Jun 4th   
Everything Everywhere All at Once* (15)
(King Street Cinema, Ipswich)

(US 2021)
A24/Gozie AGBO/Leyline Entertainment/IAC. 139m. ws

A Chinese laundromat owner in Los Angeles struggles to pay her taxes, and is also propelled into various parallel universes, all of which are being threatened by her volatile teenage daughter.
Long but sustained kinetic action fantasy which quickly gets carried away with itself, akin to The Matrix but not taking itself quite so seriously.

Written and Directed by: Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert.
Producers: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, Mike Larocca, Dan Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, Jonathan Wang, Michelle Yeoh.
Starring: Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis, Stephenie Hsu, James Hong, Jenny Slate, Tallie Medel, Harry Shum Jnr.
Photography: Larkin Seiple.
Music: Son Lux.
Visual Effects: Zak Stoltz.

Nov 24th  
The Terrornauts  
(GB 1967)     
Amicus. 75m.

Astronomers pick up warning signals from a lost civilisation that has been doing battle with a primitive enemy.
Cheap Amicus production values soon derail this piece of sci-fi hokum, with a Flash Gordon-style finale; the sort of subject that had a better imagination or scope on radio than in pictures.

w: John Brunner, from the story "The Wailing Asteroid" by Murray Leinster
p: Max Rosenberg, Milton Subotsky
d: Montgomery Tully
s: Simon Oates, Zena Marshall, Charles Hawtrey, Stanley Meadows, Max Adrian, Max Adrian,Patricia Hayes
ph: Geoffrey Faithfull
m: Elisabeth Lutyens

THE TERRORNAUTS. A curious Amicus precursor of Star Wars in some ways, with Zena Marshall as Princess Leia, Simon Oates and Stanley Meadows (far right) as Han and Luke,or vice versa. The more instantly recognisable Charles Hawtrey and Patricia Hayes would quite easily pass off as human versions of C-3PO and R2-D2 - although the robot in the background has echoes of Robby from Forbidden Planet.

Sep 24th
Bill and Ted Face the Music* (PG)
(Curzon Colchester)

(US 2020)
Warner Bros/Endeavor Content/Hammerstone. 91m.ws

The goofy former teenagers Bill and Ted try to save space and time from collapsing by creating music with the help of their chip-off-the-old-block daughters.
Venturing to return to the cinema again with the dysfunctional heroes of Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, too far out to need to go into any critical detail, and the humour still raises some chuckles.

Written by: Chris Matheson, Ed Solomon.
Producers: Scott Kroopf, Alex Lebovici, David Haring, Steve Ponce, Ed Solomon, Alex Winter.
Director: Dean Parisot.
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, Kristen Schaal, Samara Weaving, Brigette Lundy-Pearce, Hal Landon, William Sadler.
Photography: Shelly Johnson.
Music: Mark Isham.

Jul 11th  
The Day of the Locust**     
(US 1975)                                     
Paramount/Long Road. 143m.

In the 1930s Hollywood an aspiring art director sees his depiction of Hell begin to come to real life.
Flawed adaptation of a satirical novel lacking a definite central character but produced with a glowing nostalgia for its period. The climax lives up to its billing but still leaves the ending unsatisfactory.

Written by: Waldo Salt, from the novel by Nathanael West.
Producers: Jerome Hellman, Sheldon Shrager.
Director: John Schlesinger.
Starring: William Atherton, Karen Black, Donald Sutherland, Burgess Meredith, Richard Dysart, Geraldine Page, Bo Hopkins, Billy Barty, Lelia Goldoni, Paul Stewart.
Photography: Conrad Hall.
Music: John Barry.
Editing: Jim Clark.

Mar 23rd  
Meet Mr Lucifer
(GB 1953) 
Rank/Ealing. 81m. bw

A music hall has-been hurts his head playing the Devil, and meets his real-life counterpart who encourages him to corrupt people through television.
Disappointingly fragmented TV satire lacking Ealing's usual whimsy, with a plot that doesn't really go anywhere, and actors not given enough screen time, including the title character.

w, p: Monja Danischewsky, from the play "Beggar My Neighbour" by Arnold Ridley
d: Anthony Pelissier
s: Stanley Holloway, Jack Watling, Peggy Cummins, Barbara Murray, Joseph Tomelty, Gordon Jackson, Ernest Thesiger, Joan Sims, Kay Kendall, Gilbert Harding
ph: Desmond Dickinson
m: Eric Rogers

Feb 29th  
Sammy's Super T-Shirt   
(GB 1978)           
CFF/Monument. 58m.

