Feb 1st
Scanners
Canada 1980. Avco/Filmplan International. 103m.

Telepathic beings known as scanners are threatened by a sinister organisation attempting to wipe out dissenters.
Unpleasant paranoia thriller with notable shock effects (including exploding heads), with the director at his most excessive. One to turn the light on straight after watching.

Written and Directed by: David Cronenberg.
Producer: Charlie Heroux.
Starring: Patrick McGoohan, Stephen Lack, Jennifer O'Neill, Michael Ironside, Lawrence Dane, Robert Silverman.
Photography: Mark Irwin.
Music: Howard Shore.
Make-up Effects: Dick Smith.

Jan 30th
We'll Take Manhattan*
GB TVM 2011. BBC/Kudos/Shine Group. 87m.

At the beginning of the 1960's, David Bailey meets Jean Shrimpton and together their Vogue Magazine New York shoot breaks the mould of fashion photography.
The New York of today looks a little brighter than the original New York of 1962, but this is otherwise a careful and pleasant reconstruction of the photos themselves; dramatically speaking a slightly one-note affair of Bailey's arrogance and coarseness confronting the fashion establishment, with the occasional nice photo of Karen Gillan emulating Jean Shrimpton.

Written and Directed by: John McKay.
Producer: Rebecca Hodgson.
Starring: Aneurin Barnard, Karen Gillan, Helen McCrory, Joseph May, Robert Glenister, Anna Chancellor, Allan Corduner, Franecs Barber.
Photography: Tim Palmer.
Music: Kevin Sargent.
Editing: David Charap.

WE'LL TAKE MANHATTAN. David Bailey's original iconic photo shoot made more use of Jean Shrimpton's best features than of Manhattan's: Karen Gillan reciprocates.

Jan 17th
The Iron Lady** (12A)
Cineworld Ipswich

GB/Fra 2011. Twentieth Century Fox/Pathe/Film Four/UK Film Council/Canal+/Cine+/Goldcrest. 104m. ws

Margaret Thatcher spends her later years in senility with her dead husband Denis, reminiscing about the old days.
Entertaining, slightly superficial story of woman's rise and fall in a man's world. Like most biopics, it relegates its important supporting figures (and events) into the sidelines. The Queen is among those - female - opponents to Mrs. Thatcher who don't even enter the picture. The star's performance is as meticulous as always - at times uncanny - but lacks some insight, as does the film.

Written by: Abi Morgan.
Producer: Damian Jones.
Director: Phyllida Lloyd.
Starring: Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Olivia Colman, Anthony Head, Richard E. Grant, Nicholas Farrell, Roger Allam, Alexandra Roach (as young Margaret), Harry Lloyd (as young Denis), John Sessions, Michael Pennington.
Photography: Elliot Davis.
Music: Thomas Newman.

Jan 13th
Devils of Darkness
GB 1965. Planet. 88m.

A French vampire cult under threat follows its trail to Britain.
Swinging Sixties horror film, more swinging than horrific, despite the best that formula can do.

Written by: Lyn Fairhurst.
Producer: Tom Blakeley.
Director: Lance Comfort.
Starring: William Sylvester, Hubert Noel, Tracy Reed, Carole Grey, Diana Decker, Peter Illing, Eddie Byrne, Victor Brooks, Burnell Tucker.
Photography: Reg Wyer.
Music: Bernie Fenton.

Jan 10th
Ursula Kemp: Five Centuries of History*
(Headgate Theatre)

GB TVM 2012. Fade to Black. 50m.

Documentary with brief reconstruction scenes covering the story of a famous convicted Essex witch whose bones were unearthed and exploited by museums and art collectors before being brought back to St. Osyth to a rightful place of burial.
Carefully crafted and quite interesting compilation, which does have the documentarian's misfortune to discover the truth about its subject half-way through the course of making the film, but still lands on its feet.

Produced and Narrated by: John Worland.

Jan 8th
Flicks in the Six
(Firstsite, Colchester)

East Anglian Film Archive.

Selection of mostly dully informative 1950's black-and-white information films set in the county of Essex, with occasional noticeable diversions and recognisbale locations. Fairly mundane and Harmless on the whole, although one instalment, In Need of Care* (GB 1958), about local orphaned children, touches upon some of the darker issues with some poignant moments, and another is an amusing William Tell semi-satirical skit about litterbugs.

Other shorts:

Mind Your Bike!
Essex River (GB 1954.)
Axemanship for Scouts (GB 1956.)
First Class Journey (GB 1956.)
Protect the Countryside: Take Your Litter Home*
Midday Adventure (GB 1958. Essex County Council Film Unit.; narr: Richard Baker.)

Jan 1st
Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell*
GB 1973. Avco/Hammer. 89m. bw

A disciple of Dr. Frankenstein is sentenced to the asylum where he finds his mentor is still at work incognito.
The last of the Hammer Frankensteins, finishing off in lurid style. Unpleasant in tone and indicative of the increasing gratuitousness of the Hammers series since 1957, but a vast improvement on their preceding horrors, with the old guard giving it one last go.

Written by: John Elder (Anthony Hinds).
Producer: Roy Skeggs.
Director: Terence Fisher.
Starring: Peter Cushing, Shane Briant, Madeline Smith, David Prowse, John Stratton, Charles Lloyd Pack, Patrick Troughton, Bernard Lee.
Photography: Brian Probyn.
Music: James Bernard.