Freeview films 15/1/22 to 21/1/22

By Film Cheltenham TeamJanuary 15, 2022 Freeview highlights 2 Comments

World Cinema Saturday (15/1) 22:00 BBC2 Yuli (2018). Yuli (BBC2, 22.00, Sat 15th) is billed as a biopic of the Cuban ballet dancer Carlos Acosta, but as a film it is much more than that. It is directed by the renowned Spanish… [continues]

Films around Cheltenham from 8/1/22

By Pamela WeaverJanuary 8, 2022 Films around Cheltenham Leave a comment

The Roses and The Guildhall by Pamela. I did the other bits (JM). The Roses The Roses in Tewkesbury continues to show West Side Story and Spider-Man: No Way Home next week and has The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, reviewed last week, from Friday 14th. Away from the mainstream, starting on Monday 10th there is The Tragedy of Macbeth, directed… [continues]

Peter Bogdanavich 30/7/1939 to 6/1/2022

By John RussellJanuary 8, 2022 Obituaries Leave a comment

Peter Bogdanovich, who has died aged 82, was a big figure in Hollywood, his influence extending beyond the 17 films he directed himself. He acted in numerous films and TV series and was a prolific writer on films and actors, initially in Esquire magazine. As a director he is best known for The Last Picture… [continues]

Freeview films 8/1/22 to 14/1/22

By Film Cheltenham TeamJanuary 8, 2022January 8, 2022 Freeview highlights 2 Comments

World Cinema Sunday (9/1) 00:10 BBC2 After the Storm (2016). Tremendous Hirokazu Koreeda family drama in which a dodgy private detective (Hiroshi Abe) tries to reconnect with his family after the death of his father. Weather plays a part. Subtle and moving. Koreeda is a master. Japanese with English subtitles. Monday… [continues]

Sexy Beast

By John RussellJanuary 8, 2022January 8, 2022 Films of the Week Leave a comment

At 23:05 on Wednesday (12/1) Film4 has Sexy Beast (2000). It’s our Film of the Week. Jonathan Glazer’s Costa del Sol gangster flick. Ray Winstone, in what he acknowledges was a departure for him, plays Gal, a reformed ex-con now living in Spain with his wife Dede (Amanda Redman) and two friends Jackie (Julianne White) and Aitch (Cavan Kendall).… [continues]

Freeview Films 1/1/22 to 7/1/22

By Film Cheltenham TeamJanuary 1, 2022January 1, 2022 Freeview highlights Leave a comment

World Cinema Wednesday (5/1) 01:50 Film4 Raw (2016). This is the Julia Ducournau shocker about a vegetarian veterinary student who is introduced to a decadent subculture and eats raw meat for the first time. Soon she can’t get enough. Sexy, violent, bloody, extreme. In French with English subtitles. Go for it. Stephen Ilott’s Picks… [continues]

Films around Cheltenham from 1/12/21

By Film Cheltenham TeamDecember 31, 2021 Films around Cheltenham Leave a comment

The Cineworlds Cineworld, Cheltenham, has one potentially interesting film: The Electrical Life of Louis Wain. The Picturehouse chain showed it weeks ago. What a pity we don’t have one of those. It’s a period biopic about the Victorian photographer Louis Wain, who took somewhat psychedelic pictures of cats. As a result he was considered mentally… [continues]

Freeview films 25/12/21 to 31/12/21

By Film Cheltenham TeamDecember 24, 2021 Freeview highlights 2 Comments

World Cinema Tuesday (28/12) 01:20 Film4 Wings of Desire (1987). Powerful and poetic Wim Wenders fantasy-romance about an angel (brilliant Bruno Ganz) who falls in love with a trapeze artist (Solveig Dommartin) and desires to become mortal. Haunted and haunting German classic. … [continues]

Freeview films 18/12/21 to 24/12/21

By Film Cheltenham TeamDecember 18, 2021 Uncategorized Leave a comment

World Cinema There doesn’t seem to be any. This is a local Christmas for local people. Stephen Ilott’s Picks Saturday (18/12) 14:00 BBC2 Great Expectations (1946). David Lean’s unsurpassed black-and-white version of Dickens’s most perfectly realised novel, a tale of cruelty and obsession as strange as any… [continues]

Films around Cheltenham from 18/12/21

By Film Cheltenham TeamDecember 17, 2021 Films around Cheltenham Leave a comment

[Big picture: the Spider-Man we liked, from Sam Raimi’s 2002 original. Boy, could Toby Maguire wear a sweater.] I really have a lot on this week, so you’ll have to see what sense you can make of the various websites yourself. The only really interesting film event is my Cool Yule show and party, at… [continues]

