Showtimes London Fri 17 Sep 2021, Prince Charles Cinema, 7 Leicester Place, LONDON WC2H 7BY, United Kingdom, 21:00 https://princecharlescinema.com/PrinceCharlesCinema.dll/WhatsOn?f=19381917 "Prisoners Of The Ghostland" In the treacherous frontier city of 'Samurai Town', Hero (Nicolas Cage), a ruthless bank robber, is sprung from jail by wealthy warlord 'The Governor' (Bill Moseley), whose adopted granddaughter Bernice (Sofia Boutella) has gone missing. 'The Governor' offers the prisoner his freedom in exchange for retrieving the runaway and to ensure success he’s strapped into a leather suit that will self-destruct within five days. Hero swaggers through a wasteland populated by fearsome gunslingers, lethal swordsmen, vengeful ghosts, and a deranged desert cult. The bandit sets off on a journey to find the young woman, and his own path to redemption. One of the favorite aspects of 'The Anti-Hero' is that he's essentially a man operating against his own nature; or so he thinks. He's an outlaw who finds himself fighting for justice, a bad guy who finds himself on the side of good. And somewhere within the reluctant struggle, he discovers within himself a person he never expected; a 'Hero'. We also love that 'The Anti-Hero' scoffs at social comfort, he apologizes to no one, explains nothing, and doesn't care one bit about what other people think or feel. The transformation of 'Outlaw' into 'Hero', of 'Captive' into 'Warrior', these flourished in a spiritual sensibility that allows for transformation between demon, spirit, and mortal to occur as swiftly and literally as a cherry blossom flying from a branch. In the intersection of these notions from our youth, there developed the adventure of a man and a woman, each struggling to escape the story of themselves, to somehow outrun or overthrow the definition that the world had fashioned for them, and in the throes of the battle they develop the most unlikely friendship, one of those friendships forged at a moment of reckoning when you witness the soul of the other, for better or for worse. By the early '80's' the ugly specter of atomic power had become a looming villain of both screen and reality. This was the decade that delivered nuke-obsession films from "The Day After" to "The Toxic Avenger" and everything in between. By the time we hit middle school in the late '80's', activists and entrepreneurs were arguing on the news about where to bury the barrels of molten waste from our short lived nuclear power plants. It's a brazen sin that we couldn't mop up without it smearing all over the place. There's a sweet spot between deadly serious and completely ridiculous that's enticing to storytellers. A world of high intensity and surprising absurdity that many of the cherished action and horror films of our youth alternately frolic and rage within: "The Wild Bunch", "Road Warrior", "Evil Dead", "Conan, The Barbarian", "The Good, The Bad & The Ugly"; these films are the initial inspirations for "Prisoners Of The Ghostland". Think 'Mad Max' trapped in an 'Italo-Western'. "Prisoners Of The Ghostland" is a mash-up of 'Western', samurai, and postapocalyptic thriller. It's a kaleidoscope of upended exploitation tropes, balletic fight scenes, and audacious needle drops. Liberated from genre conventions, the film seems destined to conquer the midnight movie screens. Using the rather classic, orthodox storytelling of action films, the east meets west world that doesn’t exist anywhere else. The film creates behind all that's distortions of the modern society making real of the unreal world. We believe we're living in an irrational world. The irrationalities we feel everyday are sprinkled throughout in this samurai western film. But an adventure like "Prisoners Of The Ghostland" can't take itself too damn seriously. Or rather, if it's going to take itself seriously, it has to be equally ridiculous. The marriage of the profound and the absurd is a place that we love to go in the storytelling. Artistry and culture pumped psychedelic steroids into each of these early notions that gave birth to the initial script. The unforgivable atomic history between 'America' and 'Japan' cranks up the volume on 'American' arrogance and shameful shamelessness, bringing to the forefront each pulsing wound of things left unresolved. "Prisoners Of The Ghostland".amplifies from a mission statement to a battle cry, bringing along with it the recklessness and chaos of characters with no choice left but to charge through the fire.

A dark sci-fi thriller, a sensual and powerful satire/role reversal on some aspects of our societies cultures.

Can a Woman be the Conductor? Symphonies have secrets.

