Films in English from Friday 4 February

To check for further information click on the locations here. Ocimax, Rivoli, Festival Park and CineCiutat. Also showing in Minorca.

The Eyes of Tammy (2021)

Showing daily at CineCiutat...16.35...19.00...21.23

Showing on daily at Festival Park...16.15

Plot summary: There’s a lot to be said about the extraordinary world of televangelism, and this biopic of Tammy Faye Bakker, one of its leading lights in the 1970s and 1980s, goes some way to interrogating the glitz, glitter and grungy reality behind the ministering. Tammy (Jessica Chastain) is a bubbly young idealist when she meets Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield) at Bible college. Soon they’re rising through the ranks of televangelism thanks to strokes of good fortune and, of course, God’s plan for them as they see it. But as the scale of their operations gets bigger and Jim starts taking financial shortcuts, their empire is put at risk. Tammy did some commendable things — she was a rare televangelist who actively embraced the LGBT+ community and reached out to AIDS patients at the height of that epidemic — but she also turned a wilfully blind eye to her husband’s corruption. Jessica Chastain does her best to show Tammy’s warm heart, her considerable contributions to the movement and her growing agony at her husband’s failings, but the woman still essentially defrauds the public so she can dress in furs.

Starring: Jessica Chastain, Andrew Garfield & Cherry Jones

Director: Michael Showalter

Duration: 2 hours and 6 minutes

Rated: 12

See above trailer

Moonfall (2022)

Showing daily at Festival Park... 19.10
Showing on Sunday at Festival Park... 12.30

Showing on Thursday at Ocimax Mahon (Minorca)... 20.00

Plot summary: In Moonfall, a mysterious force knocks the Moon from its orbit around Earth and sends it hurtling on a collision course with life as we know it. With mere weeks before impact and the world on the brink of annihilation, NASA executive and former astronaut Jo Fowler (Academy Award winner Halle Berry) is convinced she has the key to saving us all -- but only one astronaut from her past, Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson, Midway) and a conspiracy theorist K.C. Houseman (John Bradley, Game of Thrones) believe her. These unlikely heroes will mount an impossible last-ditch mission into space, leaving behind everyone they love, only to find out that our Moon is not what we think it is. If this film sounds a little like many in the same sort of genre that was very popular in the 1990’s then you might well be right. However, in more than twenty years the visual effects have improved beyond recognition, even if the acting comes a somewhat distant second in this ambitious ‘out there’ film. Nevertheless, it was clearly made to entertain - and it certainly does that to a large degree.

Starring: Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson and John Bradley

Director: Roland Emmerich

Duration: 2 hours and 10 minutes

Rated: 12

Belfast (2021)

Showing daily at Rivoli... 15.45...17.45...19.45

Showing on daily at Festival Park... 22.05

Plot summary: A wondrously nostalgic look at his childhood, Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast is a heartfelt and emotionally powerful piece of cinema. Branagh has crafted a film where whimsy and realism sit side-by-side so the viewer can visit a Belfast which is as much a figment of the filmmaker’s 50 year-old memory as it is a document charting the start of Northern Ireland’s violence and civil unrest in the late 1960s. As a writer and director, Branagh wants to show his childhood from the perspective of his ten year-old self. The filmmaker’s on-screen proxy, Buddy (Jude Hill) shows us the story with wide-eyed wonder. Be that the moments of flash mob violence, to the joys of afternoon’s watching movies, there’s an exuberance to how young Buddy sees the world. Yes, there is danger, but Buddy never fully realises its true extent. With financial troubles and local violence on the rise, Buddy’s Ma and Pa (Caitríona Balfe and Jamie Dornan) begin to believe that life might be better for their young family if they leave Belfast and start new lives elsewhere.This seems like a lot of upheaval for young Buddy who doesn’t want to leave his home or his grandparents (Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench). This imagery is perfectly accompanied by the choice selection of Van Morrison’s music which punctuates the onscreen action – the city’s most successful musical son and its most famous filmmaker working together. The film is never cloying and young Jude Hill manages to perfectly capture a wide-eyed sense of wonder. The adults in the cast also impress, all matching the tone that Branagh sets as director. A wonderful film.

