What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 11th November 2021.

The 21st Belfast Film Festival opened its doors on Thursday 4th November and runs through until Saturday 13th November 2021. The Belfast Film Festival began in 1995 and has developed over the years hand in hand with the evolving culture of film patronage and filmmaking in the city, to become Northern Ireland's largest film festival with an annual audience in excess of 25,000. The official website reads that 'we believe that film should be an experience, and so, we present the best in new, short and classic cinema in our spring and summer festivals. Due to our love of film, we are also heavily involved in promoting film education and nurturing practical filmmaking skills throughout the North. That’s why we are currently working on a programme of community outreach projects that we hope will galvanise people’s accessibility to, and awareness and enjoyment of film culture in hard to reach and underprivileged areas. We will be working with community groups to offer writing and filmmaking workshops, industry discussion panels, special screenings and master classes'. This years Opening Night film is Kenneth Branagh's award winning 'Belfast' starring Jude Hill, Jamie Dornan, Judi Dench, Caitriona Balfe and Ciaran Hinds. 

This years feature films showcased are :-

* '100 Years of Happiness' - Northern Ireland and the partition of Ireland are both 100 years old in 2021.This newly commissioned audio visual piece assembles hundreds of clips of people in the north of Ireland investigating and exploring centres of pleasure, nodes of desire, knots of yearning…their capillaries flooded with gratification.

* 'Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn' - from Romania, Luxembourg, Czech Republic and Croatia and Directed and Written by Radu Jude. An amateur porn video lands a teacher in hot water in this deliberately offensive attack on the hypocrisy of modern society. Winner of the Golden Bear at this years Berlin International Film Festival. 

* 'Belfast' - from the UK and Directed, Written and Co-Produced by Kenneth Branagh and set during the tumult of late-1960's Northern Ireland, the film follows young Buddy as he navigates a landscape of working-class struggle, sweeping cultural changes, and sectarian violence.

* 'Billy Boy' - from the UK and Directed by Matt Faris. It’s the 11th July. The sun is splitting the trees. The tarmac is melting on the ground and Aaron and his mates are protecting the biggest bonfire in east Belfast. It’s a complicated situation. Everyone has an opinion, but as everyone knows ‘Compromise Equals Sell-Out’.

* 'Cow' - from the UK and Directed by Andrea Arnold. This film is an endeavour to consider cows. To move us closer to them. To see both their beauty and the challenge of their lives. Not in a romantic way but in a real way. It’s a film about one dairy cow’s reality and acknowledging her great service to us.

* 'Doineann' - from the UK and Directed by Damian McCann. A woman and her baby son go missing on a remote Irish island. Her husband must put his trust in the island’s retired policewoman. But a storm is approaching.....

* 'Fire in the Mountains' - from India and Directed and Written by Ajitpal Singh. A mother toils to save money to build a road in a mountainous Himalayan village to take her son to physiotherapy. Yet her husband, who believes that a shamanic ritual is the remedy, stands in her way.

* 'Here Before' - from the UK and Directed and Written by Stacey Gregg. When a new family moves in next door, their young daughter, Megan, quickly captivates Laura, stirring up painful memories of her own daughter who died several years previously. Before long, Laura’s memories turn to obsession as Megan’s unsettling behaviour begins to convince her of something supernatural.

* 'Hit the Road' - from Iran and Directed, Written and Co-Produced by Panah Panahi. A four-member family is driving through a picturesque, mountainous Iranian landscape. The older brother is at the wheel, his worrisome mother is next to him, and in the rear the father with a broken leg is bickering with a young and impertinent son. But it soon becomes clear that this is no ordinary family outing!

* 'Hope' - from Norway, Sweden and Denmark and Directed and Written by Maria Sodahl. Anja lives with Tomas in a large family of biological children and stepchildren. For a number of years the two adults have grown independent of each other, with creative jobs in parallel worlds. When Anja gets a terminal cancer diagnosis, their modern life breaks down and exposes neglected love.

* 'Hotel Poseidon' - from Belgium and Directed and Written by Stefan Lernous. Dave reluctantly pretends to be the manager of Hotel Poseidon, where fungus covers the walls and comments such as 'faded glory' and 'has seen better times' completely fall short to describe this establishment. He wanders the corridors of his personal Overlook Hotel like a zombie, being a passive spectator to what happens around him. 

* 'Keep It a Secret' - from Ireland and Directed, Written and Co-Produced by Sean Duggan. In 1972, every international sporting event in Ireland was cancelled, except for one. Teams from around the world refused to travel to Ireland amid the height of The Troubles. The only group of athletes bold enough to risk traveling to Ireland at this turbulent time were surfers.

* 'Lyra' - from the UK and Directed by Alison Millar. An emotive, intimate portrait of the life and death of Belfast journalist Lyra Mckee, who was murdered by the New IRA the day before Good Friday, April 2019. As the voice of her ceasefire generation, Lyra represented hope for a future free of conflict. Her killing casts a dark shadow over a land trying to shake off the shackles of its violent past.

* 'The MacCarnysons' - from Ireland and Directed and Written by Ken Fanning. The circus is facing hard times. Sean MacCarnyson has a choice to make, to sell out or to keep the respect of his family. The MacCarnysons features death defying aerialists, hardcore acrobats, mind bending jugglers and loads of craic.

* 'Mandrake' - from the UK and Directed by Lynne Davison. Witchcraft isn’t real and there’s some good in everyone; two things that probation officer Cathy Madden thought were true, until she met Mary Laidlaw, notorious killer known as ‘Bloody Mary’ who is released back into society after thirty years in jail for murdering her abusive husband.

