Global pop megastar. Voice of her generation. Single-handed redefiner of the NFL supporter demographic. Woman least likely to be stood behind you in the queue at Greggs.
Taylor Swift is undoubtedly a lady of many accolades – and after this weekend we can probably add ‘Queen of the big screen’ to that list, as her much-hyped Eras tour makes its cinematic debut.
Her old mucker Ed Sheeran has to make do with a cameo in British comedy Sumotherhood, while Maggie Smith is in search of divine intervention in The Miracle Club – plus, meet one of the stars of a so-bad-it’s-good cult classic at City Screen!
New releases
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour
The pop icon brings her career-spanning world tour to the big screen in this eagerly-awaited concert film, which ought to offer some consolation to all the fans who failed to make it through the Crystal Maze-esque booking process for next summer’s UK shows.
Expect flocks of Swifties to throng round cinemas this weekend as their idol takes them on a journey through her hit-packed back catalogue, from her country origins through to her breakout pop hits and her more recent, folk-inspired releases.
With wearing of era-specific costumes and friendship bracelets ‘strongly encouraged’, these promise to be the dressiest cinema outings since Barbie. After extensive online research, I’m going for a Folklore-era cottagecore take on the Shake It Off cheerleader costume – which is not a sentence I ever expected to find myself writing, nor one I fully understand…
| Cert 12A, 168 mins | |
| Cineworld, City Screen, Everyman, Vue | |
| From Fri Oct 13 | |
| More details |
The Miracle Club
An impressive ensemble cast heads this comedy-drama about a group of women in 1960s Ireland who make a life-changing pilgrimage to Lourdes.
After winning a trip to the sacred French locale in a talent show, Lily (Maggie Smith), Eileen (Kathy Bates) and Dolly (Agnes O’Casey) hope to find spiritual succour and an escape from the drudgery of their lives in a hardscrabble area of Dublin.
However, the appearance of Chrissie (Laura Linney), who left the town under a shadow decades earlier, causes old tensions to resurface.
| Cert 12A, 91 mins | |
| City Screen, Everyman, Vue | |
| From Fri Oct 13 | |
| More details |
Sumotherhood
Actor-turned-director Adam Deacon (who had his breakthrough starring in 2006 teen drama Kidulthood) follows up his 2011 spoof Anuvahood with this similarly-themed East London-set comedy about a pair of chancers whose money-making schemes go extremely awry.
Deacon also co-writes and stars in the comic caper, which sees clueless pals Riko and Kane in over their heads after attempted hold-ups in a nightclub toilet and a local bank don’t go according to plan.
Fortunately, help is at hand from a bewildering array of cameos taking in everyone from ex-Bird of a Feather Linda Robson to grime stalwart Lethal Bizzle.
| Cert 15, 97 mins | |
| Cineworld, Vue | |
| From Fri Oct 13 |
Other screenings
Event screenings
City Screen are hosting special screenings of two films celebrating significant milestones this week.
First up, Sat 14th sees a 50th anniversary screening of Nicolas Roeg’s classic Venice-set chiller Don’t Look Now, hosted by the team from hit podcast The Evolution of Horror and followed by a live panel discussion with special guests.
Then on Mon 16th, prepare to say a big “Oh hi Mark!” to actor Greg Sestero, one of the stars of Tommy Wiseau’s legendarily awful 2003 film The Room, who will be present for a Q&A session after a 20th anniversary screening of the ever-quotable cult favourite.
Other new releases and previews
With Martin Scorsese’s new epic Killers of the Flower Moon hitting cinemas next Friday, you can be among the first to see it with preview screenings at all four York cinemas on Thurs 19th.
Perhaps mindful of the film’s three hour-plus runtime, several of them are offering you a little extra something with your ticket: City Screen promise popcorn and a drink, Everyman have a bar of Green & Black’s finest, and Vue are going with a nice chilled coke. (Cineworld are showing it in IMAX, so have sensibly decided that you’ll be too busy gaping open-mouthed at the screen to keep any food in.)
