What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 5th May 2016.

This Sunday - 8th May - it is 'Mother's Day' - the day we celebrate our Mothers and the valuable contribution they make to our lives, our love for them, and how on this one day of the year they get the attention and the recognition they so rightly deserve, and which we often neglect for the other 364 days. With this in mind, if you want some 'me & my Mum' time, what better way than to curl up on the sofa at home and watch a feel good movie for a few hours on Sunday afternoon. Here's a few suggestions, in no particular order :-

• 'STEPMOM' - 1998 - Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon, Ed Harris.Nominated for one Golden Globe.
• 'TERMS OF ENDEARMENT' - 1983 - Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson  and five Academy Awards and four Golden Globes including Best Picture.
• 'THE PARENT TRAP' - 1998 and a remake of the 1961 original. Starring Lindsay Lohan, Natasha Richardson and Dennis Quaid.
• 'THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT' - 2010 - Mark Ruffalo, Julianne Moore, Annette Benning, Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson. Nominated for four Academy Awards, four BAFTA's, three SAG's, and won two Golden Globes including Best Picture.
• 'MERMAIDS' - 1990 - Cher, Bob Hoskins, Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci. Nominated for one Golden Globe.
• 'MAMMA MIA' - 2008 - Meryl Streep, Julie Walters, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgard and all the ABBA music you can muster and an idyllic Greek island. Nominated for two Golden Globes and three BAFTA's.
• 'THE SOUND OF MUSIC' - 1965 - Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer and rolling Austrian mountains. Winner of five Academy Awards and nominated for five others; winner of two Golden Globes and two further nominations, and nominated for one BAFTA.
• 'STEEL MAGNOLIAS' - 1989 - Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Julia Roberts, Daryl Hannah, Tom Skerritt, Dylan McDermott, and Sam Shepard. Nominated for one Academy Award, one Golden Globe and won one too, and one BAFTA.
• 'FREAKY FRIDAY' - 1976 or 2003. Go the original for a very young Jodie Foster switching bodies with Mum Barbara Harris, or Lindsay Lohan doing so with Jamie Lee Curtis in the more updated version.
• 'BEACHES' - 1988 - Bette Midler, Barbara Hershey and Directed by Garry Marshall who has just released 'Mother's Day'. Nominated for one Academy Award.
• 'MOTHERS DAY' - 2016 - Jennifer Aniston, Julia Roberts, Kate Hudson, Jason Sudeikis, Timothy Olyphant and Directed by Garry Marshall - on general release now at the Odeon.
• 'AUGUST : OSAGE COUNTY' - 2013 - Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Juliette Lewis, Chris Cooper, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ewan McGregor and Sam Shepard. Nominated for two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, three SAG's and one BAFTA.

This week there are five new release movies to get you out on an Autumnal night, and if none of these appeal then there are plenty of others to choose from still out on general release and as Previewed and Reviewed within these Posts. First ups we have two bio-pics recounting the stories of two extraordinary individuals from the same era that couldn't be more different if they tried. First up was an opera singer wannabe who believed she was great - but alas, no one else did, but, she still managed to sell out a famed Concert Hall; an then an Indian maths genius relocated to an English University whose legacy still lives on today. Coming back down to Planet Hollywood is a sequel to a successful comedy of two years back featuring new parents, rowdy student types, and a once peaceful neighbourhood. Then our foreign language film featuring a named Hollywood star that is a film within a film and how art and life collide with the Director on the edge; and wrapping up a nostalgic documentary about a man who saved a horse from the knackers yard and both rose to fame and fortune as a result.

Let your fellow readers and cinephiles know what you thought when you have sat through this weeks film of choice, by leaving a Comment below this or any other Post. In the meantime, enjoy the movies - and see as may as you can.

'FLORENCE FOSTER JENKINS' (Rated PG) - the lady upon whom this film is based was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in July 1868 and she died in New York City aged 76 in November 1944. She is described as an American socialite and amateur operatic soprano who was known and ridiculed for her lack of rhythm, pitch, and tone; her aberrant pronunciation; and her generally poor singing ability . . . but it nonetheless made her famous and the subject of two movies released within a matter of weeks of each other. This one, and the French feature released in Australia on April 21st 'Marguerite' with Catherine Frot in the lead role playing a character based loosely on FFJ. This film version is Directed by Stephen Frears and stars Meryl Streep in the title role and Hugh Grant as stage actor, manager and partner of 36 years St. Clair Bayfield. Simon Helberg plays Cosme McMoon who was a pianist and composer and musical accompaniment to FFJ from the late 1920's onward. The film premiered in London in early April, is released in the UK this week too, and gets its US release in August.

