Celebrate a wintery Christmas at Dendy Cinemas with our Christmas in July Screenings of the ultimate Christmas rom-com, LOVE ACTUALLY.

Love Actually has evolved into an enduring multi-generational reminder of the universal power of love, in all its forms, and has become a holiday viewing tradition.

A heartwarming romantic comedy about eight couples whose lives intersect shortly before the holidays, and featuring unforgettable performances from two-time Academy Award® winner Emma Thompson, BAFTA winner Hugh Grant, Oscar® nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor, Oscar® nominee Keira Knightley, Academy Award® winner Colin Firth, Oscar® nominee Liam Neeson, Oscar® nominee Bill Nighy, Oscar® nominee Laura Linney, plus BFTA winner Rowan Atkinson, Academy Award® winner Billy Bob Thornton, and the late, legendary BAFTA and Emmy winning actor Alan Rickman.

Join us at Dendy Cinemas Portside at 6:30pm with a glass of mulled wine on arrival or Dendy Powerhouse Outdoor Cinema at 6:00pm with mulled wine and hot chocolate available for purchase from the candy bar.

LOVE ACTUALLY – Christmas in July Screenings
FRIDAY, 25 JULY
DENDY PORTSIDE | DENDY POWERHOUSE
www.dendy.com.au/

As the mysterious killer claims more and more victims, Loretta attempts to continue her investigation alongside colleague and confidante Jean Cole (Carrie Coon), yet the duo finds themselves stymied by the rampant sexism of the era.

Nevertheless, McLaughlin and Cole bravely pursue the story at great personal risk, putting their own lives on the line in their quest to uncover the truth.

“Boston Strangler” stars two-time Oscar® nominee Keira Knightley (“The Imitation Game,” “Pride & Prejudice”), Emmy® nominee Carrie Coon (“Fargo,” “The Gilded Age”), Alessandro Nivola (“Amsterdam”), David Dastmalchian (“Dune”), Morgan Spector (“Homeland”), Bill Camp (“Joker”), and Academy Award® winner Chris Cooper (“Adaptation”). Written and directed by Matt Ruskin (“Crown Heights”), the film is produced by Ridley Scott (“The Martian”), Kevin J. Walsh (“House of Gucci”), Michael Pruss (“American Woman”), Josey McNamara (“Promising Young Woman”), and Tom Ackerley (“I, Tonya”), with Michael Fottrell (“The Fate of the Furious”) and Sam Roston serving as executive producers. Sam Roston is overseeing for Scott Free and Bronte Payne for LuckyChap.
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At the time, Miss World was the most-watched TV show on the planet with over 100 million viewers. Claiming that beauty competitions demeaned women, the newly formed Women’s Liberation Movement achieved overnight fame by invading the stage and disrupting the live broadcast of the competition.

Not only that, when the show resumed, the result caused uproar: the winner was not the Swedish favourite but Miss Grenada, the first black woman to be crowned Miss World.

In a matter of hours, a global audience had witnessed the patriarchy driven from the stage and the Western ideal of beauty turned on its head.

Misbehaviour will be released later in the year.

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The film also does little to stir the blood about the outrage of the unnecessary military action and its human cost. It relies too much on your memory of the actual events of the time. In the written coda at film’s end it doesn’t even mention the fact that after all was said and done, no weapons of mass destruction were even found.

Most of the performances are fine and the emotion is delivered in that oh so quaint and subdued British manner. The strength and resolve of the real Katharine Gun is hinted at by Keira Knightley‘s performance but never fully realised. Ralph Fiennes is however convincing as her lawyer Ben Emmerson.

Set against the larger context of the daily intrusions into our privacy and civil rights by the big government apparatus, it’s an important story. A little homework on the real event before seeing the film would most certainly add context and increase its impact.

Rob Hudson
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The memo proposed blackmailing smaller, undecided member states into voting for war. At great personal and professional risk, journalist Martin Bright published the leaked document in The Observer newspaper in London, and the story made headlines around the world. Members of the Security Council were outraged and any chance of a UN resolution in favour of war collapsed.

But within days, Bush declared he no longer needed UN backing and invaded anyway. As Iraq descended into chaos, Katharine was arrested and charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act. Martin faced potential charges too. Their legal battles exposed the highest levels of government in both London and Washington with having manipulated intelligence in order to sell an illegal war.

Official Secrets will open in Australian cinemas November 21!
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Setting The Aftermath in this time frame colours the story to a degree but it under-utilises the emotional turmoil of the time to tell a somewhat conventional love story. It is set in the dead of winter and the stark white of the snow underlines the coldness between its main players.

Rachael Morgan (Keira Knightley) is reunited with her husband Lewis (Jason Clarke), a high commander and part of the occupational forces in Germany. Their relationship is one of dysfunction and distance. There was a family tragedy that permanently changed their lives and the distance between them is great.

When the handsome German, Stephen Lubert (Alexander Skarsgård) is forced to give his house over to the couple, the pieces are in place for a love triangle. Sadly the film does little with this premise. You get to see Knightley emote and transition from a cold person who lacks empathy to feeling again and Clarke gets to have his own personal journey but Skarsgård is given little to do. There are some moments of interest but few lasting ones.