Starring: Jude Hill, Lewis McAskie and Caitriona Balfe

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Duration: 1 hour and 38 minutes

Rated: 12

King Richard (2021)

Showing daily at *Augusta... 17.15
*Augusta is open Wednesday to Sunday

Showing daily (except Friday) at CineCiutat... 21.10

Plot summary: An arrogant man full of self belief and he definitely passed that quality onto his daughters. King Richard is the story of a father who devoted his time to coaching his daughters to be the two of the best tennis players ever. And that against all odds as the movie references the racial roadblocks and challenges they encountered both from inside and outside their Los Angeles, Compton ghetto. This is a feel good story about a man and his five daughters who are on an adventure. A man who is trying to help his daughters have better futures outside of the ghetto. A man who is trying to teach them humility and life values and as well as drive them on to be the best in the world. Will Smith is very good in this fine movie. His devotion to his daughters is likeable but he is also a very frustrating man whose company you do not always particularly want to be in. He always knows best and interferes with the coaches. When he is convinced they will make it, he begins to fear that success will be damaging for them and starts to encourage them to have fun. Many tennis players have pushy parents - Andy Murray for example (although his mother Judy denies this) and it is interesting to learn more about how the story behind the Williams sisters. We all know how the story ends but many of us did not know how it starts and that is what this movie does.

Starring: Will Smith, Aunjanue Ellis and Jon Bernthal.

Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green

Duration: 2 hours and 24 minutes

Rated: PG-13

See above trailer

Nightmare Alley (2021)

Now showing daily at Rivoli... 18.00

Showing daily (execpt Friday) at CineCiutat...18.50
Showing on Friday at CineCiutat... 21.10

Plot summary: By the time Bradley Cooper utters his first line of dialogue as Stan Carlisle, several minutes into Guillermo del Toro’s lavishly configured take on “Nightmare Alley,” we’ve already seen the character drag a corpse and set a house on fire. A fugitive, not yet from the law but from his own unresolved resentment, the man lands at a 1930s traveling sideshow populated with curious acts of benign mentalism and bizarre cautionary tales.Those first words said with hesitation are aimed towards the operation’s geek, an alcoholic man dehumanised for vicious entertainment, on the loose from his captor inside a disturbing attraction that warns visitors of damnation. What Stan can’t foresee from this point in the arc of his hasty rise to top-billing enchanter and thunderous downfall, is that he is in fact looking at a mirror. That we can infer exactly where Stan’s road leads isn’t just because of Edmund Goulding’s 1947 film adaption of the original novel. His “Nightmare Alley” is a movie of psychological tunnels and downward spirals. In entering them, Stan risks getting lost and never coming out the other side. If you have ever seen one of Guillermo de Toro’s movies, you will know exactly what to expect from Nightmare Alley - if you haven’t, you will either love this film or hate it. No middle way!

Starring: Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett & Toni Collette

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Duration: 2 hours and 30 minutes

Rated: R

Spider-man: No Way Home (2021)

Showing on Saturday and Sunday at Ocimax...12.10

Plot summary: The best of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” reminded me why we all used to love comic books, especially the ones about a boy named Peter Parker. There was a playful unpredictability to them that has often felt was lacking from modern superhero movies in the way they feel so precisely calculated. Yes, of course, “No Way Home” is incredibly calculated, a way to make more headlines after killing off so many of its event characters in Phase 3, but it’s also a film that’s often bursting with creative joy. Director Jon Watts and his team have delivered a true event movie, a double-sized crossover issue of a comic book that the young me would have waited in line to read first, excitedly turning every page with breathless anticipation of the next twist and turn.

Starring: Zendaya, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Holland

Director: Jon Watts

Duration: 2 hours and 30 minutes

Rated: 7

Coming on Friday 11 February

Uncharted (2022)

Tickets on sale now at Festival Park

Plot summary: Street-smart thief Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) is recruited by seasoned treasure hunter Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg) to recover a fortune lost by Ferdinand Magellan 500 years ago. What starts as a heist job for the duo becomes a globe-trotting, white-knuckle race to reach the prize before the ruthless Moncada (Antonio Banderas), who believes he and his family are the rightful heirs. If Nate and Sully can decipher the clues and solve one of the world’s oldest mysteries, they stand to find $5 billion in treasure and perhaps even Nate’s long-lost brother...but only if they can learn to work together. Some have compared the plot of this movie to the hugely popular ‘Indiana Jones’ franchise, which is some compliment if true! An impressive cast list might also persuade a person to see the movie, as all the lead males i.e. Holland, Wahlberg and Banderas are top box office at the moment.

Starring: Tom Holland, Sophia Ali and Mark Wahlberg

Director: Ruben Fleischer

Duration: 1 hour and 56 minutes

Rated: PG-13