What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 2nd February 2017.

Moving right along with the film and television awards season this year, Sunday evening 29th January saw the announcements of the 23rd annual edition of the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Held at The Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, California during a two-hour ceremony, Awards in six film and nine television categories were given. Unlike other awards shows like the Oscars and Golden Globes, this one does not have a host, which helps it move along more swiftly. From the world of film the winners and grinners were :

* Outstanding performance by a Male Actor in a Lead Role : Denzel Washington for 'FENCES' (released in Australia on 9th February)
* Outstanding performance by an Female Actor in a Lead Role : Emma Stone for 'LA LA LAND'
* Outstanding performance by an Male Actor in a Support Role : Mahershala Ali for 'MOONLIGHT'
* Outstanding performance by a Female Actor in a Support Role : Viola Davis for 'FENCES' (released in Australia on 9th February)
* Outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture : 'HIDDEN FIGURES' (released in Australia on 16th February)
* Outstanding action performance by a cast in a motion picture : 'HACKSAW RIDGE'
* The Lifetime Achievement Award : Lily Tomlin.

This week there are just three new filmic offerings coming your way that start off with a critically acclaimed film of grief, loss and suffering as old wounds are re-opened in this small coastal community. We then turn to a real life and very recent terror attack staged during a community event and the aftermath as the antagonists were brought to account and that affected community came together again, stronger, united and more resilient than ever. We then wrap up with an '80's era tale of geologists, gold and greed as a down on his luck prospector hits pay dirt in the jungles of Borneo and has to fend off the power brokers in the jungles of Wall Street.

As is generally the way, when you have sat through your movie of choice in the week ahead, you are cordially invited to leave your own summary of your movie going observations, thoughts and opinions by posting your relevant, pertinent and brief Comment below this or any other Post. We'd love to hear from you, and in the meantime, enjoy your film, wherever you might be.

'MANCHESTER BY THE SEA' (Rated MA15+) - Written and Directed by Kenneth Lonergan, Co-Produced by Matt Damon and Starring Casey Affleck in an award winning turn, this feature costing just US$8.5M to make has gained universal acclaim, brought in over US$43M since its World Premier at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2016 and subsequent tour around the festival circuit before its release Stateside at the end of November last year. The film has been nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay and three Best Actor nods for its three lead players (Affleck, Williams and Hedges), plus six BAFTA's nominations. Casey Affleck won the Best Actor Golden Globe for his lead performance, and it has accumulated a further 93 wins and 194 nominations, with the Oscar and BAFTA winners & grinners yet to be announced of course. Manchester-by-the-Sea is a real place by the way, located in Cape Ann, Essex County, Massachusetts with a population of just over five thousand and just 40kms northeast of Boston.

In a career defining performance the film centres around Lee Chandler (Casey Affleck) who works as a janitor in an apartment block in Boston. He's quiet, reserved, goes about his business by day and picks fights in bars by night. One day he receives a phone call from a family friend advising that brother Joe (Kyle Chandler) has suffered a heart attack. Before Lee can get to the hospital, Joe dies. Lee then travels to his home town of Manchester-by-the Sea to give the news of Joe's passing to his sixteen year old son Patrick (Lucas Hedges). In returning to Manchester however, Lee must face the memories of an even greater loss that threaten to re-open even greater wounds of a personal tragedy that he thought were behind him, and in so doing might just tip him over the edge forever. Michelle Williams also stars as Randi - Lee's former now re-married wife. Masterfully Directed, gracefully acted this is a film of sadness, loss, grief, self-loathing and suffering and how it impacts everyday folk in a small seaside community.

'PATRIOTS DAY' (Rated M) - this film is another real life dramatic thriller Co-Written for the screen and Directed by Peter Berg who also brought us last years 'Deepwater Horizon' which also starred, like this offering, his go to actor for playing the ordinary everyman caught up in extraordinary circumstances - Mark Wahlberg. Based on the book 'Boston Strong' by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge this tells the story of the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing. Costing US$45M to make the film has so far recovered US$32M since its US release at Christmas time. April 2013, and during the annual Boston Marathon two bombs are detonated in the crowd of onlookers causing widespread chaos and panic. In the aftermath of the attack Police Sergeant Tommy Saunders (Mark Wahlberg), Commissioner Ed Davis (John Goodman) and FBI Special Agent Richard DesLauriers (Kevin Bacon) join forces with survivors, other investigators and those first on the scene for the manhunt to bring the perpetrators to justice before they strike again. Also starring J.K.Simmons as Police Sergeant Jeffrey Pugliese, and Michelle Monaghan as Carol Saunders. The film has garnered generally positive Reviews.

