Cinema Curated
Within days of becoming Prime Minister of Great
Britain, Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman) must face
one of his most turbulent and defining trials:
exploring a negotiated peace treaty with Nazi
Germany, or standing firm to fight for the ideals,
liberty and freedom of a nation. As the unstoppable
Nazi forces roll across Western Europe and the
threat of invasion is imminent, and with an
unprepared public, a skeptical King, and his own
party plotting against him, Churchill must withstand
his darkest hour, rally a nation, and attempt to
change the course of world history. Gary Oldman’s
tremendous performance as Churchill has
garnered near universal praise. He is surrounded
by a gifted supporting cast including Kristen Scott
Thomas as Clementine Churchill and Ben
Mendelsohn as King George VI. (PG)
“Oldman ensures that every line hits home as surely
as any bullet. It’s a towering performance.”
Screen Daily
Director: Joe Wright
Release date: January 11Darkest Hour
Guillermo del Toro weaves an extraordinary
fairy tale of love, desire and monsters in the
gorgeous creature feature THE SHAPE OF WATER.
Sally Hawkins stars as Elisa, a mute woman who
works as a cleaner in a secret high-security
government laboratory in the midst of 1960s Cold
War paranoia. But within the facility is something
that will cause Elisa’s lonely life to start singing –
an aquatic, humanoid creature (Doug Jones) who
has been dragged from the watery depths and now
lives in a tank. Witnessing the horror that the
ghastly federal agent Strickland (Michael Shannon)
wants to subject the creature to in order to turn
him into a weapon, Elisa comes up with a plan to
save her pescatorial beloved. With supporting
turns from Octavia Spencer, Michael Stuhlbarg and
Richard Jenkins, THE SHAPE OF WATER deftly
whirls through classic film genres and soars to the
heights of a great love story. It’s a film that chooses
kindness over cruelty, the impossible over the
ordinary, and the love that a human woman can
feel for a 7-foot tall supernatural fish-man! (CTC)
“A ravishing, eccentric auteur’s imagining, spilling
artistry, empathy and sensuality from every open
pore.” Variety
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Release date: January 18The Shape of Water
Greta Gerwig’s impressive directorial debut stars
Saoirse Ronan as a seventeen year old desperate
to get away from her Californian town and Catholic
high school in order to be somebody – she’s just
not quite sure what kind of somebody she wants to
be yet. Christine ‘Lady Bird’ McPherson dreams of
escaping to university on the east coast, mostly to
spite her mother Marion (Laurie Metcalf) who
wants her daughter to go to a local, less expensive
college. Her difficult relationship with her mother
propels Lady Bird to act out, not just with adopting
her preferred nom de plume, but with trying out
new friends and sexually experimenting with two
very different boys (Lucas Hedges and Timothée
Chalamet). Gerwig crafts a masterful study of that
period of life for teenagers when adulthood and
freedom seems so close and yet so far. With Ronan
delivering the most accomplished performance of
her career thus far, LADY BIRD is a must-see
confluence of women making heartfelt art. (CTC)
“Feels thrillingly real and deeply personal, every
single beat ringing true.” The Guardian
Director: Greta Gerwig
Release date: February 15Lady Bird
Who knows what
we’re capable of?
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