What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 27th July 2023.

The 32nd Woods Hole Film Festival is taking place in Woods Hole, in the town of Falmouth in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, USA. It lies at the extreme southwest corner of Cape Cod, near Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands. The festival this year runs from Saturday 29th July through until Saturday 5th August and is an eight day showcase of independent film featuring daily screenings, workshops, panel discussions, special events, master classes, parties, awards ceremony and more. It is the oldest independent film festival on Cape Cod and the Islands. As a not-for-profit organisation, the Woods Hole Film Festival is supported by donations, sponsorships, grants, and event admissions to produce and present the excellent programming enjoyed by attendees and the film community at large.

This year, there are twenty narrative feature films, twenty-six documentary films and ten short films in the make up of the programme. A brief synopsis of the narrative feature films being showcased is given as below :-

* '7000 Miles' - from the USA and Directed by Amy Glazer. Jo Standish, a passionate young pilot, is challenged by her grandmother to live her life on her own terms, but she finds herself at a crossroads when that could mean revealing her grandmother’s long-buried secrets.

* 'A Kind of Kidnapping' - from the UK and Written and Directed by D.G. Clark. Brian and Maggie, a struggling couple, decide to kidnap London MP Richard Hardy while visiting their local area. Hoping for a big payout, they’re disappointed when Hardy’s wife refuses to pay the ransom. US Premiere.

* 'All Men Are Wicked' - from the USA and Directed by Peggy O'Sullivan and Michael Hansen. After a run in with the local hangman, a young outlaw finds himself bound and dangling by the ankles from an old ranch gate. He’s accused of robbing a stagecoach and making off with $1200 worth of bank bonds. And he isn’t alone. Strung up beside him are two others, accused of the same crime.

* 'Ariel - Back to Buenos Aires' - from Argentina and Canada and Written and Directed by Alison Murray. This is the story of a brother and sister who return to Argentina, the country of their birth, for the first time in their adult lives. Against the backdrop of the glamorous tango clubs of Buenos Aires, they uncover dark family secrets and the reason why their parents emigrated to Canada. World Premiere.

* 'Bolan's Shoes' - from the UK and Directed by Ian Puleston-Davies. This film takes us on a tumultuous journey from the height of T. Rex mania in 1970's Liverpool to the present-day poignancy of what would have been Marc Bolan’s 75th birthday. 

* 'Coyote' - from Canada and Directed by Katherine Jerkovic. A cook in his heyday, Camilo is now a worn-out fifty-year-old who works for a cleaning company. He is looking for a way to get back on track when an opportunity to rediscover his culinary passion finally presents itself.

* 'Earlybird' - from the USA and Directed by Martin Kaszubowski. A struggling theatre owner resuscitates his ailing business with off-the-wall productions, all the while losing sight of why he chose this life at all.
* 'Eden' - from Spain and Directed by Estefania Cortes. Four strangers come to Eden, a clandestine company in the middle of nature, to escape the troubles that plague them once and for all, but is it so simple to escape from the deepest trials of life? North American Premiere.

* 'Everybody Wants To Be Loved' - from Germany and Co-Written and Directed by Katharina Woll. On a blisteringly hot summer day, psychotherapist Ina notices something about her is amiss. But she doesn’t have time to worry about it, and although she wants to please everyone, a life-altering discovery changes everything.

* 'Intermedium' - from the USA and Directed by Erik Bloomquist. When an obsessive-compulsive teenager discovers her new home is haunted by the ghost of its previous occupant, she searches for a way to help him move on, only to discover they have far more in common than expected. World Premiere.

* 'Jess Plus None' - from the USA and Written and Directed by Mandy Fabian. Following a miserable breakup, Jessica must now play Maid-of-Honour at her best friend’s off-the-grid wedding in the woods, where she will be confronted by her more successful friends from college, her perfect ex-girlfriend, and every bad decision she’s made in life so far.

* 'Know Your Place' - from the USA and Directed by Zia Mohajerjasbi. Set in present-day Seattle, WA. Robel Haile, a fifteen year old Eritrean-American boy, embarks on an errand to deliver a huge and heavy suitcase across town destined for a sick family member in his parents’ homeland. He enlists the help of his best friend, Fahmi Tadesse. An unexpected turn transmutes his simple task into an odyssey across the city of Seattle.

* 'Lakelands' - from Ireland and Directed by Robert Higgins and Patrick McGivney. Taking place in a small town in the midlands of Ireland – the sort of place where Gaelic football is religion and identity is defined by what one can do on the pitch. Here, Cian Reilly, a young Gaelic footballer who struggles to come to terms with a career-ending injury after a violent attack on a night out, but then he begins a friendship with Grace, a nurse who is back in town to look after her ailing father.

* 'Let's Meet Half Way' - from the USA and Directed by Max Schmitz and Dana Dveris. A long-distance couple meet in a small town between them once a month in an attempt to save their relationship. Over the course of six months, they begin to lose grip on what they once had.

* 'My Love Affair With Marriage' - from the USA and Directed by Signe Baumane. More than anything 8-year-old Zelma wants love. Only love will make her complete, the Mythology Sirens insist. But love is elusive when you are an outcast at school and a loner at home. Zelma’s story into adulthood represents a journey of all women who try to fit in – to be the best woman they could be according to standards they did not set.

* 'Pacific Coast' - from the USA and Directed by Mark Kiefer. In this coming-of-middle-age comedy, two brothers make a road trip down the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to Los Angeles in order to move their somewhat estranged father into a retirement home.

