The weather outside may be frightful (let’s be honest though, there’s nothing new there), so where better to hunker down and prepare for winter to pass than in the cosy confines of the Filmhouse? For cinephiles in the capital, not too many places, that’s for sure. Here’s a sneak preview at the month ahead in movie terms to get those whistles suitably whetted this December.
David Lowery / USA / 2018 / 93 mins
Based on a true story, this comedy crime caper tells the tale of Forrest Tucker, a 70-year-old inmate of San Quentin who rowed his way to escape in a kayak. Then, not content with that defiant feat of derring-do, the incorrigible codger rounded a bunch of other septuagenarians and embarked on a string of heists that had the FBI at their wits’ end. Robert Redford stars in his final role before retirement.
@ GFT from Fri 7 Dec
Nuri Bilge Ceylan / Turkey / 2018 / 188 mins
Fresh from his success at the 67th Cannes Film Festival, where Winter Sleep scooped the Palme d’Or, Nuri Bilge Ceylan is back with another gem of a film, this time focusing on the struggles of a young man intent on publishing his first novel. However, those aspirations are sent flying out of the window when it transpires that his father is up to his ears in gambling debts, leading to a dilemma between familial responsibility and creative impulse.
@ GFT from Fri 30 Nov
Gustav Moeller / Denmark / 2018 / 85 mins
If there’s one thing those Scandinavians know how to do well, it’s gritty crime dramas. In The Guilty, a browbeaten police officer is demoted to monotonous desk work and the telephone switchboard to atone for his sins. However, the ignominy of the job is soon replaced with intensity as he receives a call from a kidnapped woman and must race against time to save her life. The recipient of gongs at Sundance and Seattle film festivals, this is Denmark’s entry for next year’s Best Foreign Language Film.
Paul Dano / USA / 2018 / 105 mins
Paul Dano has roped in Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan for his directorial debut, in which he undertakes an adaptation of the Richard Ford novel of the same name. The story sees a man lose his job and look to pastures new by fighting wildfires in 1950s Montana, while his wife looks to recapture the salad days of her youth and their disillusioned son looks on.
My Hero Academia the Movie: The Two Heroes
Kenji Nagasaki / Japan / 2018 / 96 mins
The two heroes of the title, All Might and Deku, receive an invitation to visit the Hollywood of science on a floating island. While ogling all the shiny knowledgeable baubles around them, Deku has his fancy taken by a girl and a nefarious do-badder hacks into the island’s security system, taking everyone on board prisoner. Who you gonna call? Two heroes, of course.
@ Filmhouse on Wed 12 & Thu 13 Dec
Alfonso Cuarón / Mexico, USA / 2018 / 135 mins
Part autobiography, part fictional love letter, this intense emotional affair centres on a middle-class family and their hired help in 1970s Mexico City. With the father absent for an extended period of time, the mother struggles to cope and one of the children’s nannies suffers her own personal trauma which threatens to disrupt things even further. An intimate vision of domestic upheaval.
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin / USA / 2018 / 100 mins
This documentary tells the incredible story of Alex Honnold, a free soloist climber who loves to scamper up things without a tether of any kind. In June 2017, Honnold scaled the El Capitan ridge in Yosemite National Park in under four hours and without a rope, becoming the first person to mount the 3,000ft sheer cliff face unassisted. His achievement represents the ultimate in human endeavour: literally death or glory.
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