MAGAZINE NINE FEBRUARY... “possibly Britain’s most beautiful cinema...” (BBC) FEBRUARY 2010 Issue 59 www.therexberkhamsted.com 01442 877759 Mon-Sat 10.30-6pm Sun 4.30-6.30pm To advertise email [email protected] INTRODUCTION Gallery 4-5 February Evenings 7 Coming Soon 21 February Films at a glance 21 February Matinees 23 Rants and Pants 38-39 SEAT PRICES: Circle £8.00 Concessions £6.50 At Table £10.00 Concessions £8.50 Royal Box (seats 6) £12.00 or for the Box £66.00 All matinees £5, £6.50, £10 (box) BOX OFFICE: 01442 877759 Mon to Sat 10.30 – 6.00 Sun 4.30 – 6.30 Disabled and flat access: through the gate on High Street (right of apartments) Some of the girls and boys you see at the Box Office and Bar: Rosie Abbott Malcolm More Julia Childs Liam Parker Nicola Darvell Hannah Pedder Lindsey Davies Izzi Robinson Holly Gilbert Amberly Rose Katie Golder Georgia Rose Beth Hannaway Diya Sagar Natalie Jones Alice Spooner Amelia Kellett Liam Stephenson Abbie Knight Tina Thorpe Bethany McKay Jack Whiting Simon Messenger Olivia Wilson Helen Miller Keymea Yazdanian Ushers: Abigail K, Ally, Billie, Charlotte, Ellie, Emma, James, Kitty, Lucy, Luisa, Lydia K, Romy, Roz, Sid Sally Thorpe In charge Alun Rees Chief projectionist (Original) (Top) Ian Dury’s New Boots and Panties album Jon Waugh 1st assistant projectionist cover loyally recreated with the young Baxter Martin Coffill Part-time assistant projectionist Jacquie Rose Chief Box Office & Bar finally growing in to those bell-bottoms. Oliver Hicks Best Boy (Bottom) A beautifully shot and underrated big Becca Ross Best Girl screen thriller. Not to be missed. Jemma Gask Key Grip Michael Glasheen Gaffer FILM OF THE MONTH Jane Clucas & Lynn Hendry PR/Marketing/FoH Andrew Dixon Resident Artist Paul Fullagar, Alan Clooney Advisors and Investors Ed Mauger Genius Demiurge Design Designers 01296 632366 Lynn Hendry Advertising 01442 877999 James Hannaway CEO 01442 877999 Betty Patterson Company Secretary and THE ORIGINAL VISIONARY of The Rex. The Rex High Street (Three Close Lane) Berkhamsted HP4 2FG A forgotten masterpiece from 2002 www.therexberkhamsted.com The Road to Perdition Tue 9 Feb 7.30 4 Box Office: 01442 877759 GALLERY THE GONG GANG... NOMINATIONSNOMINATIONS INVICTUS PRECIOUS NINE WHITE RIBBON THE HURT LOCKER AVATAR GALLERY www.therexberkhamsted.com 5 UP UP IN THE ARI INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS AN EDUCATION FANTASTIC MR FOX THE ROAD A PROPHET A SINGLE MAN FEBRUARYEVENINGS 8 Box Office: 01442 877759 FEBRUARY EVENINGS Nowhere Boy Sherlock Holmes Mon 1 7.30, Tue 2 7.30 Wed 3 7.30, Thu 4 7.30 Director: Sam Taylor Wood Starring: Aaron Johnson, Kristin Scott Thomas, David Morrissey, Anne-Marie Duff Certificate: 15 Duration: 97 mins Origin: UK 2010 By: Icon Film Distribution Ltd This is a tricky one. Having regarded The trailer looks good. Robert Downey Lennon (George, Paul and Ringo for Jr is perfect as a spoof of all spoof that matter) as family since I was Holmes. He is as straight-faced as Basil fifteen, his antics in the late 60s were all Rathbone, without a hint of send-up. His the more tedious. He wasn’t as rebellious fabulous timing, sheer presence and as he is drawn. If anything he was subtle faces, will render the screen empty uncertain and not all that confident. when he’s not there. This film portrayal sees him grow into the Arthur Conan Doyle’s super-sleuth gets a confrontational cocky ‘hero’ his legend fresh and edgy update with this dynamic says is true. adaptation of Lionel Wigram’s comic As for Sam Taylor-Wood, all her party book series by writer/director Guy friends seem determined to make her the Ritchie. Robert Downey Jr stars as the star. From the late summer 2009 you razor-sharp, dry, knuckle-fighting couldn’t open a paper without seeing her Sherlock Holmes alongside a flaccid Jude mugshot fronting articles extolling the Law as his formidable ally Dr Watson. virtues of the film and the genius of Ms In this action adventure mystery set in Wood. Victorian London, Holmes must battle as It was all phoney of course. Press never before to bring down a new favourites are always predictably dull. adversary, Lord Blackwood (Strong), and I was angry when I heard this little party- thwart a deadly plot that could ruin the goer, given to photographing herself in her country. Rachel McAdams plays Irene knickers and A-listers ‘crying’ or sleeping, Alder, the only woman ever to out-smart was making a film about Lennon. What’s him? Then there’s the small matter of the wrong with Ringo? Not trendy enough? tempestuous relationship… George, by far the best story of all four, As for the rest of the cast: Eddie Marsan would have no impact. Believing herself is a gift as