BLACK WIDOW : Wednesday 28th July 2021.

I finally got around to watching the M Rated 'BLACK WIDOW' this week - the long awaited superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. This is the 24th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the first film in Phase Four of the MCU. Its release was delayed three times from an original May 2020 date due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 'Black Widow' saw its World Premier screenings on 29th June this year at various red carpet fan events in London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, and New York City and was released in Australia and the US on 8th and 9th July respectively, having garnered generally favourable Critical acclaim off the back of a US$200M production budget. This film is Directed by the Australian multiple award winning and nominated writer and film maker Cate Shortland whose three prior feature film credits are 'Somersault' in 2004 with Abbie Cornish and Sam Worthington, 'Lore' in 2012 with Saskia Rosendahl and 'Berlin Syndrome' in 2017 with Teresa Palmer. The film has so far grossed US$320M and is also available to stream on Disney+ with Premier Access.

The film opens up in 1995 in Ohio where two young sisters, Natasha (Ever Anderson) and Yelena (Violet McGraw) are playing in their back yard. Their mother Melina (Rachel Weisz) calls them in for dinner. Their father Alexei (David Harbour) joins them saying to his daughters that the adventure he had always promised them is happening tonight and that they need to leave immediately. They bundle a handful of their belongings into the family car and drive off into the night. They turn down a dirt road and into a field, where under a concealed canopy is a light aeroplane. The two girls jump in, as does Melina, leaving Alexei to fend off a convoy of advancing patrol cars all guns blazing. Melina sustains a gun shot wound leaving Natasha to take the controls. With Alexei hanging onto the wing shooting at the patrol cars Natasha guides the small aircraft into flight leaving the carnage below. They land in Cuba and are greeted by General Dreykov (Ray Winstone) who has Natasha Romanoff and Yelena Belova drugged and carted off for training and indoctrination to the Red Room. It turns out that Alexei Shostakov and Melina Vostokoff are Russian undercover agents who posed as a model family in Ohio with two surrogate daughters for three years before making off with S.H.I.E.L.D intel which they passed onto Dreykov (a nod to James Bond here), who also runs the Black Widow programme. Dreykov has Alexei imprisoned for life, while Melina becomes a top tier scientist within the Red Room.

We then fast forward twenty-one years and Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) is on the run for violating the Sokovia Accords after she had defected to S.H.I.E.L.D and following the bombing of Dreykov's office in Budapest seemingly killing him and his young daughter Antonia. The US Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt) is hot on her heels but she successfully evades him and escapes to a safe house located in remote Norway that has been provided to her by a close friend and former S.H.I.E.L.D ally Rick Mason (O-T Fagbenie). In the meantime in Morocco, Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) kills a Black Widow but comes in contact with a synthetic red gas that neutralises the Red Room's chemical mind-control agent. Belova sends the small case of antidote vials to Romanoff, hoping she will send the Avengers to free the other Widows. Romanoff unknowingly drives off with the vials to get fuel for her generator when her car is bombed and she is attacked by Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) who is after the case of vials and not her. 

Romanoff manages to escape Taskmaster by jumping off a bridge into a river and when she surfaces with the clutch of vials she notes from a childhood photograph contained therein that they were sent by Belova. The pair reunite in Budapest and after some intense close quarter hand to hand combat they call a truce (a nod to Jason Bourne here) and Romanoff learns from Belova that Dreykov is still alive and the Red Room is still very much active. They are then set upon by a group of Black Widows and Taskmaster from which they successfully escape and then meet up with Rick Mason again who supplies them with a beat up old Russian helicopter. 

Flying their helicopter into what looks like a Siberian prison camp located at the base of a snow covered mountain range Romanoff and Belova break Shostakov out of prison, in a high stakes extraction that ultimately sees the prison complex flattened in a cascading avalanche of snow and ice. They expect him to tell them the whereabouts of Dreykov and he tells them to speak with Vostokoff, who now lives on a farm outside Saint Petersburg raising pigs. There she developed the chemical mind control process used on the Widows, that she perfected on her now very obedient pigs. 

