(Release Info London schedule; September 19th, 2019, Cineworld Leicester Square, London WC2H, 5–6 Leicester Square, London, WC2H 7NA, 12:20 14:30 16:40 18:50 21:00 pm) https://film.list.co.uk/listing/448346-rambo-last-blood/ "Rambo: Last Blood" Almost four decades after he drew first blood, John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is back as one of the greatest action heroes of all time. Now, Rambo must confront his past and unearth his ruthless combat skills to exact revenge in a final mission. A deadly journey of vengeance, "Rambo: Last Blood" marks the last chapter of the legendary series. After years of making his home in remote corners of the globe, Rambo makes the fateful decision to return to 'The U.S.', where we last saw him walking down a dusty path to a horse ranch, and past a rusted mailbox inscribed with his family name. John Rambo has finally come home. "Rambo: Last Blood" picks up the character’s epic saga, as we find Rambo settled down, and living a quiet life on his family’s sprawling ranch in Arizona. Here he’s found sanctuary and a sense of belonging, sharing his home with his adoptive family; Maria Beltran (Adriana Barraza) and her granddaughter Gabriela (Yvette Monreal). We're taking a ten-year leap forward since we last saw Rambo. He has long been removed from society but now seems to want to become a part of it. He’s been accepted into a family he loves, and wants to take care of them. Rambo has become a paternal figure to Gabriela, whose mother had long passed, and whose abusive father had abandoned her and never looked back. Alongside Maria, Rambo raised the young girl as his own. To him, she's the only thing that's pure and true in this world. Now a teenager and curious about her past, Gabriela goes in search of her biological father. She wants to judge the man for herself, and nothing Rambo or Maria can say will dissuade her. Leaving the ranch defiant and full of hope, Gabriela travels to Mexico, but the reunion with her father ends in harsh rejection. The next morning, when Gabriela doesn’t return home, a primal instinct kicks in for Rambo. He sets out to find her, vowing to Maria he will not return without her. On his recon, Rambo’s worst fears are realized when he witnesses Gabriela being drugged and abused by Victor Martinez (Óscar Jaenada) and Hugo Martinez (Sergio Peris-Mencheta), dangerous cartel members. Fueled by guilt and vengeance, Rambo prepares for all-out war. War always finds Rambo, even if he isn’t seeking it. They drew first blood. He will draw last. Rambo may have come to terms with himself and found home and family, but he’s not settled. There’s no real comfort in his life at the ranch; his body is there, but his mind isn’t. He never wants to leave the ranch. He can’t get past 'The PTSD', and everything else he cannot reign in. Rambo finds that life is it's own kind of fight and despite being home, he's still at the mercy of events beyond his control. Helping Rambo navigate the perils of being a veteran he has created a series of labyrinthian tunnels and a bunker under the ranch, where he sleeps, relaxes, and keeps his few belongings and memorabilia. It’s where Rambo feels, at least partly, like he’s still dug in, like in a trench. It’s where Rambo can release his demons. He considers the ranch above the tunnels, which houses Maria and Gabriela, representative of all that's good. The tunnels are his private hell. Rambo doesn’t do anything by half, and the tunnels and bunker had to be the ultimate man cave. It’s such an extreme idea that underneath this serene landscape and rolling hills is a maze of underground tunnel systems. The tunnels are among the lingering aftershocks from his time in combat and his more recent missions. They serve as a kind of therapy indicated for momentary lapses of war that Rambo experiences. They make sense only to him, but at the end of the film they do serve a purpose. The purpose to which Rambo alludes is that of turning his tunnels into a kind of subterranean killing field, where he retaliates against those who would bring death to his family. It’s an epic, vengeance-fueled showdown that's fast-paced, brutal, and intricate. Rambo uses his survival, stealth and weaponry skills, and his knowledge of the terrain to create these brilliantly engineered traps and weapons, lure his prey to his domain, the tunnels, and hunt them down one at a time. But here the stakes are even higher than they're for him during warfare, because they’re grounded in personal loss, grieving and revenge. Where does a warrior make his last stand? Rambo is trying to find an end for his journey. He realizes his job is protect his family; it’s the only thing he’s good at. But Rambo knows if he’s pushed, he’s going to revert back to his true self, even if that’s the last thing he wants. He knows that if what he cares most about is taken away, then he's going to bring retribution, suffering, and death to those responsible. Rambo had been so isolated for so many years, and now he’s part of a family. That dynamic helps you really understand how he thinks and what makes him tick. This film is quite different from the previous films; it’s more personal. It’s the first time we’ve seen Rambo in a family setting, and as close as he’s ever felt to home in a long time. That homelife opens up a part of Rambo that we haven’t experienced before. The film wants to depict a more human Rambo. Bringing a newfound, if temporary, sense of humanity and homelife to Rambo are Maria and Gabriela. Maria is a strong Mexican woman. She has watched John Rambo grow older and understands he carries a lot of pain, not only in his body, but in his mind. The relationship between Maria and Rambo is really beautiful. Maria’s granddaughter Gabriela is like a step-daughter to Rambo, who he raised her as his own. Gabby understands his 'PTSD' and supports him. When she decides to find her biological father, she travels to Mexico and doesn’t come back. Her disappearance alarms Rambo and he sets out to find her. Even with Gabby and Maria’s support, and a successful business and a stable homelife, Rambo remains, at heart, a wounded warrior, a living example of the old saying, you can’t go home again. The character was introduced to moviegoers in "First Blood", based on a novel by David Morrell, as an elite 'Special Forces' veteran and war hero skilled in weaponry, hand-to-hand combat, survival tactics, and guerilla warfare, none of which could prepare him for his return to civilian life. With the help of his former commanding officer, Rambo finds new purpose for his formidable and deadly talents, taking him back to Vietnam to rescue some of his imprisoned brothers-in-arms, in "Rambo: First Blood, Part II"; to Afghanistan, to come to the aid of his only friend, in "Rambo III"; and to Myanmar, where he unleashes his fury to help some captured missionaries and villagers. Since it's debut nearly four decades ago, 'The Rambo Series' has become one of the most iconic action-movie franchises of all time. An ex-'Green Beret' haunted by memories of Vietnam, the legendary fighting machine known as Rambo has freed 'POWs', rescued his commanding officer from 'The Soviets', and liberated missionaries in Myanmar. "Rambo: Last Blood" marks the last chapter of the legendary series, as Rambo must confront his past and unearth his ruthless combat skills for one final mission. Now, Rambo must confront his past and unearth his ruthless combat skills to exact revenge in a climactic and truly personal mission. A thrilling, intense and gritty journey, the film presents audiences with the opportunity to see this iconic character and reluctant hero on the big screen for one final war. We see Rambo prepping each deadly trap, which you can trace back to when you see the kills; you've anticipated and envisioned what Rambo is going to do with each trap. You don’t see Rambo with two rocket launchers in each hand, blowing helicopters out of the sky, like he’s done in some of the previous films. This is the Rambo we met in "First Blood", who uses his skills and environment to hunt and trap his prey. There's still plenty of action, gunplay, and vengeance, but it’s all more grounded in reality. This is a Rambo that's going back to his roots. This film closes a circle for the character and series. The film honors Rambo and all the films by creating a slightly different kind of action movie and story that combines everything audiences love about the character, while putting him in a new environment, and against an enemy unlike any he’s battled. The artist who embodies this legendary figure promises that this closing chapter of an over-30 year cinematic ride will give audiences a jolt unlike any they’ve experienced with the franchise before. It's an exciting and breathless experience for the audience. They go by quickly because they’ve already been set up. At the same time, the story builds and builds to a finale that's seismic, volcanic and very satisfying.

After a hard day of work, a businessman, Dean, decides to take a detour from family life to go to his usual kebab shop. There, he encounters a seductive and witty young prostitue, Megan, and the two have immediate chemistry. However, in the dead of night, appearances are never quite what they seem and sometimes blurred intentions trump the mind... What starts as a lovely night of good circumstances might just turn out to be something quite different.

