Showroom Cinema

• 15

A group of people head to the remote Chinese city of Manzhouli to see the titular mythical elephant which ignores the world. Hu’s debut film is epic and mesmerising, but is also his swansong; he committed suicide after completing it. It’s full of sorrow but is too skilful and imaginative to write off as pure miserablism.

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• 2017
• UK
• 1h 32min
• 15

• Directed by: John McPhail
• Cast: Ella Hunt, Malcolm Cumming, Marli Siu, Sarah Swire, Christopher Leveaux, Ben Wiggins

Motherless teen Anna (Hunt) and her lovesick bestie John (Cumming) are about to graduate from secondary school when they find themselves in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. Polished, self-aware and pleasingly irreverent zombie musical, spattered with blood and sprinkled with glitter, a surefire Christmas crowdpleaser.

• 65%
• 63%

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• 2018
• UK
• 1h 10min
• U

Special Christmas show from CBeebies.

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• 2018
• UK / Ireland / US
• 1h 54min
• 15

• Directed by: Sebastián Lelio
• Cast: Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, Alessandro Nivola

Ronit (Weisz) is a photographer from an Orthodox Jewish family who comes home after her father’s death to find her teenage lover (McAdams) has married her father’s protégé (Nivola). Dour but engaging portrait of a cloistered community, intimate and authentic but also a little clumsy.

• 66%
• 74%

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• 2018
• US
• 1h 40min
• 12A

• Directed by: Jimmy Chin, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi

Documentary about free solo climber Alex Honnold and his ambition to ascend El Capitan in Yosemite national park. Insightful and exhilarating, showing how Honnold’s personal life and background have affected his climbing, and how the filmmakers themselves had to take special efforts not to distract him into making a disastrous error.

• 86%
• 83%

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• 1990
• US
• 1h 43min
• PG

• Directed by: Chris Columbus
• Written by: John Hughes
• Cast: Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard, Catherine O'Hara

Peter and Kate McCallister (Heard and O'Hara) have an eight-year-old brat and wisely – albeit accidentally – leave him behind in Chicago when they go on holiday to Paris. Left to his own devices young Kevin (Culkin) has to deal with two bungling burglars (Pesci and Stern) who threaten to invade his peaceful haven. Jolly, if sadistic, scare-comedy antics produced by teen flick veteran John Hughes.

• 75%
• 63%
• 55%

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• 2018
• Denmark / France / Germany / Sweden

• Directed by: Lars Von Trier
• Cast: Matt Dillon, Bruno Ganz, Uma Thurman, Sofie Gråbøl

Jack (Dillon) is a serial killer who takes up murder after an annoying woman suggests he doesn’t have it in him. Dillon is convincingly sinister, but it’s just Von Trier playing with killer thriller tropes and poking fun at perceptions of himself, and it’s difficult to get offended by such an obvious attempt to provoke.

• 74%
• 43%

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• 1946
• US
• 2h 9min
• U

• Directed by: Frank Capra
• Cast: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Henry Travers

Small-town boy Stewart runs into financial difficulties and is on the brink of suicide when an elderly angel descends to earth to show him all the good his life has done for those around him. Archetypal Capra sentimentality with a superbly detailed fantasy framework and one of Stewart's most lovable performances. One to warm even the most glacial heart.

• 86%
• 89%
• 94%

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• 2018
• TBC

• Cast: Kelli O’Hara, Ken Watanabe

Production of classic musical King and I screened live to cinemas.

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• 2018
• US
• 1h 46min

• Directed by: Craig William Macneill
• Cast: Kristen Stewart, Chloë Sevigny, Fiona Shaw, Jamey Sheridan

Lizzie Borden (Sevigny) lives with her scrimping father (Sheridan) in 1890s Massachusetts, but then their new maid Bridget (Stewart) has a transforming influence on her. Well-cast, sometimes uneven but pertinent retelling of the Borden case for our times, with Sevigny and Stewart contrasting but very good.

• 57%
• 60%

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• 1953
• France
• 1h 31min
• PG

• Directed by: Jacques Tati
• Cast: Jacques Tati, Nathalie Pascaud, Michelle Rolla.

