Supported by Wiltshire Council’s Future High Streets Fund
The Best in Classic & Independent Cinema
Programme
Friday 3rd May
Doors open 6pm for 8pm start
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AMERICAN ANIMALS (2018) Cert 15
Evan Peters, Barry Keoghan, Blake Jenner, Jared Abrahamson. Directed by Bart Layton (1hr 52m).
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This year's movie Saltburn catapulted Irish actor Barry Keoghan into the front ranks of actors from the British Isles, but one of his first and most impressive lead roles was in Bart Layton's superb crime drama American Animals. It's a brilliantly audacious thriller, telling the true story of four disaffected college students who set out to steal the world’s most expensive book, John James Audubon’s masterpiece of ornithological art ‘Birds of America’. Keoghan shares the lead with Evan Peters, who plays the architect of the meticulously plotted but absurdly ill-conceived heist. The robbery itself is one thing, but how then to find a buyer for such a universally well-known artefact? In a unique twist on the usual format of thrillers like this, the edge-of-your seat dramatisation is intercut with documentary-style interviews with the real-life participants, all still struggling to come to terms with how and why they did what they did. The result is an absolute triumph: a funny, thrilling and truly original piece of bravura filmmaking.
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Why not join us for dinner before the movie? Ushers Bar is open for drinks and dinner from 6pm.
Friday 10th May
Doors open 6pm for 8pm start
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THE HOLDOVERS (2023) Cert 15.
Paul Giamatti, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Dominic Sessa. Directed by Alexander Payne. (2h 13m)
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Director Alexander Payne's bittersweet comic drama is a brilliant return to form to match his previous classics Election, Sideways and Nebraska. It may not have won all the awards many had anticipated for it this year, but Da'Vine Joy Randolph was a deserving winner at both the BAFTAs and the Oscars as Best Supporting Actress. At a posh American boarding school, most of the kids get to go home for Christmas, but one in particular is obliged as a result of family circumstances to become a "holdover" for the holidays, overseen by an equally unloved teacher - played by the excellent Paul Giamatti - and the school cook who is grieving the loss of her own son in Vietnam. Despite their very many differences they come together by necessity to form a bizarre little virtual family unit of their own for a few days. Though small in scale, it's a beautifully nuanced story of love and loneliness, with a happy-but-sad feelgood ending that will bring a tear to even the most stoical of eyes.
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Why not join us for dinner before the movie? Ushers Bar is open for drinks and dinner from 6pm.
Friday 17th May
Doors open 6pm for 8pm start
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WICKED LITTLE LETTERS (2023) Cert 15
Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Timothy Spall, Hugh Skinner. Directed by Thea Sharrock. (1h 40m)
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Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley lead a superb British cast in an outrageously potty-mouthed comedy, based on a true story. In the 1920s, the sleepy village of Littlehampton was sent into uproar after an anonymous author began sending rude expletive-filled poison-pen letters to different members of the community. (The parallels to online hate campaigns by internet trolls of the modern day are clear to see). Many of the letters were directed at one lady in particular, a prim spinster and pillar of society played here by Olivia Colman. Suspicion quickly fell upon her neighbour and former friend, a wild Irish single mother (Jessie Buckley of course) and a court case ensued. Needless to say, all was not quite as it seems. It's a wonderfully engaging story, and the inventive wit of the extraordinarily foul-mouthed insults contained in the letters is often breathtaking, especially for the 1920s. Colman and Buckley are, as always, superb and it's a pleasure to see them sparring with one another so effectively.
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Why not join us for dinner before the movie? Ushers Bar is open for drinks and dinner from 6pm.
Friday 31st May
Doors open 6pm for 8pm start
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KIND HEARTS & CORONETS (1949) Cert PG.
Dennis Price, Valerie Hobson, Joan Greenwood, Alec Guinness. Directed by Robert Hamer. (1 hr 46m)
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This savagely funny black comedy is among the best British movies ever made, and its potent combination of shocking dark humour and scheming amorality was astonishingly daring for its time. It's hard even for a modern audience not to avoid a vague sensation of guilt at finding such terrible misdeeds so thoroughly entertaining. Dennis Price enjoyed the best role of his career by far as the elegant but cold-hearted Edwardian social climber Louis Mazzini. His mother was disinherited by her aristocratic family, the d'Ascoynes of Chalfont, when she eloped with an Italian opera singer, so after her death he sets out to avenge her and claim the noble title by murdering every family member who stands between him and the family fortune. But his plans go awry when he finds himself torn between his equally devious paramour, played by the deliciously husky-voiced Joan Greenwood, and the pure-hearted widow of one of his noble cousins. Better even than Dennis Price is Alec Guinness, who delivers a simply astonishing multiple performance as all eight variously jolly, arrogant, mean and stupid members of the d'Ascoyne family who stand in his way. Serial killing has never looked so much fun, or been so enjoyable to watch!
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