(Release Info London schedule; October 23rd, 2019, Cineworld Leicester Square, 5–6 Leicester Square, London, WC2H 7NA, 16:45 19:45 pm) https://film.list.co.uk/listing/951348-terminator-dark-fate/ "Terminator: Dark Fate" "Terminator: Dark Fate" picks up where "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" left off. More than two decades have passed since Sarah Connor prevented "Judgment Day", changed the future, and re-wrote the fate of the human race. Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) is living a simple life in Mexico City with her brother Diego (Diego Boneta) and father (Enrique Arce) when a highly advanced and deadly new 'Terminator', a 'Rev-9' (Gabriel Luna), travels back through time to hunt and kill her. Dani's survival depends on her joining forces with two warriors, Grace (Mackenzie Davis), an enhanced super-soldier from the future, and a battle-hardened Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). As the 'Rev-9' ruthlessly destroys everything and everyone in it's path on the hunt for Dani, the three are led to a 'T-800' (Arnold Schwarzenegger) from Sarah’s past that may be their last best hope. How do we feel about another 'Terminator' movie. Is this needed? We're going to finish the story of Sarah Connor. That’s a reason to show up. 'The Terminator' ended with Sarah losing everyone she loves. In ''T-2", she has dedicated her life to protecting her young son John, but the result will not be what she envisioned. The last 28 years have changed Sarah dramatically. When this film begins, she's lost, broken and rootless. She learns that after all her sacrifices, the future hasn’t changed in the way she had hoped. Yes, she destroyed 'Cyberdyne', but now there's another 'AI, Legion'. That pretty much destroys her. The only thing she has left is her loathing of technology, the future and machines. She goes on another journey to try to reach that last little kernel of humanity inside herself. Sarah’s appeal lies in her willingness to risk not only her life but any semblance of normalcy to take the reins of destiny. It’s something we aspire to but very few of us get the chance or, if we're given the chance, are able to rise to the occasion. When Sarah appears onscreen, you just feel, okay, here we go. A revolutionary figure in an era when action heroes are almost by definition male, Sarah’s transformation from naïve waitress to guerrilla fighter in order to save her son from the original 'Terminator' made her a movie icon. Sarah Connor is in a league of her own. How many of those characters are over 40?. It’s a very short list. How many of them are over 60? Big fat zero. The guys are still packing guns into their 80s. But in our society we discount the older woman. In classic mythology, she's the keeper of wisdom, sometimes the sorceress or the seer, but always a powerful figure. The film puts that together with a kick-ass action hero and that’s something you haven’t seen before. We’ve been waiting all these years for her to show up, and when she shows up, she delivers. Sarah is important to the history of cinema and action, and not just because she’s a woman. She’s also a cool evolution of a human being. It's really excited seeing her age into her 60s and learning who this woman is now. The 'T-800 Terminator' is not the same cyborg seen in either of the earlier movies. It's the same model, with the same hardware and programming, but with a history of it's own. It has managed to stay in the past and build a life posing as a human being. He's the most interesting 'T-800' you’ve seen yet. And of course, he has a couple of pretty good laugh lines. Everybody is going to want to see his story and his journey. It’s got it's own special arc that comprises some of the most important moments in the movie. There's a machine-like behavior you get from bodybuilding. It’s all about reps, keeping your emotions out and focusing on your goal. But in this movie we see him becoming more human. He's aware that he’s a machine, but after being around human beings for so long, he has become more human. The 'Terminator' is the only character to be named by 'The American Film Institute' as one of the top 50 heroes (No. 48) and one of the top 50 villains (No. 22) in cinema history. The idea always is to be the villain but make everyone walk out and say, ‘that’s really cool! Can you imagine if you've that kind of a power?’ People find him inspirational in some ways as well as entertaining. Dani is an everygirl working in a factory in Mexico City. Dani’s young but she has a gravitas far beyond her years. It seemed really interesting for the most important person in the world to be this working-class Mexican woman. She doesn’t think she’s anything special, but apparently someone does. You could compare Dani’s journey to Sarah’s in the first film. The future wants her dead, but we don’t know why. She has a normal simple life in Mexico City with her family, and then suddenly a 'Terminator' appears. She reacts the way any of us would. Then Grace and Sarah show up to defend her and it’s a whole new world. It’s a while before she starts to understand everything that’s happening. With the trio of characters on the run, the film becomes a pulse-pounding thrill ride. Dani’s brother Diego is very funny and charismatic. Grace is a soldier from the future who comes back to protect Dani. She's a 'Terminator' hunter from the future. She has a military background as an elite soldier. She's human, but has been enhanced. Although she has some mechanical parts to her body, she's not as heavy as the 'T-800' or the 'Rev-9', so she's faster. She's built for fighting, so she's more like a high-octane race car. Little things in the body language add value to the character, keeping it authentic and a bit more visceral. In the future, before she traveled back in time to protect Dani, Grace was gravely injured and then engineered to be something more. What she has become is more subtle than a cyborg. Her bones are injected with a material that over time replaces the marrow with a super-strong silicate that's nearly unbreakable. Her muscle fiber is woven with mesh that's much stronger and more reactive. She takes a lot of chemicals to jack up her reaction time. Her brain has augmented processing power. She's very difficult, though not impossible, to harm and she’s very fast. But there's a price. And it’s been super-exciting to see the triumvirate of Sarah and Grace and Dani. They're like a pride of lionesses. 'The New Terminator' the future has sent is a newer model 'Terminator', known as the 'Rev-9', a state-of-the-art killer robot that's far more sophisticated than the earlier versions. He’s pretty damn spectacular. He’s different in so many ways. It’s not only his abilities, but also in what you’d call his personality. He’s not a cold, mechanical robotic cyborg. He’s very personable and very charming, but he’s also extremely lethal. The 'Rev-9' combines aspects of the original 'T-800' with features of the 'T-1000' introduced in 'T-2', but goes far beyond both. It has a metal endoskeleton with the liquid metal skin that can create different bladed weapons. It can also split into two separate entities that fight independently and have different abilities. Although he’s stronger together, there are strategic moments when he splits and attacks on two fronts. The biggest improvement in the 'Rev-9' is it's ability to simulate human emotion. The 'Rev-9' is focused entirely on killing it's target, and will do whatever it needs to in order to get to Dani. An artificial intelligence capable of world domination would have humans figured out. Sometimes charm and guile are easier and more effective than stealing a truck and smashing it through a building. But it’s still an unstoppable machine with one purpose.  In 1984, James Cameron unleashing a global phenomenon with 'The Terminator', a modestly budgeted, original sci-fi action film about a cyborg from an apocalyptic future that travels to the present to ensure the extermination of the human race. Dark, gritty and highly entertaining, the film moved at a blistering pace and featured an action heroine, which was highly unusual at the time. The story followed a young waitress, Sarah Connor, who was being hunted by a 'T-800' model 'Terminator' sent from the future on a deadly mission to kill her and her unborn son, the future leader of the human resistance. The relentless 'T-800' was sent by 'Skynet', a future -'A.I.' system created by 'Cyberdyne' that was set to destroy the human race. Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) was also sent back in time, but his mission was to protect Sarah at all costs and help save humanity. The film’s success prompted a 1991 sequel, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day". 'T-2' introduced a more advanced, and more lethal, 'Terminator', the 'T-1000' (Robert Patrick), and added Sarah’s son, John (Edward Furlong) as the future leader of the resistance. "Terminator: Dark Fate" as a direct sequel to "Terminator 2", one that recaptures the riveting tone of the original 'Terminator' and it's follow-up. It has the same intensity, the same take-no-prisoners feeling and sense of abject terror. The first film was supposed to scare the crap out of you about a possible dark future and the survival of a girl that we come to care about. This film, like the others, deals with the threat of a human collision with artificial super-intelligence, which is a whole lot less science-fiction today than it was in 1984 or 1991. "Terminator: Dark Fate" has grand vistas, especially in Almeria, where Sergio Leone shot some classic spaghetti Westerns. It's essential for the audience to have empathy for Dani, her brother, her father and their dog. To do that we needed to become involved in their life in Mexico City and love it as much as they do. We commissioned three artists to create graffiti that references alebrijes, these brightly painted folk-art animal sculptures. A classic 'Terminator'-style car chase sequence takes place on a freeway just outside Murcia in southern Spain. The 'Rev-9' commandeers an enormous earthmover to pursue Sarah, Dani, her brother Diego and Grace, picking up cars and tossing them aside like toys as he closes in. It’s a very intense chase and the goal is to make the audience feel there's a 'Terminator' bearing down on them. You feel that ferocity, that relentlessness of him constantly coming. The chase includes a spectacular car crash that's so extreme it has to be done with a remote-controlled vehicle. We've a underwater scene in which a 'Humvee' falls from the top of a dam, tumbles underwater and gets swept down a river with the 'Rev-9' in relentless pursuit. 'The Humvee' is on a giant scissor lift that could take it all the way under. The water rushes in and fills it up, and the actors have to act like they’re about to drown, which is made easier because you feel like you might in fact, drown. "Dark Fate" continues the structure of the trinity consisting of 'Hunters', protectors and prey. The film constructs slower periods up front where you really get to know the characters, and then once the action starts, it does not stop. Each of this characters have moments that make the audience cry and cheer. There are amazing action set pieces that will get the blood pumping and a plot that will have the audience constantly wondering what happens next. Hopefully, it all adds up to a great time in the theater, which the audience will ultimately decide. "Dark Fate" honors what we all love about the original films. 'Terminator' fans will feel the same way and that the film can introduce a new generation to the world of 'Skynet'. They all believe there will be an 'A.I.' equal to or greater than a human mind. They also say it’s not going to turn into 'Skynet', but how do we know that? The debate reminds us of the enthusiasm nuclear scientists had in the 1930s and ’40s about the idea of powering the world by splitting the atom. There was zero concern over the idea that it would be weaponized. But the first manifestation of nuclear power on our planet was the destruction of two cities and hundreds of thousands of people. So the idea that it can’t happen now is not the case. The future’s not only stranger than you imagine, it’s stranger than you can imagine. 'AI’s' agenda will not kill us. We don’t know what it will become, but it will be able to evolve more in a day than we've in millions of years. At the moment, we choose to believe they’ll be better than us. It’s 'R'-rated, it’s gritty, it’s fast, it’s intense, it’s linear. The whole story is a white-knuckle ride through a kind of techno-hell that arrives in our present day.

