The Roses
New to the Roses next week, but not to the local circuit, are Ali & Ava and Flee, both described in earlier newsletters. There is also the bold commitment to showing the Academy Award Best Picture winner on Wednesday and Thursday. Let’s hope it is available and not buried on Netflix.
You can view the programme for April by clicking here.
The Guildhall
Next week the Guildhall has further screenings of Belfast, Flee, and Nightmare Alley. Also, “back by popular demand” apparently, for three further showings is the Spielberg version of West Side Story.
The Cineworlds
The new films at The Cineworlds this week look to be The Bad Guys, Ambulance, The Worst Person in the World, and Umma.
The Bad Guys is a DreamWorks animated feature about a gang of animal outlaws, headed by a pickpocket wolf voiced by Sam Rockwell. Ambulance is a Michael Bay action-heist farrago starring Jake Gyllenhaal, who must need the money. The Worst Person in the World is a romantic comedy-drama by Joachim Trier about a young woman in Oslo with a rackety lifestyle. Good to see a foreign language film in the multiplexes, although Gloucester doesn’t get it. Umma is some sort of horror about a Korean woman (Sandra Oh) living on a farm in America, who imports the body of her mother, only to find it interfering with her equilibrium in some supposedly spooky way.
Carrying on from last week are The Phantom of the Open and The Nan Movie. Last week I was predictably rude about The Nan Movie without even seeing it. Since then I have discovered that the film has no director credit, something explored in an entertaining article in a website called Bleeding Cool. Anyone interested in the damage being done to the dying art of cinema by ignorant financiers need look no further.
The Tivoli
The Tivoli has Ambulance, plus last week’s stuff. Yawn.
The Sherborne
The Sherborne has Sing 2, Uncharted, The Duke and Batman at various points during the week. Then on Friday it has The Bad Guys, Cyrano, and a one-off screening of Hannah More, a film made by some Bristol filmmakers about one of that city’s heroines, an 18th century writer, social reformer and campaigner against the slave trade. The opening caption of the trailer tells us young Hannah is in Fishponds, my birthplace. But don’t let you put that off.
What a shame about the lack of use of the Roses. I watched the excellent Humans there in a matinee and I was the only one there!
Thanks for the news and reviews.
Derek.
It is very unfortunate. An excellent opportunity rather going to waste but it is difficult to see what we in Cheltenham can do about it. I’ve always wanted a minibus. Start a little service when there’s an interesting film on. Maybe that’s the way to go! In the meantime, let’s all remind our friends and fellow film lovers that The Roses exists. It’s only about half an hour away.
Only six people for the recent showing of the NT screening of Macbeth. Even the excellent children’s puppet show Pinocchio was only a quarter full. What a shame. The volunteers helping out in the foyer etc make the visit such a pleasant experience.
Yes, it’s an excellent venue but it has really failed to recapture the interest of the local population after lockdown. A lot more pressing the flesh and personal persuasion is needed to get over that. Tewkesbury itself has a population of about 22,000 but the bigger population centres are hardly remote. The public transport situation is poor, though, and the town is distinctly unwelcoming in the evenings. (Like everywhere else.) I’d love a little arts centre to play with. Maybe the council will flog it?
Thanks John for the information on The Real Charlie Chaplin. It was playing in an Art centre in Wolverhampton called The Lighthouse and I watched it there. It was very interesting and I enjoyed watching it. It made me want to watch his films especially The Kid, Great Dictator and City Lights again.
Sadly there were only 4 of us watching the documentary in The Lighthouse.
It is very sad that people are not more interested in film heritage. And yet they’ll look at old paintings, old plays and old music.