (ET) return home in Spielberg's classic film. If you're looking for a film with that family, heartwarming feeling, look no further than E.T.
Edie has spent 40 years trapped in a colourless life in England, tending to her controlling husband after his stroke. When he passes away and her daughter tries to send her to a care home, she packs an old camping bag, leaves her life behind and embarks on an adventure she never got to have - climbing the imposing Mount Suilven in Scotland. The journey to the summit will be long and difficult, but Edie is determined to prove to herself and everyone else that it s never too late.
Sweden, early 1900s - an era of social change and unrest, war and poverty. A young working class woman, Maria, wins a camera in a lottery. The camera grants her the eyes to view the world, and empowers her over several decades to raise and nurture her family of six children and an alcoholic, womanizing and sometimes violent, although ultimately loving, husband.
Filmmaker Michael Moore examines the current state of American politics, particularly the Donald Trump presidency and gun violence, while highlighting the power of grassroots democratic movements.
High school student Ferris Bueller wants a day off from school and he's developed an incredibly sophisticated plan to pull it off. He talks his friend Cameron into taking his father's prized Ferrari and with his girlfriend Sloane head into Chicago for the day. While they are taking in what the city has to offer school principal Ed Rooney is convinced that Ferris is, not for the first time, playing hooky for the day and is hell bent to catch him out. Ferris has anticipated that, much to Rooney's chagrin.
Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella hears a voice in his corn field tell him, "If you build it, he will come." He interprets this message as an instruction to build a baseball field on his farm, upon which appear the ghosts of Shoeless Joe Jackson and the other seven Chicago White Sox players banned from the game for throwing the 1919 World Series. When the voices continue, Ray seeks out a reclusive author to help him understand the meaning of the messages and the purpose for his field.
When ‘Lady’ Sandra Abbott (Imelda Staunton) discovers that her husband of forty years is having an affair with her best friend, she seeks refuge with her estranged, older sister Bif (Celia Imrie). The two could not be more different - Sandra is a fish out of water next to her outspoken, serial dating, free-spirited sibling. But different is just what Sandra needs and she reluctantly lets Bif drag her along to her community dance class, where gradually she starts finding her feet... and romance.
The riveting story of the 1969 moon landing. Much more focused on the "small step for man" and less on the "giant leap for mankind", this follows Neil Armstrong on his journey to becoming the first man to walk on the moon. The perils and exhilarations of spaceflight are brilliantly conveyed to give you the hair-raising feeling of what it was really like inside Apollo 11.
A comedian uses her troubled past as material for her stand-up routine, trying to rise up through the comedy circuit by playing Northern England's working men's clubs in the 1970s and 1980s. "There are several moments in this astringently uncomfortable tragicomedy – which boasts a blistering central performance by Maxine Peake – that will leave audiences squirming and divided" The Guardian.
Fate, the pensions crisis and a steadfast refusal to accept the injustice of old age have contrived to force law abiding, retired couple, Arthur and Martha Goode into a life of crime. Refusing to take the loss of their pensions lying down and to fade away into their declining years, our characters decide to fight back. They decide to take back what was theirs in the first place. They decide to start robbing banks.
A semi-autobiographical project by John Boorman about a nine year old boy called Bill as he grows up in London during the blitz of World War 2. For a young boy, this time in history was more of an adventure, a total upheaval of order, restrictions and discipline. The liberating effect of the war on the women left behind and the joy when Hitler blows up your school.
From legendary Director Martin Scorsese comes a fantastic new family adventure. Hugo is an orphan, clock keeper, and thief living in the walls of a busy Paris train station, where his survival depends on secrets and anonymity. When his world suddenly interlocks with an eccentric, bookish girl and a bitter old man who runs a toy booth in the station (Ben Kingsley) Hugo's undercover life and his most precious secret are put in jeopardy - whilst constantly having to hide from the threat of being sent to the orphanage by the unrelenting Station Inspector . A tender and spellbinding mystery.
