What's new in Odeon's this week : 14th June 2018.

The 65th annual Sydney Film Festival is in full swing this week, having opened its doors last week on 6th June with the opening film being the New Zealand 'The Breaker Upperers'. The festival winds up on Sunday 17th June with the USA offering 'Hearts Beat Loud'. The official SFF website states as an overview 'The world’s best new films come to Sydney every June for 12 days and nights of inspiring and entertaining premieres, talks and parties. Be among the first in Australia to see the greatest, strangest and most exciting work that cinema has to offer. Sydney Film Festival takes place at our flagship venue the State Theatre, as well as cinemas in the CBD, Newtown, Cremorne, Western Sydney and more, screening more than 200 films you won’t usually find in the multiplex. 12 films are selected for the Official Competition, which celebrates “courageous, audacious and cutting-edge” cinema with a $60,000 cash prize'. The Festival Patrons are : Gillian Armstrong, Cate Blanchett, Bryan Brown, Jane Campion, Jan Chapman, Nicole Kidman, Baz Luhrmann, Dr. George Miller, Sam Neill, Phillip Noyce, Rachel Ward and Hugo Weaving.

Last week I reported on the twelve films in Official Competition at the SFF, so this week I turn attention to the 45+ feature films being showcased across the Festival and in particular those that are more than likely to get a wider release in Australia in the fullness of time. These are :
* 'Beirut' - Directed by Brad Anderson and starring Jon Hamm and Rosamund Pike in this '70's and '80's set complex and intelligent political thriller. Australian Premier.
* '1%' - Directed by Stephen McCallum and starring Ryan Corr, Abbey Lee and Matt Nable about an outlaw motorcycle gang leader who is released from prison after three years to find the man who has been holding the reins in his absence has carved out his own niche that doesn't sit well with the returning gang leader.
* 'The Children Act' - Directed by Richard Eyre and starring Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci and Fionn Whitehead about a High Court Judge specialising in family law and presiding over a case involving a just under eighteen year old Jehovah's Witness boy who refuses a blood transfusion to save his own life, and the decision that the Judge must make to determine the young lads fate. Australian Premier.
* 'Disobedience'  - as Previewed below.
* 'Lean on Pete' - Directed by Andrew Haigh and starring Charlie Plummer, Chloe Sevigny, Travis Fimmel and Steve Buscemi about the inseparable bond that is forged between a young neglected boy and a racehorse called 'Lean on Pete'.
* 'Puzzle' - Directed by Marc Turtletaub and starring Kelly Macdonald and Irrfan Khan is a romantic drama that sees a whole new world open for a suburban contended albeit taken for granted mother when she discovers that she has an uncanny gift for completing jigsaw puzzles. Australian Premier.
* 'The Seagull' - Directed by Michael Mayer and starring Annette Benning, Elisabeth Moss and Saoirse Ronan based on the classic Anton Chekov play set over the course of one weekend at an idyllic country estate that sees romantic games played out between the principle cast that leave them either enamoured, or devastated. Australian Premier.
* 'Searching' - Directed by Aneesh Chaganty and starring Debra Messing and John Choo in a tense thriller about the search for a missing daughter using all the available online tools at the disposal of the father and a Detective exploring how we communicate and interact with each other in this modern switched on technologically orientated world we live in, to track down the whereabouts of the girl. Australian Premier.
* 'The Second' - Directed by Mairi Cameron and starring Vince Colosimo, Susie Porter and Rachael Blake about a successful author struggling to deliver her highly anticipated second novel.
* 'Tyrel' - Directed by Sebastian Silva and starring Jason Mitchell, Michael Cera and Caleb Landry Jones in this story about a boys weekend away that turns uncomfortable and awkward for the only black man in the group, a man named Tyler. Australian Premier.

You can find out a lot more about the goings on and screenings at this years Sydney Film Festival by visiting : sff.org.au

This week we have four new big screen offerings to tempt you out on a cold Winter's evening to your local Odeon. We start with the long awaited sequel to an animated Superhero movie that collected numerous award accolades and did well at the Box Office back in 2004, and introduced us to your average suburban family who secretly harbour super powers but have been forced underground, until they are forced out of the shadows to save the world. This follows on directly from where that first instalment left off. We then move to an action comedy offering that sees a bunch of mates playing 'catch me if you can' as they chase each other around the USofA in an attempt to thwart for the first time in their games history the friend who has never yet been caught, and this surprisingly, is based on a true story. Next we turn to a man given super powers courtesy of a very rich dude and the insertion of an experimental micro-chip into that man to wreak bloody revenge and mayhem into those who killed this wife; and we then wrap things up with a drama of the unfolding, somewhat complicated and secretive relationship within London's Orthodox Jewish community between two women years after they were forced apart.

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it any of the four latest release new movies 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 cordially 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 outing during the week ahead.