'GOLD' (Rated M) - Directed and Co-Written by Stephen Gaghan, Co-Produced and starring Matthew McConaughey, and a strong supporting cast, this film had a limited release in the US on  December 30th before its wider release this week. Set in the 1980's, down on his luck and desperate prospector Kenny Wells (Matthew McConaughey) teams up with geologist Michael Acosta (Edgar Ramirez) to search for a hidden seam of gold deep within the Indonesian jungle of Borneo. They eventually hit gold, and the biggest strike of the decade that seems easy work compared to keeping hold of their new found wealth when the Wall Street power brokers begin to circle wanting a piece of the action. Also starring Bryce Dallas Howard, Corey Stoll, Toby Kebbell, Bruce Greenwood, Stacy Keach, Craig T. Nelson and Rachel Taylor. McConaughey for his role transformed himself once again with a pot belly, balding comb over and crooked teeth - a sight to behold . . . let's hope it's not 'Fool's Gold'!

With three big pictures to tempt you out on a hot Summer day or night sometime in the week ahead, together with those still doing the rounds and out on general release as Reviewed and Previewed between these humble pages in previous weeks, you really don't need any excuse! Get amongst it at your local multiplex, and I'll see you sometime, somewhere in the coming week, at your local Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

DEEPWATER HORIZON : Wednesday 5th October 2016.

I caught at an advance screening last week of 'DEEPWATER HORIZON', which for those who don't know, was an ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible offshore drilling rig owned by Transocean. Built in 2001 in South Korea the rig was leased to the British Petroleum Company (BP) from 2001 until September 2013. In September 2009, the rig drilled the deepest oil well in history at a vertical depth of 10,700m in the Tiber Oil Field at Keathley Canyon block 102, approximately 400kms southeast of Houston, in 1,300m of water. On 20 April 2010, while drilling at the Macondo Prospect, an uncontrollable blowout caused an explosion on the rig that killed eleven crewmen and ignited a fireball visible from 65kms away. The fire was inextinguishable and, two days later, on 22 April, the Deepwater Horizon sank, leaving the well gushing oil at the seabed and causing the largest oil spill in U.S. waters. The oil spill that resulted continued until 15th July 2010 when it was finally capped off. Subsequently, BP have made it known that they have had to pay of US$55B in clean up costs and fines and that aside from themselves, Halliburton, the services contractor, and Transocean as the rig operator were also at fault.

This film charts that story as Directed by Peter Berg and made for US$156M that takes place in the Gulf of Mexico with the events leading up to that massive human, social, ecological and financial disaster. Starring Mark Wahlberg as chief electrician and oil rigger Mike Williams (whom Peter Berg has Directed previously in 'Lone Survivor' and the upcoming 'Patriots Day') who returning from some family time with his wife Felicia (Kate Hudson) and ten year old daughter Sydney (Stella Allen) is looking at a three week shift on the Deepwater Horizon rig. He helicopter's in from the mainland, a journey that takes about 45 minutes, and upon arrival before he has even had time to get changed out of his civvies, he is thrust into an argument about rig safety tests and all the equipment malfunctions and maintenance requirements that need urgent attention. This sets the scene for the disaster that is to come a few short hours later!

Arriving with other shift starters there is Andrea Fleytas (Gina Rodriguez) as the only female on the crew, Jimmy Harrell (Kurt Russell) as the rig's chief supervisor and a couple of corporate type executives from BP Head Office arriving for a show & tell of the rigs operations and to determine why the drilling programme is 40+ days behind schedule at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. Soon afterwards we are introduced also to Caleb Holloway (Dylan O'Brien) as the rig's youngest crew member, and Donald Vidrine (John Malkovich) as the BP engineer and rig supervisor, all joining the 120 or so crew members on board the rig.

Straight away it is clear that there are some hostilities between the guys on the rig employed to drill for oil and supervise the proceedings and ensure everything runs tightly and safely, and the suited and booted executives who are chasing their Profit & Loss statements, and asking questions of the financial kind. The executives don't like hearing the truth about safety concerns and inadequate testing regimes, when they have to answer to their superiors back in London. With drilling set to commence, Harrell seeks a test to check on the integrity of the cement casing of the seabed rig which the BP executives give the all clear for, but Harrell is adamant he wants the test. As so a 'negative pressure' test is conducted which initially causes concerns but Vidrine provides a scientific explanation for which Williams and Harrell find plausible. Still not satisfied that everything is as it should be, a second test is ordered which proves positive and so an order is given to commence drilling operations.