This film is the sequel to 'Bad Moms' (2016) which focused on the challenging, demanding and amazing role that is motherhood. In the first film we meet characters Amy (Mila Kunis), Carla (Kathryn Hahn) and Kiki (Kristen Bell) that are all facing challenges with their families and daily routines. Bad Moms showed us that it is actually OK not to be a stereotypical 'perfect' parent as there is no such thing. We see the three ladies learning to lighten their load as mothers and form an unlikely friendship. With of course a couple of hiccups along the way. In the beginning of the sequel we see lead character Amy (Kunis) sitting on her staircase at home on Christmas eve looking rather depressed explaining to the audience that she is the worst mom and she has ruined Christmas. We then see a flash back which takes place around 5 days before Christmas Eve. This shows Amy and returning character Carla (Hahn) and Kiki (Bell) all now appearing to lead settled and happy family lives. This is until the most stressful time of the year comes around. Yep, Christmas! As the characters in the film tell us, there is so much to do in such a short space of time. Buy "presents for everyone in your life including a candle for the coffee guy", "decorate", "bake cookies", attend children's school performances and so on. This very much links up to the same theme as the first film. Being a stressed out mother. This film then ramps up the pressure for the frontal characters by adding the arrival of their parents coming to stay with them for the holiday period. The sequel veers off into two different directions leaving the audience with not only two stories to follow but also many different character perspectives too. So now we are witnessing the lives of three unappreciated, stressed out mothers dealing with the Christmas rush, but we are also seeing the three characters deal with their own mother-daughter conflicts at the same time. In A Bad Moms Christmas we are introduced to new characters, the Bad Moms mothers - Amy's mother, Ruth (Christine Baranski) the controlling perfectionist, Sandy (Cheryl Hines), the mother of Kiki with rather unusual behaviour caused by her daughter attachment issues which includes watching her daughter and son-in-law "go at it like monkeys" and Isis (Susan Sarandon) "like the terrorist group" who is Carla's leather clad and drug fuelled parent who only has time for her daughter when she is low on funds. As well as the return of Jay Hernandez as boyfriend of newly divorced Amy, we also meet new background characters including Amy's father Hank (Peter Gallagher) - a man that is a bit of a pushover and is very much under the thumb of wife Ruth who describes him as a man that "has a brain the size of a walnut" and Justin Hartley who portrays the rather appealing hunk Ty Swindel, a fireman turned exotic dancer after a strip club owner had discovered his "Large cock". Like the prequel, A Bad Moms Christmas is a film full of montages featuring characters Amy, Carla and Kiki in a number of scenarios portraying their rather childish, irresponsible and drunken 'bad mom' behaviour. These scenes are very entertaining and full comedy gold. One of which shows the three ladies running riot around a shopping mall creating havoc after getting drunk in the food court. Together we see them steal a silver christmas tree from a well known footwear store, testing out massage goods and giving a very unsuspecting Santa Claus a group lap dance. As expected, the film is full of sexual references and filthy humour. It even featured Jesse's (Hernandez) young daughter often saying "Oh my fucking God!" after hearing this phrase being repeated while characters Amy and Jesse had previously shared an intimate evening. Another memorable scene which really amused me was when spa therapist Carla is visited at work by a male client that is attending his booking for a wax session. In walks Ty Swindel (Hartley) in nothing but a skimpy towel around his waist. Not really leaving too much to the imagination. After the towel is removed and reveals to Hahn's character the rather "large parking cone" hiding underneath, he and Carla immediately hit it off especially after discovering they are both from Cleveland. During the scene we see the two share general chit chat about their lives while Carla is casually waxing the balls and butt crack of this handsome human being. We see her ripping wax strips from his body warning him of the incoming "slight sting on your nut sack" while he continues to smile at her without a single flinch. He then raises his legs up over his head and says to her "I can pull my butt crack open for you if you want". Most of the humour does centre around the loud and rampant Carla, although in my opinion there was another that completely stole the show. Amy's mother Ruth. As mentioned earlier in this review we meet the mothers of the original trio. A Character that really stood out to me was Ruth. Amy's uptight and domineering mother is brought to life by actress Christine Baranski. The relationship between Amy and Ruth is a strained one. No matter her efforts Kunis' character can not do anything right to please her mother. Ruth is always putting her daughter down with catty comments such as "stop dicking around" and "Amy you are a mom, moms don't enjoy they give joy, that's