More than 65 million people around the world have been forced from their homes to escape famine, climate change and war, the greatest displacement since World War II. Filmmaker Ai Weiwei examines the staggering scale of the refugee crisis and its profoundly personal human impact. Over the course of one year in 23 countries, Weiwei follows a chain of urgent human stories that stretch across the globe, including Afghanistan, France, Greece, Germany and Iraq.
On July 2nd, communications systems worldwide are sent into chaos by a strange atmospheric interference. It is soon learned by the military that a number of enormous objects are on a collision course with Earth. At first thought to be meteors, they are later revealed to be gigantic spacecraft, piloted by a mysterious alien species. After attempts to communicate with the aliens go nowhere, David Levinson, an ex-scientist turned cable technician, discovers that the aliens are going to attack major points around the globe in less than a day. On July 3rd, the aliens all but obliterate New York, Los Angeles and Washington, as well as Paris, London, Houston and Moscow. The survivors set out in convoys towards Area 51, a strange government testing ground where it is rumored the military has a captured alien spacecraft of their own. The survivors devise a plan to fight back against the enslaving aliens, and July 4th becomes the day humanity will fight for its freedom.
Eliane is a wealthy French plantation owner living in Indochina in the 1930s with her father and adopted native daughter Camille. She has a brief affair with a young officer, John Baptiste, but to her dismay discovers Camille has fallen madly in love with him. Eliane is able to arrange to have him transferred and Camille gets married to another man. However, Camille never stops loving Jean- Baptiste and sets out across the country to find him.
Broke, with nothing but her cat and doors closing in her face, Paula is back in Paris after a long absence. As she meets different people along the way, there is one thing she knows for sure: she's determined to make a new start and she'll do it with style and panache.
JOHNNY ENGLISH STRIKES AGAIN is the third installment of the Johnny English comedy series, with Rowan Atkinson returning as the much loved accidental secret agent. The new adventure begins when a cyber-attack reveals the identity of all active undercover agents in Britain, leaving Johnny English as the Secret Service's last hope. Called out of retirement, English dives head first into action with the mission to find the mastermind hacker. As a man with few skills and analog methods, Johnny English must overcome the challenges of modern technology to make this mission a success.
Based on the Hatton Garden robbery in which a group of aging criminals plan a multi-million pound jewellery heist, this rattles along in diverting enough fashion. Despite the fabulous cast it's rather uneven in tone. So while Courtenay gives a bumbling performance that is out-and-out comedy, Broadbent tries to give us the chills. Torn between jaunty genre hijinks and a bleaker streak of realism, it is certainly watchable and entertaining, just a bit plodding. But armed with an A-grade cast giving it their all it transcends its shortcomings to make a breezily entertaining caper.
The Béliers are ordinary people: Rodolphe and Gigi are married, have two children and run their farm for a living. Ordinary people? Well, almost... since three of them, Dad, Mum and their son Quentin, are deaf. Which is not the case of the boy's big sister, Paula. And not only can she speak but her music teacher scouts her beautiful voice as well. He offers her to sit for the entrance exam of the Maîtrise de Radio France, a vocal elite choir in Paris. Her parents, who rely on her as their ears and mouth in the outside world, take the news badly. Paula, who hates the idea of betraying her parents and her brother, goes through a painful dilemma…
The night of 24 August 1572, is known as the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. In France a religious war is raging. In order to impose peace a forced wedding is arranged between Margot de Valois, sister of the immature Catholic King Charles IX, and the Hugenot King Henri of Navarre. Catherine of Medici maintains her behind-the-scenes power by ordering assaults, poisonings, and instigations to incest.
Christine "Lady Bird" MacPherson is a high school senior from the "wrong side of the tracks." She longs for adventure, sophistication, and opportunity, but finds none of that in her Sacramento Catholic high school. LADY BIRD follows the title character's senior year in high school, including her first romance, her participation in the school play, and most importantly, her applying for college.
France, 1942, under German occupation. Philippe Gerbier, a civil engineer, is a French Resistance commandant. Denounced by a French collaborator, he is interned in a concentration camp. He manages to escape, and rejoins his network in Marseille, where he has the traitor executed. This movie reveals rigorously and austerely what life was like in the French Resistance: the solitude and fear of its members; their relationships with one another; the constant threat of arrest by the Gestapo; the Resistance command structure and the way its orders were carried out. Head writer Joseph Kessel and co-writer/director Jean-Pierre Melville were both veterans of the "Shadow Army".
