Movie Of The Week:

Noah

Our latest movie of the week is Noah, which has sparked no end of controversy in the run up to its release. The film is based on the biblical tale of Noah's ark, but uses enough of its "artistic licence" to stray away from the source material, making it in the director's own words "the least biblical biblical film ever made".

Starring Russell Crowe as Noah and Emma Watson as his adopted daughter, Noah was controversially edited into seven different versions by Paramount in a bid to woo religious cinemagoers. Keen to rake in some cash in a similar vane to Mel Gibson's The Passion Of Christ, Paramount were banking on one of the edited versions being lapped up in the preview screenings. It wasn't forthcoming however, and thankfully the director's preferred version is the one you'll see screened when it opens on Friday.

For more information, please see this review by Roger Moore McClatchy.

Click here for screening times

Other English Language Releases:

Lamb of God "As the Palaces Burn"

On Saturday at 8pm, metal fans can catch the immersive As the Palaces Burn, a documentary about the popular band Lamb Of God. With the band already having taken the world by storm, the Lamb Of God documentary was aimed to be solely about the metal outfit and their music. That all changed however, when lead singer Randy Blythe was arrested and charged with manslaughter in the Czech Republic. From then on in the documentary shifts in tone to cover all the courtroom drama and the emotional rollercoaster that came along with it. Click here for the trailer.

Foreign Language Releases (Without English Subtitles):

El Artista y la modelo

This week's foreign language release is the Spanish production El Artista y la modelo. Set in Nazi occupied France during the Second World War, the film centres around Marc Cros, an ageing sculptor on the cusp of giving up his passion, and Mercè, an attractive young Spanish refugee who ends up inspiring Marc to embark on his last artistic adventure. For critical opinion, see Neil Young's peice in the Hollywood Reporter.

Polish Films:

Stacja Warszawa

Stacja Warszawa (currently screening without English subtitles) tells six stories of different people in contemporary Warsaw, all of which eventually intertwine with dramatic effect. For information in Polish and screening times, click here.

Człowiek z Marmuru

The latest edition of the Polish Cinema For Beginners project takes place next Thursday, and contains a screening of Wajda's Człowiek z marmuru (Man of Marble).

The film features powerful performances by actors Krystyna Janda and Jerzy Radziwiłowicz, and has gone down in both Polish and international cinematic history as an accurate and astute indictment of the Communist regime. The work, an open criticism of falsehood, violence and enslavement, is directed as a journalistic thriller and is remarkably poignant.

The post film lecture will cover Andrzej Wajda's filmography and his oeuvre throughout different periods of history (the Polish school, the "third cinema", the "cinema of moral unease", Wajda in the Polish Third Republic) and the importance of the "Man of Marble" in the history of Polish and world cinema. Lecturer Michał Oleszczyk holds a doctorate in film studies from the Jagiellonian University, is a film critic and translator, a member of Polish Filmmakers NYC, and the artistic director of the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia since 2014.