There, Belova reveals that while they were not a real family, she believed they were so, given that she was only six years of age when the family returned to Russia. Afterward, Vostokoff admits to Romanoff that she sent their location to Dreykov and within thirty minutes or so his agents arrive and take them to the Red Room, a floating facility located above the cloud line, and therefore above radar detection capabilities.

Vostokoff and Romanoff use face mask technology to swap places before being captured (a nod to 'Mission : Impossible' here),  so giving Vostokoff the chance to free Shostakov and Belova from their captivity. Meanwhile, Romanoff confronts Dreykov, who sees through her disguise. Dreykov reveals to Romanoff that Taskmaster is in fact his daughter Antonia, who suffered damage severe enough through the bomb explosion when she was just a child that Dreykov had to implant a chip in to the back of her neck. This turned her into the perfect compliant soldier, capable of mimicking the actions of anyone she sees. Romanoff attempts to kill Dreykov but fails to harm him due to a pheromone lock activated through her sense of smell. Dreykov reveals that he is in control of an army of Widows worldwide which he operates via his desk console. 

Romanoff intentionally slams her forehead down on his desk and breaks her nose, severing a nerve in her nasal passage to negate the pheromone lock, and then attacks Dreykov. Shostakov now suited up as the Red Guardian battles Taskmaster, while Vostokoff takes out one of the facility's engines setting in motion the eventual destruction of the entire complex. Belova goes off in search of the other Widows, who now have to guard Dreykov. Together, Shostakov and Vostokoff capture Taskmaster in a cell. The Widows arrive in Dreykov's office and he orders them to kill Romanoff and to make it long and painful. Just as Romanoff is about to be overcome, Belova arrives and detonates numerous vials of the mind control antidote over the Widow's so freeing them from their life of servitude. 

Romanoff gets into Dreykov's control desk and uploads the locations of the other Widows worldwide as the facility begins to explode and begins its free fall back to the ground below. Romanoff retrieves the two surviving vials of the antidote and frees Taskmaster from the locked cell. Vostokoff and Shostakov escape via a plane while Belova takes out Dreykov's aircraft, killing him and his Red Room soldiers, but Belova is blown clear in the explosion and begins plummeting towards the ground. In freefall, Romanoff gives Belova a parachute before battling Taskmaster. After landing, Romanoff uses one antidote vial on Taskmaster, freeing her from servitude. The freed Widows arrive as Belova, Vostokoff, and Shostakov reluctantly say goodbye to Romanoff, as Ross and a convoy of patrol cars arrive to apprehend her. She hands Belova the last vial of antidote and the portable drive, telling her to locate and free the other, still mind-controlled, Widows. They leave with Antonia, as Romanoff waits for the convoy to pull up.

Two weeks later, a now blonde Romanoff reunites with Mason, who has procured her a Quinjet. She leaves, saying that she came into this with no family, and now she has two intending to make amends and free the imprisoned Avengers. Stay tuned for the end credits sequence too. 

'Black Widow' is a fitting send off and a great big last hurrah for Natasha Romanoff in her own right. Cate Shortland here Directs her first superhero film with aplomb and proves that's she more than capable of helming big budget action spectacles on a US$200M grand scale. This is essentially a espionage story wrapped up in a tale of a dysfunctional family battling it out against a supervillain intent on world domination very much grounded on our humble blue planet rather than the standard MCU offerings of late centreing around intergalactic Gods, faraway planetary systems and those with superhuman powers. Johansson and Pugh are perfectly cast as the surrogate siblings with Pugh especially demonstrating her ability to carry the Black Widow universe in further instalments whichever direction that may go in, and Harbour provides much needed moments of levity amongst the more serious and emotional scenes. A well made stand alone entry into the MCU that delivers on the action, the emotion and the overall story arc. 

'Black Widow' warrants four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 8th July 2021.

The Far East Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Udine, in north-eastern Italy. It is one of the most important events promoting Asian Cinema in Europe. It focuses mainly on the films from East Asia and was founded in 1999, this year marking its 23rd edition held from 24th June through to 2nd July. This years Opening Night film was 'Cliff Walkers' - a Chinese historical spy thriller film Directed by Zhang Yimou, with the Closing Night film being Andrew Lau and Alan Mak's cult Hong Kong action thriller offering 'Infernal Affairs', newly restored in 4K.