Colonel Chabert has been severely wounded in the French-Russian Napoleonic war to the point that the medical examiner has signed his death certificate. When he regains his health and memory, he goes back to Paris, where his "widow", Anne has married the Count Ferraud and is financing his rise to power using Chabert's money. Chabert hires a lawyer to help him get back his money and his honor.
In 1832, cholera ravages Provence (South of France). After several misadventures, Angelo, young Italian officer hunted by the Austrian secret police, meets Pauline de Theus, a young lady. After a second accidental meeting, both will start the search of Pauline's husband in a chaotic country.
Drama in which a teenager in Oregon embarks on an treacherous journey to Wyoming following a family tragedy. The film follows fifteen-year-old Charley Thompson. He wants a home, food on the table and a high school he can attend for more than part of the year. As the son of a single father working in warehouses across the Pacific Northwest, stability is hard to find. Hoping for a new start they move to Portland, Oregon where Charley takes a summer job, with a washed-up horse trainer, and befriends a failing racehorse named Lean on Pete.
Will and his teenage daughter, Tom, have lived off the grid for years in the forests of Portland, Oregon. When their idyllic life is shattered, both are put into social services. After clashing with their new surroundings, Will and Tom set off on a harrowing journey back to their wild homeland.
Bored with her husband, bored with her polo-playing lover, will the middle-aged heroine go away with the young man who gave her a lift that day when her car broke down on the way back to her country estate from a weekend with her lover in Paris?
Young Claude, teacher by day, is a struggling composer by night. Alas, everyone around him seems to prefer noise to music. But in his dreams, he lives in other eras where he is appreciated, lionized, and the conquerer of delicious women (idealized forms of women he's seen in waking life). The dreams are suitably dreamlike, yet have a kind of reality, for he revisits them after waking. The conflict between waking and dream worlds leads to amusing, strange, even fantastic situations. Which world will prevail?
Guy Foucher, a 20-year-old French auto mechanic, has fallen in love with 17-year-old Geneviève Emery, an employee in her widowed mother's chic but financially embattled umbrella shop. On the evening before Guy is to leave for a two-year tour of combat in Algeria, the pair share a passionate night. Geneviève becomes pregnant and then must choose between waiting for Guy's return or accepting an attractive offer of marriage from a wealthy diamond merchant.
Loving Vincent is a biographical drama film about the life of painter Vincent van Gogh. It is the world's first fully oil painted animated film and brings his artwork to life in an exploration of the death of one of history's most celebrated artists. A true labour of love, written and directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, each of the film's 65,000 frames is an oil painting on canvas, using the same technique as Van Gogh, created by a team of 115 painters.
In this sequel to Mamma Mia!, Sophie learns about her mother's past while pregnant herself. “Last time we gave you the happy ending,” burbles the trailer: ‘This summer we’ll take you back to the beginning.’ Thus, we find Lily James as the young Meryl Streep in sunny ’79, trying on her new dungarees, and trying out three handsome suitors (Hugh Skinner, Josh Dylan and Jeremy Irvine), who will grow up to become Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, and Pierce “Pick-a-note-any-note” Brosnan. MK the Guardian
Decades after her original visit, the magical nanny returns to help the Banks siblings and Michael's children through a difficult time in their lives.
Memento chronicles two separate stories of Leonard, an ex-insurance investigator who can no longer build new memories, as he attempts to find the murderer of his wife, which is the last thing he remembers. One story line moves forward in time while the other tells the story backwards revealing more each time.
Funny, heartfelt, and charming, this stunningly beautiful, fantastical take on childhood will appeal to the whole family. Struggling to cope with the arrival of a little sister in the family, Kun, a young boy encounters a magical garden that enables him to travel through time and meet his relatives from different eras. Like the apparitions who visit Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge, these visitors have the desired effect of helping Kun cope with the changes that are affecting his life. With great insight this beautifully crafted film captures the universal issues affecting childhood and the virtues of patience and tolerance, while also being a lot of fun!