Rob Hudson
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Academy Award nominee Keira Knightley portrays the formative years of Colette, the pioneering writer who goes on to become a cultural icon in France and inspire generations of artists.

Directed by Wash Westmoreland (from the Academy Award-winning Still Alice), who wrote the screenplay with the late Richard Glatzer (Still Alice) and Rebecca Lenkiewicz (writer of Academy Award winner Ida), the film illuminates the passions and ambitions that drove Colette to blaze trails as one of the most celebrated authors of her time.

After marrying a successful Parisian man of letters known commonly as “Willy” (Dominic West), Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (Keira Knightley) is transplanted from her childhood home in rural France to the intellectual and artistic splendour of Paris. Soon after, Willy convinces Colette to ghostwrite for him.

She pens a semi-autobiographical novel, about a brazen country girl named Claudine, that becomes a bestseller and a cultural sensation. Colette and Willy become the talk of Paris, and their adventures go on to inspire additional Claudine novels. Colette’s subsequent fight over the creative ownership of these books defies gender roles and drives her to overcome societal constraints, revolutionizing literature, fashion and sexual expression.

Colette will be released in Australian cinemas December 20!
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To enter this great competition just fill out the entry form below.

Competition will be drawn 17 December 2018, winners will be notified by mail.

It’s there that Clara encounters a soldier named Phillip (Jayden Fowora-Knight), a gang of mice and the regents who preside over three Realms: Land of Snowflakes, Land of Flowers and Land of Sweets. Clara and Phillip must brave the ominous Fourth Realm, home to the tyrant Mother Ginger (Helen Mirren), to retrieve Clara’s key and hopefully return harmony to the unstable world.

Starring Keira Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy and featuring a special performance by Misty Copeland, Disney’s new holiday feature film “The Nutcracker and the Four Realms” is directed by Lasse Hallström and inspired by E.T.A. Hoffmann’s classic tale. In Cinemas November 2018!
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The film is incredible tense and from the first frame you feel the rising level of impending doom. Even for those that have little knowledge of the actual events of the disaster, the film fills you with that dark sense of foreboding. It frames the climbers (accurately or not) as a group of driven people with little regard for their own safety or the tons of rubbish that modern day mountain climbing leaves behind.

The film is big in almost every way, a big cast, a big adventure and a big mountain. With such a large and note worthy cast, you are only really given a brief insight into each character and the film’s structure is very much based on an ensemble approach. This gives the proceedings a forward momentum that isn’t distracted by too much individual examination. As events unfold you are given little respite from the horrors about to unfold.

There will be few if any films this year that will provide an experience as intense as Everest. There is an almost constant struggle in your mind while watching this film as to why anyone would risk so much to get to the top of Everest and by the time the film’s main protagonists actually reach the summit, you are so worn out from the tension it become increasingly difficult to fathom the appeal. Entertaining yes and mostly riveting but the draw of climbing peaks that massive remains elusive.

Rob Hudson
www.everestthemovie.com.au

It had a high profile cast (for its time) in Dougray Scott, Kate Winslet, Saffron Burrows, Jeremy Northam and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau who would, later on become much more famous as a pivotal character in an obscenely popular medieval TV show. There’s a problem with Enigma, however and it’s the fact the filmmakers substituted the real-life homosexual mathematician, Alan Turing, for a fictional heterosexual mathematician named Thomas Jericho and indeed the story centres around his very heterosexual love affair. This incredible sleight against a significant historical figure is, in retrospect, offensive to say the least let alone the disappointment in reducing a highly intriguing historical event to a spy-chasing romance.

The Imitation Game seeks to correct this ‘reimagining’ and essentially succeeds in this goal. Sure, there is much licence taking for the purposes of spicing up the script (which is a little frustrating given the intrigue of the truth) but it hits the important notes and we emerge at the other end with the commensurate admiration and sympathy that Turing deserves.

Turing’s homosexuality is dealt with deftly. Critically, Turing kept his illicit sexuality secret and so does the film for a good deal of the proceedings, appropriately revealing it as it becomes critical to the story. It is never permitted to overshadow the significance of Turing’s mathematical genius yet it doesn’t resile from the personal cost of the injustice that his sexuality invites even if this chapter of the story is a little prone to melodrama.

The film remains compelling throughout, touching upon the important issues such as the official withholding of intelligence at the expense of innocent lives. Though these events are at times presented non-factually, the gravity of the issues are rightly felt nonetheless.

Ever since his turn in the Sherlock television programme, Benedict Cumberbatch has become a viewers’ darling and his excellent performance here will not endanger that status. Likewise, Keira Knightley is excellent as is Charles Dance and Mark Strong. Matthew Goode does what he can in a rather thankless role as fellow mathematician, Hugh Alexander.

The Imitation Game is not entirely authentic but it hits the right tone and canvases the appropriate issues and historical landmarks admirably in a compelling presentation.
Stuart Jamieson
www.theimitationgamemovie.com