(Release Info London schedule; December 13th, 2019, Picturehouse Central, Piccadilly Circus, Corner of Great Windmill Street and, Shaftesbury Ave, London W1D 7DH, United Kingdom, 6:00 pm) "Little Joe" "Little Joe" follows Alice Woodard (Emily Beecham), a single mother and dedicated senior plant breeder at a corporation engaged in developing new species. She has engineered a special crimson flower, remarkable not only for it's beauty but also for it's therapeutic value; if kept at the ideal temperature, fed properly and spoken to regularly, this plant makes it's owner happy. Against company policy, Alice takes one home as a gift for her teenage son, Joe (Kit Connor). They christen it ‘Little Joe'. But as their plant grows, so too does Alice's suspicion that her new creation may not be as harmless as it's nickname suggests. "Little Joe" creates an atmosphere within the scenes that allows the audience to question the integrity of the characters involved. The film offers different ways of interpreting what's happening: the so-called changes in people can either be explained by their psychological state of mind, or by the pollen they have inhaled. Or alternatively, those changes do not exist at all and are only imagined by Bella (Kerry Fox) or Alice. The film creates those moments that retain an ambiguity in order for the audience to always have the possibility of finding an answer. In fairy-tales and stories, and also in the present day, we perceive the mother as inseparably linked with her child in some invisible way. In the best scenario, this bond is a loving one, but in any case it cannot be broken, and it forms the basis for the unquestionable responsibility of a mother for her child. Every working mother is familiar with being asked the question which is often laden with accusation. So, who looks after your child when you go to work? "Little Joe" is about a mother who's tormented by her bad conscience when she goes to work and neglects her child. A mother whose feelings are ambivalent, because the plant is Alice's other child; her work, her creation, the product of her labor. And she doesn't want to neglect this child either or lose it. But which of her children will Alice choose in the end. Both of the female main characters, Alice as well as Bella, seem to be psychologically instable. Alice regularly attends psychotherapy, where her bad conscience towards her son, her being a workaholic and her secret fears are being discussed. We learn that what seems to be a threat upon Alice's career her plant possibly changes the people who come in contact with it and thus alienates them from their loved ones could as well be interpreted as Alice's most secret wish coming true; to free herself from the bond with her child. To be able to focus on her own desires and interests. To have a bit more time for herself. A wish that she shouldn't blame herself for. The plant appears to have a life of it's own; it emits pollen according to it's own criteria, though we don't know whether this is by chance or conscious intention. Is 'Little Joe' attempting to overcome it's infertility, which Alice engineered? Is it securing it's survival by infecting people and robbing them of their feelings? So that those who've been infected will now serve 'Little Joe'? That theory sounds fantastical, and initially Alice laughs at it, but not for long. Today, we're confronted with living beings which are products of genetic engineering and we cannot really know for certain what kind of danger they may conceal. Perhaps none at all, but we can't be sure. One body of opinion insists that to be on the safe side we should protect ourselves from this eventuality, while another claims that everything is under control. Without taking sides here, the film is interested in this aspect of our time, which is determined on the one hand by scientific developments and on the other by semi-truths that are spread on the internet. And by the uncanny realization that even scientists can only surmise, without knowing for certain. It's fertile soil for all manner of conspiracy theories. And when she finally achieves that freedom; the film comes to a happy end. The idea behind the story is that every individual conceals a secret which cannot be completely appreciated by an outsider or even by that individual. Something strange inside us appears unexpectedly and makes the familiar seem uncanny. Somebody we know suddenly seems strange. Proximity is transformed into distance. The desire for mutual understanding, empathy and symbiosis is unfulfilled. In this sense, "Little Joe" is a parable about what is strange within ourselves. This becomes tangible in the film by means of a plant which is apparently capable of changing people. As result of this change something unfamiliar emerges, and something believed to be secure is lost; the bond between two people. It seems that the film's aesthetic is even more abstract or artificial in "Little Joe" than in "Amour Fou". "Amour Fou" was perhaps a steppingstone because with a historical setting, you're already entering a fantasy world. None of us were there, we only have pictures to refer to, which are already another artist's impression. It's already a kind of invented world that you're designing. Obviously, the film is inspired by greenhouses, laboratories, real places, but in the end, the film creates a kind of artificial world. We've to reflect the fairy-tale nature of the story. For example, with the colors, there's the mint green and white, and then the red of the flower. The film choses these almost childish colors to give the film the characteristics of a fairy-tale or fable. Also, Alice's red hair for example, that's a very important point, almost iconographicalthis bright red mushroom hairstyle that she has. The costume design focuses on creating a reality of it's own, iconic key pieces such as pearl earrings and a red hat are repeatedly used, the colors are obviously styled corresponding to the set design. And there's humor in the costumes; a ridiculous dress, a suit too large. The same holds true for the cinematography. The framing tries to question reality as we play with different perspectives, what the viewer does and does not see; we maintain a level of uncertainty with what's kept hidden. As an audience you realize that you've only been shown a fragment. And one begins to ask oneself what's behind it, what's wrong, what's happening where I can't see? The framing and the narrative emphasize this question; what do we not see? What's hidden offscreen? For example, when Bella says, 'I think it's 'Little Joe's' pollen, that triggered something', the camera approaches her, but then the camera is panning past her and there's a slight disappointment or a questioning of her authority, as if she's not the person who can provide the answer for us, and what she's just said might not be true. The music creates emotions, it's even scary, but it's also abstract; it draws you in and pushes you back at the same time. And because of that, the rhythm of the film or the narrative already connected with this music during the shoot. This being said, it's due to the very unique character of this music, that it remains a character in itself. It's the story of a woman, a plant breeder who invents a genetically modified plant, a beautiful flower. We like 'The Little Shop Of Horrors', where the flower eats you. "Little Shop Of Horrors" is maybe a source of inspiration for the film. The flower Alice creates has a lovely scent and it's supposed to make you happy. But after a while, the plant appears to influence people in a way that makes them not themselves anymore. There are no specific symptoms- they don't have any allergic reactions or display any particular psychological changes. Someone who didn't know that person very well wouldn't notice the difference; they'd think they're the same as always. Only the ones who are very close, such as a mother and her son, would see the change. She might say that's not my son anymore, what happened to him? That's a real psychiatric disorder, a neurological sort of thing. It's the delusion that someone close to you has been replaced by an impostor. In the story, it's also possible that the person who believes that, has a psychiatric problem. We don't know if the person is inventing it or imagining it, or if it's really happening. The ambiguity is there through the whole story. But we do find out that the pollen of the plant contains something that may cause a change of personality. We came up with it not knowing if it might actually be possible. Which plants are bred artificially? Why we've a market for this science. Finding out what people look for in plants and what sells well. What are the trends? What's benefiting science and what's benefiting the economy? And with what intention? Of course, with food crops, the overriding theme is developing the durability and resilience of plants. Because, in fact, this utopia existsthe scent of a plant can make a person happy. You smell a flower and you can almost see the smile on the faces, that's the idea of a flower. It's beautiful and it smells good. It's about the idea of a fragrance that makes everyone happy, be it by pheromones or other hormonal substances that are emitted by the flowers. It's alchemical; scientists who are creating spells. It's a complicated part, finding a connection, determining if and how a plant could ever infect a human. It could be a virus because a virus is flexible enough and can mutate in a way that could adapt from a plant virus into a human virus. This is very unlikely, but conceivable in certain circumstances. Science tries things, and nobody can ever predict the consequences. And yet it's done. And sometimes there are positive effects. This is similar to the theme of the film, "Lourdes", where the miracle is good and bad at the same time. In this story, the invention is good, because the people who inhale the fragrance of the plant are happy. It works. But the downside, well that's what interests most, these contradictory and conflicting situations, these 'Gordian Knots' that are virtually impossible to undo. You feel like you're in 'Brave New World', endless number of computerized flower cars driving around. The story is about a plant whose fragrance has been genetically engineered and the scent makes the people who smell the plant happy. Is such a scent possible? What this plant could be doing is giving off a combination of chemicals, let's say peptides and steroids, or it could contain a virus. If you want it to contain a virus, then it's not the plant itself. That virus could be targeting brain cells, specific kinds of brain cells and in doing so, it could be turning them on and off and it would regulate behavior. Plants and viruses have been using us for 100 million years. They create substances that affect our behavior. Plants make nicotine, they make opiates, they make all sort of chemicals that regulate our behavior. It's as if they're using us all along. We use them but they use us. From viruses, we've picked up little pieces of 'DNA' called transposons. You can also get transposons from food. They can get into the lining of the gut and become part of you. So you can become the part of Austria that you are from because you eat specific strains of food there. And if those regulate your behavior, then you can get not only a taste for them, but you can also develop a need for them. It's all this cross-species stuff, where the virus most of the time is specific. But there are crossovers. It's a rare event, but to say this couldn't happen is misinformed. For example that they're nearly the same as they used to be, but that the emotions that they feel are not really true anymore. That you only act as if you love someone, but you don't really love them anymore. So, not the behavioral area but only the emotional? Maybe you wouldn't notice it so much, is that right? If the virus only influences, changes or blocks the emotional part. How do you talk to somebody's emotions? How do you get down here? By talking to the upper part of the prefrontal cortex and that connects back to the hippocampus and amygdala and that's where you change the connection of the memories with the emotion. If there's such a scent, you would probably be a millionaire. It's unlikely that we will find one for people. Probably not for animals either, because in terms of evolution, happiness is not an interesting trait. For evolution to develop sensory traits, they need to be important to survival, if they're good for procreation, for example, but not for something as general as how happy one is. Plants naturally have fragrances that attract animals to spread the pollen. There are a whole series of examples. Plants develop a kind of scent that animals react to and are attracted to, then they've to get a reward for it. You could imagine that with people too. Because the reward center in the brain is very active and also seduces us into different actions. We're attracted to products that upset the reward system, so we still eat it, even though we know it's not so good for us. In this direction, you could imagine something. This is called conditioning. You've learned that you get a reward and the fragrance itself is enough to reward us. Every person associates a scent with their personal experience with the scent. If you've smelled a fragrance in a happy situation, the fragrance can rekindle this happy situation. And the same scent can cause unpleasant feelings for another person who has smelled it in a very unpleasant situation. Is that conceivable? Similar to a drug? There's no indication that we've a sensor, a receptor though we do not have many pheromone receptors, we've just decrypted the first one, it does not make us happy but it has something to do with hormones. These are hormones that have to do with trust. This is in the hypothalamus, a core area in the hypothalamus. There, this fragrance causes an excitement in everyone in the same area. There's a wiring between the cells in the nose that smell and transmit to the brain. You can stop splitting the atom; you can stop visiting the moon; you can stop using aerosols; you may even decide not to kill entire populations by the use of a few bombs. But you cannot recall a new form of life. It will survive you and your children and your children's children. An irreversible attack on the biosphere is something so unheard-of, so unthinkable to previous generations, that we could only wish that mine had not been guilty of it. The hybridization of 'Prometheus' with 'Herostratus' is bound to give evil results. Have we the right to counteract, irreversibly, the evolutionary wisdom of millions of years, in order to satisfy the ambition and the curiosity of a few scientists? This world is given to us on loan. We come and we go; and after a time we leave earth and air and water to others who come after us. Our generation, or perhaps the one preceding mine, has been the first to engage, under the leadership of the exact sciences, in a destructive colonial warfare against nature. The future will curse us for it.

