What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 29th August 2019.

Continuing with the coverage of the 76th Venice International Film Festival which launched on 28th August and runs through until 7th September, it was announced in the months preceding the festival that the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement by a Director would be awarded to Spanish Director Pedro Almodovar whose film making credits include his international break out film in 1983 'Dark Habits' and then over the following years 'Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown' in 1988, 'Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down' in 1989, 'All About My Mother' in 1999, 'Talk to Her' in 2001, 'Bad Education' in 2003, 'Volver' in 2006, 'The Skin I Live In' in 2011 and 'Julieta' in 2016. The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement by an Actor or Actress is awarded to English Actress, Singer and Author Julie Andrews whose film acting credits include 'My Fair Lady' and 'The Americanisation of Emily' both in 1964, 'The Sound of Music' in 1965, 'Torn Curtain' and 'Hawaii' both in 1966, 'Thoroughly Modern Millie' in 1967, 'Star!' in 1968, 'The Tamarind Seed' in 1974, '10' in 1979, 'S.O.B.' in 1981, 'Victor/Victoria' in 1982, 'Duet for One' in 1986, 'The Princess Diaries' in 2001 and its sequel in 2004 and from there she lent her voice talents to the animated 'Shrek' and 'Despicable Me' film franchises.

This years Out of Competition entries take in works of fiction and non-fiction and special screenings. Included in these are :-
Out of Competition : Fiction 
* 'SEBERG' - from the USA and Directed by Benedict Andrews and starring Kristen Stewart, Jack O’Connell, Anthony Mackie and Vince Vaughn.
* 'THE BURNT ORANGE HERESY' - from the UK and Italy and Directed by Giuseppe Capotondi and starring Claes Bang, Elizabeth Debicki, Donald Sutherland and Mick Jagger.
* 'MOSUL' from the USA and Directed by Matthew Michael Carnahan and starring Suhail Dabbach, Adam Bessa and Is’Haq Elias.




* 'ADULTS IN THE ROOM' - from France and Greece and Directed by Costa-Gravas and starring Christos Loulis, Alexandros Bourdoumis, Ulrich Tukur, Daan Schuurmans, Josiane Pinson, and Aurelien Recoing.
* 'THE KING' - from the UK and Hungary and Directed by David Michod and starring Timothee Chalamet, Joel Edgerton, Sean Harris, Tom Glynn-Carney, Lily-Rose Depp, Thomasin McKenzie, Robert Pattinson and Ben Mendelsohn.

Out of Competition : Non-Fiction 
* 'ROGER WATERS US + THEM' - from the UK and Directed by Sean Evans and Roger Waters. The former Pink Floyd man toured across North America, the UK and Europe throughout 2017 and 2018, which saw Waters perform to over two million people worldwide. The film was captured during his four-night stop at Amsterdam's Ziggo Dome on June 18th, 19th, 22nd and 23rd 2018, and features songs from his legendary Pink Floyd albums 'The Dark Side Of The Moon', 'The Wall', 'Animals' and 'Wish You Were Here', and from his last album, 'Is This The Life We Really Want?'
* 'CITIZEN K' - from the UK and USA and Direcetd by Alex Gibney and starring Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Vladimir Putin, Leonid Nevzlin, Boris Berezovsky, Igor Malashenko, Anton Drel and Boris Yeltsin. In 2003, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of the richest men in Russia, began a ten-year sentence for tax evasion. Many believed his downfall was challenging then newly elected president Vladimir Putin. During his time in a Siberian prison, Khodorkovsky became a world-famous dissident. Today, exiled in London, he continues to battle Putin’s 19-year hold on power.
* 'STATE FUNERAL' - from Holland and Lithuania and Directed by Sergei Loznitsa. Using mostly unseen archival footage from March 1953, the funeral of Joseph Stalin is seen as the culmination of the Dictator’s personality cult. The news of Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953, shocked the entire Soviet Union. The burial ceremony was attended by tens of thousands of mourners. This film bears witness to every stage of the funeral spectacle, and receives unprecedented access to the dramatic and absurd experience of life and death under Stalin’s reign.
* 'WOMAN' - from France and Directed by Anastasia Mikova and Yann Arthus-Bertrand. 'Woman' is a worldwide project giving a voice to some two thousand women across fifty different countries.  Based on first-person encounters, the project deals with topics such as motherhood, education, marriage or financial independence but also menstruations or sexuality discovering the voices of women as you have never heard them before.
* 'COLLECTIV' - from Romania and Luxembourg and Directed by Alexander Nanau and starring Narcis Hogea, Catalin Tolontan, Mirela Neag, Camelia Roiu, Razvan Lutac and Tedy Ursuleanu. In the aftermath of a tragic fire in a Romanian music club, more burn victims begin dying in hospitals from wounds that were not life threatening. A team of investigative journalists move into action to uncover massive corruption in the health system and other state institutions.
* '45 SECONDS OF LAUGHTER' - from the USA and Directed by Tim Robbins. A group of incarcerated men from Calipatria State Prison participate in a theatrical workshop with Tim Robbins’ theatre company, The Actors’ Gang. Defying racial barriers and gang affiliations, the men tap into emotions that have long been dormant while unexpected bonds emerge between former enemies, as they work towards a transformation and liberation unknown to their life behind bars.

