This week is the second of our ‘absent Thursdays’ and this time we’re bringing you instead a Sunday matinee (Kate Winslet as Lee), which always goes down well, especially at this time of year when a trip to the cinema is about the most cosy and comforting thing you can possibly do on a grey afternoon. Before that we have a couple of superb new films (Sing Sing and Kneecaprespectively) in our regular Friday and Saturday evening slots, so bring your tents and make a weekend of it. Here is this week’s timetable. Bar opens at 6pm for the 7pm screenings.
Sing Sing
Friday 25th October at 7pm
Based on the real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts programme at the maximum security prison of the title, Sing Sing is directed, co-written and co-produced by Greg Kwedar, and uses, in addition to the two leading actors, many of the actual alumni of that programme in supporting roles. Colman Domingo plays Divine G, incarcerated for a crime he did not commit, who becomes the leading writer and performer of the RTA troupe. With 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, ABC News judging it "one of the best and most powerful movies you’ll see this year", and Chicago Sun-Times calling it "gloriously lion-hearted and brilliantly rendered", this could be the best prison movie since Shawshank.
Kneecap
Saturday 26th October at 7pm
In the best traditions of the pop biopic (think A Hard Day’s Night, Spice World, er, Catch Us If You Can), Kneecap features the Belfast hip hop trio as themselves in a lively comedy-drama about their rise to fame and the social impact of their rapping only in the Irish language. This last point has unexpected political ramifications and positions the band at the forefront of a civil rights struggle over Irish identity. Sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll also play their inevitable part. Variety sums up evocatively; "Bursting with unruly energy that practically escapes the confines of the screen…a riotous drug-laced triumph that bridges political substance and crowd-pleasing entertainment".
Lee
Sunday 27th October at 3pm
A matinee showing for Lee, starring Kate Winslet as WWII journalist Lee Miller in the directorial debut of Ellen Kuras. Very much Winslet’s own project, with the star facing the gamut of sexist dismissals by male dominated industry resulting in difficulties obtaining funding. The film tells the story of Miller’s flight from Nazi Germany and subsequent career as a photographer for British Vogue, bringing the horrors of the war to a predominantly female readership that tended not be exposed to such things, in a much-admired performance by Winslet. This showing will be captioned for the hard of hearing.
Up next week:
Cult Classic: Carry On Screaming, The Wicker Man.
Coming soon:
If it was a long walk to freedom for Nelson Mandela, it’s been an even longer one for Edward Woodward to get to No.6, but finally he’s here, and guess what? Christopher Lee, his yellow turtle neck and his pagan shenanigans are all still waiting for him. The Wicker Man is, of course, one of the greatest of all British horrors, dipping in the same pool of British folk mythology as the recent Starve Acre, and that essence suffuses all aspects of the film including Paul Giovanni’s celebrated score. It hardly needs adding that eroticism lies at the heart of Summerisle, manifested most obviously in the presence of Britt Ekland – that famous scene - and Ingrid Pitt. We won’t give away the ending even if it is one of the least ‘spoiler alert’ denouements in cinema history. Showing on Friday 1st November at 7pm.
Bonus shout out:
Our friends at Groundlings Theatre present the return of Holmes Fest, featuring Quadrophenia star* Mark Wingett in ‘an evening celebrating the life and times of Arthur Conan Doyle – who created Sherlock Holmes while he was living in Southsea. Stories, sketches, readings, poems and songs, for just two nights - the 20th and 21st November - so click here to book your tickets before they’re sold out.
*We have long memories at No.6 and also loved Mark in the role of Schmidt in the great Private Schulz!