This 1975 classic was the second film to win all five major Academy Awards. McMurphy has a criminal past and has once again gotten himself into trouble with the law. To escape labor duties in prison, McMurphy pleads insanity and is sent to a ward for the mentally unstable. Once here, McMurphy both endures and stands witness to the abuse and degradation of the oppressive Nurse Ratched, who gains superiority and power through the flaws of the other inmates. McMurphy and the other inmates band together to make a rebellious stance against the atrocious Nurse.
Paddington is happily settled with the Brown family in Windsor Gardens, where he has become a popular member of the community, spreading joy and marmalade wherever he goes. While searching for the perfect present for his beloved Aunt Lucy's 100th birthday, Paddington spots a unique pop-up book in Mr. Gruber's antique shop, and embarks upon a series of odd jobs to buy it. But when the book is stolen, it's up to Paddington and the Browns to unmask the thief.
Sarah is a young woman whose life is in a bit of a mess. The last thing she needs is someone else to look after. Yet, like it or not, her Grandmother has bequeathed her a very spoiled pug - Patrick. Surely she must have had her reasons?
Epic portrayal of events surrounding the infamous 1819 Peterloo Massacre. The massacre saw British government forces charge into a crowd of Over 60,000 that had gathered to demand political reform and protest against rising levels of poverty. Many were killed, hundreds more injured, sparking a nationwide outcry but also further government suppression. The Peterloo Massacre was a defining moment in British democracy which also played a significant role in the founding of The Guardian newspaper
Agnes, taken for granted as a suburban mother, discovers a passion for solving jigsaw puzzles which unexpectedly draws her into a new world - where her life unfolds in ways she could never have imagined.
This biopic of Ugandan chess prodigy Phiona Mutesi traces her journey from the Kampala slum of Katwe, where she is forced to abandon her formal schooling at the age of nine, to the upper echelons of the chess world after she develops an interest in the game at a youth-outreach program run by Robert Katende. Lupita Nyong'o co-stars as Mutesi's mother, who worries that her daughter's dreams of becoming a chess champion are a frivolous distraction from real life.
A Japanese couple stuck with part-time jobs and hence inadequate incomes avail themselves of the fruits of shoplifting to make ends meet. They are not alone in this behaviour. The younger and the older of the household are in on the act. The unusual routine is about to change from care-free and matter-of-fact to something more dramatic, however, as the couple open their doors to a beleaguered teenager. The reasons for the family and friends' habit and their motivations come under the microscope.
A delightful animated comedy adventure about friendship, courage and the joy of discovery. Migo, a bright young Yeti finds something he thought didn't exist -- a human! News of this ‘Smallfoot’ throws the simple Yeti community into an uproar over what else might be out there in the big world beyond their snowy village. This conveys a thoughtful lesson about tolerance and learning to see the other’s point of view, all within the colourful, computer-rendered trappings of the genre. With laugh-out-loud moments and cracking songs, Smallfoot has its heart in the right place and is also great fun.
Steve Coogan and John C Reilly, two brilliant physical comedians, give delightful performances nailing the duo’s body language, mannerisms and routines. 1953 with their immense fame on the wane, Stan ‘Laurel’ and Ollie ‘Hardy’ embark on a gruelling farewell tour of British seaside towns. The tour starts badly; modest music halls, cramped little guesthouses, they struggle for audiences. But a series of TV guest spots rekindle the country’s interest and the buzz grows as they head towards a big London finale. But old resentments surface, particularly once ‘the wives’, Lucille and Ida, (a hilarious double act in their own right) join them. A charming, poignant, insightful study of lifelong male friendship this is a fitting tribute to the greatest pair of comedians of all time.
It's the summer of 1959 in Castlerock, Oregon and four 12 year-old boys - Gordie, Chris, Teddy and Vern - are fast friends. After learning of the general location of the body of a local boy who has been missing for several days, they set off into woods to see it. Along the way, they learn about themselves, the meaning of friendship and the need to stand up for what is right.