For the full run down on all the screenings, the news and views from the 76th Venice International Film Festival, you can go to the official website at : https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2019

This week coming to your local Odeon, we have six new release movies starting off with an Australian period piece set back in 1825 that sees a young convict girl join forces with an Aboriginal tracker to hunt down a British Officer who raped her and killed her husband and young child. We then move to a story set in the '70's in New York's Hell's Kitchen of three wives who take on the mob to earn a crust while their husbands are locked up in prison serving time. This is followed by a modern day cops & robbers caper where two hardened career Detectives are suspended for their strong arm antics who jump to the other side of the fence in a bid to make some much needed cash until their suspensions are lifted. Next up is a true story of the failed attempts to rescue the crew of a stricken Russian nuclear submarine that sank to the bottom of the Berents Sea in 2000. We then move to an Italian foreign language crime drama telling the story of a meek and mild dog salon owner who goes up against the local petty crime bully with unexpected consequences, before closing out the week with a documentary of the 1972 recording of a live gospel album by a world renowned singer and songwriter who died last year.

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it any of the six 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 most welcome 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.

'THE NIGHTINGALE' (Rated MA15+) - this Australian thriller is a period piece Directed, Co-Produced and Co-Written by Jennifer Kent in only her second film making outing following 2014's highly acclaimed horror offering 'The Babadook'.  This film saw its World Premier screening at the Venice International Film Festival back in September 2018, its US release earlier this month and in Australia this week after its screening at the recent Sydney Film Festival, and has so far received generally positive Reviews, although has divided audiences with its graphic depictions of rape and murder. Kent subsequently defended the decision to depict such violence, claiming that the film contains historically accurate representations of the colonial violence and racism that took place against the Australian Indigenous people of that time. The film was produced in collaboration with Tasmanian Aboriginal elders who feel that this is an honest and necessary depiction of their history and a story that needs to be told.

Set in Tasmania in 1825, Clare (Aisling Franciosi), a 21-year-old Irish convict, is brutally raped and witnesses the murder of her husband and baby by Hawkins (Sam Claflin), a British officer, and his cohorts. Unable to find justice, she takes Billy (Baykali Ganambarr), an Aboriginal tracker, with her through the harsh and unforgiving wilderness to seek revenge on the soldiers, and gets much more than she bargained for. Also starring Damon Herriman and Ewen Leslie.

'THE KITCHEN' (Rated MA15+) - here we have an American crime film Written and Directed by Andrea Berloff, in her Directorial debut but whose previous film writing credits include 2006's 'World Trade Centre', 2015's 'Straight Outta Compton', '2016's 'Blood Father' and 2017's 'Sleepless'. It is based on the Vertigo comic book miniseries of the same name. The story here is of  the wives of three Irish mobsters, who take over organised crime operations in New York's Hell's Kitchen in the late '70's, after the FBI arrests their husbands while getting caught red handed robbing a convenience store, and they are sent down for three years apiece. The wives in question here are Kathy Brennan (Melissa McCarthy) married to Jimmy (Brian d'Arcy James), Ruby O'Carroll (Tiffany Haddish) married to Kevin (James Badge Dale) and Claire Walsh (Elisabeth Moss) married to Rob (Jeremy Bobb). Also starring Domhnall Gleeson, Bill Camp, Margo Martindale and Common, the film was made for US$38M, has so far recouped US$14M since its release Stateside earlier this month, and has received mostly negative Reviews. Sounds like a lot lesser version of Steve McQueen's 2018 film 'Widow's'.

