Animation/Adventure
Saturday 23 February, 3 pm
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (PG)
From DreamWorks Animation comes the highly anticipated culmination of one of the most popular animated franchises in film history, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. What began as an unlikely friendship between an adolescent Viking and a fearsome Night Fury dragon has become an epic trilogy spanning their lives. In this next chapter, Hiccup and Toothless will finally discover their true destinies: the village chief as ruler of Berk alongside Astrid, and the dragon as leader of his own kind. As both ascend, the darkest threat they’ve yet faced-as well as the appearance of a female Night Fury-will test the bonds of their relationship like never before.
For How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, series director Dean DeBlois return alongside the all-star cast, including Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig, and America Ferrera.
Drama/Biography/History
Saturday 23 February, 7.30 pm
Mary Queen of Scots (M)
Mary Queen of Scots explores the turbulent life of the charismatic Mary Stuart. Queen of France at 16 and widowed at 18, Mary (Saoirse Ronan) defies pressure to remarry. Instead, she returns to her native Scotland to reclaim her rightful throne. But Scotland and England fall under the rule of the compelling Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie). Each young Queen beholds her “sister” in fear and fascination. Rivals in power and in love, and female regents in a masculine world, the two must decide how to play the game of marriage versus independence. Determined to rule as much more than a figurehead, Mary asserts her claim to the English throne, threatening Elizabeth’s sovereignty. Betrayal, rebellion, and conspiracies within each court imperil both thrones – and change the course of history.
Drama
Saturday 2 March, 7.30 pm
Green Book (M)
Set in America in 1962, Green Book tells the heart-warming true story of Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen), a working-class Italian-American bouncer who takes on a job as a chauffeur for Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali), a highly-educated African-American classical pianist. The mismatched pair embark on a two-month tour of concert venues in the Deep South and discover they’re on the road to a meaningful and unique friendship.
Adventure/Doco
Saturday 9 March, 7.30 pm
Free Solo (M)
From award-winning documentary filmmaker E. Chai Vasarhelyi and world-renowned photographer and mountaineer Jimmy Chin, comes Free Solo a stunning, intimate and unflinching portrait of free soloist climber Alex Honnold, as he prepares to achieve his lifelong dream: climbing the face of the world’s most famous rock…the 3,200-foot El Capitan in Yosemite National Park…without a rope. Celebrated as one of the greatest athletic feats of any kind, Honnold’s climb set the ultimate standard: perfection or death. Succeeding in this challenge places his story in the annals of human achievement.
Free Solo is an edge-of-your seat thriller and an inspiring portrait of an athlete who challenges both his body and his beliefs on a quest to triumph over the impossible, revealing the personal toll of excellence. As the climber begins his training, the armour of invincibility he’s built up over decades unexpectedly breaks apart when Honnold begins to fall in love, threatening his focus and giving way to injury and setbacks. The film beautifully captures deeply human moments with Honnold as well as the death-defying climb with exquisite artistry and masterful, vertigo-inducing camerawork. The result is a triumph of the human spirit.
“A cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers” Boston Globe
“Breathtaking… Riveting… experience action and derring-do at its most high-stakes, awe-inspiring and jaw-droppingly true… a gripping emotional journey… Believe the hype” The Washington Post
Comedy/Action
Sunday 10 March, 1.30 pm
American Graffiti (1973)
The Mustang Owners Club of Australia is returning to the James in 2019, with a great street display of classic cars, and our annual motorhead movie, the coming-of-age classic American Graffiti.
Over the course of a summer evening, four teenage friends ponder their futures, navigating relationships centred around the cruising culture of their sleepy town in California’s San Joaquin valley. After a madcap series of hilarious encounters, they each make decisions that will forever change their lives.
An enduring classic since it was released in 1973, American Graffiti celebrates an America of the early 1960s, where teenagers cruise the streets in hot rods and rock and roll tops the music charts. Inspired by his youth in the valley town of Modesto, California, Graffiti was George Lucas’ second feature film, and is a masterwork of vibrant colours, exciting soundtracks, and endearing characters. A story of coming-of-age, it remains one of the most successful films in history. Directed and co-written by George Lucas, and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Harrison Ford, Cindy Williams, Bo Hopkins, and Wolfman Jack.
Where were you in ’62?
Mustangs will be on display in front of the Theatre from 11am. Please come along to watch the movie and if you have a classic car, bring that along to join the cars from the Mustang Owners Club. Tickets are $15/$10 students. As this is not a regular Friends of the James film event, ten film passes cannot be used.
Drama/Comedy
Sunday 17 March, 7 pm
Vice (M)
The Untold True Story That Changed the Course of History
Oscar winning writer/director Adam McKay (The Big Short) brings his trademark wit to the true story of US Vice President Dick Cheney in Vice. George W. Bush (Sam Rockwell) wins the 2000 election, but it’s Cheney (Christian Bale), an unassuming bureaucratic Washington insider who quietly takes charge, wielding immense newfound power as vice president to reshape the country and the world – with lasting consequences.
Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Steve Carell and Sam Rockwell are at the top of their game, delivering hilarious, uncanny portrayals of America’s most powerful players. A film about those who have power, those who want power, and those who abuse it, Vice is a smart, irreverent comedy-drama that will shock and entertain in equal measure.
Nominated for 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture. Nominated for 6 Golden Globes to lead all 2018 films.
Music/Bio
Sunday 31 March, 3 pm
Maria By Callas (PG)
Tom Volf’s Maria By Callas is the first film to tell the life story of the legendary opera singer completely in her own words.
Told through performances, TV interviews, home movies, family photographs, private letters and unpublished memoirs—nearly all of which have never been shown to the public—the film reveals the essence of an extraordinary woman who rose from humble beginnings in New York City to become a glamorous international superstar and one of the greatest artists of all time.
Assembling the material for the film took director Volf four years of painstaking research, including personal outreach to dozens of Callas’s closest friends and associates, who allowed him to share their personal memorabilia. When recordings of Callas’s voice aren’t available, Joyce DiDonato, one of contemporary opera’s biggest stars, reads her words.
Instead of trying to sum up her vast musical repertoire through countless clips, Volf presents some of her legendary arias in their entirety, including “Casta Diva” (Norma), “Love is a Rebellious Bird” (Carmen), and “I Lived for Art, I Lived for Love” (Tosca). The audience experiences a direct, unmediated response to her music, as the audiences of her time did. Maria By Callas is a loving portrait of one of history’s most extraordinarily talented women, told in a way that is revelatory, unprecedented, and authoritative.
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