In total sixty-three films were screened representing eleven countries with the line up including :-

* 'The Eight Hundred' from China in Mandarin and Directed by Guan Hu. European Festival Premier. 

* 'The Con-Heartist' from Thailand, in Thai and Directed by Mez Tharatorn. European Premier.

* 'Underdog : Parts 1 & 2' - from Japan, in Japanese and Directed by Take Masaharu. European Premier.

* 'Voice of Silence' - from South Korea, in Korean, and Directed and Written by Hong Eui-jeong.

* 'Limbo' - from Hong Kong, in Cantonese and Directed by Soi Cheang.

* 'Blue' - from Japan, in Japanese and Directed and Written by Yoshida Keisuke. European Premier. 

* 'Madalena' - from Macau, in Cantonese and Directed and Written by Emily Chan. World Premier.

* 'Shock Wave 2' - from Hong Kong, in Cantonese and Directed and Co-Written by Herman Yau. International Festival Premier.

* 'The Way We Keep Dancing' - from Hong Kong, in Cantonese and Directed, Written and Co-Edited by Adam Wong. European Premier.

* 'Midnight Swan' - from Japan, in Japanese and Directed and Written by Uchida Eiji. European Premier.

* 'Seobok' - from South Korea, in Korean and Directed and Co-Written by Lee Yong Zoo.

* 'Like Father and Son' - from China, in Mandarin and Directed and Co-Written by Bai Zhiqiang. International Premier.

* 'My Missing Valentine' - from Taiwan, in Mandarin and Taiwanese and Directed and Written by Chen Yu-hsun. European Festival Premier.

* 'Money Has Four Legs' - from Myanmar, in Burmese and Directed and Co-Written by Maung Sun. 

* 'Anima' - from China, in Mandarin and Directed and Written by Cao Jinling. European Premier.

* 'Ito' - from Japan, in Japanese, and Directed and Written by Yokohama Satoko. European Premier.

* 'Assassins' - from the USA, in English, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean and Malay and Directed by Ryan White. 

* 'One Second Champion' - from Hong Kong, in English, Cantonese and Mandarin and Directed by Chiu Sin-hang. European Premier.

* 'Fan Girl' - from The Philippines, in English and Tagalog, and Directed and Written by Antoinette Jadaone.

* 'Hand Rolled Cigarette' - from Hong Kong, in Cantonese, and Directed and Co-Written by Chan King-long. European Premier.

* 'Last of the Wolves' - from Japan, in Japanese and Directed by Shiraishi Kazuya. International Premier.

* 'Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy' - from Japan, in Japanese and Directed, Written and Edited by Hamaguchi Ryusuke. 

* 'Just 1 Day' - from Hong Kong, in Cantonese, and Directed and Written by Erica Li. 

* 'Back to the Wharf' - from China, in Mandarin and Directed and Co-Written by Li Xiaofeng. European Premier.

* 'Hold Me Back' - from Japan, in Japanese and Directed and Written by Ohku Akiko.

* 'Death Knot' - from Indonesia, in Indonesian and Directed and Co-Written by Cornelio Sunny. World Premier.

* 'Gatao : The Last Stray' - from Taiwan, in Mandarin and Taiwanese, and Directed and Co-Written by Ray Jiang. International Festival Premier.

* 'Deliver Us from Evil' - from South Korea, in Korean and Directed by Hong Won Chan.

* 'Time' - from Hong Kong, in Cantonese, and Directed by Ricky Ko.

* 'The Maid' - from Thailand, in Thai, and Directed and Edited by Lee Thongkham. International Premier.

* 'Zero to Hero' - from Hong Kong, in Cantonese, and Directed by Jimmy Wan. World Premier.

* 'Sugar Street Studio' - from Hong Kong, in Cantonese, and Directed and Co-Written by Sunny Lau. World Premier.

* 'Before Next Spring' - from China, in Mandarin and Japanese and Directed and Written by Li Gen. World Premier.

* 'Tough Out' - from China, in Mandarin, and Directed and Written by Xu Hui-jing. European Premier.

