Swinton x Moore! Hardy x, er, Hardy! Two killer collabs head the pack in this week’s new releases.
Screen queens Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore team up for what, after extensive internet research, I can confirm is the first time, in The Room Next Door – while Tom Hardy returns as Eddie Brock and everyone’s favourite head-chomping symbiote in Venom: The Last Dance.
Plus, Emilia Pérez is a musical like you’ve never seen before, and there’s a smorgasbord of scares on offer in the countdown to Halloween…
New releases
The Room Next Door
Legendary Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar makes his English-language feature debut with this highly acclaimed drama starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore.
Swinton plays Martha, a war correspondent with a terminal cancer diagnosis who reaches out to old friend Ingrid (Moore) after many years apart with a deeply personal request.
Glowing reviews suggest that none of Almodóvar’s movie-making magic has been lost in translation, with the BBC hailing the film as ‘a sweetly heartfelt reflection on ageing and dying’ and Moore and Swinton as ‘dazzling, even by their own brilliant standards’.
| Cert 12A, 107 mins | |
| Cineworld, City Screen, Everyman, Vue | |
| From Fri Oct 25 | |
| More details |
Venom: The Last Dance
Tom Hardy returns for the third and allegedly final time as journalist Eddie Brock and his black, gooey alter ego in this latest instalment in Sony’s Spider-Man-adjacent-but-legally-unable-to-feature-Spidey-himself cinematic universe.
The story sees Eddie and Venom being hunted by enemies from both the human and alien worlds, not least Patrick Mulligan (Stephen Graham, reprising his role from Venom: Let There Be Carnage), who’s now host to his own super-powered symbiote.
Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple and Rhys Ifans are among the new faces getting swept up in the chaos this time round – while Venom Horse looks set to challenge Dogpool for the title of super-pet of the year…
| Cert 15, 109 mins | |
| Cineworld, Everyman, Vue | |
| From Fri Oct 25 | |
| More details |
Emilia Pérez
Here’s a film that looks like it could top Venom for spectacle whilst being even more meatily melodramatic than Almodóvar – and with show tunes, to boot!
Director Jacques Audiard’s (A Prophet) musical-cum-crime-thriller follows Manitas (Karla Sofía Gascón), a Mexican cartel leader who decides to fake his own death so that he can live as a woman – and ropes in overworked and underappreciated lawyer Rita (Zoe Saldaña) to mastermind the scheme.
Together with co-stars Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz, Gascón and Saldaña were jointly awarded Best Actress for their performances at this year’s Cannes Festival, while the songs come courtesy of French artist Camille (whose old group Nouvelle Vague did a cracking line in covers of British post-punk hits in the mid-2000s).
| Cert 15, 133 mins | |
| City Screen | |
| From Fri Oct 25 |
Other screenings
Half-term holiday round-up
It’s that time again, and while your evenings might be taken up with scouring round the Minster for collectable mini-spooks, there are plenty of cinematic distractions on offer to fill the daylight hours too.
A spirited Princess swipes left on her father’s choice of suitor in animated fairytale Rebellious, new out at Vue this week and screening daily.
As ever, Cineworld and Vue are extending their weekend budget-priced strands throughout the week, with Despicable Me 4 showing daily at both (£2.50 Cineworld, £2.49 Vue), while Cineworld are also showing Hocus Pocus daily except on Sun 27th (£2.50).
It’s time to play the music, and dare I say, it’s time to light the lights, as City Screen’s Kids’ Club hosts The Muppet Movie on Sat 26th (£3.30) – that’s Kermit and co’s original 1979 big screen outing, rather than the more recent reboot – and they’ve also got a relaxed screening of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on Fri 25th (£4.30).
Embracing the Halloween spirit, Everyman’s Toddler Club has a Pixar classic in the form of Coco, showing on Fri 25th and Sat 26th (£6.25 child/£9.80 adult plus toddler), while Cineworld are bringing back Coraline in glorious 3D for one day only on Thurs 31st (£5.00).
Cineworld also have the obligatory Julia Donaldson double bill with daily screenings of Tabby McTat & The Gruffalo’s Child (£5.00), while Vue are keeping the party going with Hey Duggee is 10, Bing & Friends: Birthday Celebration and Bluey at the Cinema (all daily, £3.99).
Freddy vs. Michael vs. Jack vs. Jigsaw: old favourites back on the big screen
With the big day just a week away, expect plenty of popcorn to be spilled in the aisles as horror’s MVPs duke it out for cinematic supremacy.
Before we get there, though, let’s ease our way in with some less nerve-shredding alternatives – and they don’t come more wholesome and cuddly than E.T., who will be helping Elliott and pals beat the traffic in Everyman’s Throwback strand on Sun 27th and Tues 29th.
Also taking to the skies over at Cineworld are Doc and Marty in Back to the Future Part II (Sat 26th), while their epic trawl through the Star Wars saga comes to a close with The Rise of Skywalker (Sun 27th), and the Celebrating Black Talent season takes us back to Wakanda with a screening of Black Panther (Weds 30th).
Over at City Screen, their Searchlight Pictures season continues with one of the studio’s more dark and twisted offerings, psychological thriller Stoker, on Sun 27th, followed on Mon 28th by a special ESEA in Action screening of martial arts classic Romeo Must Die, showing as a celebration of Black and Asian unity and cultural crossover.
City Screen also have one of the week’s most interesting Halloween offerings: on Weds 30th, you can catch a screening of one of the cornerstones of the horror genre, the 1922 silent chiller Nosferatu, complete with a live accompaniment from musician Hugo Max – a great chance to see it in the cinema before The Northman director Robert Eggers’ remake arrives in the new year.
Meanwhile, metal-clawed menace Freddy Krueger gives Johnny Depp early inspiration for Edward Scissorhands as A Nightmare on Elm Street celebrates its 40th anniversary with screenings at Cineworld (Fri 25th, Sat 26th), City Screen (Sat 26th) and Vue (Fri 25th to Mon 28th, plus Thurs 31st).
Not to be outdone, Michael Myers is brushing down his boiler suit and heading out to City Screen in the original Halloween on Fri 25th, Mon 28th and Thurs 31st, while Jack Torrance promises a guaranteed cure for your writer’s block in The Shining at City Screen (Tues 29th, Thurs 31st) and Everyman (Fri 25th, Thurs 31st).
On the lighter side of things, Pegg and Frost fend off the zombie hordes in Shaun of the Dead (City Screen, Sun 27th; Vue, Fri 25th, Sat 26th, Tues 29th to Thurs 31st), and Bette Midler hops on her broomstick in Hocus Pocus (Everyman, Sat 26th, Sun 27th, Weds 30th, Thurs 31st; Vue, Sat 26th, Sun 27th, Tues 29th to Thurs 31st).
And finally, John Kramer celebrates 20 years of his own particular brand of fun and games with an anniversary screening of Saw at Cineworld on Thurs 31st, which is all the tenuous reason I need to crowbar in Arctic Monkeys’ classic Suck It and See, which features both an oblique lyrical reference to the venerable torture-porn franchise and (more importantly for this writer) one of only two known invocations of dandelion and burdock in popular song – the other one comes from John Shuttleworth, very much the Alex Turner of his day…