(Release Info London schedule; FRI 6 - THU 12 DEC, Ciné Lumière, 17 Queensberry Pl, South Kensington, London SW7 2DT, United Kingdom) https://www.institut-francais.org.uk/cine-lumiere/whats-on/new-releases/the-cave/ "The Cave" "The Cave" delivers an unflinching story of 'The Syrian War'. For besieged civilians, hope and safety lie underground inside the subterranean hospital known as 'The Cave', where paediatrician and managing physician Dr. Amani Ballour (Marythavee Burapasing) and her colleagues Samaher (Tan Xiaolong) and Dr. Alaa (Ting Sue) have claimed their right to work as equals alongside their male counterparts, doing their jobs in a way that would be unthinkable in the oppressively patriarchal culture that exists above. Following the women as they contend with daily bombardments, chronic supply shortages and the ever-present threat of chemical attacks, "The Cave" paints a stirring portrait of courage, resilience and female solidarity. Over the past eight years, the war in Syria has spread death, destruction and horror across the country, costing hundreds of thousands of lives and displacing millions. In besieged 'Eastern Al Ghouta', incessant bombardment has turned the landscape into an eerie wasteland dotted with bombed-out buildings and piles of rubble. Going outside is a life-threatening proposition, but residential neighbourhoods are targeted as indiscriminately as markets, schools and other places. Hospitals, medical centres and ambulances are also fair game for the Assad government and it 'Russian' allies. Safety and hope lie underground, where a brave group of doctors and nurses have established a subterranean hospital called 'The Cave'. Under the leadership of a young female paediatrician, Dr. Amani Ballour, 'The Cave' offers hope and healing to the sick and injured children and civilians of 'Eastern Al Ghouta'. In a conservative patriarchal society that devalues women, Dr. Amani is frequently subject to hostility from men who refuse to see her as a capable physician. But Dr. Amani doesn’t back down, and inside 'The Cave', women have reclaimed their right to work as equals alongside their male counterparts. They risk their lives to save their patients and find ways to persevere in a world of cruelty, injustice and suffering. For Dr. Amani and her colleagues Samaher and Dr. Alaa, their battle is not only to survive but to maintain their dreams and hopes for their country and for women. This is a story about a female character battling stereotypes and taking active measures to change her environment. Dr. Amani inspires the women on her team to come and work with her at 'The Cave'. Throughout 'The Cave', we see Dr. Amani act on her convictions. In one scene, she gently draws a bashful little girl into conversation, planting a seed in her mind about what she could be when she grows up. Dr. Amani speaks with all the children who come to her clinic but allows that she paid special attention to little girls, for whom the future was still a far-off topic. In 'Syrian' society, women are expected to get married when they're teenagers. Most men and fathers tell girls; you’ll get married. You’ll go to your husband’s home. But at this stage of their lives, girls haven’t heard men talking about marriage yet. This is the time to tell them about their strength. It’s so important to encourage them. Within 'The Cave', Dr. Amani has the stalwart support of two doctors, Dr. Samaher and Dr. Alaa. They recognise her talents and encouraged her to stand for election to the position of hospital manage. No woman has ever held that position. Dr. Amani recognises the significant step her election would mean. She also knows it would be an enormously difficult, demanding and stressful job, and that she would encounter hostility from the men of her conservative community. It’s very, very hard to run a hospital in a besieged area where people are starving. Also figuring prominently in the film is Dr. Amani’s colleague, Samaher, an energetic nurse who delights in cooking for the staff and devises clever solutions to deal with the shortage of kitchen staples and ingredients. Although a previous bomb attack on 'The Cave' has left her memory- impaired, traumatised and fearful, she's reliably cheerful and very funny. Barfod notes that Samaher, like Dr. Amani, contributed something essential to the hospital and to the film. Amani is the leader and of course is extremely focused on the patients coming in. Whereas Samaher is like the mother of the crew, feeding all the workers. She has a great sense of humour. She's very emotional and very warm, and strong. She brings a lot of light to everything that's going on. Samaher is so fun and charismatic. She gives so much to everyone, but also she has opinions. She's suffering from trauma and you can feel how sensitive and alert she's to any sound, to any movement that happens around her. How does this woman continue to do this work?’ But this is her power, her strength, her courage. She fights her trauma to continue to do what she does until the last minute, without giving up. She can teach us so much about how you can deal with inhuman and dangerous conditions around you. That you should keep smiling, you should enjoy your life, you should cook. Some of the film’s most moving passages to be the periods of time that Dr. Amani and Dr. Alaa spent together. Both are about 30 years old and both have given up their studies to help the people of 'Eastern Al Ghouta'. Their friendship brings something important to the film. Amani and Alaa need each other and there’s a deep emotional connection between them. They've fears about how much the war and passage of time has affected them, and affected their beauty and their capacity for joy. When Amani and Alaa talk about things like putting on mascara, that’s how they remember that they're still women, and they will have lives after the war. It’s so simple yet so powerful. It's primarily through the eyes of his colleagues that we come to know Dr. Alaa, an even- tempered, quietly humorous woman who interacts easily with everybody in the hospital. She has championed Dr. Amani as leader and firmly yet diplomatically challenges men who see her as less than equal. Like Samaher, with whom she works closely, Dr. Alaa has a survival strategy that relies on a personal passion; classical music. Alaa is an amazing woman, very liberal and open-minded. Music is her way of creating happiness and it’s also heecway of resistance. All the stories come together in this woman, Dr. Amani, who's not just doing her duty as a doctor; shes challenging the stereotypes and prejudices that 'Syrian' society has about women. With Dr. Amani, Samaher and Alaa the audience feels the silence and how any sound can be scary. Sometimes you don’t hear the bomb but you hear the shaking, like you might hear in your house when a train is passing. "The Cave" ends with a sequence filmed in that same stretch of 'The Eastern Mediterranean', home to the sunken wreckage of previous wars, including 'World War II". Coming after crossing the sea will carry Amani to a safe place, but this route also holds painful memories of wars and natural disasters. The camera descends and then it rises towards the surface, towards air and light. Despite everything, there's space for hope and a better future, but it can be achieved only through justice. In 1990, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who used chemical weapons on Iraqi Kurds, had threatened a chemical strike against Israel. Everyone in Syria knew that if he did that, the chemicals would disperse over this county. In March 2011, the government of 'President' Bashar Al-Assad began a vicious crackdown on the country’s nascent pro-democracy movement. The subterranean floors of 'The Cave' were part of a six-story hospital construction that had been left unfinished and had stood empty since the start of 'The Syrian Rebellion'. When 'The Assad Government' began stepping up it's attacks on 'Al Ghouta' in 2012, surgeon Dr. Amami had the idea to open the underground portion of the building as a safe place to treat patients. Dr. Amani began working at 'The Cave' soon after it opened and was instrumental in building out the hospital’s underground levels. The area was divided into rooms, including a paediatric clinic, women’s clinic, operating room and recovery room, as well as a large central emergency receiving area. The regime detained not only protestors but anyone perceived to be even loosely aligned with their cause. One of the things that you heard all the time is the torture of women and children. And women would be tortured mostly because they're women. The regime is using women as tools of war, to intimidate and attack it's opponents. Then, in August 2013, 'The Assad Government' staged a chemical attack on the opposition stronghold of 'Al Ghouta', on the outskirts of Damascus. Warheads were dropped at 2:30 am, choking people as they slept. After the government laid siege to 'Al Ghouta' in 2013, 'The Cave' became one of the region’s last bastions of life-saving hope. By the beginning of 2018, the situation in 'Eastern Al Ghouta' had grown very dire. Assad and his Russian allies escalated their offensive to reclaim the territory in February 2018, with a campaign of relentless aerial and ground bombardment that included the use of chemical agents. "The Cave" captures the harrowing final days of the hospital, which was shut down by 'The Syrian Government' when it regained control of the region. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story 'The Artist Of The Beautiful', the watchmaker Owen creates a beautiful mechanical butterfly as a gift for his childhood friend, Annie, now a wife and mother. She's astonished as the creature flutters forth from a carved box, exclaiming, beautiful. When the creature alights on her finger, she turns to Owen and says, 'is it alive? Tell me if it be alive, or whether you created it'. Owen replies, 'wherefore ask who created it, so it be beautiful'? Later on, an imprudent boy cruelly destroys the insect. Hospitals are demolished. Medics as well as patients are killed. The systematic targeting of hospitals is used as revenge, intimidation and a method to create chaos and force citizens to flee. No international countermeasures are introduced to stop these barbaric and vengeful attacks. It becomes impossible for the health sector to exist on the surface, so hospitals are built underground. It's astonishing to witness the human ingenuity at work. These hospitals become the only hope for people to survive and receive treatment. And they provided a place where men and women could work together. In fact, these limited underground spaces might be the only places where women can work. "The Cave" witnesses how these female doctors and nurses are fighting to reclaim their rights in these subterranean hospitals. They stand up for themselves, which is something they couldn’t do aboveground in the patriarchal culture surrounding them. These women are truly an inspiration and with this film they will inspire the world as well, contributing to breaking the silence of the outside world. If the silence toward the brutality isn’t broken and if no measures are taken against war crimes, then there's a problem in man’s universal claim to possess the rights of freedom, law and justice. The current time in history is frightening because people are keener to glorify power. Like Hawthorne’s 'The Artist Of The Beautiful' this film helps us to look into the darkest corners of our souls and to inspire us to search for the light. An evocative, bird’s-eye view of women’s lives in a hellish warzone, "The Cave" is rooted in memory, moral convictions and life experience, stretching back to his childhood and into the humanitarian catastrophe of 'The Syrian War'. It's like something out of a Hollywood movie, where you see heroes running between the bodies and trying to save lives. "The Cave" brings the world’s attention to the cruelty of misogyny. The film captures the feelings of the characters through facial expressions and sound. The characters rarely venture aboveground, lest they risk being killed in one of the frequent airstrikes by Russian warplanes. Instead, they spend most of their lives in artificially lit rooms with their mobile phones as their primary connection to the outside world. By showing the range of daily experience, from the harrowing to the mundane, the audience can connect with the characters as individual beings in all their complexity. Of course, the bombings and terrible events that happen are powerful and important to capture. But the film also wants to shine a light on the small, quiet details of each day; things that at first glance may seem unimportant but that, when looked at with more care, are actually the things that make us human. That enable us to survive. The epic to evoke all the obstacles the characters face, the environment that surrounds them, the fear, what they face in daily life. And the simple to speak to the emotional elements of the film. The subterranean hospital is gone, but 'The Cave' exists as a record of the extraordinary haven that a brave group of doctors, women and men, built beneath the earth’s surface. In mythology and literature, the underground is where people suffer and kill. Don’t care about the society, about what people will say about you. You've to do what you love. Just believe in yourself. One day, things will change. Society will change.

