What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 25th February 2016

This coming Sunday 28th February at Hollywood's Dolby Theatre the 88th annual Academy Awards will be presented across 24 different categories honouring the best in film entertainment from last year. Hosted by Chris Rock for the second time the glitterati and the glamourati will be out in full force on this, Hollywood's night of nights. The main category nominations look like this : Best Film - 'The Big Short', 'The Martian', 'The Revenant', 'Spotlight', 'Room', 'Brooklyn', 'Bridge of Spies' and 'Mad Max : Fury Road'. Best Director nominations are for Adam McKay, George Miller, Lenny Abrahamson, Tom McCarthy and Alejandro Inarritu. Best Actor runnings are for Matt Damon in 'The Martian', Bryan Cranston for 'Trumbo', Michael Fassbender for 'Steve Jobs', Eddie Redmayne for 'The Danish Girl' and Leonardo DiCaprio for 'The Revenant'. Best Actress nominations go to Cate Blanchett for 'Carol', Brie Larson for 'Room', Charlotte Rampling for '45 Years', Jennifer Lawrence for 'Joy' and Saoirse Ronan for 'Brooklyn'. Best Supporting Actor nods have gone to Mark Rylance for 'Bridge of Spies', Christian Bale for 'The Big Short', Tom Hardy for 'The Revenant', Mark Ruffalo for 'Spotlight' and Sylvester Stallone for 'Creed' with Best Supporting Actress nominations going to Rooney Mara for 'Carol', Jennifer Jason Leigh for 'The Hateful Eight', Kate Winslet for 'Steve Jobs', Rachel McAdams for 'Spotlight' and Alicia Vikander for 'The Danish Girl'. Without going into more detail of the individual categories which you can easily check out on line, in summary 'The Revenant' is in the running with twelve nominations, followed by 'Mad Max : Fury Road' with ten, 'The Martian' with seven', 'Bridge of Spies', 'Carol' and 'Spotlight' each with six, 'The Big Short' and 'Star Wars : The Force Awakens' with five apiece, 'The Danish Girl' and 'Room' with four each, and 'The Hateful Eight', 'Brooklyn' and 'Sicario' each with three. You can check out my Reviews of many of the aforementioned films here at Odeon Online.

Coming closer to home, this week we have five new offerings arriving fresh and wholesome at your local cinema complex. Kicking off from acclaimed dynamic Directing duo is a historical Hollywood romp that is part fact part fiction and all entertainment with a big name cast and a throw back to the golden age of the studio system. Then there is an intense modern warfare offering based on true life events in the very recent past from a loud & proud Director used to blowing shit up for the mindless amusement of teenage boys the world over, with an Egyptian epic swords & sandals save the world gods and mortals battling it out for supremacy and the chance to rule victorious forever, following. From here we go back to WWII for a more sombre, harrowing and confronting foreign language film that has to be the must see film of its kind this year; before wrapping up with a modern take on a classic English novel mashed up with the flesh eating undead.

When you have seen your film of choice in the week ahead, share your movie going experience with you friends here at Odeon Online by leaving a comment or two below this or any other Post - we'd love to hear from y'all! In the meantime, enjoy your movie.

HAIL, CAESAR (Rated PG) - the latest offering and the 17th film from those very talented Coen Brothers - Joel and Ethan bringing us a nostalgic Hollywood comedy with an all star cast. Directed, Produced, Written and Edited by the Coens with lensman Roger Deakins on camera duty the film premiered in LA on 1st February and went on general US release on 5th February and has so far made US$25M off its US$24M budget. 'Hail, Caesar' melds a fictional story with a real life character, that being Joseph Edgar Allen John 'Eddie' Mannix (played here by Josh Brolin) who died in 1963 having worked throughout the golden era of Hollywood's studio system as a film producer, studio executive and 'fixer' to the stars of the time.

