Keira Knightley double bill!

Aug 26th   
Bend It Like Beckham*

(GB/Ger 2002)

A promising Indian footballer defies her family's wishes when hired for the local girls' team.
Zestfully made romantic comedy with women's football for its backdrop, of fairly easy stereotypes, but appealing enough to teenagers to become big cross-cultural hit.

Written by: Paul Mageda Berges, Guljit Bindra, Gurinder Chadha.
Producers: Gurinder Chadha, Deepak Nayare.
Director: Gurinder Chadha.
Starring: Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Shaznay Lewis, Anupam Kher, Juliet Stevenson.
Photography: Jong Lin.
Music: Craig Pruess.

BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM. The success of Parminder Nagra's cross-culture comedy owed a good deal to the teenage girls' appeal of the poster, mostly avoiding references to football, besides the title.

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit*  

(US 2013)

A former combat intelligence officer goes undercover for the CIA to thwart a Russian terrorist plot.
Initially intriguing paranoia thriller re-boot of the Jack Ryan character from Tom Clancy's novels, but despite an impressive cast it gets lost in high-speed chases and a tedious plot.

Written by: Adam Cozad, David Koepp.
Producers: Mace Neufeld, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, David Barron, Mark Vahradian.
Director: Kenneth Branagh.
Starring: Chris Pine, Keira Knightley, Kenneth Branagh, Kevin Costner, Colm Feore, Gemma Chan.
Photography: Haris Zambarloukos.
Music: Patrick Doyle.
Editing: Martin Walsh.
Production Design: Andrew Laws.

Aug 21st    
Jinnah**    

(GB/Pakistan 1998)                                            

In 1948 Mohammed Ali Jinnah dies and goes into Hades to plead his case for helping to create the nation of Pakistan.
A timely viewing of this historical biopic (on the 70th anniversary of Indian partition), tricksy with its use of modern computers in its otherworldly flashback framing devices, but otherwise well mounted with a good sense of period (as an interesting companion piece to Gandhi), if a little flawed, rather like the formation of Pakistan itself. Not necessarily its star's best role, but certainly his most challenging.

Written by: Akbar S. Ahmed, Jamil Dehlavi.
Producer/Director: Jamil Dehlavi.
Starring: Christopher Lee, Shashi Kapoor, James Fox (as Mountbatten), Maria Aitken, Richard Lintern (as young Jinnah), Shireen Shah, Indira Varma, Robert Ashby, Sam Dastor (as Gandhi). John Nettleton, Talat Hussain.
Photography: Nicholas D. Knowland.

Preceded by:
Curiosity*
(GB 2008. Pollibee Pictures. 10m.; A young couple venture into the night where a neighbouring murderer is at work.; w,d: Toby Spanton; s: Emily Blunt, Tom Riley, James Payton, Juliette James; ph: Craig Bloor; m: Georger Kallis.)

Aug 15th  
Dunkirk** (12A)  
(Empire Ipswich)                                  

(US/GB 2017)

Various young men have a battle to get back home on the Dunkirk beaches.
Grimly suspenseful semi-remake of Leslie Norman's Dunkirk, with the director using sensual immersion (and a typically relentless soundtrack) all in overbearing IMAX 70mm, for those who can take it. Quite effective in places, although the scenes often feel like actors standing on a set (though shot of some of the original locations) rather than wartime history, and the lack of a central character or focus does show.

Written and Directed by: Christopher Nolan.
Producers: Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan.
Starring (in no particular order): Fionn Whitehead, Damien Bonnard, Aneurin Barnard, Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Jack Lowden, James D'Arcy, Harry Styles.
Photography: Hoyte Van Hoytema.
Music: Hans Zimmer.
Editing: Lee Smith.

Aug 5th  
The Maze

(US 1953) (originally 3D)                        

The American heir to a Scottish baronet deserts his fiancee but she pursues him to the mysterious manor to find out the truth.
Stilted and weird 3-D horror variation on Jane Eyre, trying hard not be unintentionally risible (with a giant frog for a monster), also lacking scares for a monster movie.

Written by: Dan Ullman, from a story by Maurice Sandoz.
Producer: Richard Heermance.
Director/Production Design: William Cameron Menzies.
Starring: Richard Carlson, Veronica Hurst, Katherine Emery, Michael Pate, John Dodsworth, Hilary Brooke, Stanley Fraser, Lillian Bond.
Photography: Harry Neumann.
Music: Marlin Skiles.

Aug 3rd   
Steel Magnolias**  

(US 1989)                  

An Alabama diabetic runs the risk of having a baby with the reluctant help of her mother and their supportive friends.
An episodic all-female stage play becomes reasonably opened out along a predictably sentimental route (with the men mostly marginalised but fitting into the narrative), uneven in style with sudden jumps in time periods, but the star female cast provide interesting if unremarkable variety.

Written by: Robert Harling, from his play.
Producer: Ray Stark.
Director: Herbert Ross.
Starring: Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Julia Roberts, Dolly Parton, Olympia Dukakis, Daryl Hannah, Tom Skerritt, Sam Shepard, Dylan McDermott, Kevin J. O'Connor.
Photography: John A. Alonzo.
Music: Georges Delerue.

Preceded by:
Our Gang Follies of 1938*
(US 1937. MGM/Hal Roach. 20m. bw; Child musical revue where a crooner unwisely decides to rest his voice for opera. Curiously conceived (but at the time quite popular) spoof of popular genres using children, bearing interesting comparison with the later Bugsy Malone and other Our Gang musical spoofs.; d: Gordon Douglas; s: Carl Switzer, George McFarland, Darla Hood, Henry Brandon.)