December 2019
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DECEMBER 2019 SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN “velveteen glamour and brilliant programming...” (The Guardian) “possibly Britain’s most beautiful cinema..” (BBC) DECEMBER 2019 • ISSUE 177 www.therexberkhamsted.com 01442 877759 Mon-Sat 10.30-6.30pm Sun 4.30-5.30pm ANNIVERSARY FILMS GOODNIGHT & GOOD LUCK (2005) THE HISTORY BOYS (2006) CONTENTS Films At A Glance 20-21 Rants & Pants 32-33 BOX OFFICE: 01442 877759 Mon to Sat 10.30-6.30 Sun 4.30-5.30 I’M NOT THERE (2007) SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (2008) SEAT PRICES Circle £9.50 Concessions/ABL £8.00 Back Row £8.00 Table £11.50 Concessions/ABL £10.00 Royal Box Seat (Seats 6) £13.00 Whole Royal Box £73.00 THE KING’S SPEECH (2010) LADY IN THE VAN (2015) Matinees - Upstairs £5, Downstairs £6.50, Royal Box £10 Disabled and flat access: through the gate on High Street (right of apartments) Director: James Hannaway 01442 877999 KON TIKI (2014) SULLY (2016) Advertising: Chloe Butler 01442 877999 Artwork: Demiurge Design 01296 668739 The Rex High Street (Three Close Lane) Berkhamsted, Herts HP4 2FG www.therexberkhamsted.com THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING MISSOURI (2017) OLD MAN AND THE GUN (2018) “ Unhesitatingly The Rex is the best cinema I rom first to last: a selection of our fabulous, privileged have ever..” 2004-2018 anniversary preview scoops - with one (STimes Culture) Fspot-the-turkey for fair measure… DECEMBEROCTOBER FILMS FILMS 8 THE REX - DECEMBER BOX OFFICE: 01442 877759 Official Secrets The Farewell Keira Knightley captivates in Gavin Hood’s angry, Perfectly blending humour and melancholy, urgent political thriller. A long time effective and Awkwafina stars in this heartwarming Chinese- loyal intelligence office, Katharine is troubled when American melodrama. she receives an email from the NSA instructing Having emigrated with her parents as a child, Billi her team to essentially blackmail members of (Awkwafina) is now a struggling artist living in New the United Nations. Horrified, she leaks classified York. Despite the distance, through regular phone documents intended to strong-arm the UN Security calls, Billi maintains close to her Chinese Nai Nai Council into backing the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. (Mandarin for ‘Grandma’). Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen) As the hunt for the whistle blower begins, the war is diagnosed with that familiar terminal paracite. gets underway and Katharine finds herself facing a With only weeks to live, but not to worry Nai Nai, cat and mouse legal battle as the British government her family decides to hide it from her. Orchestrating comes bearing down on her. a last minute wedding between Billi’s cousin and Official Secrets highlights many of the issues girlfriend of three months, the family use it as a cover explored previously in Eye in the Sky on top of story to spend Nai Nai’s final days together. Despite original films like All the President’s Men and her parents’ efforts to stop her, Billi flies out to see Spotlight. As the characters work to unravel the her Grandma one last time. The Farewell explores personal, political, and professional implications of how Billi’s identity is split across two cultures, further the leak, you always have a sense of the stakes at complicated by her conflict of ethics in withholding play. Keira Knightly gives it her all. Her initial passion knowledge from someone with little time to live. for avoiding the war turns into a determination to Based on director Lulu Wang’s own story, the film take on the Country’s lies. is sweet in its sorrow, exploring grief in a rare way. The story of an ordinary woman whose revulsion (Rachel Williams) And you can bet your sweet gives her the guts to take on this very dangerous fannydoodledoo, Nai Nai knows all along. No spoiler game against ruthless heavyweights, is a cautionary just guessing – from plot, latest stars and Hollywood’s tale indeed. (Research Chris Coetsee) irresistible shmaltz magnet. But don’t miss. Welcome to the now (then and evermore). Director: Lulu Wang Director: Gavin Hood Cast: Awkwafina, Shuzen Zhao, X Mayo, Cast: Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Tzi Ma, Diana Lin Katherine Kelly Duration: 100min Duration: 112min Origin: USA Origin: UK 2019 Certificate: PG Certificate: 15 Company: Entertainment Film Company: Entertainment One When... When... Sun 1 6.00 Mon 9 2.00 Mon 2 2.00 www.therexberkhamsted.com THE REX - DECEMBER 9 Miles Davis: Judy Birth Of The Cool Set in 1969, the year before her death, Renée Zellweger embodies Hollywood icon Judy Garland. Trumpeter, composer, band leader and innovator. The film explores (with a little sugar) the lows of He practically defined jazz in his own image as the the star’s career and personal life. Departing from ultimate in cool sophistication. Stanley Nelson’s the glamorous image we have of those Hollywood