There’s no doubt what will be putting bums on seats at Royston’s Picture Palace this weekend – stand by for bumper box office thanks to three screenings of summer holiday smash hit Minions.
The cute yellow characters who made such an impression as clueless supervillain sidekicks in the Despicable Me movies have stepped into the spotlight in their own movie, and the family animation has attracted both critical and commercial praise.
The voice cast includes Gravity superstar Sandra Bullock and Mad Men’s Jon Hamm as well as all sorts of other famous names – Steve Coogan, Jennifer Saunders, Steve Carell, Geoffrey Rush to name but a few – with co-director Pierre Coffin putting the words into the mouths of the Minions themselves.
There are screenings on Friday, Saturday and Sunday all timed to tap into that family audience – 4pm tomorrow, 3.30pm on Saturday and 5pm on Sunday.
That leaves the evenings clear for something a little more grown-up, which certainly describes London Road.
This 15-certificate offering, showing on Friday night, is a cinema adaptation of an acclaimed stage work by National Theatre artistic director Rufus Norris.
It’s based on the true story of how people living in one street in Ipswich were affected by a serial killer targeting prostitutes in their back yard.
It features songs made up of lyrics taken from interviews with those at the centre of the story as well as contemporary news coverage of the unfolding drama.
The play may seem an unusual choice for cinema treatment, but it won a raft of awards and the cast speaks for itself, with slots for famous faces including Olivia Colman, Tom Hardy and Anita Dobson.
Saturday night is set aside for Slow West, a much-praised directorial debut from Brit John Maclean which has all the hallmarks of a cult in the making.
The story, set in 1870 Colorado, teams a Scottish teenager searching for his lost love and a rough gunslinger – Michael Fassbender on top form – as his guide.
Critics have singled out the atmospheric music, fine pacing, colourful characters, terrific scenery and a compelling narrative which packs a lot in to just 84 minutes.
Former muso Maclean, once part of critical darlings The Beta Band, is clearly a name to watch, and here’s your chance to bag film buff brownie points by getting in ahead of the crowd.
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