What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 7th December 2017.

The 27th annual Gotham Awards were held on Monday evening 27th November at Cipriani Wall Street, New York, and hosted this year by Actor and Director John Cameron Mitchell. The IFP (Independent Filmmaker Project) Gotham Awards, are selected by distinguished juries and presented in New York City, the home of independent film. This public showcase honours the filmmaking community, expands the audience for independent films, and supports the work that IFP does behind the scenes throughout the year to bring such films to fruition. The Independent Filmmaker Project champions the future of storytelling by connecting artists with essential resources at all stages of development and distribution, and represents a growing network of 10,000 storytellers around the world, and plays a key role in developing 350 new feature and documentary works each year. During its 36-year history, IFP has supported over 8,000 projects and offered resources to more than 20,000 filmmakers. The winners and grinners at this years Awards Ceremony are as detailed below :-

* Best Feature : Awarded to 'Call Me By Your Name', beating out 'The Florida Project', 'Get Out', 'Good Time' and 'I, Tonya'.
* Best Actor : Awarded to James Franco as Tommy Wiseau on 'The Disaster Artist'.
* Best Actress : Awarded to Saoirse Ronan as Christine 'Lady Bird' McPherson on 'Lady Bird'.
* Best Screenplay : Awarded to Jordan Peele for 'Get Out'.
* Breakthrough Actor : Awarded to Timothee Chalamet as Elio Perlman on 'Call Me By Your Name'.


* Breakthrough Director Award : Awarded to Jordan Peele for 'Get Out'.
* Audience Award : 'Get Out'.
* Special Jury Award - Ensemble Performance : Awarded to Jonathan Banks, Jason Clarke, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Mitchell, Rob Morgan, Carey Mulligan and Mary J. Blige on 'Mudbound'.
* Gotham Tributes : Awarded to Sofia Coppola, Nicole Kidman, Dustin Hoffman, Al Gore, Jason Blum and Ed Lachman.
Congratulations to all those winners, and those nominated also in their respective categories. For more information, you can go to : https://gotham.ifp.org/

This week there are just three new movies coming to your local Odeon. We kick off with the latest offering from this prolific film maker about the lives of four individuals whose worlds intersect in the late '50's Noo Yawk amusement park amidst gangsters, a would be playwright, a long lost daughter and an actress turned waitress. We then turn to a past and present set Irish tale about a mentally ill committed woman living under the shadow of an alleged crime of fifty years previously only to have the truth come out and free her in the twilight of her years. Wrapping up we have a Japanese manga animated offering of one young girls struggle to reconcile the horrors of WWII in Japan against the responsibilities she has to her new husband and his family in Hiroshima.

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it any of the three latest release films as Previewed below, or those doing the rounds currently on general release and as Reviewed and Previewed in previous Blog Posts here at Odeon Online, you are here warmly invited to share your movie going thoughts, opinions and observations by leaving your relevant, succinct and appropriate views in the Comments section below this or any other Post. We'd love to hear from you, and in the meantime, enjoy your big screen Odeon experience during the week ahead.

'WONDER WHEEL' (Rated PG) - this American crime drama film is Written and Directed by Woody Allen in his 53rd outing as Director since making his debut back in 1966. The film closed out the October New York Film Festival, was released in the US last week on Allen's 82nd Birthday, cost US$25M to make and has so far generated mixed to average Reviews. The film is set in the late 1950's on New York's Coney Island amusement park.

Here the lives of four people collide among the ebb and flow of the Coney Island amusement park. There is Ginny (Kate Winslet), an emotionally volatile former actress now working as a waitress in a clam house; Humpty (Jim Belushi), Ginny's rough around the edges carousel operator husband; Mickey (Justin Timberlake), a handsome young lifeguard at the Coney Island Beach who has aspirations of making it big as a playwright; and Carolina (Juno Temple), Humpty's estranged daughter, who is in hiding out from a mob of gangsters at her father's apartment. At the same time, both Ginny and Carolina are vying for the affections of the same man - budding playwright Mickey, which sends Ginny's life into a tailspin.

'THE SECRET SCRIPTURE' (Rated M) - this Irish offering is Co-Written and Directed by Jim Sheridan (whose previous credits include 'My Left Foot', 'In the Name of the Father' and 'The Boxer') and is based on the 2008 book of the same name by Sebastian Barry. The film was shown at TIFF in October 2016, and had its World Premier screening in its native Ireland in May this year, and has received generally mixed Reviews despite its strong cast. Here Roseanne McNulty (Vanessa Redgrave playing the older, and Rooney Mara playing the younger by some fifty years) must vacate the soon-to-be demolished mental institution in Roscommon, Ireland that has been her home for more than fifty years. The hospital's psychiatrist, Dr. William Grene (Eric Bana), is called in to assess her condition and determine whether she should be transferred or released. He finds himself drawn to Roseanne's habits and foibles, and the strong attachment she has to her Bible, which she has over the years transformed into an alternative work of overwritten scripture, drawings, and cryptic diary entries. As Grene digs deeper into Roseanne's history, we see her as a young woman, whose charisma proves seductive, and moving to Sligo to work in her aunt's café, she falls in love with a dashing fighter pilot Michael McNulty (Jack Reynor), that a local priest Father Gaunt (Theo James) fell tragically in love with her too, and that local man Jack Conroy (Aiden Turner) was also vying for her affections. When the young Roseanne falls pregnant and is committed to a mental hospital, a tragic turn of events unfolds that sees her committed for life until the truth rises to the surface some five decades later.

'IN THIS CORNER OF THE WORLD' (Rated M) - this Japanese animated wartime WWII drama film is based on the manga of the same name as Written and Illustrated by Fumiyo Kono and is written for the screen and Directed by Sunao Katabuchi. The film was shown at TIFF in October 2016, had its World Premier screening in its native Japan in November 2016 was released Stateside in August this year, and now goes on limited release in Australia. Having been made for just US$2.2M the film has so far grossed US$23M, has garnered generally positive Reviews and has so far picked up 43 Award wins and a further fifteen nominations from around the festivals and awards circuit. Set in the 1930's and '40s in Hiroshima and Kure in Japan, about ten years before and after the atomic bomb, but principally during the end of war years from 1944 through 1945. Following the daily life and routines of new eighteen year old bride Suzu Urano (voiced by Non) who lives on the outskirts of Kure during the second world war. With the mounting likelihood of a war in the Pacific, young Suzu must combat her daily trials during turbulent wartime with her duties to her new husband Shusaku Hojo (voiced by Yoshimasa Hosoya) and his family, while finding the strength to carry on regardless. Although this is a fictional story, the scenes and background for the film are based on facts and real incidents as researched by the production team, such as the lost landscape of pre-war Hiroshima, damaged by the atomic bombing, is accurately recreated in the scenes using old photographs, documented evidence, archival footage and the memories of its survivors.

With three new release films this week to tempt you out to your local Odeon, with the likes of a '50's crime drama set in Noo Yawk; a '40's drama set in Ireland; and a '40's set animated WWII drama set in Japan, remember to share your movie going thoughts with your other like minded cinephiles afterwards here at Odeon Online. Meanwhile, I'll see you sometime somewhere in the week ahead at your local Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-