* 'Scrap' - from the USA and Directed by, and starring Vivian Kerr. Beth has recently been laid off work and struggles to maintain the appearance of a successful middle-class lifestyle as she bounces around Los Angeles. Hoping to land a new job and change her situation before her estranged older brother Ben finds out, Beth must confront her own pride in order to reconnect with him and provide for her young daughter, Birdy.

* 'Somewhere Quiet' - from the USA and Directed by Olivia West Lloyd. After escaping a kidnapping, Meg travels with her husband, Scott, to his family’s isolated compound in Cape Cod. When they arrive, they discover they are not alone on the property. Scott’s odd aristocratic cousin, Madelin, is staying next door. Soon, Madelin’s presence is inescapable and Meg and Scott’s already fragile relationship begins to fracture.

* 'The Banality' - from the USA and Directed by Michael Stevantoni and Strack Azar. A small town reels from the sudden and mysterious death of 'Feral Boy', a local legend since his discovery in the woods as a child. Father Moss, a priest with a loose grip on the faith, attempts to counsel the forlorn couple that raised the boy.

* 'The Harvest' - from the USA and Directed by Caylee So. After a car accident leaves his family in need of his help, Thai returns home to Southern California, only to find his whole world in disarray. With mounting medical bills and secrets of their own, the family watches as Cher, a tough and stubborn Hmong father, suffers through the devastating effects of kidney failure.

For the full details of the Woods Hole Film Festival, the other film strands being showcased, and a whole lot more besides, you can go to the official website at : https://woodsholefilmfestival.org/festival-2023/

To tempt you out to your local big screen Odeon during the coming week, we kick start this weeks new movies with a WWII action thriller from Finland that sees an ex-Commando who discovers gold in the Lapland wilderness and tries to take his find to the nearest city some 560 miles away but first he must do battle with a group of Nazi soldiers led by a brutal SS officer. Next up we have a Sci-Fi thriller set in the near future in which a humanoid A.I.'s attempt at winning a grieving widow's heart puts it in the path of a government agent trying to stop the rise of machine consciousness. This is followed by an Aussie supernatural horror film about a group of friends who learn how to connect with the dead through an embalmed hand, ultimately unleashing terrifying supernatural forces. And closing out this week, we have a highly acclaimed Spanish offering centering around this family who has made a living from the summer harvest of their peach orchard in the Catalan town of Alcarras for generations, however, after the death of the owner of the property, his heir wants to sell the land to make way for a solar farm. 

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it any of the four latest release new films 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.

'SISU' (Rated MA15+) - is a Finnish historical action thriller Written and Directed by Jalmari Helander in his third feature film making outing following 'Rare Exports : A Christmas Tale' in 2010 and 'Big Game' in 2014. This film has garnered generally favourable reviews, has so far grossed US$13M off the back of a US$6.5M production budget and saw its World Premier at TIFF in early September last year before its release in its native Finland in at the end of January and in the US at the end of April. 

During the last desperate days of WWII, a former legendary Finnish Commando and solitary gold prospector, Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila) crosses paths with Nazis on a scorched-earth retreat in northern Finland. When the Nazis steal his gold, they quickly discover that they have just tangled with no ordinary miner. The word 'Sisu' is a Finnish concept described as stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, bravery, resilience, and hardiness, and is held by Finns themselves to express their national character. And so this legendary ex-commando will embody what sisu means, and no matter what the Nazis throw at him, the one-man death squad will go to outrageous lengths to get his gold back, even if it means killing every last Nazi in his path.

'SIMULANT' (Rated M) - this Canadian Sci-Fi thriller film is Directed by April Mullen whose prior feature film making credits take in her debut with 'GravyTrain' in 2010 followed by the likes of 'Dead Before Dawn' in 2012, '88' in 2015, 'Farhope Tower' also in 2015, 'Badsville' in 2017 and 'Wander' in 2020. Here, a woman named Faye (Jordana Brewster) tries to replace her newly deceased husband, Evan (Robbie Amell), with a humanoid simulator. That humanoid has to enlist a global hacker in order to remove all restrictions on his thoughts and capabilities, triggering an A.I. uprising and a government manhunt to eliminate the rise of the machine consciousness. Also starring Simu Liu and Sam Worthington. The film was released in its native Canada in early April, in the US in early June and this week here in Australia having garnered mixed or average reviews along the way.

'TALK TO ME' (Rated MA15+) - is an Australian supernatural horror film Directed by Danny and Michael Philippou in their feature film making debut. When a group of friends discover how to conjure spirits using an embalmed hand, they become hooked on the new thrill, until one of them goes too far and unleashes terrifying supernatural forces. Starring Sophie Wilde, Miranda Otto and Zoe Terakes the film saw its Preview Screening at last years Adelaide Film Festival as the Closing Night Film and had its World Premiere showcasing at the Sundance Film Festival in January this year, before its release in the US and here in Australia from this week, and has garnered generally favourable reviews. 

'ALCARRAS' (Rated M) - is a Spanish Italian drama film Co-Written and Directed by Carla Simon in only her second feature film offering following 'Summer 1993' in 2017. This was film is set and was shot in the town of Alcarras in north western Spain in Catalonia, is spoken in the Catalan language and features a cast on non-professional Actors. Here, the story surrounds a family battling against the disappearance of their agricultural activities, revolving around the intention to install solar panels in an agricultural plot hitherto occupied by a peach orchard, bringing the members of the Sole family to a stand off. The film has generated universal critical acclaim, has picked up eighteen award wins, including the Golden Bear for Best Film at the 2022 Berlin International Film Festival, plus a further fifty-five nominations from around the awards and festival circuit. It has so far grossed US$3.1M. It saw its release in its native Spain in late April last year, in late May in Italy and only now is it released in Australia. 

With four new release movie offerings 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 coming week.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-