how being a mom works. So this hideous tree does not give joy to anybody" after setting eyes on Amy's stolen Christmas tree from lady foot locker. Also "if you think for one second that I'm gonna let your lazy shenanigans ruin Christmas for this entire family, then you are very much mistaken" after Amy has decided to have a relaxed Christmas with her family. Baranski's character is also seen on multiple occasions showering her grandchildren with expensive and unnecessary gifts before the big day. Amy and Ruth are constantly squabbling and we even see a wild west style dodge ball showdown between the pair which is a hilarious scene. We later learn in the film that the character Ruth is the way she is because her mother was also rather hard on her as a child and still even to the present day, leading her to believe that she is "worthless" and very insecure about herself as a mother. Due to the discovery of this Amy is encouraged by her father Hank (Gallagher) to fix her relationship with her 'mom'. To me Ruth came across very much like the role of Beverly Hofstadter, which Baranski plays on very popular comedy series The Big Bang Theory. A woman with a hard exterior and a lack of affection for her children or their achievements but also a comedy genius. Cheryl Hines also brings a lot of inappropriate comedy to the big screen. She portrays Kiki's mother Sandy. The character is very lonely and needy after the loss of her husband some years ago and heavily relies on her daughter Kiki as a friend, daughter and idol. Sandy will often wear clothing with her daughter's face on and tries hard to look exactly like her daughter too. her behaviour towards Kiki is so inappropriate to the extent where she is often seen smelling Kiki's hair whenever they are close to one another. Kiki decides that she has had enough but doesn't want to upset her mother so she takes her mother to a therapy session in an attempt to get her to ease off and allow her some space. During the session Kiki eventually breaks the news to her mother that she needs her to back off as she needs her own personal space with her family to which we then see Sandy announce "I have cancer!, cancer of the heart" in front of the therapist who of course can see right through this sudden confession. To be honest this isn't something I found funny. Emotional manipulation isn't something that should be made into comedy. Sandy rolls off an ever changing list of fake ailments from heart cancer to gallstones and strep throat to try to get her daughter to feel guilty about wanting to spend time away from her. It felt like the writers had invaded the Cards Against Humanity packs for the inspiration behind these scenes. Funny to some but in poor taste to others. Unfortunately there isn't too much that I can say about Susan Sarandon in this movie. She plays the role of Isis well, although there isn't as much of her as there is of Hines and Baranski. When we do see Isis she is often drunk or high while sporting a cowboy hat and a leather jacket. As a mother Isis has neglected her daughter and grandson over the years. She doesn't even know her grandson's name which is Jaxon. Carla and Isis are two peas in a pod. They are two generations of the exact same person. The only difference is that Carla is now trying to become a more responsible parent by working in a spa. Isis is a free spirit and often gambles and steals rather than earning her own income. We even see mother and daughter literally as partners in crime as they wait together outside a supermarket entrance with a trolley claiming to collect food for the homeless and end up stopping shoppers and clearly stealing items from their bags of shopping. Isis was cast well and Sarandon looked great in her rock chick role but I think there is more that the writers could have done with the character. At the end of the film we see Sandy, Ruth and Isis also form an unlikely friendship just like their daughters in Bad Moms. We see the three leave with bags packed and heading out the door in style to catch a plane to Las Vegas. This has clearly indicated that there could be a high chance of a Bad Grandmas film. We could even get to meet the strict mother of Ruth too. I would love for this to happen! I really enjoyed Bad Moms and I liked A Bad Moms Christmas even more. This may not become a classic Christmas film, but it certainly is a great comedy. If you are like Amy, Carla and Kiki are feeling the strain of parenthood, I suggest you join your mothers, sisters and girl friends and take a night off to see this film. A Bad Moms Christmas is just what's needed for a fun filled ladies night out. And if you dare to, take your partners along too. My partner isn't keen on comedies yet I saw him laughing a lot while watching this. This film is a definite must see. This review is currently on my own review website https://kasimmons8.wixsite.com/therealviewroom