'DRAGGED ACROSS CONCRETE' (Rated R18+) - this American neo-noir crime thriller is Directed and Written by Steven Craig Zahler whose previous Directing credits are 'Bone Tomahawk' and 'Brawl in Cell Block 99'. The storyline here follows two police detectives Brett Ridgeman (Mel Gibson) and Anthony Lurasetti (Vince Vaughn) who find themselves suspended by their Chief, Lieutenant Calvert (Don Johnson) without pay when a video of their strong-arm tactics is leaked to the media. With little money and no options, the embittered Policemen decide to use the criminal connections they have developed through their time in law enforcement to make cash that will sustain them until their suspensions are lifted, but as they descend into the criminal underworld they discover more than they wanted lurking in the shadows. Also starring Tory Kittles, Michael Jai White, Jennifer Carpenter, Udo Kier and Thomas Kretschmann, the film was made on a Budget of US$15M, saw its release at the Venice International Film Festival in September last year, a limited US release in March, has so far taken just US$306K and has garnered mixed or average Reviews so far.

'KURSK' (Rated M) - this French and Belgian Co-Produced English language drama film is Directed by Denmark's Thomas Vinterberg based on Robert Moore's book 'A Time to Die', surrounding the true story of when disaster struck the K-141 Kursk Oscar II-class nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine of the Russian Navy on 12th August 2000. The Kursk sank during a Russian naval exercise in the Barents Sea after two explosions within the submarine. Twenty-three sailors survived those initial explosions who desperately waited for help to arrive while their oxygen ran out steadily minute by minute. The Russian government refused help from foreign governments for five days before agreeing to aid from the British and Norwegian governments, by which time all 118 seamen on board had perished. This is that story, and features Matthias Schoenaerts, Colin Firth, Lea Seydoux, Max von Sydow and Michael Nyqvist. This film saw its World Premier screening at TIFF in early September last year, went on release in France in November, in the US at the end of June and now gets a limited run in Australia following its showing at the recent Sydney Film Festival. The film costs US$40M and has garnered mixed or average Reviews.

'DOGMAN' (Rated MA15+) - is a 2018 Italian crime drama film Directed, Co-Produced and Co-Written  by Matteo Garrone. It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival where Marcello Fonte as the lead Actor won the award for Best Actor. Inspired by real events, it was selected as the Italian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards, but it was not nominated. In a coastal village on the outskirts of an Italian city, where the only law seems to be survival of the fittest, Marcello (Marcello Fonte) is a slight, mild-mannered man who divides his days between working at his modest dog grooming salon (called 'Dogman'), caring for his daughter Alida, and being coerced into the petty criminal schemes of the local bully Simoncino (Edoardo Pesce), an ex-boxer who terrorises the neighbourhood. When Simoncino's abuse finally brings Marcello to a breaking point, he decides to stand up for his own dignity through an act of vengeance, with unintended consequences. The film was released in Italy in May 2018 and now sees a limited run in Australia having generated largely favourable Reviews.

'AMAZING GRACE' (Rated G) - American singer songwriter Aretha Franklin records her gospel album 'Amazing Grace' live at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles in 1972. She is accompanied by the Southern California Community Choir. Directed by Sydney Pollack the 'Amazing Grace' film was not released on schedule in 1972 due to difficulties syncing the audio tracks with the visual print and was relegated to a vault at Warner Bros. until 2007 when Producer Alan Elliott purchased the raw footage and attempted to sync it. The pared-down footage, now 87 minutes in length, was planned for a 2011 release. Franklin sued Elliott for appropriating her likeness without permission, however, and the release date passed. Elliott made another attempt to premiere the film in 2015 at the Telluride, Toronto and Chicago Film Festivals, but Franklin sued him again for unpublished reasons. After Franklin's death in 2018, her family made an arrangement to release the film which saw its Worldwide release back in April this year, and only now does it arrive in Australia, to widespread Critical acclaim.

With six new release movies 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. In the meantime, I'll see you sometime somewhere in the week ahead, at your local Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-