M Hulot, the accident-prone bachelor, arrives at a jaunty coastal resort and devastation very soon ensues. Comic timing at its most irresistible, as Tati gets away with a number of memorable, slow-burning gags, all undercut by the stabbing notion that we all have an uncle exactly like Hulot.

• 76%
• 100%

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• 2018
• Poland
• 1h 31min
• 15

• Directed by: Malgorzata Szumowska
• Cast: Mateusz Kosciukiewicz, Agnieszka Podsiadlik, Malgorzata Gorol

Jacek (Kościukiewicz) is a cocky construction worker who suffers an accident and gets a face transplant. Szumowska’s film is a mix of social satire and identity crisis which treads a fine balance between comic exuberance and the urge to comment on the state of Poland.

• 65%
• 70%

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• 2018
• US
• 1h 33min

• Directed by: David Lowery
• Cast: Robert Redford, Casey Affleck, Sissy Spacek

Based on the true story of Forrest Tucker (Redford), a career criminal and perpetual prison escapee, who’s being chased by Texas lawman John Hunt (Affleck). Redford says it’ll be his last film and it’s a fitting ending: playful, highly entertaining and made with great skill.

• 73%
• 80%

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• 2018
• UK
• 2h 34min

• Directed by: Mike Leigh
• Cast: Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake, Neil Bell

Historical drama depicting the 1819 massacre at St Peter’s Field in Manchester and its background. Leigh crafts an ensemble story on a far greater canvas than he’s ever attempted before, and shows he can handle big-scale action; while it struggles at times to gel, the quieter moments really linger. Passionate and finely-crafted.

• 65%
• 70%

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• 2017
• US
• 2h 10min
• 15

• Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson
• Cast: Vicky Krieps, Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville

Reynolds Woodcock (Day Lewis) is a haute couture dressmaker in 50s London; when he meets Alma (Krieps), and she becomes his muse and then his lover, the carefully crafted life he has made with his sister (Manville) is turned upside down. A multi-layered, expertly observed study of desire and control, with masterful work from Anderson and his cast.

• 75%
• 90%

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Six day festival celebrating documentary and factual storytelling. The 2017 programme features 35 world premieres, 21 international, 24 European and 73 UK premieres, not to mention a second-to-none lineup of guests, including Louis Theroux, Sir Lenny Henry, Nick Broomfield and Walter Murch.

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• 2018
• Japan
• 2h 1min

• Directed by: Hirokazu Koreeda
• Cast: Kirin Kiki, Lily Franky, Sakura Andô

A family in Tokyo lives by shoplifting, and then Osamu (Franky) and Shota (Kairi) bring home a little girl who seems to be homeless. The humanity of the performances and the loving attention to visual detail are of a piece in what’s ultimately a film about love.

• 81%
• 94%

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• 1990
• US
• 1h 37min
• 15

• Directed by: Charles Lane
• Cast: Charles Lane, Nicole Alysia, Tom Alpern

An almost silent comedy about a street artist who tries to find a baby's mother after its father is murdered.

• 72%
• 100%

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• 2018
• US
• 1h 51min
• 15

• Directed by: Boots Riley
• Cast: Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Jermaine Fowler

Cassius (Stanfield) is a downtrodden drudge who becomes a star at a call centre after fellow telemarketer Langston (Glover) tells him to ‘use your white voice’. Brash, unruly and frequently funny satire on race, power, corporate greed and work; it doesn’t really know how to end, but it’s full of attitude and anarchy.

• 70%
• 80%

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• 2018
• Turkey / Republic of Macedonia / France / Germany / Bosnia and Herzgovina / Bulgaria / Sweden

• Directed by: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
• Cast: Dogu Demirkol, Murat Cemcir, Hazar Ergüçlü

Sinan (Demirkol), recently graduated from college, returns to his home village and an uncertain future. Elegiac and somewhat meandering tale of a prodigal son and an errant father, beautifully filmed and impeccably acted, confirming its director’s status as a modern-day Chekhov.

• 85%
• 88%

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