As many people will already know, Thor is one of the many characters from the infamous Marvel Comics franchaise. Over the years due to the success of the Marvel cinematic universe, Thor amoungst many other superheros and characters have grown hugely in popularity with a wide range of fans from a whole new generation. The God of Thunder himself has already featured in the Avengers films - Avengers Assemble (2012) and Avengers Age of Ultron (2015) and has also been in the spotlight in his own films - Thor (2011) and Thor: The Dark World (2013.) Now four years on in 2017 we have the release of Thor: Ragnarok, the third installment from Thor. A highly anticipated film to many fans of the marvel films. Ragnarok really had a lot to live up to after the release of many other fantastic feature films from Marvel including the huge action packed Captain America: Civil War and the introduction of Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man and Dr. Strange which all saw great success. Here's a brief summary of the film: The Goddess of Death - Hela (Cate Blanchett) has found a way to return to Asgard after exile many years ago to claim the throne for herself. After an attempt to stop the villain, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) finds himself ending up on Sakkar, which can be likened to a huge landfill site and is ruled by The Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum) who then sends our beloved God of Thunder to the fighting pits. After then re-uniting with MIA (missing in action) avenger ,The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and an introduction to Asgard's Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) team Thor try to defeat Hela and overthrow her dark reign. The trailers for this movie appeared to showcase Thor in a whole new light. This was definitey the case. Despite the darkness from Blanchett's Hela, there was a much lighter feel and it provided much more of a comical value in comparison to the previous Thor movies. When approached by people to ask about my opinion on whether the film was a good one or not, I have always answered with the same response every single time. which is, to quote myself "If you loved the Guardians of the Galaxy films then you will really enjoy Ragnarok." I will be very surprised if I am the only person to see huge similarities between these films. Throughout the entire feature there are gags and puns (Mostly filled with amusing, filthy innuendo) thrown at us from all angles. Most of them coming from newly introduced character Korg. A human shaped being made from rubble and rock very similar in appearance to the fantastic four hero 'The Thing'. This brilliant personality was perfectly portrayed by the film's director Taika Waititi. Thus proving no end to his talents. Adding this amount of humour was a brilliant move by the writing team behind the film because it totally works. Everyone in the room including myself and my partner were laughing for around 2 hours. Lets talk about the cast. Of course we were all excited to see Chris Hemsworth return to our screen once again as the well built blonde haired Asgardian we all know and love. He has always, in my eyes played the character to perfection and is every bit the part of Thor. This time round, again it was awesome to see a much lighter side to Hemsworth's character. We have seen some lighthearted fun with him before but not to the extent that we see in Ragnarok. This film definitely brings out the best of Hemsworth's Thor to date. Of course we have to also discuss the return of Loki, the adoptive brother of our titular character. It would seem that fans have been waiting to see Loki return for quite some time. We last saw Loki in Thor: The Dark World back in 2013. I for one was rather excited to see the character return as he is my favourite of the Marvel Villains within the MCU . Although technically not a stereotypical villain, Loki does indeed cause havoc wherever he goes. British actor Tom Hiddleston once again puts on a flawless performance to portray our favourite greasy haired trickster. The bond on screen between Hemsworth and Hiddleston really stood out in this film, it was clear to see that they really enjoyed filming scenes together. The actors' brotherly relationship on the big screen were both amusing and somewhat enticing. You would never know from one scene to the next if the two would be friend or foe, pretty much like common sibling rivalry, but on a much larger and more dangerous scale. During one scene the brothers are trying to escape from a dangerous situation on a mission to find a ship to leave sakkar, as the ship hangar is heavily guarded, to gain access Thor and Loki had to think of some sort of diversion. This was when we saw their rather amusing "Help me!" stunt. Help me was basically Thor carrying loki into the hangar shouting "Help! My brother is dying!" as Loki is 'limp' and leaning on his brother. As the guards attempted to help Thor he then launched Loki at them leaving the guards unconscious on the ground. This really stood out for me as it was a great time to see the two characters working well together as siblings should. Plus I won't lie, it was very amusing and made me chuckle. As I have just spoken about Sakkar lets very quickly react to Jeff Goldblum's character within the film. I was disappointed with The Grandmaster to be honest. Goldblum is a well known Hollywood actor and has played some memorable roles. I feel that they could have utilised him so much more in this role. Although the role at times was intriguing and amusing, there just wasn't enough of the flamboyant Grandmaster. There was a lot of hype based around the casting of Goldblum before filming took place and I kind of feel like