Williams and Harrell go about their business - Williams connects with his wife via a Skype call and Harrell freshens up in the shower, after being presented with a safety award and a bottle of Scotch for his exemplary safety record. By now the evening is wearing on. At 9:45pm during the last stages of drilling an exploratory well, a geyser of seawater erupted from the marine riser onto the rig, shooting over seventy metres into the air and up the rig. This was soon followed by the eruption of a slushy combination of drilling mud, methane gas, and water. The gaseous element of that slushy mixture quickly formed into a fully gaseous state and then ignited into a series of explosions that tore through the rig and its living quarters. The resultant firestorm quickly took hold ripping out vital technical, safety and communications infrastructure and killing several men in the process.

Whilst all hands seek to escape the firestorm and head for the lifeboats, Williams recovers from being blown backwards in the explosion but protected by a door that falls across him. Harrell, was showering when the explosion ripped through his quarters and he is semi-conscious, naked, covered in broken glass and shrapnel, and blinded. Williams searches him out, and together they make it to the Bridge amidst ongoing explosions all around the them and the collapse of the rigs infrastructure, where Fleytas is alerting the Coast Guard and Vidrine has just arrived looking the worse for wear too. With power fluctuating, Williams agrees to make an attempt to fire up the emergency generators with the help of a volunteering Holloway. After several attempts they succeed for long enough for Harrell to operate a kill switch so detaching the drill from the rig, and to reposition the rig itself. The final defence to prevent an oil spill, a device known as a blind shear ram, was also activated but failed to plug the well.

As moments tick away the majority make it to the life boats to be picked up by a nearby vessel that has been stationed close by to take on board all the mud sludge pumped up as a by product of the drilling process. In the end this leaves just Williams and Fleytas on the fiercely burning rig that is rapidly disintegrating all around them in balls of flame, big explosions and twisted metal. The surrounding sea is also ablaze, and so the two need to make it to the helipad to be sure of a clear jump into the sea below and so avoiding being engulfed by flame. After some hesitation on Fleytas part, Williams man handles her off the rig and into the boiling sea below - to be picked up moments later and taken to safety.

We then cut to the next day with the survivors from the rig all holed up in a hotel with a media frenzy going on around them. Williams, Harrell, Holloway, Vidrine, and Fleytas made it out alive luckily, thanks largely to the bravery of Williams, but eleven men were less fortunate. Williams breaks down emotionally in his hotel room and is comforted by Felicia and Sydney, before making his exit from the hotel. On his way out he meets Harrell, stitched and bandaged up and now visibility restored, and he exchanges knowing glances with Holloway too.

Here Wahlberg plays the grounded everyman thrust into extraordinary circumstances to help rescue some of his co-workers while his family and the world watch on as ultimately the Deepwater Horizon  disappears into the ocean into a deep fiery grave. Featuring a top cast who do not overplay the heroics, top notch effects and a story that is a believable, authentic telling of human courage in the face of adversity writ large. For a relatively short running time of under two hours, the action when it come is immersive, gripping and well executed. It takes you right into the centre of the action as though you, the viewer, are there back then on April 20th 2010. See it on the big screen - you won't be disappointed, and well worth the price of your ticket.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 6th October 2016.

What is it about real life drama and true story disaster films that make them so compelling? Perhaps it is because we see everyday people thrust into extraordinary circumstances competing against all the odds to rise victorious, overcome adversity and conquer their fears in order to survive in situations that we may remember from television and media reports in the recent past, or yesteryear. As such they are relateable, memorable, and believable stories grounded in reality no matter how much poetic license or big budget expense Hollywood can throw at them, think 1997's 'Titanic' as the mother of them all! And even disaster epics based on fictitious circumstances can be as equally compelling - think 1974's 'The Towering Inferno', or 1972's 'The Poseidon Adventure' or 1962's 'The Day of the Triffids' to name but a few classics.

This year alone we have had six big screen renditions of real life disasters that I can think of quickly - those being :-
* 'The 33' - based on the 2005 Chilean gold and copper mine collapse leaving 33 men buried underground for 69 days,
* '13 Hours : The Secret Soldiers of the Benghazi' - based on the 2012 Islamic militant attack on the US Embassy in Libya, and how six soldiers engaged in fierce firefighting to protect the lives of American diplomats and operatives,
* 'The Finest Hours' - based on the 1952 voyage of the SS Pendleton which was ripped in two by a huge storm, and the US Coastguard rescue mission to retrieve 30 sailors stranded in the ships sinking stern section,
* 'Sherpa' - based on the 2014 Mount Everest expedition and told from the Sherpa's perspective when an avalanche killed sixteen Sherpa's, and the actions taken as a consequence,
* 'Sully' - based on the 2009 emergency landing of a US Airways Flight on the Hudson River by Flight Captain Chesley Sullenberger that saved every one of the 155 passengers and crew on board,
* 'Deepwater Horizon' - based on the 2010 oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that killed eleven people and caused an unprecedented oil spillage and environmental and social disaster, and as Previewed below.

