Cheltenham Film Society
You have to be a member. Now I’ve made that clear, I should tell you that tomorrow there is the event to celebrate the society’s 75th birthday. You have to be a member. You can’t even go as a guest. There are three excellent films at the Playhouse (Emil & the Detectives, Closely Observed Trains – pictured above – and Three Colours: Red) and a party in the evening. Andrew Holt has almost corpsed himself creating a special showreel celebrating just about every film the society has ever shown. I want to see it, and I like a party, so I shall go. If you attend, ask the committee why you do have to be a member. You don’t have to be a member to go to Sainsbury’s or the National Theatre or the Crematorium. (JM)
The Eclectic Cinema
The Eclectic Cinema, at the Playhouse, has gone into overdrive this week with three films, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday: Death in Venice, The Death of Stalin, and The Most Beautiful Boy in the World. I applaud the Eclectic Cinema. Andrew Holt does everything himself, including making the ugliest website since the demise of MySpace. Eye protection advised. (JM)
The Roses
and
The Guildhall
both have Downton Abbey : A New Era this week. Exquisitely tailored toffs disport themselves in the South of France while the skivvies just carry on skivvying. Now where did I put my pitchfork? (PW)
The Cineworlds
Oh good, Download Abbey, a horror fantasy about the destruction of an industry and an art form by people creating films so dull that people choose to torrent them to put on their hard drives in case they run out of more interesting things to do, like deworming their cats.
Otherwise, on Saturday there is the Met Opera’s production of Puccini’s Turandot, live from New York. It stars soprano Anna Netrebko in the title role. Tenor Yonghoon Lee is her suitor, alongside soprano Ermonela Jaho as the devoted servant Liù and legendary bass Ferruccio Furlanetto as the blind king Timur. Marco Armiliato conducts. Film note, the ancient production is by Franco Zeffirelli, one of those film directors who has had a crack at opera, like our friend Tony Palmer. Seats are £22. If they’d let that nice Mr Ryanair fly the Atlantic, you’d probably be able to fly there for that, and treat yourself to a bag of pork scratchings to help you recover form the ordeal.
Dr Strange is on all week. On Tuesday, there is a showing of the much-hyped Everything Everywhere All at Once, but only if you have an Unlimited Card, and why would you? It’s a sort of multiverse sci-fi fantasy thing about a Chinese woman who has trouble filling in her tax return and somehow gets turned Into someone else in a different dimension. Or something. Maybe I’ll write about it when it’s available for the general public to see.
Most of the week there’s also an Indian film. It’s called Sarkaru Vaari Paata, it stars Mahesh Babu, Keerthy Suresh, Vennela Kishore, Duy Beck and Amit Shivdas Nair and is directed by parasuram. And this is what Cineworld’s website tells us about it: ‘Themes of banking scams which took place in the country.’ I’ll leave it there. I’m not doing their job for them. Oh, all right then. Here’s the Wikipedia page.
Everything is the same in Gloucester, but no Indian film. (JM)
The Tivoli
Nothing new at the Tivoli. Downpour Abbey, Dr Strange, Operation Mincemeat, Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore and The Lost City. (JM)
The Sherborne
Warning: The Sherborne is not showing Downton. It’s showing The Bad Guys, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and Operation Mincemeat. Be still my beating heart. (JM)