* 'Endgame' - from China, in Mandarin and Directed and Co-Written by Rao Xiaozhi. European Premier.

* 'Hail, Driver' - from Malaysia, in Malay, English and Chinese and Directed and Written by Muzzamer Rahmen. European Premier.

* 'Coffin Homes' - from Hong Kong, in Cantonese and Directed, Produced, Written and Edited by Fruit Chan. World Premier.

* 'Drifting' - from Hong Kong, in Cantonese, and Directed, Written and Co-Edited by Jun Li. 

* 'You're Not Normal, Either!' - from Japan, in Japanese and Directed by Maeda Koji. European Premier.

* 'Night of the Undead' - from South Korea, in Korean and Directed and Co-Written by Shin Jung-won. European Premier.

The popular jury of audience members named Japan as this year's winner, awarding the Golden Mulberry to Uchida Eiji's 'Midnight Swan' and the Silver Mulberry to Maeda Koji's 'You're Not Normal, Either!' The Crystal Mulberry was won by Taiwan, with Chen Yu-hsun's 'My Missing Valentine' taking third place on the podium. Black Dragon pass holders also chose 'My Missing Valentine' as their top film while the Purple Mulberry went to Soi Cheang's Hong Kong thriller 'Limbo'. The three international jurors of the 'first feature' section awarded the White Mulberry to 'Hand Rolled Cigarette', the first film by Chan Kin-Long together with a special mention for Chinese 'Anima' by Cao Jinling.

For the complete low-down on this years 23rd Far East Film Festival, you can go to the official website at : https://www/fareastfilm/com/eng/

As I write this Greater Sydney, where I live, remains in COVID lockdown for three weeks now ending (at this stage) on Friday 16th July, which means all of our cinema's are closed until this date, which further means that the release of the movies as given below, slated for release this week, will be delayed somewhat across certain parts of Australia at least. That said, these movies will either have been released or are set for an imminent release somewhere in the world, and as Odeon Online has an international readership, I thought it best to carry on regardless. And so, this coming week, there are only three latest release new films coming to an Odeon close to you. And we kick off with a much delayed yet much hyped 24th film in the MCU that sees our heroine confront the darker parts of her former life when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. This is followed by a superstar of the NBA and his young son who get trapped in digital space by a rogue AI, and to get home safely, he must team up with all your favourites from the Looney Tunes gang for a high-stakes basketball game against the AI's digitised champions of the court. And closing out the week we have an Irish offering about two school friends who decide to start a pretend straight relationship in an effort to fit in.

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.

'BLACK WIDOW' (Rated M) - is the long awaited superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. This is the 24th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the first film in Phase Four of the MCU. Its release was delayed three times from an original May 2020 date due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 'Black Widow' saw its World Premier screenings on June 29, 2021 at various red carpet fan events in London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, and New York City and is released in the US and in Australia from this week, having garnered generally favourable Critical acclaim off the back of a US$200M production budget. This film is Directed by the Australian multiple award winning and nominated writer and film maker Cate Shortland whose three prior feature film credits are 'Somersault' in 2004 with Abbie Cornish and Sam Worthington, 'Lore' in 2012 with Saskia Rosendahl and 'Berlin Syndrome' in 2017 with Teresa Palmer.

At birth the Black Widow, aka Natasha Romanoff, (Scarlett Johansson) is given to the KGB, which grooms her to become its ultimate operative. Following the events of 2016's 'Captain America : Civil War' Natasha Romanoff finds herself on the run when the USSR breaks up and the government attempts to silence her once and for all. As the action moves to present day New York where she has become a freelance operative, she is forced to confront a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Romanoff must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger. Also starring Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova/Black Widow, David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian, William Hurt, Ray Winstone, Rachel Weisz, Olga Kurylenko with Robert Downey Jnr. making an appearance as Tony Stark/Iron Man.