City Screen have a few further showings of comedian Patrick Kielty’s first dramatic role in well-received Irish comedy-drama Ballywalter (Mon 16th, Tues 17th, Weds 18th), while on Tues 17th you can catch Fremont, a drama about an Afghan refugee living in the titular Californian town which has drawn comparisons to US indie godhead Jim Jarmusch thanks to its droll, deadpan sense of humour.
And from screen to stage and back again, the popular Screen Arts strand this week offers a chance to see The Prince of Egypt: The Musical, the theatrical adaptation of the much-loved 1998 animated tale – fire up the chariot and head to City Screen and Vue on Thurs 19th.
Family-friendly films
If you dialled 999 in real life and a pre-pubescent Labrador answered, you’d rightly be a little concerned – but for the residents of Adventure Bay nothing could be more reassuring, as PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie proves once again this week.
After a couple of preview weekends, the latest big screen instalment of the hit kids’ TV show goes on general release from Friday – you can catch up with Ryder and his four-legged chums at Cineworld, Everyman and Vue.
Disney’s centenary celebrations conclude in fine style with the ever-popular Frozen, the 2013 megahit which proved the studio had lost none of its grip on the hearts and minds of young cinemagoers (nor its stranglehold on their parents’ wallets) – it’s showing in City Screen’s Kids’ Club on Sat 14th (tickets £3.30), while Everyman have Toddler Club screenings on Fri 13th and Sat 14th (£6.10 child, £8.60 adult) and a general admission screening on Sun 15th (£9.40 child, £14.40 adult); you can also catch it at Cineworld (Sat 14th, Sun 15th, £5.00) and Vue (Sat 14th, £6.99 – £9.99).
This month’s Autism-Friendly screening at City Screen is the seasonally appropriate Hotel Transylvania – head out for the Count on Sun 15th (tickets £3.30).
Over at Cineworld and Vue, it’s a heroic slow loris (a lemur-y sort of thing) vs. an amphibian John Cleese in Rally Road Racers, this week’s budget screening showing at both cinemas on Sat 14th and Sun 15th (£2.50 at Cineworld and £2.49 at Vue).
A summer camp slasher and a Scorsese smasher: old favourites back on the big screen
Voorhees: a jolly good fellow? Er, not really if we’re being honest…Camp Crystal Lake opens its doors once more in the original Friday the 13th, showing at all four York cinemas on, well, I think you can guess.
There are more thrills and chills to be had at Cineworld on Weds 18th courtesy of cult Stephen King classic Christine, back out on the road for its 40th anniversary.
Celebrating the big five-oh at City Screen is Mean Streets (Fri 13th to Weds 18th), the 1973 Martin Scorsese classic which marked the beginning of the director’s long and fruitful collaboration with Robert De Niro – while Everyman’s Throwback strand revisits another of the pair’s high watermarks in the form of Goodfellas on Sun 15th and Tues 17th.
Cineworld continue their series of Black History Month screenings with John Singleton’s iconic 1991 coming-of-age drama Boyz n the Hood on Tues 17th, starring a young Cuba Gooding Jr. in his breakout role.
Ladies and gentlemen, they’re floating in space: Sandra Bullock and George Clooney have a few minor technical problems in multi-award-winning sci-fi thriller Gravity, back at Cineworld for its 10th anniversary on Weds 18th.
City Screen kick off a celebration of Ealing Studios on Sun 15th – and while the legendary British production company may be best known as the makers of such classic comedies as Kind Hearts and Coronets and Whiskey Galore!, this short new season looks to be focussing on their darker side, as evidenced by this week’s screening Went the Day Well?, a 1942 war film about an English village’s fightback when it’s infiltrated by German paratroopers; look out for a young Thora Hird in one of her earliest roles.
And finally, if you happen to be in the vicinity of Vue this weekend and hear a goose desperately trying to extricate itself from a bin bag, please refrain from calling the RSPB: it’s just Pierce Brosnan honking his way through SOS in Mamma Mia!, back on the big screen on Sat 14th.