● (Release Info London schedule; January 12th, 2020, Electric Cinéma, 191 Portobello Rd, Notting Hill, London W11 2ED, United Kingdom, 10:00) https://www.electriccinema.co.uk/film/bombshell/ ● (Release Info UK schedule; January 17th, 2020, Glasgow Film Theatre, 12 Rose St, Glasgow G3 6RB, United Kingdom, 14:45) ● (Release Info UK schedule; February 14th, 2020, Midlands Arts Centre, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, England, B12 9QH, 14:00) https://film.list.co.uk/listing/1472684-bombshell/ "Bombshell" Based on the real scandal, "Bombshell" is a revealing look inside the most powerful and controversial media empire of all time, 'Fox News', and the explosive story of the women who brought down the infamous man who created it. The fuse is boldly lit in the summer of 2016 by Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman), once the unswervingly perky co-host of influential 'Fox & Friends'. When the recently fired Carlson slapped 'Fox News' founder Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) with a lawsuit alleging sexual harassment, most expected Carlson to get crushed. After all, Ailes is the untouchable master of the media universe, ready to use his influence and resources to defeat any foe. Instead, what happened next reverberated around the world. Then Ailes plummets from a veritable kingmaker to resigning in disgrace from the network he helped to build. In just 16 wild days, Ailes takes one of the most dizzying falls from elite heights in corporate history. For even he could not survive the force of multiple women coming forward with their own stories, including superstar 'Fox News' correspondent Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron). But it's never just about the women at 'Fox'. What happened in those two weeks, as Gretchen Carlson, Megyn Kelly and the women of 'Fox' rang the alarm bells of cultural change, becomes a harbinger of a defining moment of our era. Just over a year later, in October 2017, 'The New York Times' reports multiple accusations against entertainment titan Harvey Weinstein (Matt Laydon), a story that would then combust, growing the small, pre-existing 'MeToo' movement into a massive global phenomenon. By then, it's clear the corporate codes of silence are being detonated across every industry. While cognizant of our divided world, the film never lets politics overshadow what the story is really about. In the summer of 2016, the star rising at the speed of light at 'Fox News' is Megyn Kelly, host of the highly rated nightly news show 'The Kelly File'. Fiery, confrontational, charismatic and unabashedly opinionated no matter the backlash, the former prosecutor is becoming a rare mainstream breakout. Even in the wake of controversies, Kelly attains cultural heroine status after she confronted then, candidate Donald Trump about his treatment of women during 'The Republican' debates. When it comes to Roger Ailes, Kelly has successfully rebuffed his advances. Yet when Gretchen Carlson’s lawsuit against Ailes kicked off an internal investigation, it's clear that Kelly has a choice to make. She choses not to duck, and not to defend her boss, but to go public about her harassment experiences with Ailes. Kelly is a linchpin, the one person who can most draw the spotlight, even if she might get caught in the glare. Kelly could have kept quiet and prospered but dared to come forward. She's the superstar at 'Fox' in the process of renegotiating her contract. She has everything going for her. It's very complicated for her, which is something we don’t talk enough about, that women’s choices in these circumstances are never easy; they’re complicated and personal. She's incredibly conflicted about how much she liked Roger Ailes, even though he's abusive to her. We've to start talking about the truth of what predators look like, and that there can be a level of real seduction. Women feel a lot of shame to admit they sometimes liked their abuser even though they just wanted the abuse to stop. Megyn is an important part of what has become an important moment in history. That doesn’t cancel out everything else she has said or done, or how we feel about those things. Megyn Kelly is the film’s narrative center. She's our Dante, who takes us deep into this world. Gretchen is the moral center in that she frames the issue and makes the most heroic choice. And Kayla Pospisil (Margot Robbie) is the emotional center of our story, someone we identify with as she experiences harassment. Kayla’s is the story we least often hear, the story of the woman who gives in to a harasser, and what that means to her life. It's all about that tilt up and reveal that Kayla is just as horrified by this moment as you're. In that moment, Kayla reveals all the horror, the humiliation and off balanced confusion. It’s one of the most powerful moments in the film. Kelly ultimately comes to terms with the need to bring this story to the forefront in spite of those concerns saying, When you can see the power of a message even through the eyes of someone you don’t agree with, even someone who might anger you at times, that tells you there's something very real and very important there. The film explores Kelly’s internal drives and contradiction. Gretchen Carlson is a Minnesota-born, former 'Miss America', who shocked the world by suddenly daring to confront Roger Ailes and take a bold stand for women. It's hard for Gretchen to be alone at first, wondering if others would also come forward against Ailes. It really leans into Gretchen’s beauty-pageant-winner need for approval, mixed in with her 'Midwestern' confidence. Her character is constantly self-motivating, she’s convinced you just have keep pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. With Megyn and Kayla, you get a more visceral feeling of the abuse that went on, but Gretchen’s story is more about what she’s up against in trying to make a change. A fresh-faced young weathergirl from Florida, Kayla is a hyper-enthusiastic newcomer to the cut-throat news business, prepared to do whatever it takes to emulate her idols Gretchen Carlson and Megyn Kelly, as she climbs up the 'Fox News' totem pole. But when Roger Ailes takes an interest in boosting her career, Kayla faces pressure she did not know was coming. There are a lot of different layers to Kayla and her reasons for being at 'Fox' are really moving because her main hope is to give a voice to people like her, people who she feels haven’t been represented in the culture. She captures that wide-eyed enthusiasm and core naivete of the character, which gets shaken as Kayla starts to make darker and darker choices. Her character goes from the heights of youthful ambition to a dark night of the soul. Roger Ailes is a man famously possessed of both a volcanic fury and a supremely personable charm. The character is so full of contrasts. He's a man loved for his generosity, but who also installed closed-circuit cameras to spy on his employees. He's known for giving undiscovered talent a chance, but also for taking control of the length of their skirts. He's revered by some as a brilliant strategist and reviled by others for unravelling TV news into partisan echo chambers. If you crossed him, Ailes could be the most ruthless enemy. He's not a showman. He's a kind of ringmaster behind-the-scenes, but he didn’t like to be seen. On the other hand, if he likes you a lot it could be equally perilous. Roger feels very proud of what he’d done for women. He thinks he said on women’s side. He says that in all sincerity in the movie. But he's also a man in the grips of his own compulsions, which you see in the scene with Kayla. By his final days at 'Fox', Ailes is a divided soul. Doug Brunt (Mark Duplass) is Megyn Kelly’s husband. Megyn and Doug are definitely a non-conventional conservative couple, where the gender roles are a bit reversed, with Doug the supportive spouse just trying to be there. Another vital family portrait is that of Ailes’s wife, newspaper publisher Beth Ailes (Connie Britton), who comes vociferously to his defense. Yet paradoxically, Jess Carr (Kate McKinnon) thrives at 'Fox'. She has this job she’s great at, but she just has to watch herself and stay under the radar with those two facts about herself. When Kayla arrives, Jess sort of takes her under her wing and gives her the lay of the land at 'Fox' in general as she sees it. They develop a friendship that's really based on humor, which is so refreshing. Gil Norman (Rob Delaney) is Kelly’s increasingly anxious fictional executive producer. A self-professed news junkie, Gil could not resist the chance to drop into the behind-the-scenes at 'Fox News'. The most exciting part is the morally gray element of his character. One the one hand, he's absolutely trying to protect himself and his own career interests, but he also sees what's happening, and he knows it will come at a cost. Julia Clarke (Brigette Lundy-Paine) is Kelly’s fictional researcher. Young, neurotic, and new to the news scene, that’s how we can describe her character. She’s way over her head when all of this goes down. Working for Megyn is her a dream job, and she’s immediately tossed into this insane election. So, it comes as a total shock to her character, just as it did to the nation, that Megyn is one of the attempted victims of Ailes. Rounding out Kelly’s team is her fictional assistant and confidante, Lily Balin (Liv Hewson). Her character tries to underpin the things being said about Megyn with humor as much as possible. She often makes flippant quips, but really she's trying make it seem like it’s all fine. Long before Gretchen Carlson brings her suit against Ailes, another 'Fox' employee served as a warning sign as to how hard the company would fight against allegations. In 2007, news correspondent Rudi Bakhtiar (Nazanin Boniadi) lodged a complaint of sexual harassment against 'Fox News'. DC bureau chief, Brian Wilson (John Hartmann) Bakhtiar was promptly fired by 'Fox' and, pursuant to a settlement agreement, was prohibited from talking about what happened to her to anyone, a promise she kept until the 2016 scandal broke. As the accusations against Ailes brakes into the evening news, one person watching them closely is an even more powerful force than Ailes himself, the scrappy Australian media tycoon Rupert Murdoch (Malcolm McDowell), the veritable king of the 'Fox' realm. Having inherited his father’s newspaper business, Murdoch turned 'News Corporation' into a vast empire of social and political influence, sparking a worldwide wave of right-wing populism. It's Murdoch who takes a chance on Ailes after he left 'NBC', and is handsomely rewarded as Ailes helped to build 'Fox News' into the number one cable news channel in America. But in the film, Murdoch is faced with the stark reality that Ailes is suddenly becoming a liability. By the time Ailes is being openly accused, Murdoch clearly knows that Roger has to go, that there's no way he could talk his way out of this one and that they've to show they're not going to put up with any more shenanigans. While 'Fox' stars and executives are the public face of the 2016 scandal, there's also a large role for 'Fox’s' large legal team. Susan Estrich (Allison Janney) is Ailes personal attorney's. Susan’s complicated because she's a feminist, a rape survivor, an author of books about sexual assault, and she’s on the side of women’s rights. Yet she makes the choice to represent Ailes. She not only is repaying a debt, but she’s also a really smart, tough woman, and if someone tells her no, she’s going to say, oh yeah? Watch me! Whether you work at a 'Walmart' or are an accountant, these dynamics are at play anywhere there’s power and lack of power. It’s not a film that’s preachy, but it’s about something hugely consequential. It mirrors the chaotic, often clashing, mix of personal motives and decisions that are the least-talked-about part of social change. Each of the main characters starts in a different place from the others and wrestles very personally with the perils of speaking out. The characters are going through crucial dilemmas. "Bombshell" drops audiences right into the chaotic center of a 24/7 cable news network, with all the energy, speed and crazy-making tension of the real thing. Most of the film takes place in what could be visually conventional, confining, interior spaces. A big part of the film's style is getting in close with characters and letting the camera react directly to the action rather than vice versa. As a way of introducing the 'Fox News' offices, Kelly leads an on-camera tour through the building, speaking directly to the camera. It becomes a great way of introducing the building, the place and the character. One of the favorite sets is the famed 'Fox News' basement, the nexus of the operation. In stark contrast to the warren-like frenzy of the basement is 'The 17th' floor, where Megyn Kelly and all the powerhouse anchors have their lavish offices bespeaking their top-of-the-food-chain position. Lining the walls of the executive offices is artwork by Georgia-based artist Steve Penley, whose presidential portraits and politically themed landscapes have become decorative must-haves for many GOP leaders. From there, each individual character’s persona led that way. 