Anchored by flawless performances from its two young stars, this is a delicate, extraordinarily moving tale about being a child in an adult world. After her mother’s death, six-year-old Frida moves to live with her uncle in the Catalan countryside. Though the pain and shock of her loss is a strain on the young child, the film is neither sentimental nor tragic. She is surrounded by kindness and love; she must simply learn to live her new life without the person she loved best. A spellbinding portrait of family, heartbreak, and belonging this achieves the rare feat of faithfully recreating the mysterious consciousness of a child. Unfurling in the stillness of a sleepy, sun-soaked Spanish summer, this coming of age drama has won awards all across the world.
While this never outstrips The Full Monty, this comedy drama moves easily from bittersweet to feel-good larkiness in jaunty but formulaic style. Accountant Eric is simply treading water when he discovers a newfound sense of purpose thanks to an unexpected source: a group of similarly stuck-in-a-rut guys who have found camaraderie through synchronized swimming. Sure, they may be a bit paunchy, but they're determined to prove they have what it takes to be a whirling, twirling, scissor-kicking aquatic dream team.
England, 1959. Free-spirited widow Florence Green risks everything to open a bookshop in a conservative East Anglian coastal town. While bringing about a surprising cultural awakening through works by Ray Bradbury and Vladimir Nabokov, she earns the polite but ruthless opposition of a local grand dame and the support and affection of a reclusive book loving widower. As Florence's obstacles amass and bear suspicious signs of a local power struggle, she is forced to ask: is there a place for a bookshop in a town that may not want one? Based on Penelope Fitzgerald's acclaimed novel, The Bookshop is an elegant yet incisive rendering of personal resolve, tested in the battle for the soul of a community.
Five high school students meet in Saturday detention and discover how they have a lot more in common than they thought.
The Bromley Boys is a funny yet touching coming of age football memoir played out to the sights and sounds of late 60's Britain. Based on the hilarious novel by Dave Roberts, it recounts the author's highs and the lows supporting the worst football team in the country at the time - Bromley FC.
As her marriage to Jack flounders, eminent High Court judge Fiona Maye has a life-changing decision to make at work - should she force a teenage boy, Adam, to have the blood transfusion that will save his life? Her unorthodox visit to his hospital bedside has a profound impact on them both, stirring strong new emotions in the boy and long-buried feelings in her.
August 1715. After going for a walk, Louis XIV feels a pain in his leg. The next day, the king keeps fulfilling his duties and obligations, but his sleep is troubled and he has a serious fever. He barely eats and weakens increasingly. This is the start of the slow agony of the greatest King of France death from gangrene, surrounded by his doctors and closest advisors, speaking in frantic, whispered tones about their options, in an era in which little is known of such illnesses. Shot in rich colour with extraordinary lighting, Jean-Pierre Léaud, in his costume, hair and poses, fully embodies the last few days of the longest serving king of France, who, with his seventy two years in power, changed the face of the monarchy and of France.
Orphaned, penniless but ambitious and with a mind crammed with imagination and fresh ideas, the American Phineas Taylor Barnum will always be remembered as the man with the gift to effortlessly blur the line between reality and fiction. Thirsty for innovation and hungry for success, the son of a tailor will manage to open a wax museum but will soon shift focus to the unique and peculiar, introducing extraordinary, never-seen-before live acts on the circus stage. Some will call Barnum's wide collection of oddities, a freak show; however, when the obsessed for cheers and respectability showman gambles everything on the opera singer Jenny Lind to appeal to a high-brow audience, he will somehow lose sight of the most important aspect of his life: his family. Will Barnum risk it all to be accepted?
An affecting human drama of love, loss, and resilience unfolds against the backdrop of World War I. The women of the Paridier farm, under the deft hand of Hortense, the family's matriarch must grapple with the workload while the men, including two sons, are off at the front. Hortense reluctantly brings on an outsider, the hard-scrabble teenage orphan, Francine, to help her daughter Solange. New tools allow the women to triumph over the land, newfound independence is acquired, yet emotions are stirred especially when the men return from the front on short leaves.
Based on the bestselling novel, Lily James plays free-spirited writer Juliet Ashton, who forms a life-changing bond with the eccentric Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, when she decides to write about the book club they formed during the occupation of Guernsey during WWII. From the producers of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, and with an all-star British cast, comes a compelling romantic drama with an intriguing mystery at its heart.