the ever hapless, all (but not) to be a rebel, albeit a safe, cosseted one, it knowing, Inspector Lestrade and Kelly had to be big Moondog Johnny. Reilly, who can’t do a thing wrong from I don’t care how good it is. I hope it is head to toe. dull and insignificant so we can all go The Victorian London CGI is effortlessly home and forget about it. She can go back detailed and the action breathtaking. to her photo-opportunity parties and Never thought much of the cocky, snapping her pregnant knickers. The best unnecessary Mr Ritchie. part; none of it is true. He’s done okay this time. Director: Guy Ritchie Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Jude Law, Rachel McAdams, Mark Strong Certificate: 12A Duration: 128 mins Origin: Australia, UK, USA 2009 By: Warner Brothers FEBRUARY EVENINGS www.therexberkhamsted.com 9 Nine Fri 5 7.30, Sat 6 7.00, Sun 7 6.00 Directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago), Nine is an all-star adaptation of a Tony award winning musical, itself loosely based on a play which was inspired by Frederico Fellini’s ‘Eight and a half’. Each flawed, with the first 1963 celebrated in true Emporer’s New Clothes tradition. Daniel Day-Lewis is Guido Contini, an aging film director in the throws of a mid- life crisis; both personal and creative. His inability to balance the many, average looking women in his life (wife, mistress, leading lady, dead mother, Judi Dench et al) combines with the imminent shooting of his latest picture. Contini has yet to write the script, resulting in a protracted nervous breakdown of sorts, albeit in musical form. “Clearly no one in the entire production has asked, at any point, if a paying audience would actually care about the woes of a millionaire film-maker who is having some trouble with a film that obviously doesn’t need to be made.” (Times) “Plenty of dubious pseudo-celebration of women, which masks a tacky and Director: Rob Marshall fastidious condescension. As for Day- Starring: Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Lewis himself, how could he do this to us? Danielle Day-Lewis, aMarion Only by taking the lead in a remake of Sex Cotillard, Penelope Cruz Lives of the Potato Men could he Certificate: 12A disillusion us any more…” (Guardian) Duration: 119 mins How could he? Disillusion? How does Origin: USA 2009 ‘died and gone to heaven’ sound? By: Entertainment Film Distribution (research Simon Messenger) 10 Box Office: 01442 877759 FEBRUARY EVENINGS Me and Orson Welles The Road to Mon 8 7.30 Perdition Tue 9 7.30 Director: Sam Mendes Starring: Jude Law, Paul Newman, Tom Hanks Certificate: 15 Duration: 116 mins Origin: USA 2002 By: Twentieth Century Fox This was billboarded at Amsterdam Rai Cine Fair in the summer of 2002 where According to our January audiences, I was searching for projection, ticketing this is not to be missed. systems and seats for the Rex. Our It is New York, 1937 – the brilliant 22 year ticketing owes nothing to the word old theatre protégé Orson Welles ‘system’, the projectors came second hand (Christian McKay) decides to stage a from Manchester, but we got the best production of Shakepeare’s Julius Caesar; seats. Road to Perdition was the other intended as a fascist critique on the good reason for being there. Later critics darkening events in Europe. would pan it for being ‘too cinematic’. A The film is told through the eyes of bright description I thought okay for a big youngster, Richard Samuels (Zac Efron), cinema screen movie? who convinces Welles to give him a part Mendes may have been more interested in in the play, little knowing what lies in making a stylish, artfully-shot, Oscar- store under the pupilage of the baiting gangster movie than in the result. outrageously manipulative young But after the Donmar-esque three-walls of American Beauty, this was his first Mr.Welles… location moment and he grabbed it. “The show belongs to Christian McKay, Set in 1931, quietly devoted husband and the fourth and best actor to play Welles on father by day, implacable hit man by screen…we think we’re in the presence of night, Michael Sullivan (Hanks) is an the arrogant, irresistible young Orson enigma to his son, until one night the boy himself, such is the accuracy of the body follows him… language, the facial expressions and above Cast against type, Hanks whose haunted all that resonant voice…” (Guardian) eyes speak volumes, is a model of “Linklater takes what could have been a unruffled understatement. In this, his last rather ossified and back-slapping piece of film, Paul Newman’s Irish-mafia dramatic history and from it creates a tale godfather John Rooney, is the best of a of youthful ambition, spurting hope, the lifetime.