* 'Old Friends and Other Days' - from the UK and Directed, Written and Co-Executive Produced by Cameron Menzies. The viewer is instantly plunged into an atmospheric, decaying, beautiful world where ambiguity reigns supreme and the stream of consciousness is governed by the world of song.

* 'Once Upon a Time in Calcutta' - from India, France and Norway and Directed, Written, Co-Executive Produced and Edited by Aditya Vikram Sengupta. After the loss of her daughter, Ela not only loses her identity as a mother, but also the only reason to be with her husband. When she is refused a home loan by the bank, her boss, owner of a massive Ponzi scheme, makes her an offer she struggles to accept.

* 'Sam and Mattie Make a Zombie Movie' - from the US and Directed and Co-Produced by Jesse Suchmann and Robert Carnevale. Sam and Mattie, best friends who have Down syndrome, rally the entire town of Providence, Rhode Island, to help them make a film.

* 'The Storms of Jeremy Thomas' - from the UK and US and Directed by Mark Cousins. An affectionate and unconventional documentary portrait examining the long and illustrious career of iconic producer Jeremy Thomas. Many film producers make money, some even win Oscars, but few make great art. Jeremy Thomas has done the lot.

For the full slate of films being screened and a whole lot more besides, you can go to the official website at : https://belfastfilmfestival.org/

This week to tease you out to your local Odeon there are three big films that couldn't be more different, and each one helmed by a Director of repute. First up sees everyone's favourite MI6 Secret Agent returning for his final time in the role when a long-term friend from the CIA, asks for help in tracking down a mysterious villain armed with a potentially deadly new technology. Next up is a Western drama about a domineering rancher who responds with mocking cruelty when his brother brings home a new wife and her son, until the unexpected comes to pass. And we close out the week with a promising young theatre composer about to turn thirty years of age who navigates love, friendship and the pressures of life as an artist in New York City in the early nineties.

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it any of the three latest release new movies as Previewed below, or those doing the rounds currently on general release or 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.

'NO TIME TO DIE' (Rated M) - finally, the 25th Bond film is released in Australia, as Directed and Co-Written by Cary Joji Fukunaga whose prior film making credits include 'Jane Eyre' in 2011 and 'Beasts of No Nation' in 2015. Phoebe Waller-Bridge also Co-Wrote this film with Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. The film was originally scheduled for release in November 2019, but was postponed to February 2020 and then to April 2020 after Danny Boyle's departure as Director due to creative differences. It was then postponed until a November 2020 release date due to the ongoing severity of the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, and was then pushed back again to an early April 2021 date. It was then pushed back to an October 2021 release date, with the World Premier screening scheduled for London's Royal Albert Hall on 28th September. The film was released in the UK on 8th October, in the US on 15th October and in China on 29th October, with the release postponed until this week in Australia because of national lockdowns which have since been lifted. The film has so far grossed US$668M off the back of a production budget somewhere in the vicinity of US$280M, and has garnered generally positive Reviews for this, Daniel Craig's final outing as the titular British MI6 Agent James Bond. 

Here then, James Bond (Daniel Craig), has left active service and is enjoying the quiet life in Jamaica. His peace is short-lived however, when his old friend Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) from the CIA turns up asking for help. The mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist, Valdo Obruchev (David Dencik) turns out to be far more treacherous than expected, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek) armed with dangerous new technology. Also starring Lea Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Christoph Waltz, Ralph Fiennes, Billy Magnussen, Ana de Armis and Rory Kinnear. 

'THE POWER OF THE DOG' (Rated M) - this Australian, UK, US, Canadian and New Zealand co-produced Western drama film is Directed, Written for the screen and Co-Produced by Jane Campion and is based on the 1967 book of the same name by Thomas Savage. The film saw its World Premiere  screening at the Venice International Film Festival in early September where Campion won the Silver Lion for Best Direction, and is released here in Australia this week, and in the US next week prior to streaming on Netflix on 1st December. Set in 1925, charismatic and wealthy Montana rancher Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) inspires fear and awe in those around him. When his brother George (Jesse Plemmons) brings home a new wife, Rose (Kirsten Dunst) and her son Peter (Kodi Smit-McPhee), Phil torments them until he finds himself exposed to the possibility of love. Also starring Thomasin McKenzie, Keith Carradine and Frances Conroy.

'TICK, TICK . . . BOOM!' (Rated M) - is an American musical drama film Directed by the Actor, singer, songwriter, rapper, producer, and playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda who also created and starred in the Broadway musicals 'In the Heights' and 'Hamilton' both of which have been turned into films. This is the multi-award winning Miranda's feature film making debut, and is based on the semi-autobiographical musical of the same name by Jonathan Larson. Here then Jonathan Larson (Andrew Garfield), the composer and playwright who died aged thirty-five in 1996 from an aortic aneurysm just before his new musical 'Rent' would become a worldwide smash hit, sees Larson struggling to find success on the cusp of his thirtieth birthday as he frets about whether he should pack it in and choose a more conventional career path rather than scripting musical theatre. The film has garnered mostly positive Reviews, sees its World Premier screening at the American Film Institute Fest on 10th November, before going on limited release from the 12th November and before streaming on Netflix on 19th November. Also starring Alexandra Shipp, Robin de Jesus, Joshua Henry, Vanessa Hudgens and Bradley Whitford.

With three new release films 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 at your local Odeon in the week ahead.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-