logo
Free previews of Mr. Burton to be shown at Somerset cinema

Free previews of Mr. Burton to be shown at Somerset cinema

Yahoo28-03-2025

A Wellington cinema will host free previews of Mr. Burton thanks to the Escapes cinema initiative.
The screenings will take place at the Wellesley Cinema on Monday, March 31 and Tuesday, April 1, before the film's official release on Friday, April 4.
Mr. Burton is a biographical drama featuring Toby Jones, Harry Lawtey, and Lesley Manville, and these screenings are part of Escapes' first multi-day screening event.
The film tells the story of Richard Burton's rise from a poor miner's son to a celebrated actor.
The initiative, supported by BFI National Lottery funding, aims to make independent films accessible to everyone.
For more information on how to get your free tickets to the screenings, visit escapes.cinematik.app.
A spokesman for Escapes said: "Following the success of previous Escapes screenings, including comedy-drama The Penguin Lessons, family-friendly animation The Sloth Lane and a 4K restoration of 90's cult classic Point Break, Mr. Burton marks the first multi-day screening event of the Escapes initiative, offering people across the UK the chance to explore the beauty of independent cinema in their hometown, all without spending a penny."
Escapes has given away more than 100,000 free cinema tickets since starting in February 2024.
The group works with both leading cinema chains and independent venues across the UK.
Other Somerset venues showing the film as part of Escapes include Weston's Plaza Cinema and Bridgwater's Scott Cinema.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

‘Ballerina' Is Not the ‘John Wick' Spinoff You're Looking For
‘Ballerina' Is Not the ‘John Wick' Spinoff You're Looking For

Yahoo

time5 days ago

  • Yahoo

‘Ballerina' Is Not the ‘John Wick' Spinoff You're Looking For

So many of us stumbled blindly into that first John Wick movie, back in 2014 — how were we ever so young and innocent?! — and settled in for what seemed like a simple B-movie starring one half of the Point Break bromance duo/Bill and Ted team. From the moment that Keanu Reeves slapped a gold coin down on the Continental Hotel's check-in counter, however, audiences slowly realized that this kinetic revenge thriller was taking place in a unique ecosphere of its own. This was just one corner of a far larger sandbox, filled with bespoke hospitality services, crime-syndicate clans, mysterious cabals, weapons sommeliers, and networks of switchboard operators decked out in rockabilly couture. No one was necessarily asking for another cinematic universe. But the more you poked around the franchise's nooks and crannies, pored through its various customs and protocols, the deeper the series got its hooks into you. You don't world-build to this degree without a bigger world-conquering plan in your back pocket, especially once you've taken your king off the chessboard after four games. (Temporarily, but still.) Spinoffs and side missions were inevitable, as was the reality that, bereft of Reeves' deadpan charisma, these projects' returns might be diminishing; The Continental, a Peacock limited series devoted to the early years of the hotelier who caters to hit men, isn't as bad as you've heard and isn't exactly what you'd term 'good.' Further digging into the lore that's now a key part of the series, Ballerina both hopes to officially establish a new antihero to take up the reigns and double down on the mythology. At its best, this tale of a young female assassin seeking vengeance and wreaking havoc is one more chance to see expertly choreographed mayhem. At its worst, it plays like a Wick-ipedia sub-entry ambitiously pumped up to main-event status. Let's just say the balance tilts toward the latter more than you'd like. More from Rolling Stone 'Bring Her Back' Proves the 'Talk to Me' Guys Aren't One-Hit Wonders 'Karate Kid: Legends' Is a Kick for Hardcore Fans Only Keanu Reeves Is a 'Budget Guardian Angel' in Aziz Ansari-Directed Comedy Trailer So, remember that briefly glimpsed ballet academy in John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum? This is where Eve will learn the fine art of killing. Having watched her father killed by a criminal known as the Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne), the girl is found by Winston (Ian McShane), manager of the Continental. He brings her to the Tarkovsky Theater, home of New York's Ruska Roma and where the Director (Anjelica Huston) trains both prima ballerinas and professional assassins, not necessarily in that order. Cut to 12 years later, when the now-grown Eve (Ana de Armas) is