'SPACE JAM : A NEW LEGACY' (Rated PG) - this American live-action animated sports comedy film is Directed by Malcolm D. Lee whose previous film making credits include 'Soul Men' with Samuel L. Jackson in 2008, 'Scary Movie 5' in 2013, 'Barber Shop : The Next Cut' in 2016 with Ice Cube, and 'Night School' in 2018 with Kevin Hart. This film is a standalone sequel to 1996's 'Space Jam' which grossed US$250M off the back of a US$80M production budget. This is the first cinema released film to feature the Looney Tunes characters since 2003's 'Looney Tunes : Back in Action', and like the previous hybrid films, it will be a combination of live-action, traditional hand-drawn animation, and 3D CGI effects. Here then, LA Lakers basketball superstar LeBron James and his young son, Dom (Cedric Joe), get trapped in digital space by a rogue AI - Al-G Rhythm (Don Cheadle). To get home safely, LeBron teams up with Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and the rest of the Looney Tunes gang (consisting of the likes of Porky Pig and Tweety, Speedy Gonzales, Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, Elmer Fudd, and Yosemite Sam) for a high-stakes basketball game against the AI's digitised champions of the court - the Goon Squad, a powered up team of virtual avatars of professional basketball players. With a budget of US$150M the film is set for release Stateside from 16th July and also stars Sonequa Martin-Green as Kamiyah James and Zendaya as the voice of Lola Bunny. 

'DATING AMBER' (Rated MA15+) - is an Irish comedy drama offering Directed and Written by David Freyne in his ninth directing outing yet only his second feature film following 2017's 'The Cured' with Elliot Page. Distraught over persistent homophobic abuse, outsiders Eddie (Fionn O'Shea) and Amber (Lola Petticrew) decide to hide their sexuality from the rural Irish town in which they live by pretending to be a heterosexual couple. Amber wants to escape a life overshadowed by the suicide of her father to lead a lesbian punk life-style in a more liberal environment. Eddie is not so confident of his sexuality and intends to follow his insensitive and often absent father into the Irish Army. The film was originally released on Amazon Prime Video UK in early June last year before a cinema release in Ireland in early July, and a digital release in the US and on-demand from mid-November. Now its gets a limited showing in Australia and has garnered largely positive Reviews along the way. Also starring Sharon Horgan, Barry Ward and Simone Kirby. 

With just 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 in the coming week, at your local Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 20th April 2017.

With the release of 'Raw' this week (as Previewed below), I thought I'd spend a few sentences overviewing the Cannibal genre of exploitation films. This sub-genre would sit right up there as the most controversial, most often banned as 'video nasties', and most often depicting acts of graphic violence more often than not dispensed with cannibalistic natives in some far away remote jungle in the deepest darkest depths of the Amazon, or Papua New Guinea, or Vietnam, or some secluded island. Films exploring flesh eating cannibals preying on lost tourists or anthropologists, geologists and scientists on some kind of fact finding mission first began to emerge in the early '70's courtesy of Italian and Spanish filmmakers. The first film to emerge in the genre as it has come to be widely known today was 1972's 'Man from the Deep River' by Italian Director Umberto Lenzi, who also went on to helm 'Eaten Alive!' in 1980 and 'Canbibal Ferox' in 1981. Another Italian Director  famed to starting the genre is Ruggero Deodato who released 'Jungle Holocaust' (aka 'The Last Cannibal World') in 1977, and followed this up with 1980's infamous 'Cannibal Holocaust' which is considered one of the most controversial and brutal movies in the history of cinema, and which was seized, banned or heavily censored in many countries, and still to this day remains on the banned list in fifty countries. He released 'Cut and Run' in 1985 too. The late '70's and early '80's were the 'golden era' of cannibal movies that included 'The Hills Have Eyes' in 1977, 'Mountain of the Cannibal God' in 1978, 'Cannibal Apocalypse' and 'The Cannibals' in 1980, 'C.H.U.D.' in 1984 and 'The Green Inferno' in 1988 by which time the cannibal genre had almost become a thing of the past. Mainstream cinema picked up the genre, dusted it off, polished it up and started to throw more money and bigger names at these productions in the '90's which saw the likes of 'Silence of the Lambs' and its various spin-offs all featuring one Hannibal 'The Cannibal' Lecter as portrayed by Anthony Hopkins. Then there was 'Alive', 'Delicatessen', 'Ravenous', 'The Road', 'We Are What We Are' and most recently 'Bone Tomahawk' and 'The Neon Demon', and in between time reboots of 'The Hills Have Eyes', 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and 'Green Inferno'. Of course there are a heap of others to dine out on at your leisure, and if your thing is sinking your teeth into a nice juicy rare steak with a glass of Chianti, then you may want to start with 'Raw'! Read on for more.