'The 2nd' floor is the realm of Ailes himself, shared with the network’s legal and 'PR' offices. Finally, all roads at 'Fox' begin and end on 'The 8th' floor, where 'The Murdochs' hold sway. 'The 8th' floor is command central. Stylistically, it’s very elegant, full of glass and light. Gretchen Carlson changes her look after leaving 'Fox'. Her look softens from her very recognizable on-air persona and takes on a more approachable feeling. She’s very vulnerable in this period of time, so the film uses a lot of soft tones for Gretchen. Gretchen has that very stylized 'Fox' look, with lots and lots and lots of hair. But when Megyn becomes the star anchor, she takes more risks. Megyn Kelly is a little bit more casual outside the office, but still very chic, because in every photograph of Megyn we see, she’s always pulled together. Kayla is someone who decides to come to the table and play the game, but that game kind of breaks her. So, the film takes her from softer, purer, 'Southern' kinds of colors, into a more brittle, cosmopolitan style. Based on the real scandal, "Bombshell" tells the explosive story of the women who brought down the man who helped create the most powerful and controversial media empire of all time, 'Fox News'. But at heart of the film is also an exhilarating portrait of how courage is forged in the moment, as three very different women resolve to fight back against unchecked power and abuse. No one sees it coming. Not a soul could have predicted that one of the first strikes in the catalytic movement to overturn the long history of workplace harassment would come from inside the least likely place; at the core of deeply conservative, profoundly loyalist 'Fox News'. Yet, as the world would soon come to see, this is not an issue of right, left or center, but of righting a legacy of wrongs. The film turns another slippery, challenging but absolutely watershed moment of our times into an intense and incisive human drama. Likewise, though set in the belly of partisan TV, the story isn't about politics. Instead, it insisted on being about something deeper; how very different kinds of people can choose to stand up against powers that seem greater than themselves. It's the story of the very first major sexual harassment case in 'The U.S.' But the story of how the 'Fox News' women takes down their seemingly invincible boss went even further. It shows how three hugely competitive women ultimately upended the attempt to pit them against one another and instead turned against the power structure itself. This is a story about people’s rights being violated, and that’s not partisan. The bottom line is that we should all be free to be ambitious, to pursue the things we believe in and to do our jobs in a safe environment. You can have a healthy debate about the right way to go about the news business. But no one should ever be in a position where you feel that your ultimate goals will be taken away from you if you speak the truth about someone in power. The film finds a way to glean something more morally complex than what you saw in the news, something funnier at times and also sadder at times. "Bombshell" demands a stylistic approach that might break down walls and perceptions, that might invite audiences to engage with life inside the 'Fox News' world in ways they maybe never anticipated, regardless of how where they came down on the network’s slant on the news. We're thinking about the fact that a lot of women are in this situation right now where if they step up, they don’t know if anyone will support them. There’s still so much to be talked about, and this film is just part of the conversation. But you never know, this story shows, sometimes it only takes one person speaking out to start something. It's an exhausting process of constantly trying to deflect, or develop entire personal strategies for handling day-to-day adversities when you’re in an abusive situation. Yes, the story takes place in the heightened pressure cooker of a newsroom, and reverberated with reflections on the whole idea of public image and media power, but it takes aim at a bigger phenomenon.

(Release Info London schedule; February 28th, 2020, Prince Charles Cinema, 7 Leicester Pl, London WC2H 7BY, United Kingdom, 3.25pm ● 8.45pm) https://princecharlescinema.com/PrinceCharlesCinema.dll/WhatsOn?f=15887572 "Color Out Of Space" After a meteorite lands in the front yard of their farmstead, Nathan Gardner (Nicolas Cage) and his family find themselves battling a mutant extraterrestrial organism as it infects their minds and bodies, transforming their quiet rural life into a technicolor nightmare. "Color Out Of Space" is a cosmic nightmare about Nathan Gardner and his family, whose recent retreat to rural life is quickly disrupted by a meteorite that crashes in their front yard. 'The Gardners' peaceful escape quickly becomes a hallucinatory prison, as an extraterrestrial organism contaminates the farmstead, infecting everything and everyone it can. 'The Gardners' are a family who moves to a remote farmstead in rural 'New England' to escape the hustle of 'The 21st Century'. They're busy adapting to their new life when a meteorite crashes into their front yard. The mysterious aerolite seems to melt into the earth, infecting both the land and the properties of space-time with a strange, otherworldly color. A meteorite crashes near 'The Gardners’ Farm', releasing an alien organism that will turn the family’s quiet rural life into a colorful and hallucinogenic nightmare. Nathan, Theresa (Joely Richardson), and their three children Lavina (Madeleine Arthur), Jack (Julian Hillard) and Benny (Brendan Meyer) start to notice strange occurrences after one night when an earth-shaking event deposits a strange object in their front yard. The mysterious aerolite seems to melt into the earth, infecting both the land and the properties of space-time. The object soon sinks into the earth and that's when the incidences escalate, animals and people acting very oddly. Soon, the place is overrun by the shadows. Mutant forms of technicolor flora start sprouting, while local animals begin to display bizarre deformities. Death stalks the town, madness reigns, and it starts to look like the rest of the world might follow. To their horror, 'The Gardner Family' discover that this alien force is gradually mutating every life form that it touches; including them. Soon, 'The Gardners' realize that they too are susceptible to the extraterrestrial pathogen, and must escape the contagious cloud that has consumed their farm. With the help of friendly hydrologist Ward Phillips (Elliot Knight) and eccentric neighbor Ezra (Tommy Chong), the family attempts to battle a nebulous entity that they can barely begin to understand. What chance can a few humans have against a force capable of traversing the gulf between worlds, a nightmarish being that exists beyond the limits of the human spectrum? The rural tales are queer. They might be even queerer if city men and college chemists could be interested enough to analyze the water from that disused well, or the grey dust that no wind seems to disperse. Botanists, too, ought to study the stunted flora on the borders of that spot, for they might shed light on the country notion that the blight is spreading, little by little, perhaps an inch a year. The color of the neighboring herbage is not quite right in the spring, and that wild things leave queer prints in the light winter snow. Snow never seems quite so heavy on the blasted heath as it's elsewhere. Horses grow skittish in the silent valley; and hunters cannot depend on their dogs too near the splotch of grayish dust. The mental influences are very bad, too; numbers went queer in the years after Nathan’s taking, and always they lacked the power to get away. Then the stronger; minded folk all left the region, and only the foreigners tried to live in the crumbling old homesteads. They could not stay, though; and one sometimes wonders what insight beyond ours their wild, weird stories of whispered magic have given them. Their dreams at night, they protest, are very horrible in that grotesque country; and surely the very look of the dark realm is enough to stir a morbid fancy. What it's, only God knows. In terms of matter we suppose the thing Nathan describes would be called a gas, but this gas obeyed the laws that are not of our cosmos. This is no fruit of such worlds and suns as shine on the telescopes and photographic plates of our observatories. This is no breath from the skies whose motions and dimensions our astronomers measure or deem too vast to measure. It's just a color out of space; a frightful messenger from unformed realms of infinity beyond all 'Nature' as we know it; from realms whose mere existence stuns the brain and numbs us with the black extra; cosmic gulfs it throws open before our frenzied eyes. But whatever demon hatchling is there, it must be tethered to something or else it would quickly spread. It fastenes to the roots of those trees that claw the air? One of the current Arkham tales is about fat oaks that shine and move as they ought not to do at night. H.P. Lovecraft's short story, 'The Colour Out Of Space', was published in 'Amazing Stories' in September 1927, making it a 'Public Domain' work in Europe. 'The Colour Out of Space' is a first-person narrative written from the perspective of an unnamed surveyor from Boston. In order to prepare for the construction of a new reservoir in Massachusetts, he surveys a rural area that's to be flooded near Lovecraft's fictional town of Arkham. He comes across a mysterious patch of land, an abandoned 5-acre (20,000 m2) farmstead, which is completely devoid of all life. At the centre of the farmstead is an old well. The site fills him with an unnatural sense of dread, and he hurries past it. In the early 1880s, the farm had been productive, run by a Nahum Gardner and his family. Then, one afternoon in June 1882, a large meteorite crashed into the farm, beside the well. It was metallic and contained a substance of an indescribable color that proved toxic. While scientists were never able to tell what or who the meteor contained, it's effects were undeniable; the entire Gardner family was struck by insanity, illness, and worse, whilst the land around them was slowly drained of life. "Color Out Of Space" follows the disastrous fall out in Arkham after it's struck by a meteorite. One of H.P. Lovecraft’s most emblematic stories now comes to the big screen It's a genuine lineup of fantastic visionaries. That’s a sure-fire recipe for cinematic delight. But what does a colour fallen from the sky look like? How will the monstrous creatures inhabiting the 'Blasted Heath' look? And what about the famous 'Lovecraftian' terror that defies description? It's a ominous and colorful world in which the characters live. The film brings the classic sci-fi story to life with the traditional alien aspects while also bringing it up to date with modern technology. Although numerous H.P. Lovecraft adaptations have been done over the years, it’s easily argued that many of these adaptations have done a disservice to the legacy and memory of the late Lovecraft’s works. Although H.P. Lovecraft has been adapted both directly and indirectly over the years, rarely has there been a faithful adaptation that truly captures the cosmic dread that he was known for. Many of "Color Out Of Space" predecessors fall into the horror comedy genre, something Lovecraft purists decry is in direct opposition to the complete and utter lack of levity in his work. There’s nothing funny about Lovecraft. He believes that 'The Holy Grail' was a black stone 'Aerolite' that was the fragment of a meteorite that had slammed into earth many, many, years ago which had potentially been the basis of a number of religions. If you rubb them together, you can see how they bled when friction is created between the two stones. It seems like magic, but the film believes that these are merely alien metals that secreted some sort of high-density substance in the iron family. It's a film about a meteorite slamming into a family farm on planet 'Earth' that brings an almost spiritual; like change, for the worse, in this case, to the humans and all life forms that it comes into contact with. 'The Holy Grail' itself may have been a meteorite that changed humanity in so far as it led to the birth of many organized religions that survive to this day. In this moment, the film makes reality appear just as magical as H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction.