A would-be athletic boy's favourite T-shirt slips into the hands of experimental scientists giving it (and  him) super powers.
Elementary Saturday morning kids spoof of the superhero TV craze, released on the same year as Superman made up the road at Pinewood, on a much more humble basis, together with some of the supporting cast of the former Carry Ons.

w/p: Frank Godwin.
d: Jeremy Summers
s: Reggie Winch, Lawrie Mark, Julian Holloway, Richard Vernon, Patsy Rowlands, Michael Ripper
ph: Norman Jones
m: Harry Robertson

Dec 1st  
A Wrinkle in Time*  
(US 2018)                                   
Walt Disney/Whitaker Entertainment. 109m. ws

A physicist has discovered the means to travel through outer space by brain and will power. He disappears on his quest, and four years later his children search for him on the same trail.
Reasonably well made if camply over-indulgent fantasy for the Harry Potter and Hunger Games generation, keeping faithful to the realms of its source material and commendably sustaining the human interest, although its imagination seems a little Earthbound.

Written by: Jennifer Lee, Jeff Stockwell, based on the novel by Madeleine L'Engle.
Producers: Jim Whitaker, Jeff Stockwell.
Director: Ava Du Vernay.
Starring: Storm Reid, Levi Miller, Deric McCabe, Reese Witherspoon, Oprah Winfrey, Chris Pine, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Mindy Kaling, Zach Galifanakis, David Oyelowo (voice only).
Photography: Tobias A. Schliessler.
Music: Ramin Djawadi.
Production Design: Naomi Shahan.

Oct 29th
The Ghost and Mrs Muir**
(US 1947)         

Twentieth Century Fox. 104m. bw

A widowed young mother retreats with her daughter to a south coast cottage haunted by a sea captain who wants it put into the right hands.
Superficially plotted but glossily well made supernatural romance, with actors not ideal for their roles but investing all their best attributes into it, and they spark off each other very well.

Written by: Philip Dunne, from the novel by R.A. Dick (Josephine Leslie).
Producer: Fred Kohlmar.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
Starring: Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison, George Sanders, Edna Best, Natalie Wood, Robert Coote, Vanessa Brown.
Photography: Charles Lang.
Music: Bernard Herrmann.

Preceded by:
Tom and Jerry in
The Cat and the Mermouse***
(US 1949. 7m.; d: William Hanna, Joseph Barbera; p: Fred Quimby.)

Sep 18th  
Corridor of Mirrors**           
(GB 1948)                                                 
Apollo/Cartier-Romney. 105m. bw

A London socialite falls for a mysterious man who lives in the past and claims that she is the reincarntion of his past love.
Curious romantic melodrama - something of a vogue for the time - and surprisingly lavishly well made, influenced by Cocteau as well as Brief Encounter, but uneven in both respects with shifting audience sympathies, and style generally superseding content - a recurring theme with this director's later work, including James Bond.

Written by: Rudolph Cartier, Edana Romney, based on the novel by Christopher Massie.
Producer: Rudolph Cartier.
Director: Terence Young.
Starring: Edana Romney, Eric Portman, Barbara Mullen, Leslie Watson, Hugh Sinclair, Bruce Belfrage, Alan Wheatley, Christopher Lee (his first film), Lois Maxwell.
Photography: Andre Thomas.
Music: Georges Auric.

Jun 8th  
Raiders of the Lost Ark*     
(US 1981)                                           
Paramount/Lucasfilm. 115m. Panavision

In 1936 an intrepid archaeologist and the Nazis race to retrieve the Ark of the Covenant which contains dangerous supernatural powers.
The first of the Indiana Jones series, regarded by most fans as the best of them, with the same prescient timing for action and adventure that made Star Wars such a success. The makers slightly overdo the thrills and spills here however, and the story runs aground by the end to make way for a gruesome climax, with characterisation giving way to the exciting set pieces.

Written by: Lawrence Kasdan, from a story by Philip Kaufman, George Lucas.
Producer: Frank Marshall.
Director: Steven Spielberg.
Starring: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, Ronald Lacey, John Rhys-Davies, Denholm Elliott, Alfred Molina, Wolf Kahler.
Photography: Douglas Slocombe.
Music: John Williams.
Production Design: Norman Reynolds.

100 Favourite Films: Indiana Jones

Preceded by:
Black Angel**
(GB 1980. 27m.; A knight returns to his plague-ridden homeland and duels the Black Angel that has brought this about. Strikingly visual sword-and-sorcery short planned as an accompaniment to The Empire Strikes Back in British cinemas.; w, d: Roger Christian; p: Roger Christian, Leslie Dilley; s: Tony Vogel, Patricia Christian; ph: Roger Pratt; m: Trevor Jones.)

Mar 11th  
Midnight in Paris**   
(US/Spa/Fra 2011)                                   

A California scriptwriter on vacation in Paris drifts away from his fiancee as he intermingles with figures from the city's literary past.
Woody on his European travels; a gentle Twilight Zone nostalgia comedy with a few familiar Allen stereotypes, and Paris evoked in picture postcard fashion, much like it was for Everyone Says I Love You.