This week there are six new cinema releases to tempt that movie going dollar from out of your wallet, kicking off with a French acclaimed coming of age horror film that might just convince you to turn vegan . . . or maybe not! Then there is a backpacker thriller as a young Aussie lass gets banged up somewhere in Germany with little hope of escape it seems, before three octogenarians decide to take the law into their own hands by staging a daring bank heist to reclaim what is rightfully theirs. We then turn to a WWII film within a film as the Brits turn their hand to propaganda to lift the hearts and minds of their war torn country, followed up by disparate and dateless wedding guests bonding when they least expected it, and wrapping up with a bunch of early teenage kids and the rapidly growing product of an experiment gone wrong.

Be cordially reminded that when you have sat through your film of choice in the week ahead to share your movie going experience with your like minded cinephiles here at Odeon Online. Leave your relevant, pertinent and concise thoughts, opinions and views in the Comments section below this or any other Post as to any of those films as Previewed here, or as Previewed and Reviewed between these earlier Blog Pages. We'd love to hear from you, and meanwhile, enjoy your film.

'RAW' (Rated R18+) - this highly acclaimed French/Belgian coming of age horror film is Written and Directed by Julia Ducournau, cost just US$3.8M to make and was Premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival in the International Critics Week section where is took out the FIPRESCI Prize (International Federation of Film Critics). Since then the film has picked up another nine award wins and seven nominations from around the festival circuit, and was released in the US in early March, and in France a week later. Despite its 'horror' tag much praise has been heaped on this film that is as much about family, relationships, and discovery as it is about carnivorous cannibalistic tendencies. The film is fairly graphic in its content which may be shocking for some viewers, but needs to be taken in the context of the films subject matter.

The story here centres around shy, introverted life long vegetarian Justine (Garance Marillier) who upon arriving at veterinary school for her first day at College is subjected to a hazing ritual with all the other new freshers that sees her amongst other things doused in blood and having to wear blood soaked whites to her lectures, and consume a lump of raw meat that she is told is a rabbits kidney. This marks the beginning of Justine's transformation from vegetarian to meat eater, but her carnivorous cravings start to go much deeper than sausages, burgers and fillet steak as she develops a taste for human flesh that starts with her sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf) accidentally snipping off her own finger with Justine being on hand to have a taste of the dismembered digit. From this point there is no looking back at those by gone days of baba ganoush and felafels, as Alexia shows Justine the means of satisfying her hunger. In the meantime, there is Justine's sexual awakening, the bond and in turn the rivalry that develops between the sisters upon discovering their mutual interest, the revealing truth about their parents, the backdrop of young adult life at College and Justine's evolution as she discovers her true identity in life.

'BERLIN SYNDROME (Rated MA15+) - Directed by Australian Cate Shortland, and based on the novel of the same name by Melanie Joosten, this film tells of Aussie backpacker Clair (Teresa Palmer) who arrives in Germany and meets up with handsome local guy Andi (Max Riemelt) and has a one night stand. Waking up the next morning however, she soon discovers that the charming, gregarious Andi is not all he seems as he keeps Clair locked up in his apartment while he goes off to work as a teacher. Clair's nightmare of forced captivity and Andi's obsession with the holidaymaker soon spills over  as Clair comes to realise that he has no intention of ever letting her go. Filmed in Melbourne, Premiered at the Sundance Film Festival back in January, released in Australia this week, the US in early May and the UK in early June, this film has so far received generally positive Reviews.

