SPRING PROGRAMME 2023
20 March 2023 MONDAY 19:30
Playhouse Main Screen
District 9 15
(USA-New Zealand-Canada-South Africa/2009) 112 minutes
DIRECTED BY
Neill Blomkamp
STARRING
Sharlto Copley|David James|Jason Cope
The film opens with a documentary-style exposition of an alien ship appearing in the skies over Johannesburg. Inside are aliens - refugees from another world. The Department of Alien Affairs moves them into a temporary holding zone called District 9, which soon becomes mired in crime and poverty. The next step is to move the residents to a new compound outside of the city.
There are many allegories to be drawn from this film, including the cultural clashes resulting from a poor response to the arrival of refugees and, not least, the treatment, under apartheid, of the Black population in South Africa itself.
GAP
17 April 2023 DOUBLE BILL
'ROOTING OUT THE REDS'
17 April 2023 MONDAY 18:00
Playhouse Main Screen
Good Night, and Good Luck. PG
(USA/2005) 93 minutes
DIRECTED BY
George Clooney
STARRING
David Strathairn|George Clooney|Patricia Clarkson
The film cleverly blends the actors with archive footage of McCarthy himself. It was nominated for six Academy Awards and has won much critical acclaim.
17 April 2023 MONDAY 20:15
Playhouse Main Screen
The Manchurian Candidate 12
(USA/1962) 126 minutes
DIRECTED BY
John Frankenheimer
STARRING
Frank Sinatra|Laurence Harvey|Janet Leigh
& Angela Lansbury
This is the original, not the remake! Laurence Harvey plays a Korean War veteran, brainwashed by communists and programmed to assassinate a US presidential nominee with a view to Soviet overthrow of the USA. US-Soviet relations were at a low point in 1962, when the film was released, with the Cuban Missile Crisis in October that year.
Angela Lansbury won a Golden Globe for best supporting actress, so this is also a nod to her passing, in October 2022.
GAP
24 April 2023 MONDAY 19:30
Playhouse Main Screen
Harold & Maude PG
(USA/1971) 91 minutes
DIRECTED BY
Hal Ashby
STARRING
Ruth Gordon|Bud Cort|Vivian Pickles
A dark comedy involving a very odd couple: 20-ish Harold (Bud Cort) and Maude (79) (Ruth Gordon). Harold is obsessed with death, while Maude lives life to the full. They share an interest in the funerals of strangers, and that is how they meet. Friendship blossoms into romance, much to the chagrin of Harold’s mother.
Like many a film that has achieved cult status, this one was panned by the critics on its release in 1971. But, in 1997, it was selected for preservation by the US National Film Registry.
22 May 2023 MONDAY 19:30
Playhouse Main Screen
Ema 15
(Chile/2019) 117 minutes
DIRECTED BY
Pablo Larrain
STARRING
Mariana Di Girolamo|Gael Garcia Bernal|Santiago Cabrera
A terrifically sensual film with a fantastic performance from Mariana Di Girólamo. It also stars Gael García Bernal, but all eyes are on Mariana as Ema, reggaeton dancer and pyromaniac. The stars are a couple, who have unsuccessfully adopted a boy, whom they have had to return to care. Ema is racked with guilt and criticised by her co-workers. But she has a plan!
A review on IMDb neatly sums up the film: ‘It could be the illegitimate offspring of Lynch, Almodóvar and Gaspar Noé baked at Fahrenheit 451 for good measure.’
12 June 2023 MONDAY 19:30
Playhouse Main Screen
The Feast 18
(UK/2021) 93 minutes
DIRECTED BY
Lee Haven Jones
STARRING
Annes Elwy|Nia Roberts|Julian Lewis Jones
A folk-horror from Wales – in Welsh, with English subtitles. It's an atmospheric piece presided over by the mysterious Cadi, a waitress hired to assist with a dinner party hosted by a wealthy Welsh family. The party brings the hosts together with a neighbouring landowner and a businessman prospecting for minerals in the area. Things do not go according to plan, and the climax is both bloody and deadly.
DATES AHEAD
WORKING ON IT!