Written and Directed by: Woody Allen.
Producers: Letty Aronson, Stephen Tenenbaum, Jaume Roures.
Starring: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Michael Sheen, Kathy Bates (as Gertrude Stein), Tom Hiddleston (as F. Scott Fitzgerald), Corey Stoll (as Hemingway), Adrien Brody (as Salvador Dali), Lea Seydoux, Carla Bruni.
Photography: Darius Khondji.
Music: Stephane Wrembel, and others.

Jan 13th  
Into the Woods* (PG)            
Odeon Colchester

(GB/US 2014)

A childless couple, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Red Riding Hood etc. have their dreams come true but their lives afterward are far from happy ever after.
Disappointing adaptation of Sondheim's musical, not his most ideal of material with average numbers sung spiritedly by stars with very little screen chemistry, accompanied by annoying child co-stars, shot in rather poor colour. By and large, it remains an experience better enjoyed on the stage than the screen.

d: Rob Marshall
s: Meryl Streep, James Corden, Emily Blunt, Anna Kendrick, Johnny Depp, Tracey Ullman, Chris Pine, Christine Baranski, Lilla Crawford, Daniel Huttlestone, Annette Crosbie, Simon Russell Beale, Frances de la Tour.

Oct 11th 

Magical Mystery Tour*

(GB TVM 1967)                     

BBC/Apple. 50m.

Almost plotless musical odyssey linking some surreal sketches and music by the Beatles on board a coach tour.
Quite Goon Show style in its approach (but with less discipline or humour), with hints of the Psychadelic as well as the Monty Python eras that were to follow, this self-indulgent Beatles fantasia was certainly a curio for Christmas TV audiences of the time, erratic and sometimes amateurishly filmed, as are some of the numbers, with one or two gems that still entertain. Musically speaking some of the most inventive, experimental music they ever attempted.

Written by: The Beatles, from an idea by Mal Evans, Paul McCartney.
Producers: The Beatles, Dennis O'Dell.
Directors: The Beatles, Bernard Knowles.
Starring: Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, Jessie Robins, Ivor Cutler, Derek Royle, Miranda Forbes, Victor Spinetti, George Claydon.
Photography: Ringo Starr.
Music: The Beatles, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
Editing: Roy Benson.

MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR (1967). The success of the Beatles had become so great that   the audience were prepared to welcome whatever they did, no matter how odd.

Sep 17th     

One Million Years B.C.*                             

(GB 1966)
Hammer. 100m.

In prehistoric times, early Man struggles to survive with quarreling tribes, deadly dinosaurs and volcanoes.
Well sustained yarn with lots of commercial Hammer ingredients, including some atmospheric Dawn of Man sequences that pre-date 2001: A Space Odyssey (which was made at the same time but released later), combined with anachronistic but fun dinosaurs, battling over Raquel Welch in a fur bikini. The whole ridiculous premise is surprisingly powerful and enjoyably entertaining.

Written/Produced by: Michael Carreras.
Director: Don Chaffey.
Starring: John Richardson, Raquel Welch, Percy Herbert, Robert Brown, Martine Beswick, Jean Wladon.
Photography: Wilkie Cooper.
Music: Mario Nascimbene.
Special Effects: Ray Harryhausen.
Prologue Design: Les Bowie.

+ filmed on the Canary Isles

Raquel Welch in the pose that sold one million tickets.

May 15th

Legend*                                        

(GB 1985)
Twentieth Century Fox/Universal/Legend Productions. 89m. Panavision

In a mythical land a princess is tempted into destroying the last of the unicorns by the lord of darkness.
Average fairy tale overblown to big budget levels, with all the elaborate sets and grotesque make-up no substitute for a proper narrative and more engaging characters. Eighties indulgence by Scott, where the visuals are everything and the content incidental.

Written by: William Hjortsberg.
Producer: Arnon Milchan.
Director: Ridley Scott.
Starring: Tim Curry (as Satan), Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, David Bennent, Alice Playten, Billy Barty, Robert Picardo.
Photography: Alex Thomson.
Music: Jerruy Goldsmith (European version)
Make-up: Rob Bottin.
Production Design: Assheton Gordon.

The best thing about Legend: Tim Curry, of whom devils don't get much hornier than this.

Mar 20th
Tron**
US 1982. Walt Disney. 96m. Super Panavision 70

A games designer is sucked into the world of the computer to combat a master program that is becoming too powerful for its own good.
Slick and innovatively animated (for its time) electronic fantasy, a cult-sci-fi item for its computer graphics, although its framing device is unconvincing and the humans (as programs) rather unattractively photographed.