This week there are just three new releases that first up tells the true story of an off-shore disaster that came at a significant human, environmental and social cost just a few short years ago; then a best seller adaptation of the domestic psychological thriller type that is sure to leave you guessing and on the edge of your seat just as 'Gone Girl' did before it; and finally from an acclaimed Russian Director comes this historical drama at the museum as two opposing sides join forces to save an art collection.

As always, you are warmly invited to leave your own cinematic critique when you have sat through your movie of choice in the week ahead, by leaving a Comment below this or any other Post. We'd love to hear from you, and in the meantime, enjoy your film.

'DEEPWATER HORIZON' (Rated M) - for those who don't know, the Deepwater Horizon was an ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible offshore drilling rig owned by Transocean. Built in 2001 in South Korea the rig was leased to the British Petroleum Company (BP) from 2001 until September 2013. In September 2009, the rig drilled the deepest oil well in history at a vertical depth of 10,700m in the Tiber Oil Field at Keathley Canyon block 102, approximately 400kms southeast of Houston, in 1,300m of water. On 20 April 2010, while drilling at the Macondo Prospect, an uncontrollable blowout caused an explosion on the rig that killed eleven crewmen and ignited a fireball visible from 65kms away. The fire was inextinguishable and, two days later, on 22 April, the Deepwater Horizon sank, leaving the well gushing oil at the seabed and causing the largest oil spill in U.S. waters. The oil spill that resulted continued until 15th July 2010 when it was finally capped off. Subsequently, BP have made it known that they have had to pay of US$55B in clean up costs and fines and that aside from themselves, Halliburton, the services contractor, and Transocean as the rig operator were also at fault.

This film charts that story as Directed by Peter Berg and made for US$156M that takes place in the Gulf of Mexico with the events leading up to that massive human, social, ecological and financial disaster. Starring Mark Wahlberg as electrician and oil rigger Mike Williams (whom Peter Berg has Directed previously in 'Lone Survivor' and the upcoming 'Patriots Day') who returning from some family time with his wife Felicia (Kate Hudson) and ten year old daughter Sydney (Stella Allen) is looking at a three week shift on the DWH. Arriving with other shift starters there is Gina Rodriguez as the only female on the crew, Kurt Russell as the rig's chief supervisor, Dylan O'Brien as the rig's youngest crew member, and John Malkovich as the BP engineer and rig supervisor. When a series of safety inspections don't yield the test results as expected or required, the worst fears of those on board the rig don't take long to become a horrifying reality. Here Wahlberg plays the grounded everyman thrust into extraordinary circumstances to help rescue some of his co-workers while his family and the world watch on as ultimately the DWH disappears into the ocean into a deep fiery grave. Featuring a top cast who do not overplay the heroics, top notch effects and a story that is a believable, authentic telling of human courage in the face of adversity writ large.

'THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN' (Rated MA15+) - this psychological thriller drama is based on the best selling book of the same name by British author Paula Hawkins. The book was Hawkins debut, and it remained on the New York Times Best Seller list for 13 weeks upon release in early 2015, and by August this year had sold eleven million copies worldwide. Now coming to a big screen near you, the book has been adapted for the big screen by Erin Cressida Wilson and Directed by Tate Taylor (who most recently brought us the James Brown bio-pic 'Get On Up' and before that 'The Help') and stars Emily Blunt as Rachel Watson - a divorcee with a drink problem who left her husband Tom (Justin Theroux) after she caught him cheating on her. Everyday she takes the train to work and muses about the apparent perfect life of her neighbours Scott and Megan Hipwell (Luke Evans and Haley Bennett). One day however, en route to work gazing out of her window seat she witnesses something suspicious and shocking and subsequently Megan goes missing and is later presumed dead. What's a girl to do? Also starring Edgar Ramirez, Lisa Kudrow and Rebecca Ferguson.

'FRANCOFONIA' (Rated M) - premiering at the Venice Film Festival back in September 2015, this drama Directed and Written by Alexander Sokurov who brought us the highly acclaimed single take 'The Russian Ark' in 2002 is out on a very limited release here in Australia and you'll have to hunt it down to catch it in all its majesty on the big screen. Set in 1940 its tells the story of The Louvre in Paris and how its museum director Jacques Jaujard (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing) and German Officer the Count Franz Wolff-Metternich (Benjamin Utzerath) work together to protect the precious and priceless artworks from the Nazi's. Beautifully filmed and richly rewarding this film interweaves the ravages of war with the need to preserve our history and culture through art.

With three top films from which to choose your night out at the movies, you would be hard pressed not to find something to like here, or amongst those out on general release and as Reviewed and Previewed here at Odeon Online previously. Whatever you decide upon, share your views with us here, and in the meantime, I'll see you at the Odeon in the week ahead.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-