Films around Cheltenham from 11/12/21

By John MorrishDecember 11, 2021December 11, 2021 Uncategorized Leave a comment

The Cineworlds New from Friday: Clifford:The Big Red Dog (2021), children’s live/action, with John Cleese, whose most prominent appearances these days seem to be on Twitter; and Spider-Man: No Way Home, the latest in the endless franchise. This time Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is exposed as the sticky-fingered superhero and Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) has… [continues]

Freeview films from 11/12/21

By Film Cheltenham TeamDecember 10, 2021 Freeview highlights Leave a comment

World Cinema Saturday (11/12) 21:30 BBC4 Stieg Larssons Millenium Episode 5 (2010). Better known as The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest Part 1. Swedish with English subtitles. … [continues]

Films around Cheltenham from 4/12/21

By John MorrishDecember 4, 2021 Films around Cheltenham, Uncategorized Leave a comment

The Cineworlds Some Harry Potter reruns. Some Matrix reruns. A new Resident Evil called Welcome to Raccoon City. A live event-cinema thing featuring the pomaded poltroon Andre Rieu, my late mum’s favourite. Another event=cinema thing featuring Gorillaz, probably aimed at a slightly different audience. Also, something about Monsta X, apparently a K-Pop band. And The… [continues]

Freeview films 4/12/21 to 10/12/21

By Film Cheltenham TeamDecember 4, 2021 Freeview highlights Leave a comment

World Cinema Saturday (4/12) 21:30 BBC4 Stieg Larssons Millenium Episode 4 (2010). The second part of The Girl Who Played With Fire. In Swedish, Italian and French, with subtitles. … [continues]

Topsy-Turvy

By John MorrishDecember 4, 2021 Films of the Week Leave a comment

Mike Leigh’s first venture into the musical and out-and-out costume drama, this is the story of how playwright W. S. Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) and composer Arthur Sullivan (Allan Corduner) created The Mikado (1885), the comic opera that saved their careers. It brings to life the nature of creative partnerships, the world of musical theatre, and the wider… [continues]

Stephen Sondheim: 22/3/30 to 26/11/21

By Film Cheltenham TeamDecember 4, 2021 Obituaries Leave a comment

A personal appreciation by Tony Palmer, film director and writer I had the privilege of working with Stephen Sondheim for the ‘musicals’ episode of my TV series All You Need Is Love (1977). Unlike many of his songs, Sondheim was lucid and simple, emphasising his debt to, and friendship with, his mentor and ‘adopted’ father, Oscar… [continues]

Who screened the first talkie in Cheltenham?

By Film Cheltenham TeamNovember 27, 2021 Odds and ends Leave a comment

by John Elliott. First published in Cheltenham Local History Society Journal in 2013. I had always believed and, indeed, have quoted in talks I have given that the first screening of a talkie in Cheltenham was that of Ronald Colman in Bulldog Drummond at the Theatre and Opera House. The Gloucestershire Echo of October 1,… [continues]

Films around Cheltenham from 27/11/21

By John MorrishNovember 27, 2021November 27, 2021 Films around Cheltenham, Uncategorized 1 Comment

The Cineworlds A lot of very familiar stuff at the Cineworlds this week: The House of Gucci, Encanto, King Richard, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Eternals, etc, etc. There are a couple of ‘Unlimited’ exclusive screenings of Boxing Day, which is a post-Christmas mid-Atlantic romcom with a largely black cast, directed by Ami Ameen, whose trans-Atlantic acting and… [continues]

Freeview films 27/11/21 to 3/12/21

By Film Cheltenham TeamNovember 26, 2021November 27, 2021 Freeview highlights 2 Comments

World Cinema Saturday (27/11) 21:30 BBC4 Stieg Larssons Millenium Episode 2 (2010). According to the BBC’s website, this is the conclusion of The Girl Who Played With Fire, reviewed last week. According to the Radio Times, it’s the first part. I wish these people would get their… [continues]

Blue Velvet (1986)

By Film Cheltenham TeamNovember 26, 2021 Films of the Week Leave a comment

Blue Velvet, which is on Sunday at 23:15 on Film4, is David Lynch’s early, eerie masterpiece. It is the story of a young man (Kyle McLachlan, who was later to appear in Twin Peaks) who becomes obsessed with a nightclub singer (Isabella Rossellini), who is herself in the grip of a gang of criminals who have kidnapped… [continues]