January 9th
1917
Little Women
Saun the Sheep: Farmageddon

The year's early film offerings continue with a bang! 1917 has just won the Golden Globe Best Director award, while Little Women is wooing critics and audiences alike. And with school holidays in full swing, what better than a madcap animation that will enchant the kids and the adults, in the next instalment of Shaun the Sheep? 

1917
Director: Sam Mendes
Length: 110 min

 ©  Universal – powerful and visceral filmmaking
puts the viewer into the heart of a  horrific war

At the height of World War One, two young lance corporals Schofield (George MacKay) and Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) are sent on a critical mission to cross through enemy lines to find their men and deliver a message that may save the lives of 1600 soldiers. Mendes has based this film upon the stories his grandfather told him about the horrors of trench warfare and the sort of sacrifices soldiers made for a cause they believed in. What is incredible about this movie is that, throughout the entire film, the camera never leaves the main characters - it follows them as if in one long tracking shot (some seamless edits were employed.) At times the camera is behind them, then it wheels around for different angles, but it never leaves them. In this way the audience is utterly immersed in the action, with them as they trek through mud, over dead horses and corpses, into abandoned farms, bombed villages, fast-flowing streams, risking all to follow their orders. The two leads inhabit their roles, and are well supported in smaller roles by the likes of Colin Firth and Mark Strong. Attention to detail is painstakingly immaculate, as are all the reconstructed scenes of the various locations and the costumes. The prosthetics and make-up departments must have worked overtime to generate the feel of death and destruction, while all is augmented by a stirring score (a Golden Globe-winning score!) from Thomas Newman. I know war stories aren't everyone's bag, but anything that puts the viewer so viscerally into the experience has to ultimately carry a mighty powerful antiwar message. This is technically brilliant film-making, with a strong story and first-rate production values.
4 - highly recommended!

Little Women
Director: Greta Gerwig
Length: 135 min

 ©  Sony – touching retelling of an old story - 

with strong feminist overtones

With so many film versions of this classic Louisa May Alcott 19th century novel, one could be forgiven for wondering what could possibly be done with it that is fresh. But hey - Gerwig has delivered up a stunningly beautiful, romantic, yet surprisingly modern take on this classic story of four sisters, their supportive mother, and the various aspirations, romances and travails that govern their lives. The casting is immaculate and helps the film soar. Saiorse Ronan brings to her Jo an energy and feminist sensibility; Emma Watson (ex Hermione from Harry Potter) is gorgeous as Meg, who will settle for love over money; Florence Pugh (so amazing in Lady Macbeth) is perfect as socialite Amy; while the fragile Beth is delicately played by Aussie actress Eliza Scanlan. To round out this blisteringly good cast of women you have Laura Dern as Marmee, and the always pitch-perfect Meryl Streep as the austere Aunt March. Exquisite Timothy Chalamee is Laurie, the rich neighbor who seems to love all the sisters, while Tracey Letts, Bob Odenkirk, Louis Garrell and Chris Cooper are all spot on in the other male roles. After a brief early moment of thinking Jo perhaps seemed too modern, I was totally drawn into the lives of these characters and in awe of the respective strengths of each girl as she grows to womanhood. The film is stunningly shot, some scenes looking like an impressionist painting, and the era overall is recreated to perfection, yet it remains throughout relevant to today, and many of the issues women still grapple with.
4.5 - wholeheartedly recommended!

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon
Director: Will Becher, Richard Phelan
Length: 86 min

 ©  Studio Canal – as

expected: clever, crazy fun

In the town of Mossingham in rural England a spaceship lands, and a strange but incredibly cute alien called Lu-Lu emerges. Curious Shaun, ever up for an adventure, befriends Lu-Lu and the pair devise a plan to get the alien back to her family on a far planet. Unbeknown to them an alien-hunting government agency, headed by a fearsome woman called Red, is also on their tail, while the farmer who owns Shaun and his flock sees a major opportunity to install a money making space theme park on his land. Lovers of films from Aardman studios (Chicken Run, the Wallace & Gromit films), will love this follow up to 2015's Shaun the Sheep. In the inimitable signature style of the studio, the characters are again stop-motion claymation puppets, and, despite their simplicity, every tiny nuance of a gesture tells a whole story. This one takes elements from many of our favourite sci-fi films, from Close Encounters, to ET, along with references from the X-Files and more, and cobbles the whole into a fun-packed crazy caper, that has enough sly references to amuse adults while the kids are wallowing in moments of slapstick and general lunacy.
4 - highly recommended!