York film preview: The Duke, Cyrano and The Godfather

How’s that for timing?

Just a week after York declared itself in the market for a new Duke, here comes Jim Broadbent with just what we’re looking for.

Admittedly, it’s a portrait he’s half-inched from the National Gallery, but as his new film The Duke will reveal, it was all done for the best of reasons.

And talking of things going for a steal, it’s £3 for tickets all day at City Screen and Cineworld this Saturday…

New releases

The Duke

Jim Broadbent and Helen Mirren co-star in this highly rated comedy-drama about a 60-year-old taxi driver who in 1961 stole a prestigious painting from London’s National Gallery – an event so famous at the time that it was the subject of a sight gag in the first Bond film, Dr. No.

Broadbent plays the excellently-named Kempton Bunton, who stashed a portrait of the Duke of Wellington away in his back bedroom and proceeded to issue a series of ransom notes – not, however, for personal gain, but instead demanding that the government invested more in care for the elderly.

Glowing reviews suggest this is a crowd-pleasing British underdog tale worthy of comparison to the classic Ealing comedies, with the Guardian’s five-star write-up hailing it as ‘lovely, rousing (and) finally moving’.

The Duke also has the sad distinction of being the final feature film made by Notting Hill director Roger Michell, whose sudden death last September prompted an outpouring of love and affection from across the industry, and whose less well-known films sound equally worth checking out – one of them, The Mother, starring Anne Reid and a pre-Bond Daniel Craig, is up on the iPlayer for the next year.

Cyrano

Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones) stars as the lovelorn hero in this musical adaptation of the classic romance from director Joe Wright (Atonement, Anna Karenina), featuring original songs by members of soulful indie rockers The National.

A skilled swordsman and poet, Cyrano de Bergerac’s (Dinklage) self-consciousness about his appearance prevents him from revealing his true feelings for his friend Roxanne (Haley Bennett, Hillbilly Elegy) – who in turn has fallen for the handsome but inarticulate Christian (Kelvin Harrison Jr, The Trial of the Chicago 7).

When it becomes clear that the tongue-tied Christian needs more than a little help crafting his declarations of love, Cyrano comes to his aid, and so the complicated love triangle begins…

Three is the magic number: Bargain ticket prices at City Screen and Cineworld

This Saturday, tickets for all films at both City Screen and Cineworld are reduced to just £3 a screening.

That includes this week’s new releases The Duke and Cyrano, plus everything else from Belfast to Spider-Man: No Way Home.

The pricing applies across the board, including IMAX screenings at Cineworld – meaning you can immerse yourself in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune (showing in IMAX at 5pm) for less than the price of a bag of popcorn.

Cineworld are also showing The Godfather at 7pm on Saturday, while City Screen have Studio Ghibli’s 1984 eco-adventure Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind at 11:30am.

There’s another chance to see the hugely acclaimed drama The Souvenir Part II at City Screen at 1:35pm, while they have two further screenings of The Beatles: Get Back – The Rooftop Concert at 11:00am and 6:45pm.

Other screenings

Some films have such a totemic status in cinema history that it’s hard to imagine a time when they didn’t exist, or to think that at one point they were just another production struggling to make it over the finish line.

As Francis Ford Coppola discussed in Empire’s excellent recent celebration of The Godfather, he was a largely unknown quantity when he was making the film, and as such was often at loggerheads with studio bosses – including having to fight to cast both Al Pacino and Marlon Brando in their now iconic roles.

To say his instincts paid off would be something of an understatement, and now film fans can revisit the 1972 classic in all its glory, as it returns to the big screen for its 50th anniversary.

It’s showing at all four York cinemas this week – you can catch it at City Screen on Mon 28th, Weds 2nd and Thurs 3rd; Everyman on Sun 27th and Weds 2nd; Cineworld on Sat 26th and Weds 2nd; and Vue on Fri 25th, Sat 26th, Sun 27th and Weds 2nd.

Meanwhile, another cinematic legend is celebrated at City Screen in documentary The Real Charlie Chaplin (Fri 25th, Tues 1st and Weds 2nd), a new portrait of the silent movie superstar which utilises previously unheard audio interviews alongside restorations of some of his classics.

City Screen also have a preview of Ali & Ava on Tues 1st, ahead of its general release on Fri 4th – this very promising-sounding Bradford-set love story from director Clio Barnard (The Selfish Giant) will likely appeal to those who like a bit of realism with their romance.

There’s another Studio Ghibli classic showing at City Screen on Sun 27th in the form of Grave of the Fireflies, the moving tale of two young siblings trying to survive in war-torn Japan, which legendary US critic Roger Ebert once said ‘belongs on any list of the greatest war films ever made’.

An English language-dubbed version of Ghibli favourite My Neighbour Totoro is this week’s Kids’ Club offering at City Screen (Sat 26th, tickets £3.00), while another super-sized but super-cuddly hero is the star of the show at both Cineworld’s and Vue’s budget kid-friendly screenings this week: Clifford the Big Red Dog shows on both Sat 26th and Sun 27th (tickets £2.50 at Cineworld and £2.49 at Vue – Sun 27th also sees a subtitled screening at Cineworld and an autism-friendly screening at Vue, tickets the same price).

Meanwhile, if the Winter Olympics have left you keen to see more snowbound sporting action, Everyman have just the thing on Tues 1st with Warren Miller’s Winter Starts Now, a skiing and snowboarding showcase filmed in locations across the US from Alaska to Maine.

And finally, a couple of screenings to flag up at Cineworld – they’ve got an IMAX preview of next week’s eagerly awaited superhero epic The Batman on Thurs 3rd, while Mon 28th sees a very different dynamic duo cleaning up a town whose mean streets would make Gotham blush, in comedy classic Hot Fuzz – back in the news last week, thanks to Storm Eunice. Adam Buxton’s fine, apparently…