(Release Info London schedule; March 13th, 2020, ArtHouse Crouch End, 159A Tottenham Ln, Crouch End, London N8 9BT, United Kingdom, 6:20pm) https://film.list.co.uk/listing/1384260-and-then-we-danced/ "And Then We Danced" A passionate coming-of age tale set amidst the conservative confines of modern Tbilisi, "And Then We Danced" follows Merab (Levan Gelbakhiami), a competitive dancer who's thrown off balance by the arrival of Irakli. (Bachi Valishvili), a fellow male dancer with a rebellious streak. A passionate tale of love and liberation set amidst the conservative confines of modern 'Georgian' society, "And Then We Danced" follows Merab, a devoted dancer who has been training for years with his partner Mary (Ana Javakishvili) for a spot in 'The National Georgian Ensemble'. His world is suddenly turned upside down when the charismatic and carefree Irakli arrives and becomes both his strongest rival and desire. The arrival of Irakli, gifted with perfect form and equipped with a rebellious streak, throws Merab off balance, sparking both an intense rivalry and romantic desire that may cause him to risk his future in dance as well as his relationships with Mary and his family. In this conservative setting Merab finds himself having to break free and risk it all. In Georgia there are three things that are upheld as the paragon of 'Georgian Tradition' and 'National Identity'; 'The Church', 'The Traditional Polyphonic Singing', and 'The Traditional National Dance'. This film is about the traditional 'Georgian' dance culture. It has a very large role. The lead person we follow in the film is a dancer and we imagine being him in an alternate reality. It's a story of how gender conservative and strict 'The Georgian Dance' scene is. 'The Georgian Dance' represents the old and the burgeoning love between two of the dancers represent the new. Homosexualiy is a big problem in 'Georgian' dance. The real lives of the people in the film and what’s going on in Georgia now affects the story. It's ever evolving. Telling the story of young 'LGBT' people and their struggles on a smaller scale but also showing the history and situation of Georgia today on a larger scale. All children in Georgia go to dance classes from a very young age, just like perhaps 'Karate' plays a large part in 'Japanese' culture. The inclusion of 'Georgian' dance in the film comes from the interviews with Georgian's dancers. That dance plays a great part in 'Georgian' history and culture. To juxtapose the traditional with the new 'Georgian' dance is an obvious choice for the film. This film is not only a very interesting look into a part of the world not so many people are familiar with but also a heartfelt movie about the importance of being free. Love stories in their different forms can catch us off guard. The world of the traditional dance as a micromodel of society. When we witnessed some brave kids trying to have a pride parade in Tbilisi, Georgia in 2013 be attacked by a mob of thousands organized by 'The Orthodox Church', we've to address this issue in some way. Everything is based on real stories. The young generation now is like any kid anywhere in the world, everything is globalized and they grow up with the same pop culture. However, in Georgia there's a great divide between this generation and the older generation who lived during 'The USSR'. The circumstance that Georgia and other former 'USSR' countries are in at the moment is very fragile. All of these countries are unique, of course, and in Georgia’s case the strong ancient traditional values play a large part in the current situation. Western values are considered a threat to 'The Old Georgian' ways. And for a country that has been conquered over and over again throughout the centuries, keeping their cultural identity becomes a matter of survival. 'The Georgian' language, their ancient alphabet, wine culture and food culture etc. are extremely important for them. We've a differences of opinions and flaring tempers is the norm. Confines of tradition and forbidden love. People are getting more tolerant towards the questions of gender and sexualities worldwide. In many ways it seems as if we're going backwards in many 'European' countries. It seems the polar opposite sides are becoming more severe regarding these types of questions everywhere in the world. The film shows that even though you open up and move into a different direction you can still own and keep your traditions. "And Then We Danced" tracks the intensity of desire brilliantly through the leaps and whirls of the dance steps. The fluidity and sensuality of the film is quite impressive. In a world in which the golden rule is submission, 'The Georgian' dance cannot be or express anything else but virility. And what happens when a teenager’s first crush meets beliefs that deny him the right to happiness? A disconcerting romance set against a wave of conservatism in Georgia that preaches tolerance to difference.

"I only know one truth, it's time for the Jedi to end". Here’s my review of ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’. Before I go any further with this review, I’d like to say that I don’t agree with all the fans who are stating that this entry in the Star Wars franchise is ‘too different’. You have to remember that these are the same people who criticised ‘The Force Awakens’ for being ‘too similar’ to other entries, so you just can’t win. As I mentioned in a previous status, I left the cinema with incredibly mixed feelings about ‘The Last Jedi’ so I’m going to start with what I did like about the film and what did work for me, and then I will move on to the negatives. Firstly, I felt the overall acting in this movie was superb. The themes of brokenness and uncertainty are very much highlighted in this movie and a large number of the characters experience these. Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker is great in this movie and without giving anything away, you can absolutely see on his face how broken and done he is in general, based on some key events which happened in the past and his character is very deeply troubled in this movie which creates a real sense of intrigue. Likewise, Carrie Fisher also shines in her final performance as the favourite, Leia Organa. Her warmth and extremely capable ability to lead shine through and Carrie’s presence on screen is as always very powerful. For me personally though, the standout actor of this movie for me was Adam Driver as Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren is by far one of my favourite characters in the Star Wars Universe, because there are so many different sides to his character which constantly keeps you guessing as to his outcome and his overall story arc is very well structured. In this instalment particularly, Kylo is very much torn between living up to Darth Vadar’s legacy and sticking with the dark side and veering towards the light, when influenced by certain characters. As mentioned above with the case of Luke Skywalker, Kylo is very troubled in this instalment and is tormented by his instability. As is the case with all Star Wars movies, this instalment is certainly exciting for the most part so you definitely can’t take that away from it. When the action gets going, it really does get going and we as the audience are treated to some spectacular dogfights and some epic lightsaber clashes. So now on to the aspects of this movie which just didn’t sit well with me. My main issue with this movie and I’m sure I’m not alone here, is that there are far too many unsatisfying and frankly shameful moments in certain characters’ storylines which again I can’t go into in much detail, but what I’m getting at here is that things which have been built up to us as the audience for quite some time now, amount to absolutely nothing which really just doesnt make any sense when you put them into context and leaves you feeling very let down. I also wasn’t a fan at all of how certain conclusions are reached in this movie. One in particular comes across as very lazy writing and quite annoyed me. Additionally to this, there are still too many unanswered questions which really should have been addressed in this movie and not enough content is tied together to give us the information we deserve. This again feels like a bit of a slap in the face to fans, particularly because as mentioned above, these questions which we have are ones which have been teased constantly. Another issue with this movie for me personally, is the humour. So there are some scenes which raised a very slight chuckle from the audience but overall, the humour just didn’t hit home for me at all. I get that Disney has taken over the Star Wars franchise and so we should expect to see some absurdities from these final films in the saga but when one of the key characters starts actually milking an alien, it’s just ludicrous and doesn’t fit into the movie at all. Again I can’t explain this in as much detail as I might like to, but there are also several scenes in this movie which once concluded, feel incredibly pointless and again, amount to nothing. So overall, yes there are things to be found in ‘The Last Jedi’ which are enjoyable and exciting, but there are also far too many issues which are too apparent to make this entry reach the bar which the other movies have set in the saga. 6.5/10

One thing I dread about films....the trailer being better than the film. Sadly, this to me was one of those films. Especially as parts of the trailer weren't in the film. It had a good start and the potential was there to be a good comedy. The acting was great and the basis of the story was strong and made you think....would I? Then when things changed (not to give spoilers) it got a little heavy. It took a turn for the eco warrier views which although good and did make you think, it felt a bit preachy and as though the film had totally changed writers and gone from one genre to another. Is worth a watch but by the end you think....is that it? Will leave you to make your own mind uo on this on though

