By Mike Thatcher (Hurst Village Cinema)
At last, a new season upon us and with projector wiped and speakers tuned we present three very different films for October:
Wednesday 11th October 2017 8pm Lady Macbeth
We open with Lady Macbeth, based on a Russian novella, not Shakespeare. Katherine is trapped in an arranged marriage in the North East at the turn of the last century, essentially kept prisoner by her vile father-in-law and dysfunctional son. Bored beyond belief she takes action, but flaunting convention cannot go unpunished. This dark and powerful psychological drama is both riveting and chilling and boasts a standout performance from Florence Pugh.
Friday 27th October 2017 8pm Free Fire
A rare combination in a film; a gripping thriller which is also very funny. It’s the early 70s and a group of IRA operatives meet a South African gunrunner in a Boston warehouse planning to take a cache of M16 rifles back to Ireland. The deal goes spectacularly wrong, and Brighton filmmaker Ben Wheatley treats us to one of the most epic shootouts in recent memory. Everyone has a gun but no one is in control. The story of double-crossing is as old as the hills but Free Fire tells it in a refreshing new way whilst parodying the insanity of gun violence. A good old fashioned hoot!
Sunday 29th October 2017 8pm Hidden Figures
Three unsung heroes of the 1960s space race are given their moment in the sun here. Their story is particularly inspiring because they were African American women who, as well as calculating the angles of re-entry, had to jump through hoops at NASA when racial segregation was still a fact of life. Every day, Math’s whizz Katherine G Johnson must cross the grounds at Langley Research centre to use the ‘colored ladies room’, in a literal running gag, although it not inherently a laughing matter. This film presses all the right buttons for a blast of enlightening, upbeat entertainment.