York film preview: Furiosa and The Garfield Movie

With the long-awaited Furiosa out this week, let’s raise a glass to the gloriously diverse filmography of its director, George Miller.

After all, there can’t be many filmmakers whose range extends from the post-apocalyptic lunacy of the Mad Max films to the heartwarming delights of Babe and the dancing penguins of Happy Feet.

That said, as someone who has yet to watch any of the Mad Max saga, I find it hard to believe it can contain any sight as strange and beautiful as James Cromwell singing a 1970s pop duet to nurse an ailing animatronic pig back to health.

Also demonstrating his commitment to endlessly questing creativity is Chris Pratt, who continues his mission to embody every possible variation on the ‘hero-as-schlubby-everyman’ archetype – Space traveller! Dino wrangler! Lego man! Plumber! – by giving voice to everyone’s favourite Monday-hating moggie in The Garfield Movie…

New releases

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Anya Taylor-Joy takes over the wheel from Charlize Theron as the eponymous fearsome road warrior in this eagerly-awaited new addition to the Mad Max canon.

Set 20 years before the events of Mad Max: Fury Road, the film details Furiosa’s early years, as she is kidnapped from her childhood home and finds herself caught between two warring tyrants in the form of Fury Road’s Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme) and the wicked Dementus (Chris Hemsworth).

With Fury Road having dazzled audiences and critics alike on its release in 2015, expectations are high for this return to the Wasteland, even if Max himself may be absent from proceedings this time around – but the franchise’s real Lord of Misrule, director George Miller, is once again on hand to coordinate the carnage.

The Garfield Movie

Furiosa’s not the only one getting a makeover this week – this new animated take on the ever-popular character sees Chris Pratt taking over voicework duties following Bill Murray’s stint in the 2000s live-action films (a role Murray famously claimed to have accepted due to a case of mistaken identity).

The story sees Garfield unexpectedly reunited with his long-lost father Vic (Samuel L. Jackson), a scruffy street cat whose past is about to catch up with him in the form of villainous Persian cat Jinx (Hannah Waddingham).

In order to save his dad, the famously indolent feline and his canine chum Odie (Harvey Guillén) find themselves venturing into the great outdoors to carry out a high-stakes heist.

Other screenings

Half-term holiday round-up

I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest it’s possible it might rain at some point in the next week – and if that dread prediction should come to pass, you’ll be glad to know that Vue and Cineworld are extending their usual weekend budget price screenings throughout half term.

A boy genius plans to travel back in time to save his parents’ marriage in The Present, showing daily at Cineworld (£2.50), while all creatures great and small are on the move at Vue in two migration-themed adventures: the Shawn Mendes-soundtracked Butterfly Tale (daily from Sat 25th, £2.49) and, er, Migration (the one with the ducks where they end up in New York – daily from Mon 27th, £2.49).

Over at City Screen, they’re kickstarting a journey through the Shrek saga with a screening of the green grump’s inaugural quest on Sat 25th (£3.30), while Everyman’s Toddler Club makes a splash with Disney’s original animated The Little Mermaid on Fri 24th and Sat 25th (£6.25 for children, £8.75 for adult plus toddler).

Vue also have younger viewers covered with a Julia Donaldson double bill of The Gruffalo and Zog (daily from Sat 25th except Tues 28th, £3.99).

McGregor’s lust for life and Cruise’s film with his wife: old favourites back on the big screen

With Danny Boyle’s debut feature Shallow Grave having recently returned to cinemas to mark its 30th anniversary, this week sees a welcome reissue for the director’s era-defining follow-up, with Trainspotting hitting the big screen in a swanky new 4K restoration – catch up with Renton and the gang at Cineworld (Tues 28th), Everyman (Fri 24th, Mon 27th, Tues 28th, Weds 29th) and Vue (Fri 24th, Sat 25th, Weds 29th).

City Screen’s Coen brothers season continues with another high point in the form of 2007’s Oscar-winning thriller No Country for Old Men on Mon 27th (it won four, and if there had been a Worst Haircut award Javier Bardem would surely have made it five), while the same day sees a Dementia-Friendly screening of 90s romcom fave Pretty Woman.

Meanwhile, as this year’s Cannes Film Festival draws to a close, there’s a chance to see an award winner from the fest’s very first year in the form of 1945’s Rome, Open City – showing at City Screen on Fri 24th, Weds 29th and Thurs 30th, director Roberto Rossellini’s drama about a Resistance leader trying to escape the Nazis is seen as a landmark of Italian neorealism, and bagged one of the top gongs at Cannes in 1946.

Everyman are setting sail with Captain Jack Sparrow and his motley crew in the original Pirates of the Caribbean film this week – buckles will be swashed and scenery will be chewed in their Throwback screenings on Sun 26th and Tues 28th.

Back in cinemas for its 25th anniversary, Stanley Kubrick’s final film Eyes Wide Shut kicks off a season of the legendary director’s films at City Screen on Sun 26th – an erotic psychological drama starring then-husband-and-wife Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, it’s undergone a critical reappraisal in recent years after polarising reviewers on its initial release in 1999.

And finally, 1999 will be having something of a revival in the coming weeks: from The Matrix to Fight Club, it’s a year that’s generally seen as something of a high watermark for cinema, and several of its biggest arthouse and mainstream hits will be showing at York cinemas.

City Screen are getting in first with a screening of The Sixth Sense on Sat 25th – so if you’re one of the eight remaining people in the world who don’t yet know the twist at the end of M. Night Shyamalan’s spooky debut feature, switch off all social media, hunker down at home, then grab your noise-cancelling headphones and dash down to Coney Street on Saturday night. You’ve made it this far – don’t mess up now!