Emma Stone! George Clooney! Jason Statham!
It’s the Some Like It Hot remake you didn’t know you needed! OK, not really, although frankly I could absolutely get behind that casting (Clooney’s Tony Curtis, Statham’s Jack Lemmon) – but these glittering stars of the Hollywood firmament are separately responsible for your cornucopia of cinematic delights this week, in three very different new releases.
Stone scandalises in Poor Things, while Clooney champions The Boys in the Boat – and Statham stings in The Beekeeper…
New releases
Poor Things
The Favourite director Yorgos Lanthimos reunites with Emma Stone here for another decidedly off-kilter period drama, this time following an unusual young woman on a voyage of discovery.
Stone plays Bella Baxter, brought back from the dead by an eccentric surgeon (Willem Dafoe) and possessed of both an insatiable curiosity and a complete absence of shame.
Together with Mark Ruffalo’s debauched lawyer, she flees the confines of Victorian Glasgow for a riotous and raunchy global odyssey which, if the dazzling reviews are anything to go by, might well leave The Favourite looking about as envelope-pushing as an episode of The Crown.
| Cert 18, 142 mins | |
| Cineworld, City Screen, Everyman, Vue | |
| From Fri Jan 12 | |
| More details |
The Boys in the Boat
George Clooney steps behind the camera for this true-life 1930s-set drama about the University of Washington’s rowing team and their path to Olympic glory.
In time-honoured sporting underdog tradition, the story follows the fortunes of a group of largely working class students – chief amongst them Joe Rantz (Fantastic Beasts star Callum Turner), a survivor of a broken home whose father abandoned him after his mother’s death – as they compete against their snobby Ivy League counterparts to win a place in the 1936 games.
Sounds like a solid alternative if you’re not up for Poor Things‘ wayfaring wildness – though I must confess that every time one of these films comes along, I’m reminded how much I’d like to see a full-length version of this pitch-perfect Mitchell and Webb spoof. “Cricket? ‘Ere in Yorkshire? Don’t talk soft…”
| Cert 12A, 124 mins | |
| City Screen, Cineworld, Everyman, Vue | |
| From Fri Jan 12 | |
| More details |
The Beekeeper
Anyone familiar with Jason Statham’s formidable body of work won’t be surprised to learn that his latest jaunt isn’t quite the contemplative study of apiculture that its title might suggest.
That said, the Stath does indeed play a man who indulges in the film’s titular pastime here – it’s just that he also happens to be a retired member of a secretive, outside-all-jurisdiction organisation known as the Beekeepers (“I protect the hive. When the system’s out of balance…I correct it”).
When his friend commits suicide after falling for a phishing scam, he sets out to have a quiet word with the perpetrators, deploying his very particular set of skills while modelling the full splendour of M&S’s autumn Rogue Operative range.
| Cert 15, 105 mins | |
| Cineworld, Vue | |
| From Fri Jan 12 | |
| More details |
Other screenings
Other new releases and previews
“On Wednesdays, we wear pink…”
Tina Fey’s teen classic Mean Girls is the latest movie to make the journey from screen to stage musical and then back again: the big screen version of the Broadway hit arrives in cinemas next week, and Everyman are marking the occasion with the Mean Girls Super Fetch Party, a special screening taking place on the film’s release day on Weds 17th with pink outfits encouraged, and cocktails and popcorn on the house.
Freddie fans should get on their bikes and ride over to Cineworld on Thurs 18th, when Queen Rock Montreal hits the big screen for one weekend only (continuing to Sun 21st) – digitally remastered for IMAX, it’s a chance to catch the rock legends in their full pomp and majesty in this hit-laden 1981 concert film.
Showing at City Screen on Tues 16th, 20 Days in Mariupol presents unflinching footage gathered by a team of Ukrainian journalists in the early days of Russia’s invasion, while on the same night at Vue there’s a National Theatre Live screening of the 2014 revival of David Hare’s highly acclaimed play Skylight, with Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan dancing around each other as former lovers attempting to rekindle their relationship.
Family-friendly films
City Screen’s Kids’ Club continues its celebration of all things Aardman with the inaugural big screen adventure for the studio’s woolly wonder, 2015’s Shaun the Sheep Movie – bleat it down to Coney Street on Sat 13th (tickets £3.30).
The puppet stars of a Central Park children’s theatre take centre stage in The Inseparables at Vue (Sat 13th, Sun 14th, £2.49), where they’re also continuing their trawl through the Ice Age saga with Ice Age 2: The Meltdown (Sat 13th, Sun 14th, £6.99 – £9.99).
Cineworld’s budget viewing choice this weekend is Russian animation Cats in the Museum (Sat 13th, Sun 14th, £2.50), following a crack feline team who protect priceless masterworks from being nibbled on by rodents, while Everyman’s Toddler Club takes you back to the noughties with Shark Tale, almost certainly the only film showing this week to feature Martin Scorsese as a loan shark pufferfish (Fri 12th, Sat 13th, £6.25 for children, £8.25 for adult plus toddler).
ScarJo hits Glasgow and Mojo Dojo is go-go: old favourites back on the big screen
So, next Monday is the dreaded ‘Blue Monday’, the media-ordained occasion when we’re all supposed to be inconsolably depressed because it’s the third Monday in January – the horror! – but City Screen have kindly sought to stave off the manufactured gloom with an injection of pure Kenergy in the form of Barbie, back for one night only on Mon 15th.
Pink also plays a key role, in a very different sense, in Reservoir Dogs, showing in Everyman’s Late Nights strand on Fri 12th; their Throwback screening this week is another 90s classic in the form of Saving Private Ryan, showing on Sun 14th and Tues 16th.
The decade’s more family-friendly side, meanwhile, is represented over at Vue with screenings of Mrs. Doubtfire on Sat 13th, Sun 14th and Tues 16th (though how family-friendly you can really call a film in which a man inveigles his way back into his own family by pretending to be an elderly Scotswoman is possibly open to debate).
And finally, you’ve heard of white van man – now meet white van woman: Scarlett Johansson’s alien visitor cruises the streets of Glasgow looking for unsuspecting male prey in director Jonathan Glazer’s eerie sci-fi masterwork Under the Skin, concluding City Screen’s Double Glazer mini-season (props again for that title) on Sun 14th.