Here we have hapless Hollywood heartthrob Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) shooting an epic Roman swords and sandals movie sometime in the mid-50's, when he is drugged and abducted by a group of screenwriters with Communist tendencies who demand a ransom of $100,000. Mannix must muster his every effort in an attempt to retrieve Whitlock whilst dealing with numerous other studio issues at Capitol Pictures including a talented and handsome dancer, Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum channelling Gene Kelly),  a gorgeous swimmer, DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson channelling Esther Williams) a singing cowboy, Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich channelling Kirby Grant), and an upset Director, Laurence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes). Meanwhile there is Tilda Swinton playing identical twin reporters Thora and Thessaly Thacker, Frances MacDormand as film editor C.C.Calhoun, Jonah Hill as surety agent, Joseph Silverman with Christopher Lambert, Dolph Lundgren, Clancy Brown, and, Michael Gambon providing the narrative. 'Hail, Coens' - sounds like another authentic amusing romp that can be delivered as only the Coens know how to.

13 HOURS : THE SECRET SOLDIERS OF BENGHAZI (Rated MA15+) - Michael Bay Produces and Directs this true account of a crack team of six security team members who must defend the American Diplomatic compound in Libya's Benghazi, following a series of terrorist attacks on September 11th 2012. At the time Libya was named as one of the most dangerous places in the world, and this film is based on the real life events as recorded in the 2014 book '13 Hours' by Mitchell Zuckoff. Working for 'Global Response Staff' - a team of private military contractors all of whom are former highly trained, weapons skilled and field experienced special op's personnel required to protect the US Embassy outpost known as 'The Annex', and must do so against overwhelming odds. You can count on the usual fast paced, blood splattering, limb tearing and explosive action that is trademark Bay.

GODS OF EGYPT (Rated M) - Directed and Produced by Aussie Alex Proyas, and shot in Australia too at Sydney's Fox Studio's at a cost of US$140M this is a swords and sandals fantasy epic of Egyptian Gods and mortals. Here we have the future of mankind hanging in the balance as Set (Gerard Butler) the God of darkness and all things nasty takes over Egypt's throne and plunges the  wealthy and glorious empire into conflict, chaos and calamity. A mere mortal is always on hand though when civilisation needs to be rescued with big ideas, a moral compass and a stiff upper lip to  save the world and win back his one true love. And so Bek (Brenton Thwaites) comes to the rescue forming an unlikely partnership with a powerful Egyptian God, Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) to thwart Set and his band of goons that takes them across the heavens and into the afterlife in a fight to the death, supremacy and peace on Earth. Also starring Bryan Brown, Rufus Sewell and Geoffrey Rush.

SON OF SAUL (Rated M) - a harrowing account of the day and a half in the life of a Hungarian-Jewish prisoner in Auschwitz, this Hungarian production from first time Director and Co-writer  Laszlo Nemes has won much critical acclaim winning The Golden Globe for the Best Foreign Language Film and is nominated in the same category at the forthcoming Academy Awards, as well as picking up the Grand Prix at Cannes last year. Here Saul Auslander (Geza Rohrig) is a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando - work units made up of death camp prisoners who were forced for fear of their own deaths to dispose of the bodies of gas chamber victims during the Holocaust. When Saul discovers the dead body of a young boy, he takes him for his son and seeks against all odds to find a Rabbi to give the child a proper Jewish burial, whilst protecting himself from the threat of death at any moment. 38 awards wins, 36 nominations and the highest critical acclaim, this is must see cinema that will shock, inspire, surprise and delight.

PRIDE + PREJUDICE + ZOMBIES (Rated MA15+) - just as it must be true (because Hollywood says so) that Abraham Lincoln was a vampire slayer, so it must also be true that Jane Austen knew a thing or two about zombies. And so it is in 19th Century England which is increasingly becoming overrun with the undead, that the Bennett sisters, recently returned from China where they each learned the skills of martial arts and weaponry, have to thwart the evil flesh eating foe with dashing young suitor Mr. Darcy in toe, also not afraid of dispensing with a pesky zombie or six! Directed by Burr Steers who wrote the screenplay of the Seth Grahame-Smith novel of the same name, and starring Lily James, Sam Riley, Suki Waterhouse, Charles Dance, and Lena Headey, 'PPZ' has so far made US$12M back of its initial US$28M budget.

With five new movie releases coming to a movie theatre near you in the week ahead, there is no reason not to get out in front of your favourite big screen. When you have done so, share your thoughts on your film experience with your like minded friends at this Blog.

See you at the Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-