March 9, 2020
Sam Clements talks to director Dan Scanlon about Pixar's newest film, Onward. In cinemas now.
Set in a suburban fantasy world where dragons are house pets and unicorns are common pests, Pixar’s Onward follows two teenage elf brothers on a quest to spend one last day with their father.
Neither Ian nor Barley Lightfoot (Tom Holland and Chris Pratt) are old enough to remember their dad, who died when they were very young, but the unexpected gift of a wizard’s staff gives them the chance to revive his spirit for 24 hours. After their first attempt at sorcery goes wrong and only resurrects a pair of sentient trousers, Ian and Barley go an adventure across fairy-tale suburbia to complete the spell and fulfil their wish of meeting the father they never knew.
![Dark Waters with Todd Haynes | Picturehouse]()
March 1, 2020
Sam Clements talks to director Todd Haynes about his new film, Dark Waters.
A tenacious attorney uncovers a dark secret that connects a growing number of unexplained deaths due to one of the world’s largest corporations. In the process, he risks everything – his future, his family and his own life – to expose the truth. Corporate environmental defence attorney Rob Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) has just made partner at his prestigious Cincinnati law firm, in large part due to his work defending Big Chem companies. Soon he’s contacted by two West Virginia farmers who believe that the local DuPont plant is dumping toxic waste which is destroying their fields and killing their cattle. Hoping to learn the truth, Bilott, with help from his supervising partner in the firm, Tom Terp (Tim Robbins), files a complaint that marks the beginning of an epic 15-year fight – one that will not only test his relationship with his wife, Sarah (Anne Hathaway) but also his reputation, his health and his livelihood.
![True History Of The Kelly Gang with George Mackay | Picturehouse]()
February 29, 2020
Sam Clements talks to actor George Mackay (1917, Pride) about his new film True History Of The Kelly Gang. In cinemas now.
Based on Peter Carey’s Booker Prize-winning novel, Justin Kurzel’s True History Of The Kelly Gang shatters the mythology surrounding Ned Kelly to reveal the essence behind the life of the notorious icon.
Hero to some, outlaw to others, Kelly throws a long shadow over a specific period of Australian history. Spanning his life from his younger years to the time leading up to his death, the film explores the story behind this legendary figure.
Nurtured by the notorious bushranger Harry Power (Russell Crowe) and fuelled by the unfair arrest of his mother (Essie Davis), Kelly (George MacKay, 1917) recruits a wild bunch of warriors to plot a campaign of anarchy and rebellion that will grip the entire country. Youth and tragedy collide in the Kelly Gang, and at the beating heart of this tale is the fractured and powerful love story between a mother and son.
February 27, 2020
Sam Clements talks to Emily Beecham about her role in the new film by director Jessica Hausner, Little Joe.
Little Joe follows Alice (Emily Beecham), a single mother and dedicated senior plant breeder at a corporation engaged in developing new species. She has engineered a special crimson flower, remarkable not only for its beauty but also for its therapeutic value: if kept at the ideal temperature, fed properly and spoken to regularly, this plant makes its owner happy. Against company policy, Alice takes one home as a gift for her teenage son, Joe. They christen it ‘Little Joe’. But as their plant grows, so too does Alice’s suspicion that her new creation may not be as harmless as its nickname suggests.
February 23, 2020
Sam Clements talks to director Michael Winterbottom about his new film, Greed.
Steve Coogan stars in a gleefully grotesque satire about the filthy rich.
Set in the glamorous and celebrity-filled world of luxury fashion, Greed is a fictional story about the rise and fall of a British retail mogul, as seen through the eyes of his biographer (David Mitchell). To save his reputation after a damaging public inquiry, self-made billionaire Sir Richard McCreadie (Coogan) decides to throw a spectacular 60th birthday party on the Greek island of Mykonos. But as the guests arrive in the build-up to the bash, McCreadie’s empire begins to fall apart.
February 10, 2020
Felicity Beckett talks to director Cathy Yan about her new film, Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn.
Scene-stealer Margot Robbie stars as DC Comics’ Harley Quinn in an all-female superhero adventure. Since the events of Suicide Squad, Batman has disappeared, leaving Gotham City unprotected from crime, and Harley has left the Joker. When a young girl comes across a diamond belonging to crime lord Black Mask (Ewan McGregor), Harley joins forces with Black Canary, Huntress and Renee Montoya to help protect her. Always dangerously unpredictable, can Harley’s mildly psychotic imagination and her vigilante colleagues win the day?
![Parasite | Picturehouse]()
February 7, 2020
Sam Clements is joined by cinema programmers Carol McKay and Codie Entwistle to discuss the results of the BAFTAs and Bong Joon-Ho's new film, Parasite. In cinemas now.
A glorious success and box-office hit for Korean auteur Bong Joon-ho (Snowpiercer, Okja) and already the most successful Palme d'Or winner ever, Parasite is a politically charged cinematic wonder. Described by Bong himself as "a comedy without clowns and a tragedy without villains", the film moves quickly from one tone to another, mixing pathos and satire with thrills and drama. A vertical story of class struggle – punctuated by staircase scenes going from mouldy basements to top floors, from darkness to breezy spaces designed by star architects – Parasite observes and dissects with surgical precision the life of two families of different social backgrounds.
Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho) is a good-for-nothing, unemployed family man, patriarch of a family of grifters – his wife Chung-sook (Chang Hyae-jin), his clever twenty-something daughter Ki-jung (Park So-dam), and his son Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) – who live in an overcrowded, sordid basement. The Parks, on the other hand, live in a fabulous house with their teenage daughter Da-hye and terribly spoiled son Da-song, who has suffered a childhood trauma that occasionally causes him seizures and strange behaviour. When, due to an unexpected stroke of luck, Ki-woo is hired by the Parks to be the private English tutor of Da-hye, the destinies of the two families cross. Their explosive meeting exposes the merciless evils of class inequalities, culminating in a powerful and utterly original outcome.
January 31, 2020
Sam Clements talks to director Robert Eggers about his new film, The Lighthouse. In cinemas now.
Acclaimed filmmaker Robert Eggers (The Witch) returns with a hypnotic and hallucinatory tale of two lighthouse keepers clinging onto their sanity on a mysterious New England island in the 1890s. Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) and Tom Wake (Willem Dafoe) are beginning a four-week stretch of duty at the lighthouse. The two men veer wildly between enmity, comradeship, father-son intimacy and hatred. But they are keeping secrets from one another and, on this wind-lashed, uttermost spot, the tension mounts. Visually stunning, stark and unforgiving.
★★★★★ “A swirling descent into madness that takes the breath away… you can almost taste the salt on your lips.” – Time Out
January 20, 2020
Sarah Cook talks to director Trey Edward Shults about his new film Waves.
The latest film from Trey Edward Shults (Krisha, It Comes At Night) is a heartrending story about the universal capacity for compassion and growth even in the darkest of times. Set against the vibrant landscape of South Florida and featuring an astonishing ensemble of award-winning actors and breakouts alike, Waves traces the emotional journey of a suburban African-American family – led by a well-intentioned but domineering father – as they navigate love, forgiveness and coming together in the aftermath of a loss.
January 15, 2020
Sarah Cook talks to Dean-Charles Chapman, co-star of Sam Mendes's new film 1917.
Sam Mendes’ visceral and immersive vision of the First World War battlefields. Two young British soldiers, Schofield (George MacKay) and Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman), are given a seemingly impossible mission. In a race against time, they must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop hundreds of soldiers – Blake’s own brother among them – from walking into a deadly trap.
In cinemas now.
