The Oswestry Film Society programme will appear below once films are scheduled. Keep checking back to find out what's being screened and when, and please come out and support us.
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Tues June 6th 2023, 7.30pm
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (15)
Approaching its 30th anniversary, this unlikely Aussie success continues to amuse and delight.
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a road comedy following two drag queens (Hugo Weaving andf Guy Pearce) and a transgender woman (Terence Stamp) as they journey across the remote Australian Outback from Sydney to Alice Springs in a tour bus that they have named "Priscilla."
Along the way they encounter various groups and individuals, from supportive Aboriginal Australians to hostile back-of-beyond small-towners.
The film was a surprise worldwide hit, and its positive portrayal of LGBT individuals helped to introduce LGBT themes to a mainstream audience.
A clever and witty script, outrageous (Oscar-winning) costumes, stunning scenery, a beaty soundtrack, and above all a darned good story have maintained a kind of iconic popularity for the film - and it's one not to be missed.
"It presents a defiant culture clash in generous, warmly entertaining ways" - the New York Times.
While its premise is ripe for comedy - and it certainly delivers its fair share of laughs - 'Priscilla' is also a surprisingly tender and thoughtful road movie with some oustanding performances.
Thu June 8th 2023, 7.30pm
The Other Fellow (15) + Director's Q&A Special
1953. Jamaica. When author Ian Fleming needs a name for his suave, sophisticated secret agent, he steals one from an unaware birdwatcher and creates a pop-culture phenomenon about the ultimate fictional alpha-male.
2023. Seventy years after the publication of the first Bond novel and as all eyes turn on to who could be the seventh 007, filmmaker Matthew Bauer is on a global mission to discover the lasting, contrasting and very personal impacts of sharing such an identity with James Bond.
From a Swedish 007 super fan to a murder suspect in prison – Bauer’s docu-drama (with a real twist too) is both poignant and audacious.
Oswestry Film Society’s own James Bond says having the name has shaped his life – in a good way. Not every James Bond is quite so sure.
Bauer told Variety magazine, “The real plot of The Other Fellow centres around the surprising ways these James Bonds' name, connected to such a global media phenomenon, pushes and pulls their lives in the most unexpected directions.”
Oswestry’s James Bond was invited by Bauer to the recent UK red-carpet premiere of The Other Fellow in London. And he’s delighted that the director accepted an invitation to lead an exclusive “Shropshire launch.”
Please support the OFS in this venture, and help put on a good show for our visitor.
Tues June 20th 2023, 7.30pm
There Will Be Blood (15)
“An intelligent and enthralling masterpiece” (Time Out) – ranked as an epic in loads of reviews, so it’s bizarre that many people haven’t seen it.
This fantastic 2007 film is set over the first three decades of the 1900s, following the lust for money and power of ruthless oil prospector Daniel Plainview, played by Daniel Day Lewis (My Left Foot, Gandhi, Lincoln, Last of the Mohicans, A Room With A View, In The Name Of The Father, etc etc).
Day Lewis delivers arguably his best ever performance. An Oscar, a Bafta, a Golden Globe and other awards back that up as he portrays a man who is despicable, yet ambitious and passionate about what he is doing – and who’ll do anything to succeed.
Using his son to project a trustworthy, family-man image, Plainview cons Californian landowners into selling their valuable properties to him for a pittance. However, a local preacher suspects Plainview’s motives and intentions, starting a low-burning feud that threatens both their lives.
Director Paul Thomas Anderson tackles so much, and yet gives you a personal story about a man who will do anything to get what he wants. And it’s not just the main character that will mesmerise you: Anderson’s camerawork is just as crucial to the film’s hypnotic pull, and both will stay with you well after the closing credits.
The usually brusque Guardian can hardly contain itself, awarding five stars in a review that concludes that There Will Be Blood is “thrillingly original and distinctive, a movie against which all directors, and all moviegoers, will want to measure themselves.”
Praise indeed – and thoroughly deserved.
Tues July 4th 2023, 7.30pm
Hail, Caesar! (12A)
The sure-hit Coen brothers conjure up nostalgic joy from this hilarious knockabout homage to the golden age of film.
It’s 1951, and the motion picture industry is responding to the threat of television with colourful choreography, escapist romances and biblical epics.
Hail, Caesar! is a fictional story that follows real-life studfio fixer Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), working in the Hollywood film industry, trying to find out what happened to a star actor (George Clooney) who’s been kidnapped during the filming of a blockbuster.
This delicious black comedy swings through a series of intertwined stories and sub-plots. You’ll wonder just how did the Coens come up with this madcap production and script!
The film pinballs between awol movie stars and hushing up scandals, synchronised swimming and Bikini Atoll bomb tests, while raising important questions of whether God is still angry (“what, he got over it?”) and how to make a lasso out of spaghetti!
Brolin and Clooney apart, the cast for this American-British co-production also includes great names like Ralph Fiennes (a frustrated director), Scarlett Johannsen, Frances McDormand and Michael Gambon, and Tilda Swinton wickedly playing feuding twin sister magazine reviewers – with all of them clearly enjoying themselves.
“You’ll laugh all the way through it” – top critic Mark Kermode.
Tues July 18th 2023, 7.30pm
Local Hero (PG)
Can you believe that this year marks the 40th anniversary of this truly wonderful British classic?
The 1983 Bill Forsyth movie was set in Scotland, but Local Hero had a universal story which won over film fans around the world.
An American oil company agent (Peter Riegert) is sent by his boss (Burt Lancaster) to a village on the beautiful Scottish coast in order to purchase it and the surrounding property from the locals - to build an oil refinery.
But things don't go as expected...
Local Hero also brought fame to a phone box in the Aberdeenshire village of Pennan, which played a key role in the film. MacIntyre updates his boss in America each night from the traditional red phone kiosk on the seafront.
Riegert, now 76, recently told the BBC: "It was clear when we were making it that this was as good as it gets. The script was so magical. Local Hero was filled with whimsy metaphor - everything about it was right."
Beautifully shot, it's full of warmth and wit - with the odd tear to be shed too.
And after all these years, Riegert added, "I love that the movie still means so much to people."
Happy birthday, Local Hero. Do join us for this special screening to mark the anniversary, and celebrate the film - the wonderful tale, the tight-knit cast (Fulton Mackay, Bill Paterson, Peter Capaldi, Denis Lawson etc), the feel, the scenery, even the Northern Lights - in all its glory in the best way possible: on the big screen.
Tues Aug 1st 2023, 7.30pm
Death At A Funeral (2007) (15)
In this black comedy, Daniel (Matthew Macfadyen) is a decent young man, trying to arrange his father's funeral.
But preserving the dignity inherent in such circumstances will be difficult, particularly with an undertaker who botches his work, the return from the USA of his famous but selfish brother, his cousin's fiancé who has accidentally ingested drugs, the presence of a moron who takes advantage of the sad event to win back the heart (or rather the body) of a woman who is about to marry another, and an old uncle who is also the most unbearable pain in the neck.
To cap it all, Daniel notices the presence among the mourners of a mysterious dwarf (Peter Dinklage) nobody else seems to know.
Chaos ensues in a very British humour sort of way - the American remake three years later can't hold a candle to it.
This original 2007 movie possesses a comedic climate right from the start, so have fun by seeing it on the big screen here in Oswestry.