Tyneside Cinema welcomes its 200,000th Customer!

Newcastle’s Tyneside Cinema celebrated a historic landmark as it welcomed its 200,000th customer in just 18 months of reopening.

75 year old Lawrence Burn, from North Shields was on his way to see costume drama Bright Star with his wife when staff told him that he’d bought the cinema’s 200,000th ticket since May 2008.

Avid cinemagoer Lawrence gets a free six month pass to the Tyneside Cinema, and the chance to programme a film of his own choosing at the popular Newcastle City Centre cinema.

Lawrence said:
“I was absolutely amazed when I found out, I’ve never won anything before in my life. I love coming to the Tyneside and this free pass will mean I can come a lot more often.”

The Tyneside has experienced a record-breaking time since re-opening in May 2008, and reaching this milestone marks a great achievement in the cinema’s history.

Jonny Tull, the Tyneside Cinema’s Cinema Programme Manager said:
“The Tyneside has proven extremely popular since it reopened and that we’ve sold so many tickets in such a short space of time is brilliant. We’re really thankful to our audiences for ensuring that the restoration and extension of the Cinema has proven such a huge success.

December highlights include the return of the ever-popular Christmas classic It’s A Wonderful Life, which the Tyneside screens to sellout audiences year-on-year.

There’s also live satellite broadcasts of Opera from the Metropolitan Opera House in New York as well as old favourites such as The Wizard of Oz, La Dolce Vita and, for those of you looking for a bit of an alternative for the festive season a screening of 80’s action classic Die Hard.

There’s also some new titles on their way to the cinema, including; Spike Jonze’s adaptation of the beloved children’s tale Where The Wild Things Are, Nowhere Boy a chronicle of the early years of John Lennon and the star studded musical Nine.

To find out more about What’s On at the Tyneside Cinema you can pick up a free programme from the Box Office, visit their website at www.tynesidecinema.co.uk or contact them on 0845 217 9909.

Tyneside Cinema
Pilgrim Street, Newcastle upon Tyne

Box Office: 0845 217 9909
www.tynesidecinema.co.uk

Men Who Stare At Goats

Tyneside Cinema

Review by Christian Allan.

It’s not often that I’m genuinely disappointed with a movie but Grant Heslov’s ‘The Men Who Stare at Goats’ managed just that. Based on British Journalist Jon Ronson’s book on the U.S Military’s hilarious attempts to exploit paranormal abilities, the source material offered endless possibilities for the film adaptation. But although billed as an offbeat, story of these military anomalies instead we are treated to a film which revolves more around self discovery.

The main problem is that the activities of the eccentric group of U.S Military ‘Jedi’s’ are not the focus of the movie. Instead it concentrates on reporter Bob Wilton (played by Ewan McGregor) much like Ronson’s position, and unnecessarily Americanized.

Life’s going all fine and dandy until his wife leaves him for a man with a prosthetic arm (should have acted as a warning) triggering him to do “what all men do when they have a broken heart” go to war, apparently. He meets Lyn Cassady (Clooney) who spends the evening telling stories of his time training as a psychic super-soldier, the most entertaining part of the film. The journey itself, a quest to find Cassady’s former mentor Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) in the Iraqi wilderness, just isn’t particularly interesting. A couple of entertaining moments are forgotten amongst the pedestrian plot and the extensive amount of voice over from McGregor, not helped by the fact his character is a little bland. There isn’t enough character development and what we’re left with is a series of unentertaining slapstick moments and an amusing incite into the U.S Military, already provided by the book.

2/5

Terminator: Salvation

"The future is not set."-A quote from the very first Terminator, and a point Terminator: Salvation makes in more way than one.

I probably consider the original Terminator to be one of my favourite films of all time, so I approached Terminator: Salvation with a combination of anticipation and apprehension. After all, T3 was bloody awful. However, Terminator 4 was everything it should have been: awesome.

Terminator: Salvation, directed by McG, stars Dark Knight star Christian Bale as an adult John Connor, locked in the midst of his future war with killer robots. However, Connor's knowledge of this future world is shaken by the arrival of Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington), a man shrouded in mystery. Terminator: Salvation finally shows audiences more than a glimpse of the future war between the deadly Terminators and the human resistance, and the result is nothing short of spectacular. The film is a two hour adrenaline rush, just like its predecessors, blending pounding action scenes with competent characterisation (especially with regard to the character of Kyle Reese, ably portrayed by Anton Yelchin).

It could be argued that without a working knowledge of the preceeding films, especially the original Terminator, it would be possible for an audience to get a bit lost amongst all the talk of time travel and the transient nature of the future (although for these people, my only advice is that you watch the first two films!), but for fans of the series, Terminator: Salvation is more than sufficient. The film is also full of sly nods to Cameron's films, although not to the extent whereby it is intrusive (for an example of such intrusive references, ironically, try watching T3). They are there for fans of the series (like myself) to enjoy, but for those who are less familiar (like the person I went to see it with), they do not prevent enjoyment.

