So, you’ve taken the plunge and, after weeks of texting, you’re out on your first IRL date – but how do you know if it’s going well?
You haven’t stopped talking since you sat down, your top five films, albums and books are an exact match, and you both have the same birthmark in the shape of Steve Guttenberg slap bang in the middle of your forehead – result! Get that church booked now!
The date started at 7:30 and not a word has been uttered by either of you since 7:32. You have already read this article five times whilst pretending to e-mail a colleague and you don’t like films or live in York – they are probably not The One. Thank god you didn’t order a starter.
You were sceptical when your date described themselves as “a cross between Harry Styles, Ryan Reynolds and a Labrador” but incredibly they are exactly that! True, they’ve already snaffled two steaks, a sticky toffee pudding and five napkins from the neighbouring table but you’re too busy gazing into their eyes to care – time to update that relationship status!
Minutes into the evening, you begin receiving a barrage of increasingly threatening texts from a murderous psychopath instructing you to kill the poor sap sat opposite you feigning interest in the wine list – well, it could be a great story to tell the grandkids, but maybe check out new Blumhouse thriller Drop first for a few pointers on do’s and don’ts.
And if all that’s got you scrambling to delete your Tinder profile (again), then some less traumatising cinematic options are thankfully also available: Rami Malek’s out for vengeance in The Amateur, and blessed are the cheesemakers in Holy Cow…
New releases
Drop
A widowed mother is out on her first date in years and relieved to find that the man sitting opposite her is both charming and handsome…but then her phone starts pinging and the evening takes a dark and sinister turn.
Violet (Meghann Fahy, The White Lotus) begins to receive a series of anonymous messages while out for a meal with Henry (Brandon Sklenar, It Ends with Us), which she at first dismisses as trolling until a picture from her home security camera reveals that the perpetrator is inside her house.
Terrified for her family’s safety, Violet is instructed to follow her masked tormentor’s edicts to the letter – culminating in an instruction to kill her date, in this Hitchcockian thriller from Happy Death Day director Christopher Landon.
| Cert 15, 95 mins | |
| Cineworld, Everyman, Vue | |
| From Fri Apr 11 | |
| More details |
The Amateur
While the wait continues for even a hint of an announcement about who will be the next Bond, 007’s most recent nemesis Rami Malek swaps supervillainy for righteous vengeance in this spy thriller, which casts him as a CIA operative who goes rogue when his wife is killed by terrorists.
As the title suggests, though, Malek’s tech whizzkid is not someone to whom John Wick-style bone-crunching comes naturally – indeed, as one of his superiors chuckles in the trailer, “I don’t think you could beat a 90-year-old nun in an arm-wrestling match.”
Fingers crossed there’s a pay-off to that line in the final act – but on the way there we’re promised globetrotting carnage aplenty, plus Laurence Fishburne in full Morpheus mode and at least one exploding swimming pool.
| Cert 12A, 122 mins | |
| Cineworld, Everyman, Vue | |
| From Fri Apr 11 | |
| More details |
Holy Cow
Fancy a French countryside getaway on the cheap? Then look no further than this fun-sounding coming-of-age tale about a teenage boy who sets his eyes on an unusual prize.
The story follows 18-year-old Totone (Clément Faveau), whose hard-partying lifestyle in the Jura region is abruptly curtailed when he finds himself in loco parentis for his seven-year-old sister, and in urgent need of a way to keep a roof over their heads.
His solution? To enter a local cheese-making competition with a first prize of 30,000 euros, in this directorial debut from Jura native Louise Courvoisier, who’s been praised for taking a warts-and-all view of the area which stops things getting too, well, cheesy.
| Cert 15, 92 mins | |
| City Screen | |
| From Fri Apr 11 | |
| More details |
Community cinema
If some of the films in those ‘greatest of all time’ lists can seem like something you need to limber up for, this month’s South Bank Community Cinema selection is a slow-burning delight that’s a pleasure from start to finish.
A regular high-placer in numerous prestigious polls, Yasujiro Ozu’s 1953 family drama Tokyo Story is by turns funny, charming, soulful and deeply moving – and a must-see for fans of films like Boyhood where not much happens but you’d happily watch it happen all day.
The story follows an elderly couple who travel from their seaside home to visit their adult children in the Japanese capital – only to find that it’s their widowed daughter-in-law Noriko (the wonderful Setsuko Hara) who’s most willing to make time for them.
Hop on the bullet train at Clements Hall, South Bank on Fri 11th at 8pm (doors 7:30pm). Tickets are £5 for non-members and £4 for members (cash only), and SBCC advise that it’s best to book in advance by e-mailing [email protected].
Easter holidays round-up
About pigging time! Heartwarming farmyard fable Babe returns to the big screen for its 30th anniversary this week, giving a whole new generation a chance to be enchanted by a plucky porker so charmingly polite he makes Paddington look like JD Vance.
Wellies on and head down to Vue (daily from Sat 12th, £6.99 – £9.99), Everyman (Toddler Club, Fri 11th/Sat 12th, £7.30 child/£11.20 adult plus toddler) and City Screen (Kids’ Club, Sat 12th; Relaxed Screening, Sun 13th, both £4.00).
Elsewhere, it’s origin story o’clock for another 90s icon as Mufasa: The Lion King makes its budget-priced debut at Cineworld (daily, £2.50) and Vue (daily, £2.49).
And moving on from ‘mild peril’ to ‘just plain mild, really’, Sylvanian Families: The Movie continues daily at Vue (£3.99) and from Fri 11th to Tues 15th at Cineworld (£5.99).
Plus, there’s a Relaxed Screening of this Easter’s big new release, A Minecraft Movie, at City Screen on Mon 14th (£6.99 child, £8.99 adult).
Smith and Lawrence handle Miami vice and Cusack sells records at a reasonable price: old favourites back on the big screen
I have mixed feelings about the current slew of classics from 1995 getting a re-release: on the one hand, it’s great to get the chance to see them in the cinema again; on the other, I could do without the weekly reminders that these films came out thirty bloody years ago.
This week’s encroaching mortality megamix comes courtesy of three movies which provided big screen breakthroughs for their respective leads: Will Smith swaps the Fresh Prince for foul-mouthed fisticuffs in Bad Boys (Vue, Weds 16th), a star is Björn as Toni Collette dreams of Muriel’s Wedding (City Screen, Mon 14th), and Vincent Cassel raises hell in La Haine (City Screen, Fri 11th, Weds 16th).
Going further back, City Screen’s New Hollywood season shines a spotlight on one of the era’s lesser known works in the form of 1971’s dark comedy A New Leaf (Sat 12th), in which Walter Matthau’s washed-up playboy schemes to marry an awkward, bookish heiress (played by the film’s writer-director Elaine May), while their reDiscover strand screens a more established classic on Sun 13th, as Stanley Kubrick allays all your fears about the pitfalls of AI with 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Everyman are delivering plenty of thrills and chills this week, with Kurt Russell facing off against The Thing in their Late Nights slot on Fri 11th, and Anthony Hopkins sharing tasting tips in The Silence of the Lambs on Sun 13th and Tues 15th.
And finally, as the vinyl countdown to this year’s Record Store Day nears completion, City Screen are marking the occasion by inviting you to browse the racks with John Cusack and Jack Black in High Fidelity on Sat 12th – the film which should certainly take first place in any top five list of Nick Hornby adaptations.
On that note, I will now sell five copies of The Three EPs by The Beta Band. Now then, who’s next? No, I haven’t got The Chicken Song by Spitting Image. Get out of my shop!