retrospective documentary catalogues the evolution days, Garland here is broke and desperate for a of Miles Davis’ styles and how they revolutionised come-back after her glory days have long gone. music. Taking its title from Davis’ 1957 compilation album, Birth of the Cool is loaded with wonderful When theatrical impresario Bernard Delfont (Michael time capsules, using news and cultural footage as Gambon in peerless smarm) invites her to a five- a backdrop to signify key shifts in his life. Flashing week run of shows at a London nightclub (as the photo montages which define each decade show how greaseball did ‘for’ Laurel & Hardy). She accepts, Miles was outside, perhaps beyond the times. leaving her children behind with ex-husband (Rufus Also present are fresh interviews with his peers, idols, Sewell). Despite the love pouring in from her fans, children and, most fascinating, his partners. Davis, Garland is struggling behind the scenes with a long both a genius and an abuser, was deeply influenced history of the usual addictions. Through a series every step of his career by the women he loved, all of flashbacks to her traumatic childhood, young of whom discuss the turbulence of the relationships Judy (Darci Shaw) connects the dots between they had with him. Accompanying throughout, what she suffered as a child star and her current Carl Lumbly’s fittingly raspy narration delves into dependencies. So fairly useless and in rags, she themes of racism, drug abuse and Davis’ ability to tests the patience of assistant Rosalyn Wilder shift through a changing musical landscape, reciting (Jessie Buckley) and hooks new lover Mickey Deans passages taken from Davis’ 1989 autobiography. (Finn Wittrock). “Zellweger offers an all-singing, Yet Miles never expressed himself more eloquently all-dancing, all-collapsing performance of the star at than he did through his horn. Beneath it all, Birth of her lowest ebb” (Variety). (Rachel Williams) the Cool pulses with that unmistakable Miles Davis Strong ironic choice of come-back star: Renée sound. (Chris Coetsee) Zellweger. Oscars all round...? Director: Stanley Nelson Director: Rupert Goold Cast: Ron Carter, Jimmy Cobb, Miles Davis, Cast: Renée Zellweger, Jessie Buckley, Flea, Juliette Gréco, Herbie Hancock Finn Wittrock Duration: 115 mins Duration: 118min Origin: USA 2019 Origin: UK 2019 Certificate: 15 Certificate: 12A Company: MusicScreen Ltd Company: Pathé When... When... Mon 2 7.30 Tue 3 2.00, 7.30 10 THE REX - DECEMBER BOX OFFICE: 01442 877759 Western Stars The Third Man Bruce Springsteen gets personal in this intimate Our first film at the newly restored Rex in and reflective concert film December 2004 The Third Man remains a huge Somehow the second Springsteen film of the year, global favourite. This BFI restoration brings the following Blinded by the Light, the musician steps long shadows back to life. up as co-director alongside Thom Zimmy. Unable to ‘Although his screen time is famously scanty tour with a 30-piece orchestra, he instead decides to Orson Welles’ Harry Lime haunts every scene. perform for close friends in his 100-year-old barn in Everywhere but invisible, he’s a smirking Cheshire New Jersey. A companion piece to his recent album, cat of a villain, a superb case study in shameless Western Stars, the songs form the spine of the film, charisma as poisonous contagion. It is suffused fleshed out by interludes “of short-tone poems, with with irony yet ultimately serious-minded: without Springsteen ruminating on the autobiographical personal responsibility, it says, there is no hope for links and thematic ideas raised by the songs” civilisation – however charming the smirk.’ (assorted (Empire). The mood is reflective, offering us insight clever clogs crits) into wistful memories, while each performance is “In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they entrancing; shot beautifully by cinematographer had warfare, murder and bloodshed, but they Joe DeSalvo. Embodying different down-and-out produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the characters on the album, from a lonely widower Renaissance. In Switzerland they have brotherly to a struggling actor, Western Stars evokes the love. They had 500 years of democracy and peace, mythic American West with its epic orchestral and what did that produce? - The cuckoo clock!” (the arrangements. A tonal shift from his grand stadium smirking Welles improv line..?) Cary Grant was down shows, Bruce meditates on the human condition, for the lacklustre Joseph Cotton role as the awkward exploring our longing for individuality versus a need hero – Noel Coward was to be Harry Lime, what a for community. A moving duet with wife Patti Scialfa, waste and what a fabulous character film that would There Goes My Miracle, is one to watch out for. have made. The best things about this Third Man are Sublime for any admirers of The Boss. Trevor Howard, Anton Karas’ haunting zither, the cat (Rachel Williams) and the girl’s long closing walk.