The only real criticism I have against Terminator: Salvation is that it didn't really feel like a Terminator film. Whilst Cameron's films focused on the stories of desperate struggles for survival, McG's future war seems much less one sided. However, this departure in tone from earlier films in the series does nothing to dampen Terminator: Salvation's appeal to fans and newcomers alike. Also, I feel that the romantic subplot that seemed to be developing between Wright and Moon Bloodgood's resistance fighter could have been developed further. However, on the whole Terminator: Salvation was everything fans could hope for.

Which brings me back to my initial point. The series' motto was always that "the future is not set," and Terminator: Salvation can be seen as a prime example of this. After the abomination that was T3 (suffice it to say I was not a fan), many believed that the franchise was dead, and any further films would provide nothing more than an insult to Cameron's vision. However, the doctrine of the Terminator films seems to extend to Salvation. Against all the odds, McG has revived what was once dead. Salvation indeed.

(Now let's see if he can fix the Alien franchise.)

Reviewed by Chris Render

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

Starring: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett

Director: David Fincher

David Fincher is a director who has always been attracted to exploring the darker elements of the human psyche. With films like Seven and The Game it would seem that the man is purely focused on exploiting themes such as paranoia and male insecurity. However for his most recent film he has completely changed his style to produce a fable and an epic one at that.

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button charts the life of an individual who is born with a bizarre medical condition that causes him to physically age backwards, and specifically his relationship with his life long love interest. The narrative is made up of several subplots and storylines similar to the structure of Forrest Gump. However as Benjamin’s life essential starts in a retirement home his journey is far more peculiar and unique, with the story taking place all over the globe.

Brad Pitt teams up again with Fincher for the part of Benjamin and Cate Blanchett takes the role of his soul mate Daisy. The two are fantastic together as lovers who are perfect for each other but ultimately are destined not to be together because of the Benjamin’s physical condition. Pitt has the ambitious task of acting the opposite of his physical appearance. At times this is pulled off with humorous effect, in one scene Benjamin is taken to a brothel and even though he looks like an old man he has the hormones and drive of a adolescent teenager.

The film is remarkably visual and the effects are simply sublime. The ageing process that Benjamin undergoes is a new technological benchmark for movies. At times Brad Pitt is hideously old and wrinkled whereas towards the end of the piece he appears younger than he was in Thelma and Louise. The cinematography and style make the film abundant with energy and spectacle that will likely be imprinted on your memory.

While the essence of the film is a love story the more dominant and consistent force of the picture is death. As a catalogue of characters come and go throughout, each one contributing too Benjamin’s life in some minor yet effecting way. Even so the film is a celebration life, not death and is likely to leave you feeling joyful rather than depressed.

With the awards season nearly upon us this film is likely to dominant on many levels. While several members of the cast and the crew rightfully deserve Oscar recognition the true praise belongs to Fincher. Many mainstream directors, including Spielberg, have tried to bring the story to the screen and have failed one by one but Fincher succeeds in adapting this unusual tale. The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button may be a lengthy effort but is a masterclass of film making that is likely to define the careers the careers of all those involved.

5 Star

Review by James Fairfield

Milk

Awards season has been and gone, and its original release is firmly in the past, but ‘Milk’ seems firmly on its way to becoming something of a Tyneside Cinema staple. So why the continuing love?
First things first: Sean Penn’s received wide acclaim for his depiction of politician and groundbreaking gay rights activist Harvey Milk. Tracing his progression from an insecure, semi-closeted businessman to (at the time) the most powerful openly homosexual politician in America, Sean Penn refuses the easy route of deification, revealing his hidden doubts and flaws while still demonstrating the undoubtable conviction to his cause: it’s a masterful performance that won Penn an Oscar quite rightfully.
But ‘Milk’ is no one-man show, whatever the title or the publicity might suggest. In particular, director Gus Van Sant deserves particular credit for the way he manages to make San Francisco itself a character, with even the self-contained environ of the Castro gaining an epic grandeur that makes this real-life battle for acceptance all the more emotionally draining – the candlelight procession through the city’s streets at the end especially is a supreme symbiosis of man and land that lingers long after you’ve emerged back into Newcastle’s roads. Although some minor criticisms can be made at some of the more notable contrivances in the script (Jack Lira’s fate as written in this film is a moment of melodrama that detracts from the finely-judged realism of the other two hours), ‘Milk’ is still a remarkable achievement. In condensing the progress of a movement from its inception through to glory and into subsequent struggles (the audience being left to infer the damage that AIDS would inflict upon the gay community, as well as being shown Milk’s violent end) and in providing such a remarkable document of one of the key figures involved in it, not to mention with the artistry with which it does so, ‘Milk’ is surely an achievement with little parallel.

Review by Mark Corcoran-Lettice