NEW IN CINEMAS THIS WEEK
Celeste (2018) Aussie movie, directed by Ben Hackworth. Rhada Mitchell is Celeste, an opera diva, who retired early – for the love of her husband, who has since died. Living on a decaying estate in a Queensland rainforest, Celeste plans her final stage performance.
Gloria Bell (2018) - Julianne Moore is a woman in her 50s, searching for love in LA dance clubs. Chilean director, Sebastián Lelio’s American version of the movie, Gloria, which he co-wrote and directed in Chile, in 2013.
1985 (2018) – Fort Worth, Texas, 1985. A gay young man who resides in NYC, visits his evangelical Christian parents, and pretends to be straight – for a while.
The Chaperone (2018) Teenaged Louise Brooks (Haley Lou Richardson) – before she was a movie star – is chaperoned from Wichita, Kansas to NYC by a teetotal family friend (Elizabeth McGovern). Written by Julian (Downton Abbey) Fellowes.
The Hummingbird Project (2018) Jesse Eisenberg, Salma Hayek and Alexander Skarsgård star in a thriller about high-stakes traders who plan to make millions by to building a fibre-optic cable between Kansas and New Jersey…let’s hope it’s not fibre to the node.
Thunder Road (2018) Police officer Jim Cummings goes all doo-lally when he fails to cope with divorce and the death of his mother. At least he has time to Vote Tony Out.
Yellow is Forbidden (2018) –The struggles of a Chinese couturier.
The Spanish Film Festival is screening now! Click on its website
ON THE TELLY
Monday 8.30pm & Tuesday Noon, Fox Classics: Bullitt (1968) – Steve McQueen is a very cool San Francisco detective; Robert Vaughan is a smoothly sleazy politician. The plot is familiar, but there’s lots of atmosphere, a brilliant car chase and music by Lalo Schifrin.
Wednesday Noon 9Gem: The Third Man (1948) - Mystery thriller, set in the shadowy streets of bombed-out, post-WW2 Vienna. All concerned are at the top of their form: script (Graham Greene), direction (Carol Reed), photography (Australian, Robert Krasker); stars Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Valli and Trevor Howard; supporting cast, Wilfred Hyde-White, Bernard Lee and Ernst Deutsch. The score was composed and performed (entirely on the zither) by Viennese-born Anton Karas.
For additional preparation you can watch the production history of THE THIRD MAN, written by Charles Drazin and narrated by V.O. actor Robb Webb. From the Criterion Collection DVD release.Just click here
Wednesday 10.35pm & Thursday 2.10pm, Fox Classics: The African Queen (1951) During WW1, a prim missionary, Katharine Hepburn, persuades drunken river trader, Humphrey Bogart, to attack a German gunboat. Excellent characters having a grand, old-fashioned adventure, directed by John Huston and photographed by Jack Cardiff.
Thursday Noon 9Gem: Ice Cold in Alex (1958) - a British ambulance crosses the Libyan desert, despite land mines, a spy and Nazis. A WW2 nail-biter, expertly directed by J. Lee Thompson, and photographed by Gilbert Taylor. Starring John Mills and Sylvia Syms.
Thursday 8.35pm & Friday Noon, Fox Classics: Paths of Glory (1957) Anti-war story set in 1916. French infantrymen refuse an order to undertake a suicidal attack, and are court-martialed for cowardice. Stark, graphic and bitter story of horror in the trenches and corruption amongst the top brass. Makes Saving Private Ryan look like a bloated cartoon. Directed by Stanley Kubrick; photographed by Georg Krause; starring Kirk Douglas and Adolphe Menjou.
Friday 10.50pm & Saturday 210pm, Fox Classics: Director Alfred Hitchcock made Psycho*(1960) with a TV crew. When it was completed, he was certain it would flop, and planned to cut it down to a one-hour TV movie. Composer Bernard Herrmann said: “wait ‘til you hear my score” – composed entirely for strings, high and low. The amalgamation makes electrifying viewing. Psycho stars Janet Leigh, as a woman who embezzles some money from her real estate boss. She makes the bad decision to stay at a run-down motel, run by the loopy Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins, above). I won’t spoil the rest of the story, but Norman has a problem with his mother, and with knives.
Saturday 10am 9Gem Mandy (1952), a beautifully made and acted film about a girl (Mandy Miller) who’s born deaf. She and her parents’ struggle to find Mandy a place in a world full of talk. Directed by Alexander Mackendrick and photographed by Douglas Slocombe.
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