Alarm dispatcher Asger Holm answers an emergency call from a kidnapped woman. When the call is suddenly disconnected, the search for the woman and her kidnapper begins. With the phone as his only tool, Asger enters a race against time to save the endangered woman. But soon he realizes that he is dealing with a crime that is far bigger than he first thought.
A runaway couple go on an unforgettable journey in the faithful old RV they call The Leisure Seeker, travelling from Boston to The Ernest Hemingway Home in Key West. They recapture their passion for life and their love for each other on a road trip that provides revelation and surprise right up to the very end.
Precisely directed, this is a hypnotic, haunting adaptation of Sarah Waters best-selling Gothic novel. The son of a housemaid, Dr. Faraday has built a life of quiet respectability as a country doctor. During the long hot summer of 1948, he is called to Hundreds Hall, long-time home to the Ayres family, where his mother once worked. It is now in decline and its inhabitants are haunted by something more ominous than a dying way of life. Faraday has no idea how closely, and how disturbingly, the family's story is about to become entwined with his own. Spellbinding, sad and spooky this creates an atmosphere of low-level dread more than suspenseful or scary.
In 1993, a teenage girl is forced into a gay conversion therapy center by her conservative guardians. The second feature from Desiree Akhavan, the director of 2014’s bisexual indie drama Appropriate Behaviour is as witty and sexy as its predecessor, but goes to a darker and more introspective place. Chloë Grace Moretz plays the titular Cameron, a lesbian teenager who has been sent to a Christian gay conversion camp (much like in Jamie Babbit’s But I’m a Cheerleader) where young people are psychoanalysed and brainwashed into being straight. SSA (“same sex attraction”) is treated as a disease, making it a potent examination of internalised homophobia and more general teenage self-hatred, though the film is buoyed by joyously good-bad early 90s fashion and music, and American Honey’s Sasha Lane as “Jane Fonda”, a teen marijuana farmer with a prosthetic leg.SH The Guardian
In Disney’s latest live-action fantasy adventure a mysterious gift leads Clara to a magical hidden world. Where Clara meets a soldier named Phillip, a gang of mice and the Regents who preside over three Realms: Land of Snowflakes, Land of Flowers, and Land of Sweets. Clara and Phillip must brave the ominous Fourth Realm, home to the tyrant Mother Ginger, to retrieve Clara's key and hopefully return harmony to the unstable world.
THE POST is a thrilling drama about the unlikely partnership between The Washington Post's Katharine Graham, the first female publisher of a major American newspaper and editor Ben Bradlee, as they race to catch up with The New York Times to expose a massive cover-up of government secrets that spanned three decades and four U.S. Presidents. The two must overcome their differences as they risk their careers - and their very freedom - to help bring long-buried truths to light.
One of the unheralded hits of last year’s Borderlines Film Festival, this touching portrayal of fragile masculinity displays an uncommon sensitivity, and heart-breaking performances from non-actors. After suffering a near fatal head injury, a rodeo cowboy is left unable to compete and so struggles to start over. Meticulous, thoughtful, beautifully realised and visually resplendent this really gets under the skin of its central character creating an honest slice of American life. Brilliantly capturing the bond between man, horse and the land, you can almost smell the dust of the South Dakota plain in this stark, beautiful elegy to a fast-disappearing way of life.
An aging actress named Irina Arkadina pays summer visits to her brother Pjotr Nikolayevich Sorin and her son Konstantin on a country estate. On one occasion, she brings Trigorin, a successful novelist, with her. Nina, a free and innocent girl on a neighboring estate, falls in love with Boris Trigorin. As Trigorin lightly consumes and rejects Nina, as the actress all her life has consumed and rejected her son, who loves Nina. The victims are destroyed while the sophisticates continue on their way.
From master storyteller Guillermo del Toro comes THE SHAPE OF WATER, an otherworldly fable set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1962. In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is trapped in a life of isolation. Elisa's life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) discover a secret classified experiment. Rounding out the cast are Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Doug Jones.
