From Alien double bill to Still, what’s on at Cambridge Arts Picturehouse in April and May 2023
Sponsored feature | Our film critic, Mark Walsh, takes a look at upcoming screenings.
Alien Day
Many column inches such as these have been devoted to the quality of sequels over the past few decades, but when considering the success of additional films, how many sequels can claim to be not only as artistically successful as the originals that spawned them, but so utterly different in tone and intent?
Ridley Scott’s 1979 original and the 1986 follow-up from James Cameron share so much aesthetically and in terms of the quality of script and direction, but where Scott’s film thrived on claustrophobic tension and mystery, Cameron pivots into a full-on war movie where the xenomorphs are the enemy seemingly lurking around every corridor.
What they also have in common are fantastic performances from Sigourney Weaver. At the time of its release, she may have been the least familiar face in the original cast, which also included John Hurt, Ian Holm and Veronica Cartwright. It was also the first standout film in a length and glorious career for Ridley Scott after his debut with The Duellists two years earlier, and here he uses the talents of production designer Ron Cobb, cinematographer Derek Vanlint and, above all, creature designer H R Giger to create a compelling futuristic world where any of the Nostromo’s crew could be vulnerable.
Weaver returned for the follow-up almost a decade later, transformed by both her original experience and the frustration of the corporate hierarchy (and a pleasingly slimy Paul Reiser) who seem more intent on weaponising the alien species than protecting people from it.
When a return to planet LV-426 in search of missing colonists goes awry, Weaver’s Ripley must rally the troops and prepare herself for the fight of her life. Cameron ramps up the action without losing the tension, and delivers page after page of the most quotable dialogue, much of it being delivered by Bill Paxton’s Private Hicks (“Game over, man, game over!”). Don’t miss the chance to compare, contrast and celebrate this pair of supreme horror thrillers in one evening.
The Alien / Aliens double bill is on Wednesday, April 26.
Still: A Michael J Fox Movie
When the producers of my all-time favourite film, Back To The Future, realised that they had miscast Eric Stolz in the role of Marty McFly, they knew that they had to get their original choice. The only problem was that Michael J Fox was still working full time on popular sitcom Family Ties. The solution? Fox worked through the night on Robert Zemeckis’ time travel comedy while still working on the sitcom during the day.
His talent, charisma and undeniable work ethic made him a popular figure in Hollywood and with audiences, so his diagnosis with Parkinson’s disease in 1991, when he was aged just 29 and still at the height of his popularity, could have been devastating, particularly when doctors warned him that he had at most a decade left as an actor. Documentarian Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, He Named Me Malala) uses a mixture of techniques to examine how Fox and his family dealt with the diagnosis, and how Fox became a campaigner for a cure to the disease.
Guggenheim mixes frank footage of Fox talking to camera with dramatic reconstructions of key events and footage from his extensive back catalogue to portray a man who refused to be defeated by his diagnosis, and the film similarly reflects the star’s raw honesty and energy in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles; despite his retirement from acting, his passion, enthusiasm and humour still shine through as he looks back on his life’s unexpected pathways.
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie opens on Friday, May 12.
The Unlikely Pilgramage of Harold Fry
The new film from Hettie Macdonald, based on Rachel Joyce’s adaptation of her own novel, makes an unlikely decision: would you want to take two of Britain’s finest actors, in the form of Jim Broadbent and Penelope Wilton, and then split them up for the majority of your running time? But that’s the necessity of Harold Fry’s pilgrimage, as he sets out on a whim to save a friend.
Fry (Broadbent) is a man who feels he’s failed at some of life’s major challenges: he’s been deficient as a husband, a father and as a friend. But upon learning that one of those friends, Queenie, has been placed in a hospice after a terminal diagnosis, he sets out on an impulse to walk from South Devon to her hospice, five miles away in Berwick-upon-Tweed near the Scottish border. Unfortunately, he neglects to mention his plan – or even that he’s left on his journey – to his long-suffering wife (Penelope Wilton).
Woefully unprepared, he stumbles through his journey but his sense of purpose is reinforced by the people he meets along his unusual journey. Macdonald uses location filming along the route, through the West Country, the Midlands and Yorkshire, to capture the scale of Harold’s challenge but also the strength of public feeling that propels him ever closer to his destination.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry opens on Friday, April 28.
Watersprite Young Programming Group - Queen & Slim
The sixth and final event in the Young Programmers series showcases Melin Matsoukas’ debut film from 2019.
It follows the unexpected events in the lives of its title characters: Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) is a civil defence attorney on an awful Tinder date with Slim (Daniel Kaluuya). While driving her home, Slim is pulled over by an over-zealous police officer who conducts an unwarranted search of his vehicle. When the police officer escalates the situation by pulling his gun, events quickly spiral out of control, forcing the pair on the run for their lives. Unfortunately for them, the dashcam footage of the incident has gone viral, leaving them with little option but to attempt to flee the country.
It's a powerful examination of the prejudices still faced by so many in their everyday lives, which was released in January 2020 and may have gotten somewhat lost in the pandemic shutdown. This Watersprite pop-up event is the ideal chance to catch this fugitive love story with typically excellent performances from its two leads.
Queen & Slim is screening on Monday, April 24