(Release Info London schedule; January 28th, 2018, Everyman, Baker Street, 17:00) (Release Info U.K. schedule; February 14th, 2018) "The Shape Of Water" From Guillermo del Toro, comes "The Shape Of Water" an other-worldly fairy tale, set against the backdrop of 'Cold War' era America circa 1962. In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is trapped in a life of isolation. Elisa’s life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) discover a secret classified experiment. The journey of Elisa from loneliness and powerlessness to a heroine who takes huge risks forms the beating heart of the film, makes all the more extraordinary because the role is almost without words. Rendered mute by a childhood trauma, Elisa communicates in 'American Sign Language', but she's able to express herself effusively when she encounters the strange aquatic creature (Doug Jones) being warehoused in the government where she works as a cleaning lady. Where it’s about unadulterated expression and words are not needed, and you've the freedom to express so much through your eyes, breath and body. Elisa is not someone who has a horrible existence until the creature showed up. She's not leading a glamorous existence by any means but she's content. Part of that authenticity meant digging into why she would risk so much for a creature whose past is inaccessible to her, whose very experience of life is a mystery, and digging into the valor that love unleashes in her. As soon as she senses their connection, not trying to help the creature would be a kind death for her. It just seizes her by the heart and there’s really nothing else she can do. She just knows she has to save the day. It can overtake you when you’re in that frame of mind. Elisa goes further than she could have envisioned. She becomes somebody she didn't know she was, and sees all that she's capable of. The remaking of Elisa’s world starts when she first spies the creature in his transport chamber, and immediately realizes there is something very much alive within. Few details are known of the creature, only than that he is likely the last of his kind; that local people in the Amazon worshipped him; that he carries a marvelous lung structure allowing him to breathe on land, a potential boon for 'The Space Race'; that 'The Soviet Military' wants to possess him too; and that, unsettled by his intelligence and physical oddity, the man who captured him believes the creature to be a grave danger to humanity. But Elisa sees none of that when she sets eyes on the iridescent beauty in chains; to her, he's sheer loneliness and that makes him instantly worthy of her attention. The creature exists on the border between human, animal and myth. He’s very, very alone because he’s the last of his species. He’s also never been outside his river so he doesn’t understand where he's or why. He’s being tested and biopsied all because the government thinks, we're going to use this thing to our advantage somehow. But there's much more to the creature than the government can see. Even though he’s this freak of nature, he has an angelic kind of quality. He comes into people’s lives and he seems to expose and amplify whatever is going on inside a human being. As he seeps into Elisa’s life, emotions unspool for both of them. Their communication is by necessity beyond words, entirely based on vision and feeling. Both characters are out of their element in the larger world but when they’re together that disappears. The man who hunted the amphibious creature deep across the Amazon with relentless determination is Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), a steel-jawed, righteous, ambitious government agent who views his unusual quarry as nothing more than a ferocious beast to be manhandled into submission, and a ticket to his promotion. Strickland is a guy caught up in the whole mindset of the military-industrial complex, and he's trying to rise up in the hierarchy. The paranoia of 'The Cold War' has become part of him. Strickland is a very sad character. He's a guy who started with full belief in his country and in doing the right thing. Then he realizes how little it takes for people to dislike and abandon him. This part is autobiographical because the movie business is exactly like that. Strickland wants to be strong, invulnerable and devoid of mistakes, with that American gung-ho drive, but he's also broken down by all that. The tough shell he maintains takes a lot of energy and behind it lies anxiety, doubt, stress and fear, which is ultimately revealed throughout the course of the movie. The stress Strickland feels finds a threatening catharsis in his leering advances towards Elisa, who he otherwise views as his low-status lackey. Strickland is attracted to Elisa because of her vulnerability, and because she can’t talk, but also because she’s the exact opposite of him. In an alternate reality, maybe Strickland wishes he could be more like her than he's like himself. He’s like this pressure cooker that explodes, but Elisa always holds her ground with him and that felt so empowering. For the creature, Strickland is an existential threat. Strickland sees the creature as a freak. He’s sort of the quintessential bully, the guy who sees something he’s ignorant about and wants to push it around. Strickland has seen to the creature’s capture and he’s hoping that will translate into big things. The creature gives him a sense of accomplishment. But he also uses him to vent all his most pent-up, poisonous feelings. Before Elisa meets the creature, her loneliness is kept at bay by her neighbor and dearest friend in the world, Giles (Richard Jenkins), an equally lonely, down-on-his-luck ad-man and avid movie musical lover. With Giles frustrated by an art career seemingly going nowhere, his great escape lies in 'The Golden Age' of movie musicals, an age that was fading by 1962 but the remnants of which Giles hunts for regularly on his TV, with Elisa in tow. Giles loves the idea of a perfect fantasy world. He doesn’t really paint as an artist anymore and now he’s painting just to try to make ends meet, so musicals are where he lives. That’s why Elisa’s journey becomes a journey of salvation for him as well. Indeed, when Giles encounters the creature, the creative fire that had gone out in him reignites. The creature has an effect on everyone that he comes into contact with. With Giles, there's a sparking of his love of art because of course he wants to paint this remarkable, mysterious being. The only other person to whom Elisa confides is her co-worker Zelda, a veteran cleaning lady at the lab who has come to not only comprehend Elisa but to gossip, share and unite with her. Zelda is very opinionated and does not have a problem expressing herself. Zelda is kind of the muscle at least in their world of the cleaning crew. There's also a symbiosis that occurs between Zelda and Elisa, with each bringing a strong suit the other needs. Each of the film’s characters, no matter their place in society, is grappling with love in different circumstances. There’s a pure love between Elisa and the creature, but government agent Strickland is also trying to love, though we experience that his love is brutal, and Elisa’s neighbor Giles is looking for a love frowned upon in that time, and Elisa’s best friend Zelda is in love with a man who does not deserve her love. Even 'The General' (Nick Searcy) overseeing the laboratory has a kind of father/son love story with Strickland. Mixing many genres from lush musicals to suspenseful noir, "The Shape of Water", particularly revisits and reinvigorates the enduring allure of the monster movie playing upon our most primal emotions of fear, abandonment and danger but also curiosity, awe and desire. There's something evocative and deeply, strangely relatable about monsters. They're persecuted by pitchfork-bearing crowds because they're different and forced to skulk alone on the edges of society in remote castles, woods or rivers. All were trapped in a transitional state, part human, part other, which anyone who has felt ostracized can identify with. Perhaps most intriguingly, they're sensual beings, powerless to the unending needs of their bodies and minds. Of all the iconic monsters, the most heartbreaking of all was the piscine amphibious humanoid from "Creature From The Black Lagoon" (1954), directed by Jack Arnold. At once dangerous and forlorn, reviled and yearning, the Creature touched audiences even as it scared them. For the story’s time period, the film purposely choses an American era in which epic fears held sway; 1962, as anxiety over nuclear war with "The Soviet Union" was peaking, and just before the idealistic, future-focused Camelot of President Kennedy gave way to disillusion, mounting paranoia and social upheaval. This is a time when America stopped, it’s a time of racism, of inequality, of people thinking about the brink of nuclear war. In a few months, Kennedy will be assassinated. The futuristic impulses of 60s America play off the primordial creature, where something past comes again as if out of the future. 1962 is a time when everybody was focused on the future, while the creature is an ancient form of the deep past. People are obsessed with what’s new, with ad jingles, the moon, modern clothes, TV. And in the meantime here's this ancient force, a creature in love, who comes among them. In a secret government laboratory at the height of "The Cold War", a visually dazzling, emotionally daring feat of the imagination erupts. The film casts an other-worldly spell, merging the pathos and thrills of the classic monster movie tradition with shadowy film noir, then stirring in the heat of a love story like no other to explore the fantasies we all flirt with, the mysteries we can’t control and the monstrosities we must confront. From there the entire film becomes an act of breathless submersion, plunging the audience into a 1960s world full of things we recognize power, anger, intolerance; as well as loneliness, determination and sudden, electrifying connections; and one extraordinary creature we do not. An inexplicable biological asse of the U.S. government, a mute cleaning woman, her loving best friends, Soviet spies and an audacious theft all flow into a singular romance that surges beyond all boundaries. This mystery-shrouded amphibious being has not only been hauled up from the dark, watery depths, but seems to have the fundamental adaptive qualities of water–taking on the psychic contours of every human he encounters, reflecting back both aggression and fathomless love. The themes of good and evil, innocence and menace, the historical and the eternal, beauty and monstrosity weave in and out of each other, revealing that no darkness can ever fully defeat the light. The film weaves in the dizzying landscape of falling in love, as a lonely woman with a traumatic past discovers a love so overpowering it defies suspicion, fear and biology. A beautiful, elegant story about hope and redemption as an antidote to the cynicism of our times. This story is a fairytale in that you've a humble human being who stumbles into something grander and more transcendental than anything else in her life. The fact that the film’s two leads don’t speak, not conventionally anyway, only heightens the love story by stripping away the miscommunications that often stand between humans. Water takes the shape of whatever is holding it at the time and although water can be so gentle, it's also the most powerful and malleable force in the universe. That's also love, isn't it?  It doesn’t matter what shape we put love into, it becomes that, whether it’s man, woman or creature. The film creates a blend of historically authentic 'Cold War America' with the patina of a timeless legend. Like the fluidity of the camera, the design features curves and serpentines set against a world where hard lines can be drawn in men’s minds. The laboratory, where the creature is housed in a secured, indoor pool, establishes the mood with it's blending of emerging high tech with a timeless hall of horrors. The film is monochromatic, so most of the palette is blues and greens with amber as a counter-balance. Red only comes in as the color of blood and love. The light is very expressionistic and full of shadows and feels very classic. Lighting is especially vital when shooting the creature. He’s not really a terrifying character, but he's fascinating and the camera is fascinated with him. In terms of the cinematography he has to be lit very, very carefully, because of course as an audience member you want to see every part of him, but we also want to keep him a bit mysterious. "The Shape of Water" is a vivid phantasmagoria navigating the moral and physical dangers of a world of corruption, authoritarianism and war. His supernatural action epics are equally as inventive.