What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 22nd October 2015.

Adelaide is the city of festivals, markets, community events, charity fundraisers and being relatively new to the city I was pleasantly surprised to learn that this city also holds it's own unique 'Annual Zombie Walk' and has done so for a number of years. Now in 2015 this event has grown to in excess of 15,000 undead walkers parading through the streets taking their zombiedom very seriously with gruesome grotesque manifestations of their macabre fascination with the walking dead through their bloodied make up, dishevelled clothing, and lumbering gait as they paraded the streets of Adelaide on October 10th. This has grown to be one of the largest of its kind now - gotta love a Zombie, gotta love a charity fund raiser and when you combine the two then you gotta be on to a winner. 'The Walking Dead' descended on Adelaide, and maybe a city near you too - be afraid, be very afraid! Check out the website for more insights into the living dead.

So getting back to the living, this week there are five new movies coming to a theatre near you that first up feature a cold war drama that ticks all the boxes from its Director, Writers and lead Actor all doing what they do best and delivering a peacetime tense taught thriller of prisoner exchange, intrigue, mistrust and Uncle Sam against the Ruskies. Then there's a kitchen drama of celebrity chefs, food porn, acclaimed restaurants, Michelin stars, broken dreams and high hopes; and then a futuristic dystopian world where a relationship or reincarnation are the choices to be made that become a matter of life and death. From here it's a culture clash comedy romance of divided loyalties, affairs of the heart and the attraction of opposites, and finally yet another instalment in a low budget but hugely successful supernatural horror franchise that might just all end here . . . maybe, until next time, perhaps, so they say!

Quite a choice with genre's galore, and when you have sat through your film of choice, share your thoughts with your like minded movie mates here at Odeon Online in the Comments Box below this or any other Post. In the meantime, enjoy your movie.

BRIDGE OF SPIES (Rated M) - the winning team of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks are at it again with this retelling of a 1960 Cold War incident involving a Soviet Union shot down U2 pilot captured behind enemy lines and at the mercy of their political system as a result. Written by Joel & Ethan Coen and Mark Charman this film was released Stateside on 16th October having cost US$40M to bring to the big screen and so far it has recouped US$18M. The story centres around the subsequent events that unfold following the 1957 arrest by the FBI of KGB spy Rudolph Abel (Mark Rylance) in New York. James Donovan (Tom Hanks) an insurance lawyer specialist is asked by his firm to take on Abel's defence, even though it is not his ordinary line of work. Whilst a nervous US wants Abel sentenced to death, Donovan lobbies for a 30 year jail term and is ultimately successful, thinking that one day Abel may serve a greater purpose.

Meanwhile, flying a sortie over Russian territory in a U2 spy plane, pilot Frances Gary Powers (Austin Stowell) is shot down, captured, interrogated and convicted. The USSR send a secret message to Donovan suggesting a prisoner exchange - the Russian for the Yank, but in the meantime another American citizen - economics graduate student Frederic Pryor (Will Rogers) is arrested trying to smuggle his German girlfriend across the newly built Berlin Wall from East into West, and is promptly arrested by Statsi Agents.  Seeking now a 2 for 1 deal, Donovan must use all his powers of persuasion and strength of character to negotiate his way out of a fragile and dangerous position for himself, the prisoners he cares about and his country. Also starring Amy Ryan and Alan Alda.

BURNT (Rated M) - Directed by John Wells this comedy drama film will satiate those with a hunger for food porn, celebrity chefs, fine dining and the world of top restaurants. Featuring an all star cast headed by acclaimed two Michelin Star Chef Adam Jones (Bradley Cooper) who lives the rock star life whilst cooking up a storm for his Parisian patrons. When it all goes awry and he loses his beloved restaurant and his lifestyle, he makes a decision to clean up his act head to London and spearhead a restaurant and take it to the pinnacle of dining and gain three Michelin stars. Going along for the ride are Sienna Miller, Daniel Bruhl, Emma Thompson, Uma Thurman and Alicia Vikander. If you can't stand the heat, get outta the kitchen!

THE LOBSTER (Rated MA15+) - this film is hardly genre specific - science fiction, futuristic, comedy, romance and drama all interwoven in the first English language film for Greek Director, Producer and Writer Yorgos Lanthimos. Set in some near dystopian future world, or perhaps even a parallel universe the premise here is that the single, unattached men are required by the laws of The City to check into a hotel wherein they are given 45 days to find a match, or be killed and reincarnated into an animal of their choice and then sent into the woods surrounding the hotel facility to live as your chosen beast in the wild. Colin Farrell plays David who arrives at the hotel with his dog which is in fact his reincarnated brother who was unsuccessful before him. David has determined that should he be unsuccessful in his hunt for the perfect match, that he wants to be lobster because of his love for the sea. Also starring Rachel Weisz, Ben Whishaw and John C. Reilly this film might be as disturbing as it is funny. It won the Jury Prize at this years Cannes Film Festival, and is showing too at the current Adelaide Film Festival.

ALEX & EVE (Rated M) - this Aussie comedy is Directed by Peter Andrikidis and started its life as a series of three successful stage plays, now finding its way onto the big screen. Here we have Alex (Richard Brancatisano), a Greek Orthodox school teacher who falls for a Lebanese Muslim legal eagle Eve (Andrea Demetriades) and of course within the cross cultural divide this union is severely frowned upon by both families. It is here that the emotional dilemma is created from the get go as Eve's family have plans for an arranged marriage already to someone much more suitable and of their own kind. Needless to say opposites attract and so we have it here as the turbulence created by both families will test the two star crossed lovers as they combat with their families, their cultures, their expectations and the path they should take.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY : GHOST DIMENSION (Rated M) - When the first film in this franchise came out it was groundbreaking stuff, resetting the tone for found footage horror, and sure enough that first film was made for just US$15K on the smell of an oily rag and it raked in over US$190M and set in place a burgeoning series that has since gone off in various directions and perhaps a little off the rails too - although there is an inkling of mythology that binds them all together. The first and second instalments had genuine scares, were well conceived, delivered on the cheap and did incredibly well, and this sixth offering is supposedly where it all ends. Here a video game designer moves to a new home with his brother, wife and child and not before long they uncover a video camera and number of video tapes that reveal two young girls, Kristi and Katie, being inducted into the demonic coven of their grandmother. No doubt it will get ugly, scary and things will go bump in the night as they fight back to protect their own daughter from a supernatural entity with its own plans for the young girl.

What a choice - so many movies and so little time! You can laugh, you can cry, you can scream and you can possibly sit on the edge of your seat in the week ahead, so do yourself a favour and catch a movie in the next seven days and then give us all some feedback.

See you at the Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-