Happy Christmas

We finished our Autumn season yesterday with the blockbuster Sicario . Like the rest of the season, it too was blighted by the bad weather but 85 brave souls made it to the Alhambra to watch it. The feelings were mixed, but mainly favourable scoring 74%.

So we now take our Christmas Break until 10th January, when we are back with a French comedy drama La Famille Belier . Members will get their Spring brochures in the post soon and anyone else can pick up the new brochure at the Alhambra or TIC. It is also available to download and you can view the full programme or watch the following selection of trailers for more...

Sicario - Sunday 20th December 4:15pm

We finish our season with a bang - big budget, big stars, big action. Sicario follows an unlikely trio over the border between the USA and Mexico into the war on drugs. Emily Blunt plays Kate Macy, an FBI agent out of her depth in a team cobbled together to take on the top drug suppliers.

She is partnered with Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), a sandal-wearing mystery man who claims to work for the Defense Department, and Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro), the 'Sicario' of the title...the 'hitman'. What follows is the usual interagency mess-up following mixed agendas... and morals.

Sicario was ranked the 5th best film of the year by Empire magazine: "Thanks to Roger Deakins' typically virtuoso photography, the arid border landscape, a geographical and moral chasm into which all of them plunge, becomes something monstrous and unearthly, a Golgotha in widescreen."

Please note the earlier start time of 4:15pm to allow us to finish in time for Bolshoi Ballet: The Nutcracker.

Home From Home: Chronicle of a Vision - Sunday 13th December 3pm

The show must go on and this Sunday we're starting earlier than normal with a four hour film which is "never dull for a moment; indeed, there is a box set addictiveness to the whole thing" according to Peter Bradshaw.

Home From Home: Chronicle of a Vision sees director Edgar Reitz revisiting his fictional village of Schabbach, first invented for his epic 1980s TV series Heimat (Homeland). This time we're going back in time to the 19th century. Here we meet Jakob - "a dreamer, a Romantic, a reader, always getting yelled at by his blacksmith dad for idling. He has conceived a passionate desire to leave the grind and oppression and emigrate to the promised land of Brazil - a 'homeland' that is an alternative both to Germany and the church’s feebly promised heaven" - Peter Bradshaw, Guardian.

Phoenix - Sunday 6th December 5pm

This Sunday, we are off to post-second world war Germany for Phoenix, in what promises to be a very memorable film. The plot is complex and 'a masterstroke', the acting 'mesmerizing' and it all adds up to a noir-like thriller.

Nelly has come out of the concentration camp needing a complete facial rebuild because of her injuries. The result leaves her looking similar, but different; different enough to fool her husband Johnny – "When Nelly crosses paths with Johannes (don't call him Johnny any more), he notices the resemblance, but has completely convinced himself that his wife must be dead. "She's dead. I know she's dead." It’s a trick of denial...However, his wife has an unclaimed fortune, and Johannes convinces Nelly to pretend to be who she actually is to claim it" – all quotes from Brian Tallerico, Roger.Ebert.com.

The plot twists and turns, leading Nelly, and us, round and round as she tries to claim her fortune and her character back. I won’t give away the ending, but Tallerico finishes by saying "I will never forget the end of Phoenix. Ever. Here’s hoping this incredible film gets to an audience so it can sear itself into your memory as well".

The Lobster - Sunday 29th November

This Sunday's film, The Lobster, includes Ben Whishaw and Léa Seydoux in the supporting cast, however comparisons with SPECTRE start and end there. The Lobster almost defies description.

"It is set in a world where single people are gathered up and hauled off to a remote hotel and have 45 days to find a partner or risk losing their humanity. Literally — they’ll get turned into an animal via processes mysterious, and flamingos and camels occasionally wander through the backdrops of scenes." - Buzzfeed

The Independent reviewer said:

"The Lobster is a European arthouse film par excellence – precisely the kind of project you can't imagine ever being made in Hollywood. It has a Greek director (albeit one now based in the UK) and Irish, American and Dutch producers. Its actors are from all over the place. Its budget has been clawed together from innumerable different sources. This is an example of what used to be dismissed as a 'Europudding' but it is also as rich and strange a film as you will see in a very long time – an absurdist tragi-comedy, performed in a very deadpan fashion."

Surprisingly, it was a publication called Nerd Report that got to the essence of the film – "The central issue is the inevitable paradox where you can't meet someone when you're lonely, which is when you most want to meet someone."