FFJ firmly believes she is a good enough opera singer to wow a paying audience at New York's Carnegie Hall. She takes regular singing lessons, engages a pianist to provide the necessary accompaniment and would often entertain at home to gathered guests, or in recital halls to a growing audience captivated and secretly very amused by her tone deaf, rhythmless, pitchless rendition of some of opera's greatest aria's. No one had the gall to tell her just how bad she was - least of all her husband who would go along with her dreams and even bribe the critics to publish positive reviews of her latest performances. Reaching notoriety for all the wrong reasons she did sell out Carnegie Hall - this is the story of how she got there and why despite her complete lack of musical talent, which not even money could buy her.

'THE MAN WHO KNEW INFINITY' (Rated PG) - Directed by Matthew Brown this biographical telling of Indian mathematician genius Srinivasa Ramanujan is based on the book of the same name released in 1991 and written by Robert Kanigel. The man in question played by Dev Patel was born in Madras, India in December 1887 and died there aged 32 in April 1922. In the meantime, he earned a place an Trinity College, at Cambridge University during WWI where he became a pioneer of mathematical theories under the tutelage of mathematician G. H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons), and whose work remains as relevant today as it did one hundred years ago. Also starring Toby Jones, Stephen Fry and Jeremy Northam this is likely to do for maths on the big screen what 'A Beautiful Mind' and 'Good Will Hunting' did before it.

'BAD NEIGHBOURS 2 : SORORITY RISING' (Rated MA15+) - in 2014 the original film was released at a cost of US$18M with Seth Rogen, Zac Efron, Rose Byrne, James Franco and Christopher Mintz-Plasse in the lead roles, and the movie walked away with a Box Office haul of US$271M. Therefore, it was just a question of time before that band wagon came rolling by once again, and so here just two short years later, is the follow-up. Directed once again by Nicholas Stoller, and starring largely the same crew except for Mintz-Plasse who has been replaced with Grace-Moretz. This time with their second child on the way, Mac & Kelly Radner (Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne) go head to head with the sorority sisters who have moved next door headed up by Shelby (Chloe Grace-Moretz). Enlisting the help of Teddy (Zac Efron) with whom Mac is now on good terms, the three need to devise whatever schemes they can to get the party-hard disruptive girls off the block so that peace can be restored and the young parents can enjoy a quiet life. But of course, the sorority girls next door won't go lightly into the night but will do so kicking & screaming and not without a fight.  Sounds hilarious!

'MIA MADRE' (Rated M) - this French/Italian drama offering is Directed, Produced, Written and stars Nanni Moretti and was released in France in December, in Italy in April and is selected in completion for the Palme D'Or at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival later this month. So far the film has picked up eight award wins and another 24 award nominations from around the circuit. Margherita (Margherita Buy) is a film Director working on her next project - a social-realist film about a factory strike. The film stars American/Italian Actor Barry Huggins (John Turturro) as the owner of the factory. Margherita is in conflict with Barry because he keeps fumbling his lines and is proving unreliable; the other Actors in the cast are anxious because they get poor Direction; she splits from her boyfriend who is also an Actor in the film; she is divorced from the father of her daughter; and her brother Giovanni (Nanni Moretti) has quit work to care for their hospitalised mother who has failing health issues. In crisis mode where life imitates art (or is it the other way round?) Margherita is torn between the busy unrelenting demands of her work and her beloved mother who may not be around for too much longer. Highly acclaimed combining sadness, humour, pathos, and emotional turmoil, this is described as Moretti's best film in years.

'HARRY AND SNOWMAN' (Rated G) - the Harry of this documentary is Dutch immigrant to the US Harry deLeyer who travelled there after WWII  having grown up on a family farm in Holland. He was offered a job as a riding instructor at the exclusive Knox School on Long Island, New York. By chance Harry happened on an Amish plough horse who was on its way to the glue factory, and so Harry purchased the old nag for just $80 and called him 'Snowman'. Within two short years, Snowman won the show jumping Triple Crown in 1958, appeared on the Johnny Carson show thereafter, had a growing fan club, was profiled in 'Life' magazine, had three best selling books written about him and in 1992 was inducted into the Show Jumping Hall of Fame - eighteen years after his death. Harry went on to become one of the most respected trainers and riders in the country, represented his country in Sweden in 1983, and today aged 85 is still active working out of his Virgina farm and affectionally known as the 'Galloping Grandfather'. This is their story, and is Written and Directed by Ron Davis, and so far has won six awards.

With five new offerings coming your way in the week ahead, and a whole bunch of other great content still out there, as always, feel free to share your comments and observations when you have sat through your movie of choice in the coming week - we'd love to hear from you. In the meantime, I'll see you at the Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-