saying "what was all the hype about?" maybe it's just me. I don't know. I also can't forget to mention how happy I was to see a cameo appearance of Benedict Cumberbatch's Dr. Stephen Strange. I am a huge fan of Benedict anyway and I loved him playing the role of Dr. Strange in his own standalone film as the sorcerer supreme. I loved that Ragnarok showcased just how much Dr Strange has progressed on his sorcery journey since we last saw his character last year in 2016. It was also quite interesting to see such a difference to Mark Ruffalo's character The Hulk. He was still the somewhat scary green gamma-fuelled monster we are already used to and there were both brilliant fun filled and intense scenes between him and Hemsworth. It was also good to see a little reference to Avengers Assemble. When Loki sees Hulk again for the first time since hulk 'smashed' the god of mischief all those years ago, Loki goes into a comical panic mode. The one thing I found a little hard to get used to was hearing The Hulk speak more frequently with a much wider range of vocabulary and sarcastic comments. This is something we haven't really seen from Bruce Banner's alter ego, usually all we hear is the famous "Hulk Smash!". There are two more main characters left to mention. Both big female roles. Lets go with Cate Blanchett's Hela first. Firstly can I just say doesn't Blanchett look amazing?! She totally rocked the badass pvc/leather attire with the dark grungy make up and long black hair. Although, I can't help but think that she looks like the lovechild of Gene Simmons and Alice Cooper. But still she looked amazing! Considering Hela was the big bad villain of Ragnarok there really wasn't enough of her. It was great that she too was given some witty lines within her script, and she had a really great back story which I could mention but I don't want to be revealing big spoilers. If you've read the graphic novels then you will understand what I am talking about. As much as I liked Hela,when we did see her unfortunately quite a few of her scenes seemed a little drab. I mean, don't get me wrong there were a couple of big scenes where we see her doing some pretty horrid stuff including slaughtering many Asgardians, awakening a zombie army and riding on a giant black wolf which wasn't boring as such, but I must admit as effective as her hair sweep/horns transformation was as far as CGI effects go, I did get a bit bored of seeing her swipe her hair back and forth between the long black hair and the horn display on her head every few seconds. Lastly a great new addition to the mix. Valkyrie. Valkyries are basically an army of female warriors that are sworn to protect the realm of Asgard and the people that live within it. The Valkyrie we meet is a single warrior played by actress Tessa Thompson. Her role can be likened to the character of Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander - as seen in previous Thor movies and also Marvel's TV Series Agents Of Shield). Valkyrie like Sif is an independent, strong woman but with a bit of a drinking problem. The first time we are introduced to Thompson's character we see her in a drunken state falling off the edge of her grounded ship and into a pile of junk. This is a character that I think will become quite popular within the MCU. All in all, Thor: Ragnarok was definitely not the film that I has anticipated it would be. It was far better and I really enjoyed it. Some people may think it's a little too cheesy but to be honest I love a good comedy film. Even if you aren't into the superhero style movies you will still love this one. I would definitely state that it is one of the must see films of this year (2017) and it could possibly even be one of the best Marvel movies to date, slowly creeping in behind Captain America: Civil War and Captain America: The Winter Soldier in my opinion. It was just a well rounded piece of art, the soundtrack is awesome, the casting was almost perfect, the story was enticing, plus fellow ladies (and some guys), it was rather good to see the shirtless Thor once more (wink, wink). I believe Marvel's next step up the MCU ladder is the release of Black Panther in early 2018, and then bring on Avengers: Infinity War! This review is currently on my own review website https://kasimmons8.wixsite.com/therealviewroom

Having never written, produced or directed a film before, Scott Elliott and Sid Sadowskyj’s true story of triumph against adversity is brought to the silver screen in March 2018. Going on to raise £1 million to fund their debut film, Scott and Sid navigated the distance from dream to reality, never letting themselves succumb to an ordinary path through life. A tale about friendship and coming-of-age, the film offers an insight into the pairs’ dreamchaser philosophy and inspires their audience to be more than normal. Chasing their dreams comes at a cost, but one meeting could change their lives. Co-creators Elliott and Sadowskyj, said: “Having wanted to make a film since we were teenagers, the fact that we are on the brink of releasing a story based on our lives is incredible. “The buzz around our upcoming film has been electrifying and many people, including our cast and crew, have already become enthused by our shared philosophy,” they added. Check out the trailer here: https://goo.gl/Nzuizz