'INCREDIBLES 2' (Rated PG) - and finally after a hiatus of fourteen years comes the long awaited sequel to 2004's 'The Incredibles' - that highly praised computer animated Superhero film from Pixar that took US$633M at the global Box Office and picked up two Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Sound Editing, as well as the Annie Award for Best Animated Feature and the first entirely animated film to win the prestigious Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. Brad Bird wrote and Directed the first film, and it's no surprise that he reprises those two earlier roles for this second instalment, as do the majority of the principle voice cast. The film is released in the US this week too.

'Incredibles 2' takes off where 'The Incredibles' finished, with the introduction of the mole like villain The Underminer (John Ratzenberger). The Parr family struggles to maintain a degree of normalcy in their lives, while Mum Helen (Holly Hunter), as Elastigirl, continues to fight crime and campaign for the return, acceptance and acknowledgement of 'Supers'; while Dad Bob (Craig T. Nelson), aka Mr. Incredible, stays at home caring for their children Violet (Sarah Vowell), Dash (Huck Milner) and baby Jack-Jack, discovering the little one's secret powers in the process. Also, the Parrs and their ally Frozone aka Lucius Best (Samuel L. Jackson) find they must battle a new villain, who goes by the name of Screenslaver. Also starring the voice talents of Brad Bird as Edna Mode, Bob Odenkirk, Catherine Keener and Isabella Rossellini. If this film is anything like the first instalment, it will be a blast, and worth the price of your ticket for kids of all ages from the young to the young at heart.

'TAG' (Rated M) - this American comedy offering is Directed by Jeff Tomsic and is based on a real-life group of friends known for playing a month-long game of tag. The group was profiled in The Wall Street Journal in January 2013, after which the group began receiving offers to adapt their story into a movie. They sold the rights to their story the next month, which has been subsequently Co-Produced, Co-Written for the Screen and based on a story by Mark Steilen. And so the premise for this film is that for one month every year, five highly charged and competitive mates hit the ground running for a no-holds-barred game of tag, risking their lives, their livelihood and their relationships to take one another down in a chase that takes them far and wide cross country. This time though, the game happens to coincide with the wedding of the only undefeated player, Jerry (Jeremy Renner). What should be an easy target soon becomes an all-out war as he knows they're coming to get him. The four other mates comprise Ed Helms, Jon Hamm, Jake Johnson and Hannibal Buress with Isla Fisher, Rashida Jones, Annabelle Wallis and Brian Dennehy also starring. The film is released in the US this week too.

'UPGRADE' (Rated MA15+) - here we have an Australian Sci-Fi body horror action film mash-up, filmed in Melbourne, Directed and Written by Aussie Leigh Whannell who also acts and Produces in his spare time. This is only his second Directorial outing after 2015's 'Insidious Chapter 3' but his is also responsible for the hugely successful 'Saw' franchise in which he served as Actor, Writer and Producer; Actor and Writer on all four 'Insidious' films; and various other horror offerings before, and after. Set in a not too distant future world where a brutal and merciless mugging has left Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) paralysed and hospitalised, and his beloved wife dead. A billionaire inventor soon offers Trace a cure by way of an experimental Artificial Intelligence implant called STEM that will cure him of his injuries and upgrade his body. He accepts the offer and against the odds soon is able to walk again. Trace also discovers that he has suddenly acquired superhuman strength and agility and a particular set of new found skills that he uses to seek revenge against the thugs who destroyed his life. The film was released in the US last week, and also stars Betty Gabriel, Harrison Gilbertson, Clayton Jacobson and Melanie Vallejo. This film has received largely positive Reviews and off the back of a US$5M budget has so far grossed US$10M.

'DISOBEDIENCE' (Rated MA15+) - this drama offering is Directed and Co-Written for the screen by Chilean film make, Producer, Writer and Editor Sebastian Lelio who most recent highly acclaimed credit was this years Oscar winning Best Foreign Language Film 'A Fantastic Woman'. Here he adapts the 2006 novel of the same name by British Author Naomi Alderman which is set in the London suburb of Hendon. Telling the story of Ronit Krushka (Rachel Weisz), a 32 year old non-practicing Orthodox Jewish woman who returns to the strict Orthodox community after working as a photographer in New York. The death of her estranged father, a powerful Rabbi, brings her back to her childhood home from which she was sent away from after her teenage romance with a female school friend was revealed. Discovering that her cousin Dovid Kuperman (Alessandro Nivola), who is also her father's chosen successor, is married to her former lover, Esti (Rachel McAdams), forces Ronit to rethink what she left behind whilst reigniting that old flame for her former close friend. The film Premiered at TIFF back in early September last year, was released in the US late in April this year, gets a limited release in Australia this week and is not released in the UK until late November this year. Generally favourable Reviews and a Box Office take of just over US$2M so far.

With four new release films out this week to tempt you out to your local Odeon, remember to share your movie going thoughts with your other like minded cinephile friends afterwards here at Odeon Online. Meanwhile, I'll see you sometime somewhere in the week ahead at your local Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-