Behind-the-scenes archive documentary following Queen’s Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon as they record their sixth album News of the World and embark on a groundbreaking tour of North America. 
By 1977, Queen had become a major headlining act in the UK, releasing chart-topping albums and singles as well as playing sell-out concerts in all the country’s major venues. However, they were facing an increasingly hostile music press, who had a new favourite in punk and had turned against the elaborate, multi-layered recording techniques that had become the hallmark of the band’s previous albums.<!–more–>
An unfazed Queen had their sights set on greater things. As the band announced plans to record their next album, the expectation was it would be another production extravaganza, but Freddie, Brian, Roger and John already had other ideas. News of the World showcased them at their most raw, simple and best, returning to their roots as a live act. With a self-imposed limit on studio time and produced entirely on their own for the first time, this stripped-back album took the fans and press by surprise and demonstrated Queen’s ability to transcend fashions. It was to prove a seminal moment in the band’s history. 
At the time, BBC music presenter Bob Harris was given exclusive and extensive access to the band to cover this period. Conducting insightful interviews with all four band members as well as filming them at work in the studio as they were planning and rehearsing their forthcoming North American tour, and then following them as they performed across the US, Bob captured a band attempting to replicate their huge domestic success on the global stage. Curiously, the documentary he set out to make was never completed, and the footage lay unused in the archive until now.
To mark the 40th anniversary of the release of the News of the World album, the footage has now been carefully restored and revisited to compile this hour-long portrait of a group setting out to take the next step on their remarkable journey to becoming one of the biggest bands on the planet. Armed with an array of new songs, including the monster hits We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions, Queen dazzled the American audience and laid the foundations of a relationship that endures to this very day. 
Coming full circle, this film is bookended by footage shot in the summer of 2017 as Brian May and Roger Taylor took Queen back to the US with Adam Lambert as lead singer. Revisiting many of the cities they had performed in 40 years previously and including many of the songs from that 1977 album, they prove that despite the tragic loss of Freddie Mercury over 25 years ago, Queen can still rock the world.

Dir: Dexter Fletcher

Stars: Taron Egerton, Hugh Jackman, Christopher Walken, Jo Hartley 

Michael “Eddie” Edwards is a legend of British winter sports, competing as a ski jumper in the Calgary Winter Olympics of 1988, despite little experience of this terrifying and demanding event. Fletcher adapts his life story into an engaging and uplifting comedy-drama, as the underdog (Egerton) finds a coach (Jackman) with a similar outsider spirit, to together prove the doubters wrong and fulfil Eddie’s Olympic dream. “A solid gold winner” (Empire Magazine).

Surprisingly hard to find a link to a review that will not demand that you click here or sign up to that or bring your system to a halt with unwanted ads, so lets cut to the chase with this Telegraph link to the trailer which also reviews the film (sort-of): http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/eddie-the-eagle/trailer/

David Lean Cinema, Croydon on Thursday 28 April 2016
Starts at 2:30PM and 7:30PM Click on times to book relevant tickets.
Ticket Price: £6.50 – £8.00

The 2:30PM screening is subtitled for people with a hearing loss.

Stars: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie

New England, 1630. On a humble, isolated farm by a dense forest, a devout Puritan family strives to achieve self-sufficiency. The mysterious disappearance of their youngest child causes despair and escalating hysteria, as fears that dark forces are at work take hold. 

Shot in Canada, a talented British cast and “an exquisite sense of historical detail” cast “a highly atmospheric spell” (Variety). Eggers displays exceptional promise, and his visionary and unsettling film has received Sundance (Directing) and London Film Festival (First Feature) awards.

Review, with link to the official trailer: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/mar/10/the-witch-review-a-eerie-campfire-tale-that-gets-under-your-skin

David Lean Cinema, Croydon on Tuesday 26 April 2016
Starts at 7:30PM Click on time to book tickets.
Ticket Price: £6.50 – £8.00

Stars: Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt

As the millennial boom rolled on, the housing market seemed like the best one-way bet in town – anyone could own a home (or five) and the banks made vast profits packaging and selling on mortgage debt. A few small-timers, lone wolves and oddballs – Carell’s splenetic trader and Bale’s death-metal-drumming fund manager among them – realised the foundations were rotten, and set out to profit… McKay is brilliant, telling most of this potentially complex story in outrageously entertaining style, while mindful of the human cost of the crash and furious at the amoral decadence which led to it. 

Review: watch this space

Trailer: watch this space

 David Lean Cinema, Croydon on Saturday 23 April 2016
From 2:30PM to 4:45PM Click on time to book relevant tickets.
Ticket Price: £6.50 – £8.00

Stars: Sigurður Sigurjónsson, Theodór Júlíusson, Charlotte Bøving

Gummi and Kiddi are brothers, neighbours and rivals, farming sheep in a remote Icelandic valley. They haven’t spoken in 40 years, communicating only through a sheepdog messenger, but must cope with radically changed times when scrapie is found in Gummi’s flock. With its “intensity and deadpan humour”, this tragicomedy, set on the very edge of human civilisation, is a “wonderfully idiosyncratic and moving Cain and Abel-style saga”” (The Independent).

While the address is theguardian.com, this review incorporating a link to the trailer is actually from The Observer: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/feb/07/rams-observer-film-review

David Lean Cinema, Croydon on Thursday 21 April 2016
Starts at 2:30PM and 7:30PM
Ticket Price: £6.50 – £8.00

Click on times above to book relevant tickets.

Stars: David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Noonan 

Motivational speaker Michael (voiced by Thewlis) struggles so much to connect with other people that they’ve all started to sound the same (Noonan), until he meets Lisa (Leigh) and forges a connection. Can these two insecure souls form a lasting relationship? And how do you tell a story like this through the medium of stop-motion animation? 

Expertly, it seems, as this is another innovative gem from Kaufman, writer of Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine…, 

“Anomalisa has more heart, soul and pathos than 99.9 per cent of live-action movies” (Empire Magazine).

This Guardian link is a comprehensive resource on the film, gving you review, interview with the Director and trailer all in one click: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/mar/10/anomalisa-review-charlie-kaufman-puppet-masterpiece-about-the-human-condition

David Lean Cinema, Croydon on Tuesday 19 April 2016
Starts at 7:30PM Click on time to book tickets.
Ticket Price: £6.50 – £8.00

Stars: Alec Guinness, Robert Newton, Kay Walsh, John Howard Davies

Presented on 35mm. 

Marking 25 years since David Lean’s death, his biographer Kevin Brownlow joins us to introduce a favourite Lean film. This adaptation expertly retells Dickens’ enormous novel in little under two hours, and gave Lean another box office hit after the huge success of Great Expectations. In Lean’s hands, the tale of a young boy’s progress from the workhouse to London’s criminal underworld is, “A superb piece of motion picture art… One of the finest screen translations of a literary classic ever made” (New York Times).

Strange to say, internet links to contemporary reviews of a film which premiered 68 years ago are hard to come by….. 

But here are links to:

   John Hurt reminiscing on how the film influenced him – http://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/oct/09/oliver-twist-john-hurt

   The BFI page on the film (may take a long time to load) – http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6b2089e7

   and (courtesy of a mega-film-buff on Youtube), the 1948 trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulKAAJWVFDc

David Lean Cinema, Croydon on Saturday 16 April 2016
Starts at 2:30PM Click on time to book tickets.
Ticket Price: £6.50 – £8.00