Mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits – rejoice! Cinema’s patron saint of freaks and outsiders is back – and he’s brought some old friends along with him.
Yes, Tim Burton has reanimated one of his best-loved characters in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, with a little help from Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder – but is there afterlife in the old dog yet?
Well, it can’t be any more disappointing than the post-Burton Batman sequels, both of which also make a return to the big screen this week – prepare to be dazzled all over again by George Clooney’s bat nipples…
New releases
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Michael Keaton re-teams with director Tim Burton for this sequel to the much-loved 1980s horror comedy about the irrepressible “ghost with the most”.
The story sees the first film’s heroine Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) reluctantly returning home to Winter River after a family tragedy – and it’s not long before, despite her express warnings to the contrary, the name of a certain spook is being uttered three times.
It’s no surprise to see Jenna Ortega, star of the Burton-directed streaming smash Wednesday, taking on Ryder’s erstwhile teenage goth mantle as Lydia’s rebellious daughter – while Willem Dafoe also joins in the spectral shenanigans as the head of the Afterlife Crimes Unit, who’s intent on hunting down Keaton’s mischievous trickster.
| Cert 12A, 104 mins | |
| Cineworld, City Screen, Everyman, Vue | |
| From Fri Sep 6 | |
| More details |
Firebrand
This period drama about Henry VIII’s sixth and final wife will doubtless be welcomed by connoisseurs of courtly intrigue as they count down the weeks until the BBC’s forthcoming Wolf Hall sequel starts.
Alicia Vikander stars as Katherine Parr, whose radical Protestant beliefs risk making mortal enemies in the King’s court – not least Henry himself (Jude Law).
While Parr may be the story’s focus, reviews suggest it’s Law’s malevolent monarch who steals the show – though viewers of a nervous disposition are advised that the film includes at least one shot of the royal posterior looking, according to the Guardian, ‘like the giant, shaved arse of a sheep’. So something for Countryfile fans there as well, then…
| Cert 15, 120 mins | |
| City Screen, Everyman, Vue | |
| From Fri Sep 6 |
Rob Peace
Chiwetel Ejiofor steps behind the camera for the second time (following 2019’s The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind) for this true life drama about a young Black man who rose from impoverished beginnings to become an Ivy League scholar.
Newcomer Jay Will stars in the titular role as a gifted student whose academic abilities saw him awarded a scholarship to Yale – but who began a dual life selling marijuana in order to help his father (Ejiofor), whom he believed was unjustly imprisoned for murder.
Mary J. Blige stars as Peace’s mother and Camila Cabello plays his girlfriend in this adaptation of the bestselling book by Jeff Hobbs.
| Cert 15, 115 mins | |
| Cineworld, Vue | |
| From Fri Sep 6 |
Other screenings
Family-friendly films
They’ve lost their new pencil case, broken their shatterproof ruler, and it’s PE first thing on Monday – but never fear, cinemas still have a few tricks up their sleeve to help your kids forget the back to school blues.
Stop-motion fable Coraline continues daily at Vue in both 2D and 3D, while their budget viewing option this week is castaway adventure Kensuke’s Kingdom (Sat 7th, Sun 8th, £2.49).
Over at Cineworld, you can catch the adventures of puss-and-pooch combo Gracie and Pedro in their Movies For Juniors strand (Sat 7th, Sun 8th, £2.50), and there’s also an Autism-Friendly screening of Harold and the Purple Crayon on Sun 8th (£7.99).
City Screen’s Kids’ Club is showing Studio Ghibli fave My Neighbour Totoro in its English-dubbed edition on Sat 7th (£3.30), while Everyman’s Toddler Club offers the Minions’ latest misadventures in Despicable Me 4 (Fri 6th, Sat 7th, £6.25 child/£8.75 adult plus toddler).
Plus, younger viewers can catch up with their canine chum in Bluey at the Cinema: Family Trip Collection, showing daily at Vue (£3.99) and at Cineworld on Sat 7th and Sun 8th (£5.00).
A noir classic from Graham Greene and Arnie’s ice-cold pun machine: old favourites back on the big screen
Orson Welles stalks the streets of Vienna once more as Carol Reed’s enigmatic post-war film noir The Third Man returns to cinemas for its 75th anniversary.
Boasting a screenplay by celebrated Brighton Rock author Graham Greene (who was inspired by time spent observing the city’s seedy underworld), Reed’s brooding classic is regularly voted one of the best films of all time – you can catch it at City Screen on Fri 6th, Sat 7th, Sun 8th and Weds 11th.
There are more tense atmospherics to savour in The Parallax View (City Screen, Sun 8th), which kicks off a sweaty-browed season of classic paranoid 1970s thrillers.
On a lighter note, City Screen’s Love Ireland season is showcasing an underseen gem on Sat 7th with a screening of the brilliant Sing Street, a 1980s-set coming-of-age tale about a group of school misfits in Dublin who come together to form a band – it’s a feel-good delight with an earworm-stuffed soundtrack of original songs.
Meanwhile, starting at City Screen on Mon 8th, the Six Degrees of Shakespeare season celebrates the many different ways in which cinema has interpreted the work of the Bard – this week, legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa restages Hamlet in the world of big business in his 1960 neo-noir The Bad Sleep Well.
Cineworld’s epic journey through the entire Star Wars saga continues with the concluding part of George Lucas’ prequel trilogy, Revenge of the Sith – watch Anakin embrace the Dark Side on Fri 6th, Sat 7th and Sun 8th.
You can also catch the film that started it all when the 1977 original screens at Everyman on Sun 8th and Tues 10th and Vue from Fri 6th to Mon 9th.
Frodo and pals set out on their travels once more as the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring screens at Vue from Fri 6th to Tues 10th, while the ongoing Spider-Man season ushers in the Tom Holland era with 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, showing daily at Cineworld and from Fri 6th to Sun 8th at Vue – for my money, the best of the MCU Spidey films, not least for the inclusion of Captain America’s cheesy educational videos.
And finally, 2024 marks 85 years since the Caped Crusader first struck fear into the hearts of Gotham’s criminal community, and to celebrate there’s all manner of Bat-tastic re-releases heading our way in the coming weeks – starting, slightly oddly, with a pair of films not generally regarded as the high point of the Dark Knight’s cinematic career, as Val Kilmer and George Clooney fire up the Batmobile in Batman Forever (Cineworld, Sat 7th; Vue, Fri 6th to Sun 8th, Weds 11th) and Batman & Robin (Cineworld, Tues 11th).
I did catch some of the latter on TV a few months ago and must admit it does have a certain kitsch value now, not least for Arnie’s heroic determination to plough through every snow and ice-related pun known to man in the role of Mr. Freeze: “Alright everyone, chill!” is just the tip of the, er, well, you know…