'GOING IN STYLE' (Rated M) - here Actor, Producer, Screenwriter, Comedian and Director of this film Zach Braff offers us a remake of the 1979 film of the same name that was back then Written and Directed by Martin Brest and starred George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg. Made for US$25M the film has so far grossed US$35M and stars three senior citizens with an average age of 80+ as played by Michael Caine as Joe, Alan Arkin as Albert and Morgan Freeman as Willie who are also life long best buddies. When their respective pensions are cancelled as a result of their former employer being bought out and restructured, the three old guys face new challenges. Joe faces the prospect of homelessness with his daughter and granddaughter and Willie is suffering from kidney failure and needs surgery. Joe witnesses a back robbery and is so inspired by it that he hatches an idea to rob the very bank that holds their pension funds and reclaim what is rightfully theirs. Aided by John Ortiz as Jesus, a man of questionable background but who is prepared to show them the means of conducting a bank heist, Matt Dillon as Agent Hamer who investigates bank robberies, Christopher Lloyd as Milton their ultimate alibi and Anne Margaret as Annie, Albert's love interest, this film shows that there's life in the old codgers yet, and that you can teach old dogs new tricks.

'THEIR FINEST' (Rated M) - Directed by Lone Scherfig and based on the Lissa Evans 2009 book 'Their Finest Hour and a Half', this WWII drama film is a film within a film as The British Ministry of Information set about making a morale boosting propaganda film about the evacuation of Dunkirk during the Battle of Britain and Hitler's devastating bombing raids on London. As bombs continue to rain down on London, the cast and crew of the film work frantically to produce their film designed to lift the spirits of the nation, boost confidence in the war effort, and spur the country on to victory. Gemma Arterton stars as Catrin Cole, the scriptwriter hired to brings a woman's touch to the proposed film, and Jack Huston as Ellis Cole her husband; Sam Claflin as Tom Buckley, the dashing film Producer; Bill Nighy as Ambrose Hilliard the former screen idol Actor with Richard E. Grant and Eddie Marsan all adding weight to this highly praised film.

'TABLE 19' (Rated M) - unlike the eagerly awaited often frequented 19th Hole at a golf course, 'Table 19' is the complete opposite for a bunch of disparate no hoper wedding guests relegated to the back where single and dateless entities are confined to the last table in the room farthest away from the official wedding party, who secretly hoped they would decline their invitations. And so it is with this comedy offering Directed by Jeffrey Blitz, Produced by Shaun Levy, Written by Jay and Mark Duplass and made for just US$5M. Here Eloise McGarry (Anna Kendrick) is one of those guests who was unceremoniously dumped two months before the big day by the Bride's brother and Best Man, Teddy (Wyatt Russell). Deciding to attend, having been the original choice as Bridesmaid she duly finds herself transplanted to the back of the room with five other guests - Jerry and Bina Kepp (Craig Robinson and Lisa Kudrow respectively), Renzo Eckberg (Tony Revolori), Jo Flanagan (June Squibb) and Walter Thimble (Stephen Merchant) - all of whom have a story to tell and their own reasons for attending the wedding. As these stories are revealed, Eloise comes to realise that she has things to learn from her fellow disenfranchised guests, and that you can't judge books by their covers! The film was released in early March in the US, has so far grossed US$4M and received mixed Reviews.

'MY PET DINOSAUR' (Rated G) - released in Australia on 22nd April, this Aussie family film is Directed, Produced and Written by Matt Drummond, was filmed largely in and around the Blue Mountains area west of Sydney, and tells the story of young lad Jake (Jordan Dulieu) who accidentally creates a new friend when an experiment he is working on goes awry. The creature of his creation begins to grow at an alarming rate, and it become increasingly difficult to keep his new pet a secret from his fellow townsfolk. Together with his friends and new girl in town Abbie (Annabel Wolfe), Jake and Co. it seems are not the only people who have an active interest in this mysterious cheeky dinosaur, but so too are some others keen to get their hands on it. Also starring David Roberts, Beth Champion and Joanne Samuel.

Six Easter holiday week films to keep you entertained at your local multiplex or independent cinema that range from very adult horror but all done in the best possible taste, to tense confinement thriller, to senior citizens on heist duty, to war time propaganda film making within a film, to unlikely guests at a wedding learning a thing or two about themselves and each other, and wrapping up with a family offering of dinosaur proportions. Share your movie going thoughts with us here, and in the meantime, I'll see you somewhere sometime in the week ahead at your local Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-