still trying master her pirouettes. In terms of hand-to-hand combat and gun fu, however, she's an ace pupil. Eve must past two tests before she can become kikimora, a legendary mythic creature who protects the innocent and guts open the guilty. One involves a former ballerina gone rogue. The other involves keeping a magnate's daughter from being kidnapped. Both are passed. Welcome to the club! Several years and one massive Ruska Roma back tattoo later, Eve is dropping bodies on the regular. The Director's faith in her has paid off — she is good at this whole murder-for-hire thing. After being attacked by a mysterious gent post-hit one night, however, Eve clocks an X scar on his hand. No, it's not a straight-edge symbol or a body-mutilating ode to Elon Musk. This mark signals that her would-be executioner is part of a cult. The same cult, in fact, that killed Eve's father. A detour to Prague, where she meets up with a fellow killer (Norman Reedus) attempting to flee the Chancellor's stranglehold, leads her to a quaint hamlet in the snowy Bavarian hills and, unsurprisingly, ghosts from her past. The powers that be, who don't want Eve's presence there to upset a decades-long truce between clans, have hired someone to exterminate her. Guess what familiar face steps off the train to find her? Given that Reeves' presence in Ballerina is a big part of the trailers, it's not exactly a spoiler to say that, after a clever first-act cameo, Mr. Baba Yaga himself ends up being a substantial part of the third act. (The events depicted in this spinoff take place somewhere during the third, yet before the fourth John Wick movies, for those of you playing along at home.) The temptation is to think that the real powers that be — i.e., the folks in board rooms trying to hold on to a successful film series by any means necessary — assigned him the gig for both continuity and reassurance purposes. At one point, Wick tells Eve she can leave any time she wants. Why haven't you left, she asks him. 'I'm working on it,' the elder statesman replies, and you half-wonder if it's the character or the actor who's speaking at that moment. (To be fair, that line was likely recorded before Reeves signed on for John Wick 5; the presence of the late, great Lance Reddick, who passed away in 2023, in one key scene attests to how long this movie has been in various states of existence.) In the meantime: See Eve run. See Eve shoot, stab, and kick. Kick, Eve, Kick! These movies lie or die by their action sequences, and to its credit, this franchise expansion pack has a few good ones up its sleeve. The now-requisite visit to an elite firearms broker turns into an explosive free-for-all; this may be the introduction of a new fighting style called 'grenade fu.' Even better is Eve's stop at a touristy hoffbrau, in which everyone from the patrons to the kitchen staff are out for blood. This sequence is so ingeniously choreographed and proceeds with such precision timing that you can forgive it for feeling like one more video-game level to get through. Others skate by on sheer imagination, such as the one in which a flamethrower meets its elemental opposite, and you find yourself staring at the action-movie equivalent of the immovable object versus the irresistible force. Also, in terms of in-jokes: Keep an eye out for a fleeting glimpse of Anne Parillaud, who you may remember as the lead in 1990's La Femme Nikita — a classic that this movie clearly owes a huge debt to. For the most part, however, Ballerina feels less like an extension of the Wickiverse than simply another dogged attempt to replicate its winning formula. It's less 'from the world of John Wick,' as the clumsy subtitle before the title strives to remind you, and more like a movie that's John Wick-flavored. Ana de Armas has already proven her onscreen ass-kicking bona fides — her brief appearance as a daffy but deadly operative in No Time to Die was the highlight of that Bond swan song — but the movie merely gives her a lot of the same rinse-repeat emotional beats in between respectively receiving and dishing out beatings. Director Len Wiseman is an old hand at franchise filmmaking, having made the first two Underworld films and Live Free or Die Hard (2007), which doesn't stop everything from somehow feeling a tad chintzy. The Wick movies were stellar examples of how make lowbrow B-movie genre thrills feel like high-rush art. This just feels like a decent effort from the B team. Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Best 'Saturday Night Live' Characters of All Time Denzel Washington's Movies Ranked, From Worst to Best 70 Greatest Comedies of the 21st Century