Written and Directed by: Steven Lisberger, from a story by himself and Bonnie MacBird.
Producer: Donald Kushner.
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Cindy Morgan, Barnard Hughes, Dan Shor, Peter Jurasik, Tony Stephano.
Photography: Bruce Logan.
Music: Wendy Carlos.
Electronic Conceptual design: Syd Mead, Jean "Moebius" Giraud, Peter Lloyd.
Visual Effects Supervision: Richard Taylor, Harrison Ellenshaw.
Production Design: Dean Edward Mitzner.

Dec 31st
Lost Horizon**
US 1937. Columbia. 125m(partially restored version). bw

A British missionary and fellow passengers escape war-torn China by plane, but are delivered to Shangri-La.
Paradise on Earth seems to resemble an art deco estate, and some of the sentiments and comic relief look horribly dated now, but for the historical context of its time (just two years before World War II#) the appeal of Shangri-La is still as elusive to a troubled world as it ever was.

Written by: Robert Riskin, from the novel by James Hilton.
Producer/Director: Frank Capra .
Starring: Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, John Howard, Thomas Mitchell, Edward Everett Horton, Isabel Jewell, H.B. Warner, Sam Jaffe, Margo, Hugh Buckler.
Photography: Joseph Walker.
Music: Dmitri Tiomkin.
Art Direction: Stephen Goosson.

# a 1942 re-release (shortened to 108 minutes) paints the Japanese as villains during the early evacuation scenes from China

## see also "The Battle over Lost Horizon"

Mar 29th
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within**
US/Japan 2001. Columbia/Square USA. 106m. ws

In 2065 New York, the remaining humans on Earth fight for survival against an asteroid crater of alien "phantoms".
Billed at the time as the first 100% all-animated "photo realistic" feature film (with millions apparently spent on the heroine's hair - which conveniently never slips in front of her face), this visually stunning mixture of Alien and The War of the Worlds sticks to a few familiar cliches - Dystopian society, humans versus aliens, redneck generals, etc. - with a slightly baffling ending. It certainly earns marks for trying something new, but unluckily (or happily perhaps) it did not start a general trend. CGI films still need actors.

Written by: Al Reinert, Jeff Vintor, Jack Fletcher, Ramin Mebdy, from a story by Hironobu Sakaguchi, based on the computer game.
Producers: Chris Lee, Akio Sakai, Jun Aida.
Directors: Hironobu Sakaguchi, Moto Sakakibura.
Voices of: Ming-Na, Alec Baldwin, Donald Sutherland, James Woods, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, Peri Gilpin, Jean Simmons.
Photography: Moto Sakakibura.
Music: Elliot Goldenthal.
Production Design: Mauro Borrelli.

Mar 14th
Watchmen (18)
Odeon Wimbledon

US 2009. Paramount/Warner Bros/Legendary Pictures/DC. 160m. (IMAX DMR version)

In a near-apocalyptic alternative 1985, the supremacy of President Nixon's prime deterrent "Dr. Manhattan" is undermined by a secret adversary out to murder the Watchmen.
Gloomy and violent adaptation of a gloomy and downbeat superhero comic book with attitude, set in 1985 but looking very little like it (some of the other period flashbacks look pretty ropey too), with a Nixon that sports a ridiculous prosthetic nose that is as simplistic as the story's politics. The complexities of the story could have been told in half the length.

Written by: David Hayter, Alex Tse, from the graphic novel by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons.
Producers: Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin, Deborah Snyder.
Director: Zak Snyder.
Starring (in no particular order): Billy Crudup ("Dr. Manhattan"), Matthew Goode (Adrian Veidt/"Ozymandias"), Patrick Wilson (Dan Dreibery/"Nite Owl"), Malin Akerman (Laurie Jupiter/"Silk Spectre"), Jackie Earle Haley ("Rohrschach"), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Edward Blake/"The Comedian"), Carla Gugino, Matt Frewer, Stephen McHattie, Laura Mennell.
Photography: Larry Fong.
Music: Tyler Bates.
Production Design: Alex McDowell.




WATCHMEN. One for admirers of the comic book only, of which there are many.

Jan 28th
Fantastic Four*
US/Ger 2005. Twentieth Century Fox/Constantin Film/Marvel/1492 Pictures. 106m. Panavision

Four astronauts are affected by a cosmic storm which gives them various superpowers, which they have to use against their new nemesis, Victor Von Doom.
Wisecracking, largely expository first instalment of what is clearly hoping to become a series of Fantastic Four adventures based on the long running Marvel comic strip. The style hardly makes for great drama, but also remains refreshingly unpretentious and true to its comic book origins, and only drags in the latter third when the heroes briefly considered reversing their superpowers.

Written by: Mark Frost, Michael France, based on the comic strip by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby.
Producers: Bernd Eichinger, Avi Arad, Ralph Winter.
Director: Tim Story.
Starring: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Chris Evans, Julian McMahon, Kerry Washington.
Photography: Oliver Wood.
Music: John Ottman.
Production Design: Bill Boes.