The Guildhall<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Quite a promising week at The Guildhall<\/a> in Gloucester. There\u2019s a last chance to see Summer of Soul<\/a><\/em>, the documentary about a 1969 concert in Harlem, sometimes referred to as The Black Woodstock. It\u2019s directed by Questlove, drummer and frontman for The Roots, with as much emphasis on the event\u2019s political significance as the music. That means a lot of talking-head recollections and a limited amount of concert footage, and then it’s mainly of unfamiliar songs. Perhaps there were music licensing problems. Nonetheless, it has received rave reviews. It\u2019s on Saturday (28\/8) at 16:00. If you miss it, it is coming up at The Roses <\/a>soon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On Tuesday (31\/8) at 19:30 and Wednesday (1\/9) at 14:00 there is Nowhere Special<\/a><\/em> (2020). On Tuesday (31\/8) at 14:00 and Thursday (2\/9) at 16:00, there is Limbo<\/a><\/em> (2020). Both are very good. I wrote about them last week<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On Friday (3\/9) at 16:00, there is The Last Bus<\/a><\/em> (2021), in which Timothy Spall plays a wise old pensioner making a sentimental journey from John O\u2019Groats to Lands End using only his free bus pass. Spall is apparently pretty good, but the film, setting out to be winning, has not succeeded in winning many friends. \u2018Contrived and two-dimensional,\u2019 according to Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian, who particularly disliked a desperate sub-plot about the widower becoming a social-media celebrity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Sparks Brothers<\/a><\/em> (2021) is on Friday (3\/9) at 19:30. A first documentary by Edgar Wright, who made Shaun of the Dead<\/em> and Hot Fuzz<\/em> with Brockworth-born superstar Simon Pegg, it covers the career of Ron and Russell Mael. As Sparks, they were a chart fixture in the 1970s, not least on account of their bizarre visual image. Wright\u2019s film is composed of archive footage, celebrity endorsements and album-by-album coverage of a career lasting 50 years. It probably helps to be a fan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Roses<\/a> has Jungle Cruise<\/em>, mostly, but on Thursday (2\/9) at 11.15 and 7.30, there\u2019s The World to Come<\/a> <\/em>(2020). This is an acclaimed period drama by the Norwegian director Mona Fastvold, telling of a forbidden love between two frontier wives in 1850s New York state. Spectacular photography of a harsh and beautiful landscape (in reality, Romania), intense erotic tension, an excellent score and winning performances by Katherine Waterston and Britain\u2019s Vanessa Kirby, who was so good as Princess Margaret in Netflix\u2019s Royal soap-opera The Crown<\/a><\/em>. Her mane of red hair gets a special award from me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Only three notable new films this week across both Cineworlds<\/a> and Vue in Stroud<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Candyman<\/a><\/em> (2021): a sort of sequel to the slasher classic Candyman<\/a><\/em> of 1992, about a supernatural murderer with a hook for a hand who appears when people say his name five times into a mirror. The new version is written by Jordan Peele of Get Out<\/em> <\/a>and Us<\/em><\/a> fame, and has been recast as an anti-racism parable in the light of Black Lives Matter. Not seen it, but I hear it is extremely violent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Nest<\/a><\/em> (2020) is a cautionary tale starring Jude Law as an English trader in New York who brings his American wife (Carrie Coon) and children to a crumbling pile in Surrey and sets her up in the equestrian business. But their glamorous lifestyle proves to be built on false foundations, with the Law character increasingly revealed to be a greedy chancer. Than God there are none of those in the Cotswolds. \u2018One of the best films of the year,\u2019 according to Vanity Fair<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Scottish director Michael Caton-Jones, whose biggest hit was probably Scandal<\/a><\/em> (1989), about the Christine Keeler affair of 1963, claims to have spent 20 years getting Our Ladies<\/em> <\/a>(2019) on to the screen. It\u2019s a raucous account of Catholic schoolgirls taking a trip to Edinburgh for a choir competition and behaving extremely badly. Well-received at the London Film Festival that year and very much liked by some on the Cheltenham Film Society screening panel, though it didn\u2019t make it through to selection for the forthcoming season, on the grounds that it would probably be coming to Cineworld. Which it has. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, what is going on with the projected Tivoli Cinema, at the back of the Regent Arcade in Cheltenham? You\u2019ll recall that it is supposed to be opening next month, just in time to show the James Bond film No Time to Die<\/em>, along with everybody else. It\u2019s billed as a luxury boutique experience, with sumptuous seating, fancy projection in four auditoria, a private screening room and a cafe and bar offering what are described as \u2018luxury versions of classic cinema dishes\u2019: these include \u2018gourmet burgers\u2019, which is the very definition of an oxymoron. On the website of the only other Tivoli cinema, in Bath, they are advertising for staff<\/a> for the Cheltenham operation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Oddly, though, the boxes of seats being installed inside bear a label saying \u2018Property of Empire Cinemas\u2019. When I contacted Empire Cinemas<\/a>, a chain of 14 multiplexes offloaded by Cineworld and Odeon<\/a>, it said that it would be operating The Tivoli. Empire shows the usual Hollywood fare plus a bit of Bollywood and martial arts. And its tickets are cheaper than Cineworld\u2019s, which is good: what it doesn\u2019t seem to do is run \u2018luxury\u2019 cinemas in spa towns. All very odd. I\u2019d like to know more, but neither Tivoli Cinemas nor Empire Cinemas is proving very communicative. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" YourScreen YourScreen, the Cheltenham-based streaming service, has managed to extend the run of the excellent Summer Survivors until 19 September. Time for Love, Those Who Remained and But Beautiful also run until then. Window To the Sea ends on 5 September and Calamity on 12 September. More on all of those films here. The Guildhall […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":7068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films-around-cheltenham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmcheltenham.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmcheltenham.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmcheltenham.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmcheltenham.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmcheltenham.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7063"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/filmcheltenham.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7075,"href":"https:\/\/filmcheltenham.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7063\/revisions\/7075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmcheltenham.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmcheltenham.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmcheltenham.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmcheltenham.online\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/filmcheltenham.online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/sparks-1024x745.jpg\")
The Roses <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/filmcheltenham.online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/world-1024x683.jpg\")
The Multiplexes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The Tivoli<\/h2>\n\n\n\n