After nearly forty years of marriage, Joan and Joe are complements. Joe enjoys his very public role as a Great American Novelist, the devoted Joan pours her considerable intellect, charm, and diplomacy into the private role of Great Man's Wife. Joe is about to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Joan is about to drop a bombshell. It’s a pleasure simply to watch Close and Pryce at their considerable best. Poignant and powerful.
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI is a darkly comic drama from Academy Award nominee Martin McDonagh. After months have passed without a culprit in her daughter's murder case, Mildred Hayes makes a bold move, painting three signs leading into her town with a controversial message directed at William Willoughby, the town's revered chief of police. When his second-in-command Officer Dixon, an immature mother's boy with a penchant for violence, gets involved, the battle between Mildred and Ebbing's law enforcement is only exacerbated.
Tortoise in Love is a mainstream British romantic comedy with an unusual story because it was made by an entire village in Oxfordshire. The WI did the catering, the local salon opened early for hair and make-up and villagers put up the cast and crew in their homes. The amazing story of The Village that Made the Film has attracted substantial media attention since it started. And the film? … Tom, gardener at the big house, is not a fast mover with women. In fact he's glacially slow. When beautiful Polish au pair Anya arrives for the summer, Tom falls for her catastrophically like the felling of one of the giant trees he cares for in the manicured grounds.
This devilish, offbeat comedy finds Betty (Brenda Blethyn) stuck in a marriage that's killing her. She decides that the only way to break from her two-timing scoundrel of a husband is to fake her own death. So, with the help of her rekindled old flame, the local undertaker (Alfred Molina), a quiet funeral is arranged, right down to the smallest detail. But nothing goes as planned when a flamboyant competing funeral director (Christopher Walken) jumps in, determined to give Betty a send-off no one will ever forget ... An all-star cast including Jerry Springer, Miriam Margolyes and Lee Evans show that even the funeral business isn't always grave!
A brilliant synthesis of love story, melodrama, ghost story and thriller that tells of three generations of women who survive death, fire and madness by means of goodness, boundless energy, and lies. Visually sumptuous, full of strong performances, this deals with mothers, daughters, sisters and their intricate relationships in a way that is typical Almodovar.
‘Wajib’ meaning ‘duty’, in this case the Palestinian tradition resting upon Shadi to join his father Abu Shadi in delivering the invites to his sister’s wedding. But Shadi and Abu haven’t spoken for years: Shadi’s cosmopolitan outlook baffles Abu; Abu’s behaviour towards his mother before their divorce enrages Shadi. Tradition demands they set out on a roadtrip. Trapped within the confines of their car they are forced to confront their relationship, their differences and similarities. Subtle, poignant and extremely funny. For promoters who like a specialised film this is a good one. “Shot through with a likable streak of earthy humour”
The lucky winner of the national lottery is Ned Devine, so taken by his good fortune that he now can't be waked, because he died from the shock of it! News of the win spread quickly in the scenic little Irish village of Tully More, but not the secret news of Ned's demise. With lottery officials closing in to confirm the prize claimed by the deceased Devine, Ned's closest friends scheme to keep the prize money close to home, in memory of Ned of course! But as the plot twists humorously, they learn it is hard is to keep such a secret in a small town.
To show what the USA can learn from rest of the world, director Michael Moore playfully visits various nations in Europe and Africa as a one-man "invader" to take their ideas and practices for America. Whether it is Italy with its generous vacation time allotments, France with its gourmet school lunches, Germany with its industrial policy, Norway and its prison system, Tunisia and its strongly progressive women's policy and Iceland and its strong female presence in government and business among others, Michael Moore discovers there is much that American should emulate.
Led by a superb, fierce performance from Davis this is a taut, emotional and thoroughly entertaining thriller that features a cast to die for. Four women plan to complete the heist in which their husbands were killed. The widows have nothing in common except a debt left behind by their husbands' criminal activities but find unexpected solidarity in tackling their men’s unfinished business. Set in corrupt contemporary Chicago, this sleek, stylish, pacey thriller zips through a host of issues - political corruption, police brutality, domestic violence - while also delivering high-octane action and a whole host of powerful performances.