Movie Review: Sharks aren't the scariest thing in the sea-bound, super thriller ‘Dangerous Animals'
Movie Review: Sharks aren't the scariest thing in the sea-bound, super thriller ‘Dangerous Animals'

Hamilton Spectator

time05-06-2025

  • Hamilton Spectator

Movie Review: Sharks aren't the scariest thing in the sea-bound, super thriller ‘Dangerous Animals'

As if a movie about sharks wasn't scary enough, the filmmakers behind 'Dangerous Animals' have upped the screams by adding what every thriller needs — a serial killer. While that may sound like very dangerous moviemaking, the result is actually taut and well crafted, a worthy birthday present to 'Jaws,' celebrating its 50th anniversary this summer. 'Dangerous Animals' stars Jai Courtney as an Australian boat captain who likes feeding his female customers to sharks and videotaping it, while also offering little brainy speeches about the nature of makos, mosquitos or sailfish while toying with his prey. He meets what seems like his match in Hassie Harrison's Zephyr, an American antisocial surf queen who lives in a van and refuses to be tied down. 'There was nothing for me on land,' she says. She's kind of a handful for any serial killer, For instance, she can pick locks with the underwire from a bikini top. Nick Lepard's screenplay is muscular and satisfying, with nods to 'Jaws,' of course, but also to 'Point Break,' 'Hannibal' and even the song 'Baby Shark.' He says he was inspired to write 'Dangerous Animals' by seeing a surfboard bag and imagining it carrying a body, which says something about how Lepard's mind works, though we're not judging. Director Sean Byrnes has a super ability to build dread and his scenes are crisp without being exploitative. The movie was shot on Queensland's Gold Coast, but may take a bite out of the region's shark cage diving fleets. I'm looking twice even before taking showers now. Zephyr and the serial killer play an engaging game of chess for most of the movie, if by chess is meant she's fighting to stay alive by wriggling out of handcuffs and running or swimming away and he's determined for her to be shark food. 'Oh, you're a fighter. I love fighters. It makes for a better show,' he says, biting into the scenery almost as viciously as the sharks chomp on chum. He also does that thing that all serial killers do — saying he and his victim are similar. 'You're hard as nails. Like me. You and me, we're sharks,' he tells her. She tells him to stop talking so much and calls him ocean scum. The music department has a fun wink with the soundtrack. One scene uses Steve Wright's 'Evie (Part One)' — in which the singer begs his love to let her hair hang down — as the serial killer makes mementos out of his victims' hair. Another moment, astonishingly, plays Etta James' 'At Last,' the ultimate wedding song, just as the bad guy finally captures his quarry inches from rescue. The setting of a boat in the middle of the Coral Sea unlocks a delicious new home for terror. Sealable hatches and no one for miles means screaming is no good. And the serial killer has weaponized Vegemite. One thing Zephyr has up her sleeve is a boy, smitten after a meet-cute in which she tries to shoplift ice cream. He's played by the hunky Josh Heuston and they're perfect for each other but she resists until she's snatched by our nasty boat captain. But even though she blew him off, her boy is suspicious about her disappearance and is on the hunt. 'Dangerous Animals,' thankfully, doesn't try to be more than it is, although the quite beautiful images of sharks sliding through the ocean show, naturally, that we are the species that inspired the title. After all, sharks don't see a surfboard bag and wonder if they can put a body in it. 'Dangerous Animals,' an IFC Films release in theaters Friday, is rated R for 'strong, bloody violent content, grisly images, sexuality, language and brief drug use.' Running time: 98 minutes. Three stars out of four.

Movie Review: Sharks aren't the scariest thing in the sea-bound, super thriller 'Dangerous Animals'

time04-06-2025

Movie Review: Sharks aren't the scariest thing in the sea-bound, super thriller 'Dangerous Animals'

As if a movie about sharks wasn't scary enough, the filmmakers behind 'Dangerous Animals' have upped the screams by adding what every thriller needs — a serial killer. While that may sound like very dangerous moviemaking, the result is actually taut and well crafted, a worthy birthday present to 'Jaws,' celebrating its 50th anniversary this summer. 'Dangerous Animals' stars Jai Courtney as an Australian boat captain who likes feeding his female customers to sharks and videotaping it, while also offering little brainy speeches about the nature of makos, mosquitos or sailfish while toying with his prey. He meets what seems like his match in Hassie Harrison's Zephyr, an American antisocial surf queen who lives in a van and refuses to be tied down. 'There was nothing for me on land,' she says. She's kind of a handful for any serial killer, For instance, she can pick locks with the underwire from a bikini top. Nick Lepard's screenplay is muscular and satisfying, with nods to 'Jaws,' of course, but also to 'Point Break,' 'Hannibal' and even the song 'Baby Shark.' He says he was inspired to write 'Dangerous Animals' by seeing a surfboard bag and imagining it carrying a body, which says something about how Lepard's mind works, though we're not judging. Director Sean Byrnes has a super ability to build dread and his scenes are crisp without being exploitative. The movie was shot on Queensland's Gold Coast, but may take a bite out of the region's shark cage diving fleets. I'm looking twice even before taking showers now. Zephyr and the serial killer play an engaging game of chess for most of the movie, if by chess is meant she's fighting to stay alive by wriggling out of handcuffs and running or swimming away and he's determined for her to be shark food. 'Oh, you're a fighter. I love fighters. It makes for a better show,' he says, biting into the scenery almost as viciously as the sharks chomp on chum. He also does that thing that all serial killers do — saying he and his victim are similar. 'You're hard as nails. Like me. You and me, we're sharks,' he tells her. She tells him to stop talking so much and calls him ocean scum. The music department has a fun wink with the soundtrack. One scene uses Steve Wright's 'Evie (Part One)' — in which the singer begs his love to let her hair hang down — as the serial killer makes mementos out of his victims' hair. Another moment, astonishingly, plays Etta James' 'At Last,' the ultimate wedding song, just as the bad guy finally captures his quarry inches from rescue. The setting of a boat in the middle of the Coral Sea unlocks a delicious new home for terror. Sealable hatches and no one for miles means screaming is no good. And the serial killer has weaponized Vegemite. One thing Zephyr has up her sleeve is a boy, smitten after a meet-cute in which she tries to shoplift ice cream. He's played by the hunky Josh Heuston and they're perfect for each other but she resists until she's snatched by our nasty boat captain. But even though she blew him off, her boy is suspicious about her disappearance and is on the hunt. 'Dangerous Animals,' thankfully, doesn't try to be more than it is, although the quite beautiful images of sharks sliding through the ocean show, naturally, that we are the species that inspired the title. After all, sharks don't see a surfboard bag and wonder if they can put a body in it. 'Dangerous Animals,' an IFC Films release in theaters Friday, is rated R for 'strong, bloody violent content, grisly images, sexuality, language and brief drug use.' Running time: 98 minutes. Three stars out of four.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store